Have you noticed?

We live in a world where denying yourself pleasurable food is the trendy thing to do.

You've seen the images on Facebook and Instagram: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny/fit feels".

Whoever wrote this obviously has never experienced the magic baked into a triple chocolate cupcake.

Food is the new religion. Eating has become mostly about how much pleasure you're willing to sacrifice to be "healthy" or to be lean (BTW, those two things are NOT the same). And trying to duplicate the eating habits of self-righteous food zealots can leave you feeling like shit if you actually want to enjoy a cheeseburger.

It seems like every day there's a new list of evil foods we should remove from our diet. If I followed every rule that came across my computer screen, I'd only be left with lemon water and gluten-free crackers.

Well, screw that.

I decided a long time ago that it's senseless to have access to so much delicious and nutritious food and not be able to get pleasure from it.

The only way that I could enjoy food and enjoy life was to ignore the noise on the internet and give myself permission to eat what I want.

But when I tell people that I eat whatever I want, I get one of the following responses:

"Oh no...if I allowed myself to eat what I want, I'd be 300 pounds!" OR

"Well, you've gotta be careful...you can't eat too much. You still want to be healthy. Blah, blah, blah".

These responses are perfect examples of how far to the extremes we've gone. We now live in a world where 'eat what I want' means devouring everything that isn't nailed down and then going back for seconds.

This just isn't true.

Whether you realize it or not, you've been following a bunch of rules that have convinced you that being healthy or losing weight is a lifelong struggle. These are the rules that keep the diet industry booming and leave you dazed and confused about what to do next after your 30-day detox has ended.

In addition to telling you that you CAN'T have food you enjoy, there are some other messages that have been downloaded into your brain:

you can't trust yourself (which is why you're looking to someone to tell you what to eat)
you have to hate yourself thin
you must always be dissatisfied with how you look until you reach a certain weight
you need to be thin before you can be or do anything significant in your life

We have been bamboozeld, big time my dear...BIG time. None of this is even true, but it's been programmed so far down in the depths of your mind, that you've been living by these rules for years.

The good news is that you can re-program your mind. I know because I've done it and I've helped other women do it.

Ever since I started living the "eat what I want" lifestyle, I have not taken a trip down the dieting rabbit hole. Not once.

WHY?? Because I believe in moderation (the absence of extremes). I eat tons of nutritious foods + food that isn't that nutritious when I want to.

It's funny how when I started to trust my body, it told me that it actually prefers spinach for breakfast instead of McDonald's hash browns.

See how that works?

Eating what I want has done wonders for my physical, mental and emotional health. I'm no longer stressed about whether I should (I hate that word) have carbs with dinner. My palate has expanded and I experiment with food all the time.

THIS is what pleasurable eating is about.

It's about being flexible and adaptable to the situations that we encounter in life.

It's NOT about being so rigid and restrictive that you can't go out to dinner with family and friends.

It's NOT about being in mental gridlock at every meal.

There is no better time than right NOW to make a change.

Why wait?