I am at the library this morning, seeking inspiration to write something unique for you.
There are shelves and more shelves of books about diets for better emotional and physical health. There are diets for improved brain function, gut health, less stress, fighting dementia, improving sex life, fasting, calorie counting, and carb counting by celebrities, doctors, gurus, dancers (I have never heard of), sports people, and other people trying to make a dollar out of this over-subscribed industry. Don’t get me wrong; I am not anti-dieting, and there is a right and wrong way to diet for everyone.
My first advice is to find someone you trust to get advice from, look for their qualifications and check to see if it will fit your lifestyle. We can all hope for an ideal body, whatever that means to each of us, and we can believe that we need to change or accept who we are and work with that. We are human beings, and no two of us are alike (except maybe identical twins) and what we want, need, believe, hope and seek will be different. The hard part is not the stickability we have come to believe but instead choosing a diet or plan that fits and we will stick to.
That is not to say that our diets and eating plans can not evolve as we progress towards our goals. Goals should always be centred around health and mental health, but this is not always the situation, so choosing the right one is critical. Our mental well-being is connected to our physical well-being and healthy choices. If we are healthy mentally, we are likely to be physically healthy or seeking physical health. This is one of the circles of life; seeking physical health and achieving it promotes mental health as we become more confident and gain self-esteem and self-compassion that supports our physical health.
There is a dark side to dieting, over-dieting and starving oneself, and mental and emotional health is negatively affected. If this is you or someone you know, seek help for yourself or them. You can be that help initially. However, you will need expert help to uncover the whys that accompany it. Sadly as we live in an ever-increasingly depersonalised society, the judgement of ourselves is left to strangers behind a computer screen.
Strangers who do not know us and our struggles, strangers who judge on what they see, are told and believe to be the rules to live by.
These are a few of the pressures that lead to conditions like Bulimia and Anorexia, but judgment from others holds a prime spot. Fortunately, all is not lost; many psychology practitioners, such as Mindful Connections, specialise in these areas of well-being and can guide you back to health and mental health.
