Finally, A Diet that Works for You Without Feeling Deprived

There is so much confusion and restrictions out there when it comes to food and dieting.

There is a ton of noise and people walking around as experts  saying contradictory things. I mean if you combined all the diets out there, I don’t think you could eat or drink anything!

So if you are feeling confused about what to eat you should eat, keep reading to find out how to tailor an approach to you and to tackle issues with God.

The Gracious Health approach is all about individualization and tailoring to your life, to your body so this is not going to be a one sized fits all approach because one size fits all ends up leading to short term results.

A lot of the diets out there get popular because they work better for some people, but there is truly no magic diet out there that works for everyone that will lead to lasting results!

Let's let that sink in.

It is not you... it is the diet and approach.

Are there general guidelines when it comes to what to eat… yes, but you know the basics it’s the details that are getting you caught up on that are keeping you from making a diet and weight loss plan that ACTUALLY works for you and LASTS!  

So I am not going to take up your time telling you something you know. liek to eat more fiber, protein and healthy fats to feel more full.

I am going to give you a process to evaluate your diet.  It is really about taking on a holistic approach and looking beyond just what you eat, but also looking at your life, how, your eat where you eat and why you eat and really double checking that there are not deeper issues lurking beneath unwanted habits.  

All too often when we are trying to get healthy, we try to shove the wrong puzzle piece into our life. We just keep trying to make it fit when it is not going to work with your life right now and do not address the root issues that need to be dealt with for lasting change.

I put together a 4 step process for you to go through to get you started on the right foot when it comes to dieting.

Your Christian Weight Loss Plan: Step #1

Assess your current diet and habits with food.

Really dive in to look at your habits. Look at what you are eating as far as food quality along with food quantity, and how often you eat.

Look at where you are eating. Are you eating at your desk, on a table filled with bills, on the go in the car. The stress of your environment can cause make it more difficult to digest and make it harder for you to be mindful of your hunger cues making it easier to overeat and harder to lose weight.

Take the time to examine why are you are eating, Think about if it is out of boredom, to relieve stress, to comfort yourself. Look at if there is a deeper root. Are you just drawn to food even if you are not hungry?

Look at how quickly you are eating. Little tip people who eat slower, weigh less.It can help you to cue into your hunger cues and actually give your body a chance to let you know you are full.

In this phase it is good to look at your current relationship with food. You do not want to be in a toxic relationship with food. Making you feel bad and addicted. If you fee like you need to be super controlling of it. Making you do some strange habits to hide food intake or do extra exercise as punishment. You also do not want your food choices to dictate if you view yourself as bad or good.

After looking at your current habits assess how big of a change you want to and are able to make right now. For some it will only be a small adjustment, for others you are ready for an overhaul. Nothing right or wrong with either just look a what is possible for you right now. This portion would be best to pray about it and include God to see how big of a change in this area would be beneficial for you right now.

Your Christian Weight Loss Plan: Step #2

Look for areas that can be improved. Make actionable goals that you can do right now to help make a change

Here we want to turn to God to see if He is leading us in a particular direction. Do not stress yourself out if you cannot get a crystal clear answer. It may mean that you have a green light for the change that works with you right now. This is just a good practice to always wise to seek His guidance and listen if there is something in particular He wants to work on with you right now.

If you feel like there is any emotional eating or triggers leading you to eat, I highly recommend you doing something to improve your emotional health earlier rather than later to address the root sooner. I do not know where you are right now, so I cannot give specific activities to do unless we were to work one to one together, but I highly recommend trying to have one action goal this week to dig into this area more and do something to improve your emotional health. It could be starting with identifying emotions using an emoji system a couple times this week if you do not even have words to pin to emotions.

No matter what it is make a plan with goals to take action! The goal you set should not outcome based, but habit based. Make sure that you can actually achieve your goals this week. Make them something achievable and that you are 8 out of 10 confident you can do.

If you are trying to change your food environment your week goal could be to spend 30 minutes cleaning off your table this next week.

Your Christian Weight Loss Plan: Step #3

Take action on your goals

Now we are at the doing phase.

You may want to have physical reminders for yourself around. Change your environment to remind you to do the habits you want to be doing. give yourself cues that will help you to remember to follow through on what goals you set for yourself.

During this stage we are going to be turning to God for strength. A lot of times it can be really difficult to breakaway from habits so we need someone who is caring, loving with unlimited power to help us to break away, change our thoughts and our behaviors. He has limitless powers... pray to Him.

Your Christian Weight Loss Plan: Step #4

Do a check in regularly to see how it is going and if you can progress your habit.

A check in to see how you doing AND how you are feeling. i  could go on for days with questions to ask yourself, but I will spare you that and leave you with five questions to ask yourself:

How did I feel emotionally this week?

Check in to see if you are irritable, on edge, just overall unhappy, sad or stressed. These can be two fold:
    1. It can show if your diet is changing your emotional state. It could be making you on edge because you aren’t getting enough nutrients and energy from your diet. It can help you to not go too long on a diet that is causing you stress and making it harder to spend time with loved ones.

   2. It can show if certain emotions lead you to certain habits.  Whether it is boredom, loneliness, sadness, or stress you have company and identifying it is the first step to overcoming this. Once you identify an emotion you can work on processing those emotions with God. There are numerous ways to do this, but raw honest prayers as we see in Psalms. It is not about minimizing emotions OR letting emotions rule you it is a balanced approach to help you to receive comfort and see what is really true about your feelings. We want to get to a place where we walk with God and can hand our emotions and respond to them in a healthy way.

How did I feel physically including digestion this week?

Doing a quick check in with how your body is can be a big game changer. Just take a moment to recognize your energy levels and how you felt this can help to signal if an adjustment needs to be make and to examine where the problem is more closely.

It can be difficult to see exactly what to do with this if you do not enjoy reading health based research articles for fun like me, but it can at the very least let you know that something is wrong. The information can help you to know what to google to get some suggestions.

Will they be the best suggestions… probably not, but it can give you a jumping off point that you can keep refining if you are unable to get individual help and guidance at this time.

What prevented me from my goals or made it more difficult to do my goals this week?

This is all about identifying potential roadblocks. The sooner you address them the better. You can begin to come up with strategies for solutions.

Also do not be afraid to get creative with your solutions here. Brainstorm crazy ideas and go for it.

What made it easier for me to do my goals?

We want to capitalize what is working and see if we can apply the same principles to other areas or look to see what habits are easier for you to form to keep adding additional habits that may also be easy for you to add.

Should I adjust my goal next week?

Once you set a goal, it is not set in stone you have the flexibility to adjust to your life and make new limits and habits every week. You could be increasing your goal, decreasing the frequency of your goal or a complete change that it is not realistic or helpful for you right now.

Nothing wrong with either, but adjusting and keeping the momentum going can be HUGE

There is one more thing you need to not feel deprived...

Gratitude!!

A big area that makes people feel deprived is not only trying to shove the wrong pulse piece into their life. but also looking at what they cannot have or what they are missing out on, instead of looking at what they can have and what they can do.

Give God thanksgiving and have gratitude fro what you can have in your life including your diet. Including what things you can do and who God is in your life.

Changing your perspective can change how you approach your diet.

If you found this helpful you will love my FREE Building Healthy Habits workbook. It can help you to go through the process more in-depth and learn how to apply these principles to other areas of your life.


<3 Jessica

PS Don’t forget to grab your free healthy habits builder HERE!