Give yourself a break!

Go easy on yourself, life is tough enough

As a dietitian working in private practice you get to speak to many, many people each week. People who are sad, happy, unhappy, unhappy because of their weight, tired, exhausted, overwhelmed, unfulfilled, driven, just about every feeling and emotion there is to be had. The married people are miserable, the unmarried ones are miserable, the fat people are unhappy and the thin people are as well. What stands out most of all for me, after listening to literally hundreds of conversations is that for all of us, in some way or another, life is tough and at the end of the day we do our best to get through it.

In general, people do the best they can at the time, with the resources they have, and few things warrant the harshness many of us beat ourselves up with on a daily basis. Carrying excessive weight is a common reason that women in particular feel bad about themselves, believing that there is some magical ideal way to eat that they have somehow failed to achieve. In the big scheme of things though, and the really important things that matter like family, relationships and making a decent contribution to this world, whether or not you stuck to your diet last week suddenly becomes irrelevant.

So next time you go to beat yourself up over what you should or should not be eating, try thinking of where looking after your body fits in the big picture of your life and not only will your decision to eat well be far easier, you will be giving yourself a break, which is likely to be sorely needed.