Do you always feel deprived while you’re trying to lose weight? Here is how to not feel deprived while you’re trying to stay away from sweets and eat healthier:

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking about all the foods you’re “not allowed” to eat when you’re trying to lose weight.

“I can’t have _____”

“I’m staying away from _____”

“I’m giving up ______”

I hear it almost every day, and I totally get where you’re coming from. Have you been putting yourself in “food jail” with the mental list of all the foods you have to quit or give up in order to lose weight?

Well here’s some encouraging news — you don’t have to give up anything!

Eating for weight loss = healthy eating, and a healthy eating system can certainly include some foods you love that are, shall we say, less healthy than others.

How to not feel deprived

A healthy eating plan is like guard rails on the highway. It allows you to drive and switch lanes, but it keeps you from falling off a cliff.

Guiderails for a healthy eating plan look like this:

• Making smart decisions most of the time. Sometimes you’ll opt for the junk food, but you’ll do it on purpose, and you won’t do it often.
• Planning your meals and snacks most of the time.
• Making healthy substitutions — like mineral water for soda, or fresh berries instead of cake — most of the time.
• Making sure most of your carbs come from vegetables.
• Eating protein every time you eat. Occasionally you’ll be stuck without, but most of the time you nail it.

Sometimes you miss one, but for the most part, these kind of guidelines keep you on track while allowing a lot of freedom on the road.

Guard rails work!

And here’s what doesn’t work:

The “shackles” mentality is when you tell yourself that you have to give up wine, or chocolate, or desserts, or something else you love. You feel deprived and you hate always denying yourself. You willpower through this deprivation until you can’t stand it anymore, and you give in to your sweet tooth urges.

Without guiderails, you’ll fall off a cliff.

You’ll start a binge that lasts for days, or weeks. Maybe months!

When you finally can’t stand it anymore, you’ll try another round of deprivation.

And the cycle starts all over again.

Break this cycle with some guard rails instead of shackles!

If you want my help making this happen, just shoot me an email and we’ll set a time to talk about what will work best for you.