Breaking the Chronic Dieting Cycle: Finding Food Freedom and Real Health

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve tried every diet, every workout class, and every quick fix only to end up frustrated, exhausted and stuck, you’re definitely not alone. In this week’s episode of the Glow Social Hour, we sat down with Shay Pascale, a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and the creator of The Body Bulletin, to talk about something so many women silently struggle with: chronic dieting and the feeling of always starting over.

Shay’s story is one that thousands of women can see themselves in. She spent more than a decade trying to eat less, work out more and somehow out-discipline her body. From low-carb to quitting sugar to switching workout styles repeatedly, she tried it all. And like many chronic dieters, she lived in that exhausting cycle of restriction during the week and guilt on the weekends.

The hard part is that she still never achieved the toned, strong physique she thought all that effort would produce.

What changed everything for her wasn’t a new diet. It was discovering the truth about metabolism, hormones and functional health.

When Dieting Isn’t Working, It’s Not a Willpower Issue

During her 20s and early 30s, Shay was dealing with IBS, hormonal chaos, migraines, low energy, fibroids and the frustrating reality of doing everything “right” but still not seeing results. Doctors told her her labs were normal. They told her birth control was the solution. They told her to eat less and move more.

This is a story many women know too well.

It wasn’t until she worked with her first coach and later became a functional practitioner herself, that she learned the truth:

Your body cannot lose weight efficiently when it does not feel safe.

Low calories, high stress, poor gut health, lack of sleep, hormonal imbalances and constant restriction all signal danger to the body. And when the body senses danger, it holds on to fat as protection.

This is why so many women cannot lose weight even when they are dieting and working out consistently.

The Reverse Diet That Changed Everything

Shay described the moment she discovered reverse dieting as almost unbelievable. After years of eating around 1,800 calories and often much less, her coach slowly increased her calories until she reached around 2,400 to 2,500 a day.

Not only did she avoid gaining weight, she actually became leaner, stronger, and more energized.

Her digestion improved. Her skin cleared. Her hormone symptoms quieted. Her periods became regular. Her sleep improved. And for the first time ever, she felt true food freedom.

This transformation did not happen because she ate less. It happened because she finally nourished her body enough to function properly.

What Reverse Dieting Actually Does

Women are taught to fear food. But Shay breaks down the truth in a simple way.

When you build muscle, support digestion, balance your hormones, and fuel your metabolism, your body becomes more efficient at burning calories. You become a place where food is used for energy rather than stored as fat.

That is why many of her clients go from eating 1200 calories with no results to eating 2000 or more and finally dropping inches.

It is not magic.
It is metabolic health.

Food Freedom Starts in the Mind, Not the Meal Plan

Shay shared one of the most transformative mindset shifts:

Let go of the pressure to reach a specific weight by a specific deadline.

When you stop attaching your worth to timelines and start focusing on feeling good, everything changes. Your confidence changes. Your consistency changes. Your relationship with food changes.

Food freedom is not eating everything in sight. It is the ability to enjoy your life without guilt and without punishing yourself afterward.

It is walking into the holiday season without panic or shame.
It is allowing yourself to enjoy real food without mentally negotiating a workout the next day.

The Real Secret: Build Muscle

Shay was clear about one thing.

If you want a faster metabolism
If you want to eat more without gaining weight
If you want balanced hormones
If you want true food freedom

You must build muscle.

This does not come from
pink dumbbells
random “toning” workouts
endless cardio
or inconsistent routines

It comes from compound lifts, progressive overload, consistency and enough nutrition to fuel muscle growth.

This is the missing piece for many women and the one thing that completely transforms their results.

The Big Takeaway

Shay’s story is a reminder that dieting does not make you healthy.

Listening to your body does.
Feeding your body does.
Building strength does.
Identifying the root causes does.

For every woman stuck in the cycle of restriction, burnout, guilt and repeating the same patterns, this episode is your permission to choose a different approach.

Food freedom is possible.
Feeling good is possible.
Healing is possible.

And it starts with understanding your body instead of fighting against it.