Tell me I can’t have bread and suddenly I want bread. Tell me dessert is forbidden and I’m thinking about dessert all day. The harder I grip the rules, the more I want to break them.
I don’t think I’m unusual in this. Rules create resistance. The moment something becomes off-limits, part of me starts scheming.
Diet rules made me want to rebel. So I stopped following them and started noticing what I was already doing.
Noticing instead of restricting
The prompts I use don’t tell me what to eat. They don’t give me rules or meal plans or forbidden foods. They ask me to notice what I’m already doing.
That sounds soft. It is soft. But it’s also the only thing that’s ever worked for me.
Noticing is neutral. It doesn’t demand anything. It just asks: What’s happening here? Why did I reach for that? What am I actually feeling right now?
Most of the time, I don’t know the answer. That’s fine. The noticing is enough. Over time, patterns emerge. Things I didn’t see become visible. And once I see them, they’re harder to unsee.
That’s the approach behind 365 Changes—not rules to follow, but questions to sit with. One each morning. No judgment, no tracking, just attention.
365 Changes: A daily prompt about eating — https://365changes.com/
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