M.S. writes:

After years of attempting and giving it my best shot, I have not been able to reverse my diabetes because I cannot stick to the needed lifestyle changes. I have signed up for expensive programs and have had success but all too easily fall back into my old ways of enjoying food; sugary soft drinks, pastries, pastas, carbs.

I understand the ramifications of what I am doing to my body and I have had therapy about eating. I am not an overeater, I just eat the wrong things. Does my chart show when and if I will ever stick to a plan and heal my diabetes once and for all? I get emotionally depressed after I have stopped eating foods I enjoy.

When would be the best time to attempt changes again? Eating out is a joy of mine. I look forward to it every day and plan where I am going to eat sometimes weeks in advance.

Dear M.S.,

Eating healthily has become so difficult in our modern culture which presents highly palatable food that has been engineered by the food industry to be addictive to our taste buds. That said, we can learn enjoy delicious foods and still maintain a healthy lifestyle. While some charts do show a tendency towards overindulgence (my own, for example!), our astrological chart does not hold a magic key to a time when a change will occur. We need to find ways to work with our own psychology to accomplish our goals in a way that we won’t feel deprived.

Your Sun is in the sign of Cancer, and every Cancerian that I know loves food and sharing food with friends. So food is always going to be an important part of your life! You said that you have had therapy around eating, but your chart does show a deep core emotional wound (Chiron opposite Mars/Pluto) and a sense of not being good enough
(retrograde Saturn).  Mars rules your Scorpio ascendant, which makes Mars an important player in your chart – Mars needs lots of physical activity and a sense of motivation and empowerment. The challenge to Mars from Pluto and Chiron suggests that this may be an issue which can induce a sense of failure.

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This is why diets are so destructive: If we try some kind of extreme eating pattern we may find success for a while, but if it’s not a permanent lifestyle change we will have the experience that you have had of falling off the wagon and then going into the cycle of self-flagellation.

As a person with a vicious sweet tooth myself I’ve discovered that the less sugary sweet things I eat, the better food tastes. When I limit myself to fine dark chocolate and small bits of rich desserts, they actually taste better. And not only that, but the flavors of other foods really start to stand out. Like broccoli! I never knew how sweet broccoli was until I went on a sugar detox a few years ago.

Finding ways to feel empowered in your life, not only with food but in other areas of your life, would likely be helpful in strengthening your Mars. You just had your second Saturn return earlier this year, and that can be a time when we face difficult challenges. But that difficulty is behind you now, and Saturn, planet of discipline, is actually in a supportive trine to both your Sun and your Ascendant this year so Saturn is an ally now instead of an adversary. Under supportive Saturn it may be easier to find that internal discipline to stick to a plan. But more than that, you need to feel that this plan is something that you WANT to do, not something you have to do. Achieving our desires is how we make our Mars happy, so using the carrot to motivate rather than the stick will be the best way to move forward.

If you have a question for me that involves your personal chart, you can submit it for consideration here. I will publish the questions that I think are most relevant to my readers on Fridays. 

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