The show is over and ‘real life’ begins again.  You feel lost.  You want to resume a ‘normal’ diet but don’t even know where to start.  You don’t want to balloon. You don’t want to go on a binge.  The last thing you want to do is start eating all the ‘bad’ foods.  And it makes you anxious and neurotic.

Here’s the thing: food is NOT bad. Food is not good.  Food is neutral.  But you’ve spent the last four months – or more – being told that you CAN’T eat this or that because it’s BAD.  Bread, fruit, corn, peas… there’s a long list of foods that many coaches deem ‘bad’; so, you feel guilt by association.  As soon as you’ve eaten something off this list, you feel guilty; you feel like a failure. You beat yourself up.

Don’t.  Humans are not meant to eat contest-type diets forever.  It’s a SHORT TERM plan for a particular goal.  It’s not ‘normal’.  It’s not ‘lifestyle’.  Not when it comes to restriction or elimination of foods or food groups.  And it’s not that you CAN’T eat these foods; it’s that you are choosing to not consume them in the short term in order to achieve one goal at one time.

Free yourself.  Realize that you have choices; you’re just making different choices in the short term.  And when the show’s over, when you kick off the shoes and peel off the eyelashes, allow yourself foods from all food groups – in moderation, of course.  Food is neutral, and it’s what your body needs.  Be kind to yourself.