Best Food to Survive a Diet

[Anonymous]

I think the trick is not making any food off limit. Give yourself the permission to eat it. Remove ANY stigma or feelings of "badness" around it. It's JUST an Oreo. It's JUST a brownie. You can have one whenever you want it. Anytime at all. I don't know, this has always helped food not seem off-limits or indulgent to me. I went through that whole restrictive thing in college and basically I would starve myself for a week and then gorge, hardcore, because it was like, THE ONE TIME I could EVER have the chocolate. Then I got pregnant, pigged out for 4-6 weeks and realized, oh. This shit doesn't need to be consumed like it's going away because it isn't going anywhere! I can have one whenever I want, so why the hell do I need to eat 20 at once? In a weird way, pregnancy cured me of unhealthy attitudes toward food. Once you give yourself permission to eat ____ whenever you want, it loses its allure. It's commonplace and allowed. Yawn.

I did a Whole30 earlier this year and am doing another one now. I always start by saying "You can literally quit whenever you want. Just go eat a cookie and boom, you're done." Weirdly, that permission makes me want to keep at it. Okay, I CAN quit. I just don't want to. So just tell yourself, Look, at any point, you can just stop the diet and eat whatever. It might make you think twice about ACTUALLY stopping.

[Anonymous]

Dark chocolate covered bananas bites frozen from Trader Joe's. One takes care of my sweet tooth for a day or two.