Today is International No Diet Day, a day to highlight the harm done by a multibillion dollar industry that has no data, absolutely ZERO long term data, to support it. This industry depends on you blaming yourself over and over again so you keep coming back for more.
The truth is the body fights weight loss by lowering metabolism. Some of you may have read about this in the news this week about “The Biggest Loser” contestants, check out the article here.
“When the show began, the contestants had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes. Researchers knew that just about anyone who deliberately loses weight — even if they start at a “normal” weight or even “underweight” — will have a slower metabolism when the diet ends. So they were not surprised to see that “The Biggest Loser” contestants had slow metabolisms when the show ended. What shocked the researchers was what happened next: As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants’ metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight.”
It is not your fault that diets have not worked for you!
It is SO not your fault that you’ve been unable to successfully lose weight and keep it off. Many of you have probably re-gained more weight every time you’ve dieted, and find yourself thinking, “I’d love to way what I weighed when I started dieting.”
So when the reality of this sets in, many find themselves thinking, so now what? If diets don’t work, and actually cause more harm than good, what do I do now?
Unfortunately, researchers and the medical community still think we should be looking for a solution to the so-called “obesity epidemic” even when the evidence that weight is a risk factor is incomplete and contradictory! When the most consistent effect of weight loss at two years is weight gain, it is time to embrace body diversity and shift the focus away from weight to well-being.
There is an alternative to the screw-it plan!
When you lose your tolerance to dieting (which happens for most) and/or realize that there is little evidence to say that your efforts are worth it, it is time to turn towards yourself. This includes ending the pursuit of the thin ideal under the guise of health.
It’s time to stop weighing and measuring.
It’s time to stop tracking calories, points, carbs.
It’s time to reject the diet mentality.
It’s time to stop listening to outside “experts” to tell you when, what, and how much to eat.
Fear might be the loudest voice to contend with.
And then there’s grief to process.
What are we grieving? The fact that we’ve spent so much time, energy and money on something that’s given us little in return. There’s the death of the dream of being thin. There’s the death of the illusion of control. There’s the loss of feeling like you can do something to “fix” the problem of your body.
We don’t believe you and your body were ever a problem to begin with.
It is possible to find healing. It is possible to have a different relationship with food and your body. But it absolutely, positively will not be found in the traditional weight paradigm.
Healing happens when we return to the body trust we were born with. When we begin to reclaim it. When we stop being angry with ourselves and point the anger where it belongs—at the diet industry, the weight loss surgeons, the physicians that have encouraged you to continue to try despite having no evidence based treatment to recommend. We can’t help but think of Beyoncé’s feminist anthem in the song Sorry on her new album Lemonade :
Middle fingers up
Put them hands high!
We believe this could be the anthem we use to break up with dieting culture so we can begin to stand in our worthiness and allow it to rise up from the depths of our being—the only place we will every truly find it.
Warmly,
Click The Birdie To Tweet
“Happy International No Diet Day! It’s not your fault #BodyTrust #MyHeartBeatsForMe
View more posts related to these topics
We live in a culture that fears grief, denies death, and pushes us to “move on” quickly rather than to be with our sorrow. When grief arrives, it feels like an unexpected guest and something we aren’t equipped to handle.
Diet culture is a sneaky shapeshifter, and we continue to be concerned about how medicine has outsourced itself to the diet industry.
Let’s talk about the new weight loss injectables Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro. We cannot ignore the timing of this medication’s popularity, while everyone continues to reckon with the impact of COVID on their lives, communities and overall health (including mental).