A weekly blog about how to quit dieting for good using an intuitive eating and health at every size approach.
You've heard it before from me: I'm a swimmer.
Swimming is awesome. I'm in the pool 6 days a week because I coach and teach swimming. It's been this way since I was 9 years old and my Aunt nicknamed me, "Chlorina." There's no way I could do this if I didn't LOVE the water. But I didn't get lucky enough to play water polo until college.
And, thank God. When I moved to New York City those 9 years ago, I had a pretty fucked up relationship with my body
A lot of people "don't diet" but are religious about exercise.
They often say things like, "I eat what I want but I just always exercise a lot."
Often times people in this situation tend to have a super intense relationship with exercise. They might like more "serious" versions of exercise like crossfit, or hot yoga or pure barre or soulcycle. The intensity of the exercise is important to this eater because the harder the workout, the more calories one burns.
The more calories burned, the more comfortable this person feels eating what they like.
I used to be this person.
This week I have one word for you: compensatory
I like to use the phrase "paying penance at the gym" a little too much. There's this video and these blog posts.
Exercise as penance was my form of disordered eating.
One of the largest issues with weight discrimination (pun intended) is that people start to believe that they should all look one way.
To quote one of my favorite songs from my angsty teenage years, "These plastic molded seats had to be cast from someone's perfect ass, leaving the rest of us to squirm uncomfortably."
In other words, just because what we see in the media looks one way does not mean that the rest of us need to fit into that mold. That's just the way one person looks. It's not really necessary for us all to look that way.
What if you decided to accept yourself?
I just recently went to go see Joy in the movie theatres. (SPOILER ALERT) The film was your standard Cinderella story. A young female entrepreneur overcomes the odds and becomes successful and rich and beautiful. It's the story of the American Dream. And, if you live in the United States of America, it's something we've all been taught to believe in.
I won't unpack that one. John Oliver has already very much unpacked that idea on his popular HBO show.
I think part of the appeal of the weight loss story is that many people see it as a viable American dream. It seems more realistic. It seems within reach. I mean, planet fitness is only like, what? $10/month?
You just go to the gym and eat vegetables and voila! Perfect body, right?
If that were true, the diet industry wouldn't be a billion dollar industry.
