“I just love food”

“Life is too short to eat boring, bland food”

“I hate diet food”

Does this sound familiar to you?  Us too!!

Diet Mentality

It never ceases to amaze me how many women who join us here at The Body Retreat are surprised to hear that they don’t have to stop eating real food in order to be able to shed the weight that is unnecessary for them.  They love food but they feel that is shameful to admit it.  It’s wrong to love food.  Food is just fuel right??

The diet industry has convinced us that we need to starve ourselves, make great sacrifices, deprive ourselves of our favourite foods in order to shed the pounds and inches.

Just recently I was reading an introduction to a diet book that recommended that us girls ( ….yes this was a diet book aimed solely at women …for the record I read these things to keep abreast of the nonsense still being shared out there!!)…anyway I digress… this introduction advised us girls to prepare ourselves to battle against our food demons, to fortify ourselves for the struggles to come over the next couple of weeks…but the promise of shedding pounds and inches was so real that these sacrifices would be all worth it.  It read like they expect the reader was preparing for war!!!

Do you really want to do battle with your body?

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life denying yourself?

Do you want to be in a permeant state of denial, deprivation and dieting?

No me neither!!

The Key to Weight Loss

But that’s the only way to shed weight right???  You have to diet and dieting means giving up on nice food. You cant be on a diet and love food at the same time.

Except that it really doesn’t.

Shedding the weight that is unnecessary for you, achieving and maintaining the body, health and wellness you want and deserve isn not about dieting, willpower and deprivation.

It does mean creating a new positive relaionship with real food.  It does mean eating in a way that nourishes your body and your brain.

That is what is so different about our approach to eating here at The Body Retreat.  It is why mindset change is at the heart of what we do.

But you can’t simply think your way thin… sorry I’ve read that book too :-)

You need to start to eat in a way that supports your brain chemistry and your hormones so that it genuinely starts to feel easier to make positive choices about food.

Eat Real Food

Let me show you or remind you of just some of the food that we eat on retreat to illustrate my point

Real food right?

Yes of course some of the food we serve regularly on retreat you may not have tried yet…but thats great as you get to experience new foods in a way that you don’t have to worry about how to make it, store it  etc

On our retreats no whole food group is excluded, so this means that you eat bread, potatoes, cheese, pancakes etc etc. Like I say real food, for real results.

We focus on nutritional density, eating foods that are rich in protein, with good quality fats and high in fibre..because these foods are nourishing your body and your brain, they click the satiety switch in the brain meaning that you don’t need to eat so much, they tell your hormones how to act.

Once we have built this base we then get to work on changing how you feel about food, letting go of old unhelpful habits, recognising emotion eating patterns and building up positive resources to help you want to make positive choices about food.

Does that mean that you simply want to diet!!!  No way… we are all about balance.  The Body Retreat is about eating for life and so enjoying a little indulgence is an important and wonderful part of life.  Life is too short to not enjoy a little sweetness right??

What to do?

So if you want to continue to love food, if you want to eat exciting tasty food at every meal, if you want to feel able to enjoy a little indulgence and not feel guilty then it is time to ditch the diets and start to build better behaviours instead.

“I honestly cant believe how easy it has felt to make good food choices.  I’m down 9.5kg since I joined you on retreat.”  DT. Oxford

“I’ve really enjoyed making your recipes at home, it has made healthy eating so easy” JG. London

“I still cant quite believe that I get to eat all my favourite foods and I’m still losing weight…slowly but surely. What a result” PT. Glasgow

Get out of the Diet Trap

You don’t need to give up on food in order to shed weight.  That is the very thinking that is keeping you stuck in the diet trap.

If you are looking for food inspiration then why not check out our Conscious Cooking Blog

We would love to have you try out some of our recipes and see for yourself how easy it is to make healthy and delicious meals.  If you do try out any of the recipes then do please leave us a comment or question not the blog and we will come back to you.

Or if you feel that you are done with feeling stuck in the diet trap and want to do something different then check out our Weight Loss Retreats every year we help hundred of women break the vicious cycle and achieve and maintain he body, health and wellbeing they want and deserve.