It’s not your fault!
International No Diet Day is on May 6th—a day to name the harm done by a multibillion-dollar industry that has zero long-term data to back it up. Diet culture depends on you blaming yourself, over and over, so you keep coming back for more.
But here’s the truth:
Your body fights weight loss. It slows your metabolism to try and protect you. It’s not your fault that diets haven’t worked. It’s not your fault that you haven’t been able to lose weight and keep it off.
Many of us have regained more weight after each diet. Some of us have thought, “I’d love to weigh what I weighed when I started dieting.”
So what now?
If diets don’t work—and actually cause harm—what do we do instead?
Unfortunately, much of the medical community still tells us to keep trying, to find a new trick, to chase a new drug, to solve a so-called “ob*sity epidemic” despite evidence that is incomplete, contradictory, and largely unhelpful. When the most reliable outcome of weight loss is eventual weight gain, it’s time to stop blaming ourselves and start embracing body diversity.
It’s time to shift the focus from weight to well-being.
When you lose your tolerance for dieting (and most of us do), and when you finally realize that your efforts are giving you little in return, it’s time to turn toward yourself.
It’s time to:
Fear might be the loudest voice you hear.
And grief? It shows up, too.
We grieve the time, energy, and money we spent.
We grieve the dream of being thin.
We grieve the illusion of control.
We grieve the belief that our bodies were a problem to be fixed.
But we don’t believe you—and your body—were ever the problem.
Healing is possible. A different relationship with food and your body is possible. But it won’t be found in the weight paradigm. It starts with reclaiming the body trust you were born with. It starts when we stop being angry with ourselves and redirect that anger at the diet industry, the weight loss surgeons, the doctors who keep prescribing what doesn’t work.
“Middle fingers up, put them hands high!” ~Beyoncé
What if this became the anthem that breaks our ties to diet culture?
What if this were how we rise, firm in our worthiness, grounded in truth?
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We have been thinking of you, our beloved Body Trust community, these last few weeks. We are feeling angry, anxious, and devastated with you. The collective anxiety is high.
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.