Diana Mirgon is honest, real and raw. An avid proponent for body positivity, eating for better health and sharing unfiltered social media photos, she knows what it feels like to battle a toxic relationship with food.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019d always been thin growing up, but after Mirgon had kids, she gained weight and couldn\u2019t seem to lose it again. That\u2019s when she started looking for a quick fix.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was looking to lose weight,\u201d Mirgon says, \u201cnot to be healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many people, she began to demonize food and restricted herself to the extreme. Social media can sometimes encourage this kind of behavior when our feeds are inundated with heavily edited photos. Mirgon says it\u2019s tough to look at photoshopped and edited pictures, so she doesn\u2019t touch up any of her own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI exercised so that I could overeat,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize that I could still lose weight and be healthy all while having an occasional Oreo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, Mirgon\u2019s mother became sick and everything changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI sat in the ICU at her bedside for months thinking, \u2018Here I am worrying about my weight when at the end of the day, my own mother is sick,\u2019 and that\u2019s when I started eating to fuel myself, to feel better,\u201d Mirgon says. \u201cThere\u2019s a moment when it\u2019s no longer about weight, it\u2019s about longterm health.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was also diagnosed with arthritis, which led her to do research on foods that could make her feel better, and lo and behold, it worked!<\/p>\n
Meals and Mindset<\/b><\/p>\n
Mirgon\u2019s story is a prime example of something many people forget: Weight loss and health don\u2019t always go hand-in-hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can lose weight, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you\u2019re healthy,\u201d Mirgon says. \u201cWhen I was at my lowest weight, I was very unhealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mirgon doesn\u2019t believe food should be labeled as inherently good or bad in terms of weight loss. Instead, it\u2019s about energy in and energy out.<\/p>\n
On paper, the journey to healing your relationship with food sounds simple enough. But it took a lot of time, patience and self love for Mirgon to heal hers. She recommends taking it one goal at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, I started with the way I worked out,\u201d she says. \u201cI did it so that I could overeat and then I would restrict foods. I started working out for heart health and muscle mass instead, then I worked on my nutrition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Set little goals to achieve every day, like drinking more water or saying yes to those social gatherings with food.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour relationship with food and exercise is all mental health,\u201d Mirgon says. \u201cThere\u2019s a ton of us out there that are emotional eaters. We use food as a comfort source. It\u2019s very under-discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s one message Mirgon wants to get across, it\u2019s that prioritizing fitness, mental health and nutrition shouldn\u2019t be short-term goals. In the end, it\u2019s a lifestyle. That\u2019s why most fad diets don\u2019t work \u2014 because they aren\u2019t sustainable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, I\u2019m 50 and I feel better than ever,\u201d she says. \u201cI still struggle with emotional eating, but it\u2019s a daily grind. I\u2019m in a much better place with food; I don\u2019t restrict and see foods as bad. I take it one day at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Diana Mirgon is honest, real and raw. An avid proponent for body positivity, eating for better health and sharing unfiltered social media photos, she knows what it feels like to battle a toxic relationship with food.\u00a0 She\u2019d always been thin growing up, but after Mirgon had kids, she gained weight and couldn\u2019t seem to lose it again. That\u2019s when she started looking for a quick fix.\u00a0 \u201cI was looking to lose weight,\u201d Mirgon says, \u201cnot to be healthy.\u201d Like many people, she began to demonize food and restricted herself to the extreme. Social media can sometimes encourage this kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,484,204,205,460,206,203,207],"class_list":["post-2273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-womens-health","tag-healthy-living","tag-mental-health","tag-mind-and-body","tag-motivation","tag-nutrition-for-women","tag-style-and-beauty","tag-womens-fitness-personalities","tag-womens-health","post--single"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3073,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions\/3073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/high-end-life.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}