A weekly blog about how to quit dieting for good using an intuitive eating and health at every size approach.
Not going to lie to you guys, I've spent most of this week daydreaming about all the glorious foods I fully plan on indulging in this Thanksgiving.
Decorative pumpkins everywhere remind me of the autumnal delights that are awaiting me on the Thanksgiving table.
I've also spent this week working on a rockin' blog post for your Black Friday hangover next week that needs some attentive finishing touches.
To tide you over, here's an awesome video from Bustle:
Okay, now get to that pie.
Do you think that never eating your favorite food again is going to "change your life?"
I did.
I'll never forget study abroad in Argentina. It was a glorious time where I enjoyed dancing, late-night dinners, and eating lots of steak and dulce de leche, the Nutella of South America. I also spent a good amount of time worrying about my weight and "engordar," or getting fat as they say in español. So I restricted food at lunch, ate "too many" snacks and then I ate dinner, too. All of my sins I confessed guiltily in my food diary each night. I did, however, live in blissful ignorance of any weight gain because there were no scales in my life at the time.
And then, I returned to 'Murrica (USA) and I went to the gym and stepped on a scale (scales are stupid). Unfortunately, my first thought was, "Oh no. I have engordandoed!"
And so, I sought to "change my life" or find a "sustainable solution." I wanted to "start healthy habits."
This meant that I vowed to never really eat pizza or french fries. I would try to eat "lite dinners" that left me feeling hungry for lots of dessert afterward. And, I would plan lengthy runs that I was never in the mood for. Of course, it didn't work the way I thought it would. I ate pizza and skipped my workouts sometimes and ate "too much." And my primary motivation was weight loss. It was not about whether or not I was healthy. I wanted to maintain a lower weight.
Lifestyle change or "being healthy" is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's code for diet.
I was recently listening to Katie Daleabout on Summer Innanen's podcast, Fearless Rebelle Radio. She was discussing her eating disorder and the process of recovery. She brings up how her eating disorder was couched in "being healthy" so much that she even convinced herself. She states:
"The interesting thing is that you know in like the 90s and the 80s, dieting was just as prevalent as it is now but now we call it "being healthy." Back then, dieting wasn't like really necessarily cool. It was just, they called a spade a spade, right? They called it dieting. It was clear that that was for vanity.Whereas now, we a lot of times are dieting but people call it, "oh I'm just trying to be healthy"... It's not necessarily healthy, first of all. And, if you're doing it for weight loss, if you're doing it to manipulate the size and shape of your body, not just to feel really good, then it's dieting. Whether you're doing that through green juice or you're doing that through low-calorie low-fat whatever whatever 90s type of dieting, doesn't really matter, it's still dieting."
Back in the 90s and 80s, working girls were wearing sneakers and shoulders pads and switching to high heels and diets when they got to work.
But in those times, people called diets, "diets" and it was clear that they were doing it to look like Melanie Griffith or Molly Ringwald. It was absolutely about weight loss. It was a time where the fitness industry was really starting to take off. People were trying to get "physical, physical."
Diet culture often frames diets as "lifestyle changes" when in reality they are diets.
Now diets are far more insidious because we can't even clearly see that a diet is for weight loss or body shaping. It may not necessarily be healthy for you, especially if it's causing you to drop down to a weight that is not within your normal healthy body range. If you're changing what you're eating in order to change your body shape or size, it is a diet. Juice cleanses, no pizza ever, the cookie diet, no-carb, low-carb, no oil, Whole30, paleo, vegan shananahammocks, these are all example of diets if you're doing them to CHANGE YOUR BODY SHAPE OR SIZE.
My impression is that most people think that if we want "lasting weight loss," we need to make a "lifestyle change." AKA if you just eat enough fruits and vegetables, regularly attend your hot yoga class, and never eat [insert your favorite food here] again, you'll finally be able to lose the 30 pounds and keep it off for the rest of your life.
Many believe we're just not "changing our lifestyle" enough to lose the weight.
#Sorrynotsorry to be the angry feminist in the room once again but fat people aren't fat because they haven't "changed their lifestyle" or don't care about health. Most people know they need to exercise and need to eat fruits and vegetables. And most people are trying to do that. Some are even successfully doing that. And guess what?! They might not lose the weight.
I'm glad that people are stoked about making sustainable changes, especially if they're monitoring their health in ways that don't involve standing on a scale and frowning at their body in the mirror.
After all, I really believe that we need to make moves that we can actually stick to in order to make our lives truly better. My hope is that we can change what we're eating not for vanity if health is our main concern. Because vanity doesn't necessarily make you healthier.
Women can be really mean, especially to each other.
One thing I talk about with women all the time is how we are hardest on each other. For example, I don’t really ever wear makeup for my boyfriend. He actually hates it but I’ll wear it when I’m spending the night with the girls (partially because I vainly don’t want to look like the tired one in pictures. Just being real, guys).
When I talk to men, we usually have some weird external topic we talk about: movies, politics, or local sports teams. And with many of my female friendships since my middle school days, I often find myself in conversations with other women about other women. It could be the ritual of female conversation. I know it’s the way I learned to connect with other women. I admit I get kind of a weird adrenaline hit when one woman reveals to me what she really thinks about another woman. Especially if it’s someone I’ve been struggling with, too.
Putting aside how it’s nice to be validated and the intimacy of sharing secrets with a new friend, I want to just deal with what we get out of statements like these:
“Yeah, but did you see her outfit? She seems like she’s begging for attention.”
“Oh my glob. She’s wearing globs of makeup. She’s clearly insecure.”
Oooof. Please don’t hate me, dear readers. I haven’t uttered these exact sentences but I’ve said some pretty mean stuff in my day. Obviously, not all women are like this, but this is a real thing. I’ll cite Tina Fey’s Mean Girls for this one. I’m not exactly 100% sure WHY we do it. Stuff Mom Never Told You has a few ideas though.
What I do know, however, is that it almost never makes me feel better.
Ann Friedman, podcaster with and long distance bestie of Aminatou Sow, wrote an article for NY Magazine discussing a concept called “shine theory.” The basic gist of this concept is that women should be celebrating each other. “I don’t shine if you don’t shine” is the refrain. In other words, if one of our friends is doing well, it helps us do better.
When it comes to looking at body image and trying to change how you think about your own body, I find “shine theory” helpful.
For much of my life, maybe because I was a competitive swimmer, I have been sizing other women up (again, I’m SOOOO sorry). I used to think that if I could be better than the other woman in the room, I would feel better about myself. Maybe not even on a conscious level. I’d think, "Well, she’s wearing a bikini and she’s not even as thin as I am," and suddenly, I’d be feeling okay about my bikini-wearing status.
In reality though, later on, I would go home and think, “what if the other girls were looking at my body the way I had seen another woman.” My metaphorical stomach would sink and I’d feel like I needed to judge myself with that same critical eye that gazed upon other women so harshly. This is what Ann Friedman points out in her article:
“Contrary to deep-seated theories of female competition, I don’t think that competition made either of us any better or happier.”
And that's just the thing. I don’t think that it actually makes us feel better to see others as below us. I don’t think we actually improve our self-esteem by cutting down and shaming other women. I think when we’re mean and critical of other women, eventually we turn our gaze inward and say horrible, mean things to ourselves.
In positive psychology, there’s evidence to suggest that focusing on what we’re grateful for makes us happier. And, when it comes to body image, I love to look in the mirror and focus on what’s beautiful instead of my flaws. It really helps me feel better-looking (too bad I can't see how brilliant I am in the mirror).
My advice is to look at other women in the same way. Look for what you might like about them.
See the other women in bikinis who have those super stylish sunglasses that you want or their hilarious conversation about Broad City. In fact, according to this super scientific Huff post article, identifying traits in someone you admire as being similar to you actually boosts self-esteem.
Besides, as Ann Friedman also writes:
“Also, it’s just plain tough out there — for all the aforementioned reasons about the economy and the dating scene and body-image pressures. I want the strongest, happiest, smartest women in my corner, pushing me to negotiate for more money, telling me to drop men who make me feel bad about myself, and responding to my outfit selfies from a place of love and stylishness, not competition and body-snarking.”
It’s hard enough out there to fight the patriarchy. We might as well lift each other instead of making it harder.
I used to have this vision of myself at some point in my 20s where I would finally get that "cover girl body." I'd finally get food and fitness in perfect equilibrium and I would be tiny and ripped like a Barbie GI Joe doll.
Whenever it seemed like my schedule would allow it, I'd start planning for my dream body makeover lifestyle. Planning my dream body dinners and my super intense 5-6 days per week workout plan all seemed like fun parts of my "goal-setting" fantasy.
If I was a REALLLY good bear, I would stick to my grueling "dream body" workout "lifestyle change" for about 2 weeks. Then one day, I would eat a hamburger, have a social life, and skip a workout.
Just like that, dream body Noel evaporated into thin air.
As you might guess, I was generally pretty good at "slipping up." In reality, my dream body was impossible to achieve.
At face value, that sounds pretty awesome: achieving the unachievable. After all, one of my favorite childhood movies, Thumbelina, taught me that "you're sure to do impossible things if you follow your heart."
Cheesy as it may be, I want to "trust the swallow" on this one. There's a lot of impossible things that I want: a fulfilling career, a family, a life I love, a beach house that doesn't get destroyed by hurricanes.
How much of my heart really cares about dream girl body makeover lifestyle change? Is that really following my heart?
Instead of continuing to attempt the impossible, what if you changed your dream body by changing your dream?
What if instead of your dream body looking a certain way, it does certain things, thinks certain things, takes care of certain things, or changes the world? #changeyourdreambody
To be clear I'm not talking about giving up on your dreams. I'm talking about questioning why you have this cover girl dream body ideal in the first place. For a lot of women, this goal is part and parcel of what "success" means.
This is where the feminism comes in and honestly I think Beyoncé and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie say it best:
We teach girls to shrink themselves
To make themselves smaller
We say to girls,
'You can have ambition
But not too much
You should aim to be successful
But not too successful
Otherwise you will threaten the man.'
Sometimes being smaller or being beautiful becomes a goal that excludes the possibility of being something else besides a wife. Being successful in business, sports, science, art, music or being a good person are not usually the images we see promoted to women.
Because I am female
I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that
Marriage is the most important
Now marriage can be a source of
Joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage
And we don't teach boys the same?
Most women's magazines are not about how to expand the reach of your non-profit business that helps feed blind orphans.
It's usually about looking hot, pleasing a man, or how long is too long to wait until he pops the question. Not only is this a little heteronormative (what about women who don't want to get married to men), but it also shifts our focus away from who we are as whole people. Marriage and long-term relationships are pretty nice but they are not the only thing to aspire to. It's certainly not what we teach men to achieve.
We raise girls to see each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments
Which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men
Women tend to focus on being better looking than other women instead of working harder than each other. Not as many women's magazines talk about how to lean in harder. They're about attracting male attention. The cover girl dream body can sometimes steal women's focus away from being effective and accomplished people. Women tend to want to tear each other down instead of build each other up. Where is the #shinetheory, ladies?
Does hating on each other's bodies help us achieve anything really?
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
In the way that boys are
Feminist: the person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes
Girls are taught early on to keep their virginity like it's some sort of jewel while boys are encouraged to experiment and play the field. Sometimes the goal of the cover girl dream body is really just about wanting to get laid but one must be "desirable" in order to fulfill that. Being a feminist just means wanting to have the same political rights, the same economic opportunities and the same level of social respect that men have. I'm sure some men aspire to the cover boy dream body but my gut is telling me it's probably not as many men as women.
Let's listen to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Beyoncé. Let's be more than "just his little wife." I want you look at the reason you want to be smaller. What DRIVES this goal?
Is it for health?
Then focus on eating vegetables and moving your body regularly. Quit smoking.
Is it for sex?
Download a dating app or sign up for a online dating company. The stigma is gone now. Everyone is getting laid, guys. At least that's what it looks like from my perspective as someone who has been in a relationship for a long time.
Is it for a relationship? or marriage?
Do you really want your life partner to judge you based off your looks? Because age is going to happen and looks will likely fade for both of you. It'd be nice if your future partner was really turned on by your intellect, your sense of humor, your ball handling skillz, or your passion for making the world a better place.
Is it for your career?
Might not be so good for your career if every time you are supposed to be typing up a report, you're really daydreaming about carbs. Is there a way to focus more on your performance or your education?
These are just some ideas. Imagine the brain space you would have if your focus shifted away from becoming the love child of Barbie and GI Joe and moved toward what REALLY makes you happy in your life, whatever that may be.
Magazines shouldn't be telling you what your dreams should be.
Go get it, girl. You FLAWLESS!
When I was in high school, I remember the day I looked around the room and started comparing my body to the other girls' bodies.
Instead of seeing myself as a unique person, I felt like I needed to be thin like these beautiful cheerleaders, runners, lacrosse players, etc. I just wasn't "working hard enough". When I got to college in New York City, the women were even thinner and even more beautiful. And again, I thought to myself, "What am I doing wrong that I don't have the body that these women have?"
This is when I really started to get disordered around food because a normal person would see women this thin and think, "not for me." But, I saw these women the way a poor person sees a stock broker livin' large. I just kind of figured "I'm sure it's hard work, but if that woman could do it, I can too."
When you see thin people as something you can attain, every thin person looks like evidence that thinness is attainable. Thin people are not proof that being thin is a goal you can attain. All thin people really prove is that thin people exist.
And that's just it. Research shows that 95% of diets don't work. So, really, changing your body is not attainable. In fact, according to Isabel Foxen Duke and the famous Ancel Keys study, dieting actually physiologically sets you up for a binge. In fact, studies have correlated weight GAIN with dieting.
In other words, changing your body weight beyond a certain range is physically impossible over the long term.
So, instead of seeing all the thin people as moral, attractive, hard workers who just had the diligence and persistence to achieve what they had, think of them instead as people with natural blonde hair and brown eyes. They just have what they have. They may not have "worked for it."
You, my friend, are not your weight and neither are the thin people who you think you want to be.
