Non-diet approach to healthy eating

Accepting your body size, staying active and learning to eat in a natural, unrestrained way may be a healthier route than a lifetime of dieting.

Getting out of diet jail
So how can you break free of dieting and learn to eat in a healthy, natural way?

1. Look at food as the solution, not the problem — Instead of restricting and controlling your food intake, practice demand feeding, an unrestrained style of eating that involves eating consciously in response to internal cues. Try to ignore all the societal pressures to diet (such as media images of super thin models), and begin to listen to your body.

2. Eat in response to physical hunger — You may currently be following family or cultural eating habits, or old dieting and overeating patterns. Instead, try to identify when you are truly hungry. (You can rate your hunger on a scale of 1 to 10). Your goal is not to judge or control your hunger, only to recognise and respond to it.

3. Recognise and respond to emotional hunger — Don't judge yourself when you eat to fulfill emotional needs. Find the kind of food you want and eat it without hiding it.

Remind yourself that the closer you come to ending the cycle of depriving and judging yourself, the less need you will have to eat out of emotional hunger.

4. Eat exactly what you're hungry for — Check in with yourself and determine what you really want. Something cold, hot or room temperature? Crunchy, chewy, soft or liquid? Sweet, salty, bitter or spicy? Permit yourself precisely what you want.

5. Learn to know when you're full — This often takes time. You will initially eat way past fullness but will gradually learn to stop eating closer and closer to fullness.

6. Practice size acceptance — It isn't easy to tune out messages that encourage the relentless pursuit of unattainable physical goals. Learning to recognise when you are negatively judging your body and when you are accepting and nurturing it is an important start. The more you practice self-acceptance, the more comfortable it will feel.

7. Explore movement as a way to nurture yourself — Don't exercise to punish yourself or compensate for overeating. Instead, find movement you enjoy, and commit to an active lifestyle.

8. Get Help — You can't change your relationship with food and your body overnight. Remember that assistance is available. Fitness professionals and dietitians are beginning to use non-diet and size acceptance approaches with clients.

Learning to eat in response to your hunger, instead of endlessly trying to sort out what you should and should not eat, will free you to move on to more satisfying endeavors and a healthier, happier life.