I have failed over a thousand diets in the past 30 years. In fact, it’s probably more like ten thousand…

The promise of fast (and let’s be honest, easy) weight loss was like dangling a chocolate coated carrot under my nose. Move outta my way, sister! I was going for it!

I cut diets out of magazines and filed them alphabetically for later reference.

I Googled fast weight loss until my eyes maintained a permanent blank stare.

I cut pictures of fitness models out of magazines, decapitated them and stuck a picture of my own head on their bronzed body “for inspiration”.

Did it work? Uh, nope.

I failed. Big time. Like, falling flat on my butt kinda failed.

Need proof? Oh, I got proof…

The starvation diet

I tried this one more than once (read: hundreds of times). I was sure that if I could just muster up enough “will power”, I could live without food (or at least, not eat very much of it). Inevitably this would end with me face down in a fresh baked chocolate mud cake with the promise of “I’ll start again tomorrow” echoing through my brain like two Skittles clanging together in an empty packet.

The Lesson: You’re supposed to eat. Not eating only makes you want food more. Deprivation is not fun. Eventually you WILL find a way to get what you want and need (namely, food)

The 100 calories a day diet

Closely followed by the starvation diet, is it’s less attractive cousin, the 100 calories a day diet. I managed to pull this one off for a few weeks. I kept a food diary (ugghh!) and meticulously recorded every morsel that passed my lips. 10 lettuce leaves = I’m the queen of the world. 10 lettuce leaves + 4 hot dogs, 6 sodas, 2 blocks of chocolate and a family size pizza = I’m an epic failure.

The Lesson: Sometimes you need to try something more than once before you lean the lesson.

Meal replacement shakes

Ahhhh… the beloved meal replacement shake. Because isn’t drinking vile tasting, chemically composed dirty dishwater better than eating real food? I’ve given this one a red hot go at least a dozen times. Was it successful? Sure. If you consider “successful” losing 5 kilos immediately followed by gaining 15 kilos.

The Lesson: the day that you can walk out into an orchard and pick a deliciously ripe meal replacement shake from a tree, is the day you should start drinking them.

Atkins

I’m stepping into dangerous territory here, I know, but I have to tell you how it was for me. I spent over 20 years of my life following a vegan/vegetarian diet, so you can appreciate how desperate I must have been to swap steamed broccoli for cheese, meat and copious amounts of lard. But I was. And I did. I lasted less than a day on this diet.

The Lesson: Listen to your body. It knows what it wants to eat. You don’t need to manipulate, deprive or connive. You CAN trust yourself to make good decisions.

But there is always a silver lining…

If something isn’t in alignment with your deepest beliefs, you’ll never be able to pull it off. Your body does NOT want to be starved or hated. It wants to THRIVE!

You will have a few failures sprinkled throughout the story book of your life. It’s oooookaaaay.

The truth is that you’re NOT going to wake up tomorrow, magically thin and deliriously happy. That’s just not real life. But you CAN decide today to ditch the crazy fad diets and take control of your own life!

If this was super easy, everybody would be running around looking like supermodels. But they’re not. Because it isn’t. But that also doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Were all these crazy diet’s fun? Errr, no.

But they are the foundation upon which I stand today, free of emotional eating and FINALLY living in a body that does not feel compelled to demolish every last chocolate from the box so that they won’t be there tomorrow when I “start again”.

This is about something bigger than you. This is about you creating a body and a life that you LOVE living in.

It’s time to grab those failures around the shoulders and give them a ginormous hug! They are you badge of honour. Wear them with pride and don’t look back.

Life is not about “getting it perfect” so why should your diet be any different?

Just do your best. Every.Single.Day. Just do the best you can.

And when you fail again (because you will), just accept it, dust the cookie crumbs off your lips and MOVE ON!

Stop fighting with yourself. It hasn’t worked so far, has it?

There IS a way out of emotional eating, but it WILL take a few failures to get there.

So yup. I’ve failed. Really, really badly.

And with all my heart I hope you that you fail too. Why? Because it’s the path to freedom.

Of course if you want to speed the whole process up by a few life times, you can always check out my freakishly spectacular new eBook Drink Yourself Slim

Drink Yourself Slim gives you 16 delicious recipes, plus a step by step path to activating your inner Slim Girl, one sexy superfood smoothie at a time! That’s over 80 pages of smooth ‘n sexy goodness!

Shake that inner slim girl out of her chocolate covered coma and click here to check out Drink Yourself Slim.

Here’s to Ditching the Diet!