I grew up dieting. One morning, in middle school, I ate half of a grapefruit and cottage cheese for breakfast. Both were bitter and tasteless, but I ate them anyway. It was all I was allowing myself. That day, I was starved well before the lunch bell.
In high school, I chose frozen yogurt over ice cream. In college, I ate white low fat bread. Early in my professional career, my roommate and I spent countless hours running and in the gym. She and I snacked on Baked Lays and drank lots of Diet Coke.
My dieting dramas continued well into my early 40’s. Weight Watchers. Juice cleanses. Paleo. I was always trying to lose weight.
I never really questioned my big-ass salads or what happened when I stepped on the scale. I thought there was one way to lose weight and I was doing my best at it.
I felt like a good person for trying to be a thin one. I convinced myself that as long as I was TRYING to make my body thinner, that no one could judge me or criticize my size. Wasn’t my hard work admirable?
Yet, while I was trying to be good and eat the right things, I was living a secret nightmare. I’m wondering if you’re having the same nightmare. Are you…
Thinking about food most every waking minute?
Feeling like a failure each and every day because you can’t follow your food plan?
Overeating a few times a week?
Telling yourself “today is going to be different.”, every single day?
Constantly looking for a new diet that will finally work?
Weighing yourself and it ruining your day?
Weighing yourself and feeling proud of your hard work. And then a few hours or days later, overeating?
Feeling guilty and ashamed for eating forbidden foods?
You and I both know our nightmares aren’t normal. Maybe you’ve been blaming yourself for your dieting failures. That’s what I did.
I told myself I was just trying to be healthy. My truth was healthy = skinny.
When I discovered Intuitive Eating, I realized most of my struggles with food came from dieting rules and my diet mentality.
Figuring this out was an incredible relief! Our bodies aren’t designed to diet. Diets lead to long term weight gain 95% of the time. Diets don’t work, but WORSE, they lead to eating disordered behavior in 35–65% of dieters.
It’s time to stop making dieting so commonplace and normal. Stop obsessing about carbs. Stop tracking and counting calories. Stop labeling foods good or bad.
Diet Culture convinces us that dieting is normal, but it’s not. If dieting was a healthy thing for us to do, then we wouldn’t be experiencing constant and persistent secret nightmares.
What’s normal is listening to our body’s internal cues and wisdom around food. What’s normal is eating a variety of foods. What’s normal is allowing ourselves to eat for nourishment, pleasure and fun (not always in that order).
You weren’t put on this earth to lose weight. You may have grown up dieting like me, but you don’t have to diet one more day.