A huge part of letting go of diet culture is letting go of all of the things that you thought you knew. I grew up with a huge list of beliefs around food. I believed that fat was bad. I've believed that sugar is bad. I have believed that carbs are bad. I have believed that too much protein is bad.

I have believed that breaking your food up into macronutrients and nutrients is the way to go. I have believed that I shouldn't eat fruit. After a certain time. I've believed that I shouldn't eat until a certain time. I've believed so many things. And I think we get to the point where we have been filled with so much information that we We don't know what to believe anymore.

I think one of the questions that I get asked sometimes when I talk to people about living diet free is, is there a meal plan? Well, no, because this is about rediscovering things for yourself. This is about saying, I know that diet culture has messed with our heads. And I know that diet culture has put all of these ideas and beliefs into my head that I struggle to get rid of. But I'm going to work hard to fight against them. There's such power, such personal power in getting to know yourself again, getting to know your relationship with food and your body.

I the other day was at a donut shop. And I know that when I eat donuts, I get really bad heartburn. I chose not to eat Join up that day, because I know how that makes my body feel. When I was on a diet, if somebody offered to be a donor, I would grab it without thinking. Even if even if it wasn't a great joiner, I would grab it and ate it because as a diet person, I was never sure that I was going to eat another doughnut again. I'm sure you can relate to that feeling.

Get it all the time. You know, it's like that cupboard clean out you do the night before you haven't you start a diet, you eat everything inside. So but it's not there when you start your diet. So learning to forget all the things that I had been told all of the things I've read over the years, and you know, the friends that you will talk to that tell you that they've just heard about this new plan and why you should avoid protein after six o'clock at night and had all of your protein before 11 whatever it is when have to say no to it. You know already in your mind the foods that are really good for you, and the foods that are less good. And to simplify it, food should look real.

Processed food doesn't look the way it started. Try and eat fresh produce, try and create your meals using fresh ingredients. Try to cut back on the processed foods that you ate. It's really as simple as that. You want to nourish your body when you love it, you want to care for it. And as a result of that, you will start feeling amazing.

But you're doing it not from a place of diet. You're you're doing it from a place of freedom. And there is such a difference in 18 with freedom and now And healthy mind, as opposed to eating for weight loss for restriction, led by guilt and shame when you stuff it up. I never have to say to myself, Oh, you really blew that one. I never have to say it again. Because I've learned how to eat for life.

When I eat something that gives me heartburn and indigestion at night, I lie there in bed at night and I reflect on what will I do differently next time. I talked about that in the last video, it's all about reflecting. What can you change? When oily foods make you feel not great? Like they do with me? When it's time to eat oily foods, I have to make the decision.

Am I prepared to experience that or am I going to make a different choice and sometimes I might just want to experience it and say myself, Well, I told you so. But you did it anyway. And it's compassion and kindness. This is my life. I, you know, I'm not always going to get it right, I'm going to make different choices. Sometimes.

You might be somebody that loves him is full of sugar, but you love wine. And you know that if you're going to have it, that you are also putting into your body, lots of sugar, well, you will make that choice, you might choose that you're going to do that less or you might choose that you don't care. Either way, you have to be responsible for those choices and those decisions. It is a journey for life. I don't know how many times I'm going to say the word journey during this course. But it really is.

It is about forgetting everything that you thought you knew, and creating new meanings and new understandings that are based on you. It's such an important thing to do.