Have you ever stayed too long – a job or position at work, in a relationship that made you compromise too much, follow a wellness program that felt too hard for too long, or an exercise or weight loss schedule that was a struggle to maintain with the rest of your life?
One especially hot summer during high school, some friends of mine (guys) decided it would be a great idea to float down the river that flowed through our then small-ish town.
They had it all worked out. We’d put in at one park and float about 5-7 miles down to another park. We packed our cold beverages. Pumped up the float tubes. Dropped a truck at the park that would be our destination. And drove to the park we were starting from.
As we started the trip, the river was humming along with about thigh-deep water flowing over gentle rapids.
Life was good! Cruising down the canyons. Splashing when we got too hot.
Until the water started getting shallow. And more shallow. Until we were nearly dragging our butts on the river bottom.
We picked up our float tubes and walked down the river, determined to continue our floating adventure! And then it hit him.
The friend who had parked his truck at the park where we were going to get off the river had left his keys back in the truck at the park where we started!
At this point, another guy was getting nervous about getting home in time for his night shift at the local movie theater.
We did what any self-respecting, stubborn, embarrassed teenagers would do…
Pulled our float tubes over at a Due Ranch Resort and called another friend’s mom from a pay phone (remember those?). We couldn’t call any of our parents because we’d never hear the end of it.
When you’ve tried so hard for so long to lose weight.
That was the first time I stayed too long.
Then there was the job I really enjoyed, but it wasn’t taking me anywhere. The relationship had so many great things about it, but I was compromising too much of myself in it. And of course, there were the diets.
Hands up if you’ve stayed too long at any one diet or diets in general.
When Weight Loss Slows Down
Just like the float trip on the river, you can be sailing along, losing the weight you want to lose, until you’re not anymore. The weight loss (like the river water) slows enough, and you have to try harder to maintain the weight you lost and desperately not gain more weight back!
Finally, you realize that your old dieting schemes aren’t working like they used to. The weight isn’t coming off easily. You’re regaining all the pounds you lost.
Are you ready to get out of the shallow river of weight loss schemes and undiet your life?
It doesn’t matter how long it took you to get to this point or how hard you tried to hang on to the promise of losing weight.
The point is to get on with your life. Just like my friend who had to bail on our adventure so he could go to work, get paid so he could take his girlfriend on a date, and get on with his life!
If you’ve made it to your late 30s, 40s, and 50s, you’ve likely spent years in that sometimes fast-moving, sometimes frustratingly slow weight loss river. And now that you’re in perimenopause or menopause, you realize that the same diet tricks don’t work anymore.
You still want to be healthy, but you don’t know how to do that without food rules and should-shouldn’t eat food lists.
Where do you start? How do you get on with your life by undieting, how you look at food, and your body?
How to redefine health during perimenopause
There are a handful of stages to undieting your life that I talked about with clients. I created a technique to help you get through those stages. I call it the SAVOR Technique of Healing. Here are the practices…
Start –
Think about how all the messages you’ve received about food, your body, and your health have affected you over the years, positively and negatively.
Awareness –
How have these messages contributed to your food and body story, your relationship with food, and your body? How have the messages affected your ability to feel subtle hunger, fullness, and satisfaction with food and life in general?
Variety –
Our bodies thrive on a variety of foods, nutrients, and life experiences. What might you be missing in your daily food habits, self-nourishment behaviors like movement, reflection time, and connection with yourself and others? Do you have a variety of tools and resources to help you cope with difficult emotions?
Options –
What could you add to your food habits or self-nourishment behaviors that can help you become more attuned to your body’s physiological and psychological needs?
This could be a whole food group that you’ve been avoiding because of concerns about your weight, such as carbs. It could be a form of exercise or movement that you used to love when you were younger but thought you looked ridiculous doing in your rounder, softer, older body.
Are you getting enough downtime to pause and reflect on what’s important to you at this midlife stage? If you’re not allowing yourself to be nourished in all of these areas of your life in a variety of ways, you’re more likely to turn to food for emotional coping and/or exercise for emotional avoidance.
Reflect and Release –
Choose a handful of options to add more nourishment to your life. See how they flow with your busy week by creating a self-nourishment menu..
Then go through 1 week, practice your self-nourishment options, and reflect back on your experience. How did it go? Too much? Too little? Too hard to commit?
Reflect on your experience, but don’t let your critical voice run you into the ground. If you want to change things around next week, do it! Then release your experience and move on with your life, continuing to SAVOR food and your body.
By using the Self-Nourishment Menu and the SAVOR Technique of Healing, you’ll find more clarity in your relationship with food, your body, and how you choose to define health in midlife.
Remember, be kind to yourself as you’re trying this new way of relating to food, your body, and life. Just like it took years for all those food and body messages to write your food and body story, this new practice will also take time. It’s a lifelong practice.
