“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?” ~Jane Nelson
If we’ve been getting through life using food and regularly eating past comfortable fullness, we are more than likely above our natural weight. As a result, we may be feeling uncomfortable and discouraged.
Professionals “prescribe” weight loss and exercise, and they tell us to eliminate “bad” foods. Family members scold and shame and may even attempt to control our food. We tell ourselves, “If I cared enough, I’d do what I’m supposed to do. I’d be compliant.”
Why can’t we just do what we’re “supposed to” do? Why, when we try to comply, do we end up at a higher weight than we were before, feeling even more hopeless?
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We’re stuck in this cycle because we have allowed external diet rules, fear, body-hatred, and shame to guide us. We’ve come to believe that dieting and using willpower to ignore our basic needs is the way to solve our weight issues and health problems and that denying ourselves the foods that satisfy us is how we should care for ourselves.
But we know from experience that while our obedient diet compliance may enable us to achieve temporary “success,” it ultimately sets us up to rebel or give up. We know that the willpower associated with “supposed to” is ultimately and ironically un-empowering.
So how do we get from “supposed to” to an internally guided and sustainable “wanting to”? We can begin by recognizing that “supposed to” and “wanting to” are very different things. And that willpower is not the same as powerful will.
“Supposed to” promotes denying ourselves pleasure and physiological satisfaction, while “wanting to” involves giving to ourselves by responding to our body’s needs and our spirit’s preferences.
“Supposed to” involves fear, shame, compliance, and willpower, while “wanting to” embodies determination, compassion, caring, and powerful will.
“Supposed to” takes our bodies nowhere on a boring treadmill while “wanting to” tunes us into feelings of freedom and fun, reminiscent of when we were young, and propels us to rent a bike and meet a friend for a ride in the park.
“Supposed to” tells us “just stop eating!” when we are using food to cope, while “wanting to” asks, with curiosity and compassion, “what, if not food, do I need right now?”
When we allow ourselves to tune into and respond to what our body, our heart, and our spirit really need, we will find our healthiest self. Focusing on satisfaction and attunement instead of deprivation and rules, we are well on our way to “wanting to.”
Affirming Statement: “I care for myself and my body because I want to.”
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Nutrition therapists Amy Tuttle, RD, LCSW and Karin Kratina, RD, PhD provide no-diet articles and resources including “Stay Attuned: The E-zine for Nourishing Connections” at their Nourishing Connections website. www.nourishingconnections.com
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