I always associate September with WHSmith and a new pencil case. I loved these trips with my mother. Now I secretly arrange a visit with my kids to drool over the stationery, which I obviously absolutely need. New beginnings and all the freshness they bring, we feel good. Just like the ebb and flow of the school calendar, diets often do the same… Have you noticed that there are times of the year when you are more likely to diet? Are you a seasonal dieter?

Getting ready for the beach is often a trigger, perhaps followed by a slight relief that fall requires more layers. There is often a resurgence around Christmas. We are encouraged to “feel good” in our holiday clothes and our seasonal diet mode is activated.

January is of course the mother of all beginnings – we can also feel a new sense of vigor in spring, when warmer weather and lighter evenings give us a boost. And then we return to summer.

Behavioral scientists have discovered that markers such as Monday or New Year’s Eve allow us to draw a line in the sand and more easily let go of regrets. Regret can be seen as mental accounting, paperwork in our heads, to help us move forward.

However, in the case of our eating habits, the idea of ​​it being coupled with constant regret as we abandon another plan makes me sad. The end of a diet is rarely harmonious: it is generally a feeling of “sliding off the wagon.”
You can continue to pack everything up and move on with the help of a new season or Monday. Or you can explore what it’s like to not constantly feel like you’re in this cycle. You could design your own cart that will keep you safe and fed for a lifetime rather than a seasonal dieter feeling stuck and trapped!

Here are 4 steps to get started.

Step 1 – give yourself permission not to start a new plan

Of course, take advantage of September to catch your breath – I certainly will!

But give yourself permission to not start a new plan. Instead, take this opportunity to examine what’s going on. Diets often encourage you to put the tricky stuff aside, promising you that they’ve done all the hard work for you. This is not the case. All the underlying elements will still be there. Sometimes, to really move forward, you have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable things.

Step 2 – Stop being mean to yourself

It’s funny how we teach our children to use kind words. We are quick to shower them with compassion when we see them being hard on themselves. Why then, to motivate ourselves to change our habits, do we scold ourselves. Our negative self-talk is so subtle that we often don’t realize we’re doing it. Pause and listen. What do you say to yourself every day? Research shows that if we cultivate self-compassion, we are more motivated to engage in health-promoting behaviors more consistently.

Step 3 – Don’t focus on your body weight

Weight loss diets, in which you are encouraged to weigh yourself all the time, place weight firmly at the center of success or failure. I have seen thousands of women where strict calorie deficits and chronic undernutrition have resulted in a smaller body size. But this has come at the cost of a deterioration in mental health and quality of life, and without any guarantee that this will be lasting. Of course, you have the right to want to change your size or shape, but putting that goal at the center of everything is often counterproductive.

Repeated dieting has been shown to decrease quality of life; constantly tracking things leads to obsession and a mixture of physiological and emotional distress, including lethargy, anxiety, and irritability (Kalm and Semba 2005). Just because we have devices that allow us to track everything doesn’t mean we’re better off doing so. In fact, I would say that the apps created answers to questions that weren’t even asked in the first place! It’s interesting how the new WW brand now puts so much emphasis on tracking other wellness metrics to distract from weight, but in-depth tracking of everything is exhausting, not empowering. My Fitness Pal, for example, is widely used by people with eating disorders and damaged eating relationships.

Step 4 – Decide When, Then Plan

Instead of sweeping all the daily obstacles under the rug and praying that things will be easy so you’re more likely to succeed, look at the pressure points from the week. When does it all turn to custard? Prepare to win in advance by setting a time and then planning. For example, when I leave work ravenously hungry, I eat a snack to take with me in the morning. This will help me reduce searching for food in my fridge when I walk in the door or finish the kids’ leftovers. Focusing on specific times of the week is a great way to form new habits. The “buy now button” culture suggests that we can have it all and it will arrive at 10pm tomorrow!

When it comes to behavior change, the neural pathways in our brains unfortunately don’t work that way. Accepting this harsh reality allows you to start building your own wagon – and if you design it, it will be yours for life.

And finally… if you’ve reached the point where you know dieting isn’t working for you and you want to break your seasonal diet habits, but you lack confidence and clarity about what exactly you’re doing, Join the waiting list for my Breaking Diet course starting in September. It might just have your name on it…

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