Have you ever felt super on track with your weight-loss goals, and then at other times, periods of self-sabotage?
Nutritional Expert Dawn Jackson Blatner, RDN, CSSD, LDN, winner of ABC’s new series “My Diet is Better than Yours,” understands the feeling. In fact, she has tips to overcome that internalized struggle.
“There are two people living in me, and there’s two people living inside each of you,” she says.
The Health Nut
She’s the one who goes to the salad bar and not only enjoys all of the steps towards wellness that you’ve taken — she defends these steps. The health nut is focused on the long-term benefits, and enjoys eating healthy food, exercise, meeting deadlines and saving for retirement.
The Wild Child
The wild child doesn’t always get along with your health nut, Blatner says. Instead, the wild child is saying she’d rather have the pizza or the macaroni and cheese over kale. Their favorite things are eating junk food, watching TV, procrastinating and overspending on not just picking up groceries, but other things as well.
It’s the voices of these two “people” that creates the Yo-Yo Effect — that push-pull feeling you may experience when trying to stick to nutritional goals. You’ll want to stay on track, yet at the same time, you also want to enjoy what you’re eating. And these two people are pushing and pulling at you all day — especially since your body makes more than 200 decisions about the food you eat each day.
So how do you manage these two people? Love your body, Ms. Blatner recommends. Make friends with both the health nut and the wild child, and don’t ignore the other side of your wants and desires. Lose the judgmental side of us who shames the wild child and praises the health nut, and try to indulge in a little bit of both along your journey with weight.
Want to hear more? Check out the entire talk from the Your Weight Matters National Convention on YouTube:
