I Used To Take Diet Pills – Have You?

I just started watching this show called, “Drop Dead Diva,” that was recommended for me to watch from a friend who thought I would like it. They were right, I do really like SOME aspects of it. I just finished watching this one particular episode that sparked up an idea to write about.

To summarize, in this episode a 15 year old girl went on this diet plan that caused her to lose 40lbs fast. She ended up in the hospital after fainting because not only was she told to eat no more than 500 calories a day on this special diet, but one of the ingredients in the bars was ephedrine – which is basically speed disguised as a nutritional supplement.

When I heard that I was instantly brought back to being 18 years old. My boyfriend at the time was going to the USA often for baseball, and I knew they had these special diet pills there that weren’t legal in Canada. They had ephedrine in them and I had heard that really helped you lose weight. I remember begging him to get them for me, which he finally did.

I will never forgot the night when he gave me the pills. I was so convinced that I had found my answer to not only attaining the perfect body – but to happiness.  I truly convinced myself that these pills were going to be my solution to weight loss and solve all of my problems. I will never forgot popping back that first pill and feeling EXTREMELY hyper, as if everything was going on in fast forward motion around me. Deep down I knew the way I was feeling from these pills wasn’t right, but I didn’t care – well I should say ED didn’t care – I had found my magic pill – or so I thought.

If I could only go back to myself then and talk some sense into myself.
Ask myself why I was so unhappy with my current self and body?
Ask myself why I felt I had to go to such extreme measures to try to lose weight?

But I know the answers I would say and I can’t blame my 18 year-old self for taking this road.
Look at what we are fed through the media.

Everything around us needs to be smaller, tighter, skinnier, more toned, more polished.
We see low-fat, fat-free, zero percent everything, everywhere we go.

The latest diets are always promoted and people are talking about the newest “best” exercise regime. Essentially, we are bombarded with the idea that,

WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE ARE & WHAT OUR BODIES LOOK LIKE ARE NEVER EVER GOOD ENOUGH – AND ALWAYS NEED TO BE THINNER.

As a result of what I had been conditioned to believe was the truth, from society, the media and ED himself, I just assumed that the only way to get the body I wanted was to be on a diet, restrict certain foods and food groups, over exercise, count calories, weigh myself daily, take diet pills and more.

Yet, this was challenging for me, I was never very good at being restrictive for more than a day or so. I loved food and still do love food – very much – I am Italian for heaven sakes!

But EVERY TIME I ate something that ED convinced me to believe I “shouldn’t” have ate, I felt nothing but extreme guilt.

Luckily throughout the years I learned that I don’t need to feel guilt around food anymore. If you can relate to anything that I have just spoken about in this blog and would like to find freedom with food, then I want to invite you to CLICK HERE and join my FREE three day video training series, titled, “The Freedom Shift – How Women Are Relieving The Guilt Around Food & Shifting Into Their Ideal Weight and SO CAN YOU!”

You don’t need to be trapped into thinking that your only answers to happiness lie in diet pills, restriction, over exercising or more.

You don’t need to have fear around food for the rest of your life and deprive yourself of what you truly want because of the guilt factor.

You don’t need to be uncomfortable in your skin forever.

I promise, but what you need to do first is….

want to change,
want to get off the diet train,
want to figure out another way and
want to find freedom with food and acceptance for what your body is today.

 

So I have a question for you – how bad do you want it?

P.S. Let me know if you want it or not in the comment box below.

Paula Galli, Motivational Coach, Nutritional Counsellor & Self-Esteem Expert