Why be diet free?

• Because diets don’t work…if they did we wouldn’t be a heftier bunch than we were last year.

• When we live within the mental parameters of a diet, our world becomes limited and small. We are robbed of freedom, choice and pleasure.

• Restricting food sets up a physiological and psychological response that leaves us physically and emotionally craving more.

• We are individuals and one size eating does not fit all.

• Diets are not sustainable.

How to be diet free?

• Eat mindfully and slowly. Pay attention to internal cues like hunger and fullness rather than external cues and the dictates of a diet.

• Elevate the quality of your food – eat real food instead of fat free, sugar free foods and notice how satisfied you are with less.

• Let go of gimmicks and quick weight loss schemes. Be willing to wait to lose weight — choose a sustainable and balanced approach to weight management.

• Serve a deeper and more meaningful purpose in the world. As you come more passionate about life than the diet du jour, you’ll achieve your natural weight effortlessly.

How to resist the urge to eat everything…

• Stop Restrictive Dieting!

• That which you resist, persists. Sir Isaac Newton had it right in his third law of motion, which describes the relationship between the forces acting on a body and that body’s motion. The simple truth is that the more you push something away, the more it comes bad — now or later mostly in the form of craving the food you’ve denied yourself.

• Rather than lowering the boom, raise the bar and savor only the very best foods.

• Deny yourself very little when it comes to food but remember that indulgence has to be moderated. This is a lot easier to accomplish when the food this is here today will be here tomorrow, because you’re not dieting!

Reason #1 for Diet Failure

Diets work outside of ourselves whereas intuitive eating is an internal job that’s based on hunger and fullness and learning to read those internal cues. When you diet, you lose total touch with those cues because diets tell you what to eat and when to eat with no regard to your preference, taste or satisfaction.

Reason #2 for Diet Failure

People come into my office and say, “I was on such and such diet a year ago and it really worked great! What do you have for me today?” Well, if it really worked great, you wouldn’t be back, right? When people enter into an eating plan or a diet, they really don’t ask the most important question: How do I define success? If success is that you’re going to be on a different diet every week, then maybe fad dieting is right for you. If you want a sustainable approach to weight management where you’re not going up and down the scale, then you have got to go back to that intuitive eating.

Reason #3 for Diet Failure

Another reason why diets fail which I wrote a lot about in my book, The French Twist, comes from Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion which says, “The more you push against something, the more it comes back to you.” If you restrict yourself from eating certain foods, there’s a high chance that you are going to have them three to four times over.

Reason #4 for Diet Failure

Most importantly, our bodies are smarter than we think they are and we can’t outsmart them. If you deprive yourself of the foods you really need like fats, carbs and protein, then your body physiologically resists it. And like I always says, moderation and exercise are key.

To view more videos on my YouTube channel, click here.

When you’re looking for that guy to complete you, make sure he doesn’t come with a bag of nacho chips and the wrong kind of six-pack. What studies are showing is that when a guy enters a girl’s life, she packs on a few pounds. Emotional eating plays into this which is a big problem with a lot of individuals who eat too much. When we think about emotional eating, we think about it as a negative thing, like something’s wrong or we’re eating because we’re bored or stressed, but emotional eating can also happen when you’re happy. You have this new guy in your life and you’re not exercising as much and you don’t think about what you’re eating. You also take on the habits of your partner you eat with, so if this guy is chowing down on nacho chips and buffalo wings, and up until then you’ve been eating lean protein and a salad, you’re going to pack on a few pounds.

How to prevent relationship weight gain:

1. Awareness. Be aware that when there’s a change in your life, there may be a change in your diet. Women are more careful about what they look like before they meet a guy, but when you get the guy, we tend to relax a little. Be motivated for yourself, not anyone else.

2. Exercise together. Get out there and be active together as a couple. Play a sport, go to the gym or plan a healthy meal instead of going out to eat.

To view more videos on my YouTube channel, click here.

Carol Cottrill recently appeared on CNN to discuss her philosophy and has made past appearances on Fox, WeTV, and Oxygen. You can view her past appearances on her YouTube channel.

Ocean Drive Magazine’s Girlfriends Getaway Weekend took place April 26-28 at Loews Miami Beach Hotel. Ladies looking for much needed girl time  attended for a weekend full of spoiling, pampering and fun activities including pop-up boutiques, fitness classes and beauty services underneath the hotel’s luxury poolside cabanas.

To view Carol’s photos from the event, click here.