Day 2: "I Know What to Do, I Just Don't Do It" - Why Diets Fail in Midlife

Welcome back to Day 2 of my Midlife and Menopause Un-Dieting series. Yesterday we talked about the diet cycle - the plan, the tracking, the promise that this time you'll have more discipline… until life gets lifey and it all falls apart. Today I want to gently blow up the story we tell ourselves next: that we failed because we don't have enough willpower.

Here's what I hear all the time: "I know what to do, I just don't do it." And I get it! You do know that protein matters and that eating nothing all day leaves you eating crackers out of the box at 9pm. The problem was never that you don't care enough. The real question is: what are you actually asking yourself to do?

In this episode I redefine self-compassion (hint: it's not about being nice to yourself), unpack why all-or-nothing thinking keeps the cycle spinning, and remind you that health does not require perfect eating. 

Tomorrow: attunement, and how to listen to your body without turning intuitive eating into another set of rules.

Free support to get you started:

• Un-Diet Your Mindset → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/undietyourmindset
• Food Guilt Decoder → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/FoodGuiltDecoder

Want more support?

• Try the Midlife Feast Community free for 7 days → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/7daytrial
• Book a no-strings connection call (virtual coffee with me) → https://p.bttr.to/3DQX9SF

Related episodes:

• Day 1 — How to Un-Diet in Midlife and Menopause → https://themidlifefeast.buzzsprout.com/1851576/episodes/19715276-day-1-how-to-un-diet-in-midlife-and-menopause

📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now!  Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.

Looking for more about midlife,  menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links

Transcript

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Welcome To The Midlife Feast

Jenn Salib Huber 0:00

Welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast that helps you make sense of your body, your health, and menopause in the messy middle of midlife. I'm Dr. Jen Salib Huber, intuitive eating dietitian, a naturopathic doctor, and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Around here, we don't see midlife and menopause as problems to solve, but as invitations to live with more freedom, trust, and joy. Each week you'll hear real conversations and practical strategies to help you feel like yourself again, eat without guilt, and turn midlife from a season of survival into a season of thriving. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dig in. Okay,

Day Two And The Diet Cycle

Jenn Salib Huber 0:41

welcome back to day two of this Midlife and Menopause Undieting series. So yesterday we talked about the diet cycle, which is that pattern where you decide that you want to or need to change something about how you're eating. So you make a plan, maybe you start tracking, maybe you cut out certain foods, maybe you promise yourself that this is going to be the time that you have more discipline. And for a while, it feels like it's working until it doesn't. Eventually, the rules become hard to keep up with. Life gets lifey, as I like to say. You're hungry one day, or you're tired, or you just want to eat something that's not on your plan. And maybe you just get tired of thinking about food all the time, which is a really common and normal thing because I don't think that as humans we should think about food all the time. I think it really can be as intuitive as breathing, sleeping, and going to the bathroom. So, but then you decide, okay, well, I've done something wrong. I've failed, I've fallen off the wagon. And then we start to blame ourselves and we say, well, it's because I don't have any willpower, or it's because I don't have the discipline. But eventually you get yourself up on two feet again and you think, okay, I'm gonna try this and start all over again. And this time it's gonna work. How many times have you done that? Have you had that conversation with yourself? So

What Discipline Really Means

Jenn Salib Huber 2:04

today I want to introduce this idea of what if discipline isn't the problem? Because I bet you've said, because I hear it all the time, I know what to do, I just don't do it. And I get it, you probably do know a lot about nutrition. You do know that protein is important, you know that fiber is good for you, you know that vegetables are a good idea, you know that eating nothing all day will leave you standing in your kitchen eating crackers right out of the box at nine o'clock, and you know that that's probably not gonna feel great. But the issue is rarely that you don't have the right information, and it's never that you don't care enough. The question is, what exactly are you asking yourself to do? Because sometimes when someone says, I just need more discipline, what they really mean is I need to be better at ignoring my hunger, or I need to stop eating all the things that I enjoy, or I need to never eat emotionally. I need to follow these rules because they're just rules and it should be easy. And honestly, I think that's asking too much of yourself, especially when you've got a life that is being lifey. You might have work or kids or aging parents or relationships or stress or menopause, sleep, body that's changing, all of the reasons why you can't confuse your capability with your capacity. So, and on top of all that, you now are gonna try and follow this complicated set of rules that requires you to watch the clock all the time, track everything that you're eating. Of course, that's going to feel hard. But when it gets hard, instead of questioning the rules and questioning whether or not it's, you know, the rules and not us, we'll say, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just stick to it? And I see this especially if you have been able to stick to it before. But that's where the self-compassion comes in because you are in a different season of life then.

Self Compassion Without Excuses

Jenn Salib Huber 4:06

So when I talk about self-compassion, a lot of people will say, Oh, I don't need to be nicer to myself. Self-compassion is not about being nice to yourself, friends. It's that is not it at all. It's not about pretending like you don't care. It's not saying, well, I guess I'm just never gonna eat another vegetable then. And it's definitely not giving up on your health. Self-compassion is being able to look at what happened without immediately blaming yourself for it. And instead, maybe asking, what made this hard? instead of saying, Oh, I have no willpower, you might actually say, Was I actually hungry when I ate that with curiosity, instead of saying, Oh, I ruined everything. Why did I even have one? I can't trust myself. Because one of the biggest reasons why the diet cycle keeps going is because we've been taught that if we're not doing it perfectly, we're failing, we're doing something wrong. It is that all or nothing thinking that I try and talk about as often as you'll listen to me. But health does not require perfect eating. Nutrition does not require perfect eating. And real life does not allow for perfect eating. So you don't have to earn the right to take care of yourself by doing it perfectly. You can take care of yourself by doing it imperfectly. That still counts as self-care.

Let Imperfect Eating Count

Jenn Salib Huber 5:38

And so if you feel like, oh, I really want to do something to take care of myself, resist the urge to say, I'm gonna start Monday. Ask yourself, what can I do today? So that you're not only lowering the bar, but you're getting out of that all or nothing diet cycle that we talked about yesterday and day one. So instead of feeling like you need to make up for whatever you ate last night, you just eat your next meal. You have breakfast, then lunch, then dinner, maybe a snack. You don't think about needing to make up for something. That is the self-compassion piece of this framework. And I think that's one of the things that is so powerful about undieting because you stop treating every imperfect eating experience like evidence that you're doing something wrong or that you have to start over. And instead you just get curious.

A Simple Practice For Today

Jenn Salib Huber 6:28

So here's what I would like for you to practice today. The next time you catch yourself thinking, I need more discipline or I need more willpower, pause and ask yourself, what am I actually asking myself to do right now? Am I asking myself to follow through on something that is going to support me? Or am I asking myself to ignore my body and just follow this rule because I think I should? And then ask, what would make this easier? Maybe you do need more structure. Maybe you need less structure, maybe you need more satisfaction, or maybe you need to eat before you're absolutely starving. Maybe you need to stop trying to make every meal perfect. You don't have to figure it out today. We still have three more days, and I'm joking because you don't have to figure it out then either.

Tomorrow’s Focus And Next Steps

Jenn Salib Huber 7:19

Because tomorrow, though, we're going to talk about what happens when you have spent years listening to everyone else tell you how to eat and what you should eat. And as a result, you've lost touch with your own ability to listen to yourself. And so we're talking about attunement and what it actually means to listen to your body without turning intuitive eating into another set of rules. So remember, friends, we're answering the question every day: what would taking care of yourself look like if you didn't require your body to get smaller in return? So that is the end of day two. And as always, you are welcome to listen to this anytime that you want. But if at any point you think, oh, I really want some help with this, just check the show notes. I've got you covered. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Midlife Feast. If you're ready to take the next step towards thriving in midlife, head to menopausenutritionist.ca to learn more about my one-to-one and group coaching programs, free resources, and where to get your copy of Eat to Thrive during menopause. And if you've loved today's conversation and found it helpful, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps so many more people just like you find their way to food freedom and midlife confidence. Until next time, remember, midlife is not the end of the story, it's the feast. Let's savor it together.