A weekly blog about how to quit dieting for good using an intuitive eating and health at every size approach.
Weight is a red herring.
It's the season of New Year's Resolutions. It's the time when a lot of people fixate on weight loss.
I've mentioned in previous posts how people talk as if losing weight were some kind of magic tonic. It's starting to really piss me off because it's not the best barometer of health. Health is measured in a million different ways.
You may want to be healthy. You may want to live a long time. But if you're focusing on the weight, you've caught a red herring.
It's December.
You're probably worried about a lot of things like what gifts you're going to get your in-laws or how you're going to sneak out of work early on Christmas Eve (Sure, at first taking the job at Marley and Scrooge Inc sounded like a good idea but you didn't think they'd be this curmudgeonly #christmascaroljoke).
But...it's also a time when the diet industry is trying to convince you to maintain or lose weight during the holidays. So, today, I'm going to remind you of something that I've mentioned again and again.
Worrying about food is not worth THE STRESS.
When I decided to quit trying to pursue being vegan what I realized is that trying so hard to be perfect around food was creating a lot of stress for me.
I had a tough time menu-planning. I felt guilty for imposing when I was a guest. I was eyeing the melted cheese the whole time. I felt watched at the grocery store like somebody would see me buying something with a non-vegan ingredient like whey enzymes. I beat myself up trying to cook from scratch, berating myself for not buying groceries or for eating ice cream. I was trying sooooo hard to be perfect but I never could do it.
That's A LOT of STRESS!
And while I cared for fluffy animals, the primary reason I was trying to be vegan was health.
Here's the research: stress is bad for you.
According the to Mayo Clinic, "stress that's left unchecked can contribute to health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease... and diabetes." So while the jury is still out on whether or not eating coconut oil is good for you, worrying is definitely bad for you.
My advice for this holiday season: whether or not you decide to go for the cookies or the cheese plate, please skip the worry.
If you still don't believe me, stay tuned for next week. Enter your email below to receive an update when the post loads.
I like calling out the bad guy. When it comes to naming the bad guy, I'm a fan of pointing to...
BIG
BAD
CORPORATIONS
Big bad FOOD companies are making money charging for cheap food. Big bad DIET companies keep convincing people to buy more diets even though they don't work. The big bad BEAUTY industry makes money off making women feel bad about how their body is now.
This is important mostly because a lot of women I know feel defeated by these industries. We feel like high quality food is expensive and hard to find. We can't quit our "addiction" to cheese puffs because they're designed to make you crave them and eat more than your body needs. And, as long as the diet and beauty industry exist, we'll all feel too much shame to change our behavior.
I get up in arms (not literally... I do the occasional push up) about the injustices we have in our society because, well, there are a lot. And often, there's a lot of cash to be made off these injustices. But do companies just sell things because they're money-grubbing and they don't care how they can make a buck? OR do they do it because people want to buy these things? Is it the chicken or the egg?
Could it be the egg? Could consumers change what they're buying? What we choose to see and believe doesn't have to continue to be the same.
The thrust of uplifting food docs that I've seen often suggest that we can change the world by "voting with our fork." And when it comes to body positivity, I think we can vote with our clicks, our views, and our purchases.
Here's how:
1. Unfollow and stop looking at websites for companies and ideas that make you feel bad about yourself
I've done this. When I started following a bunch of yogis because I love yoga, I had a few too many skinny white girls doing crazy contorted poses in pants that I couldn't afford. Now, every time I see a skinny white lady telling me that having the body of my dreams is just one green juice cleanse away, I'm one click away from unfollowing her.
2. Monitor what you look at and what you agree to look at on the internet.
In the 2.0 world, it's kind of cool how much we can control this. I mean have you read that Target article? Have you ever noticed how the web sites you visit affect the ads you see on Google and Facebook? Ever pinned something on Zappos and suddenly you keep getting advertisements for sensible shoes? It's kind of creepy but what you choose to look at affects what comes to you (but please tell my boyfriend that the engagement ring ads are simply because of my demographic not because I've been looking at engagement rings).
With services like Hulu, you can actually tell them an ad is or isn't "related" to you. I love that I can give feedback to the app and click (hell) "no" when that question pops up. I will acknowledge that any advertisements that include puppies get a (hell) "yes."
3. Start following and clicking on information that makes you feel good about yourself.
Say what you will about millenials or Shark Tank or whatever but every business these days seems to have dreams beyond their products. I mean there's period panties you can buy that give away feminine hygiene products to girls in need of them.
When it comes to body positivity, there's A LOT of awesome people out there who are selling ideas, products and lifestyles that are not the status quo. Exposure to more diverse bodies makes us more comfortable with diverse bodies.
Not to be too cheesy, or should I say "cheese puffy," but be the change you want to see in the world. What you click, what you follow, what you buy helps us to change the market.
I need to start off this post with an apology. I'm sorry. I wrote a sentence a little flippantly that really needs A LOT of context, caveats, and 'splainin'.
"So really changing your body is not attainable," wrote myself last week.
A friend I respect pointed out how this sentence by itself could be off-putting. I'm sorry because I often say inflammatory things that are really designed to mean something else. I call it Kanye syndrome.
So, what's wrong with this sentence?
1. It's factually inaccurate.
Our bodies change constantly over time. If bodies didn't change we'd all be a bunch of squiggly babies walking around. Also, surgery exists.
2. It dismisses the impact that other healthy habits can have in changing your body beyond weight loss.
You can temporarily lose weight by restricting your calories no matter the content. In other words, you can just eat Snickers all day but as long as you eat fewer Snickers than calories required to keep your body at its current weight, you will lose weight, at least temporarily.
Food is just one component of our health. And calorie restriction is just one way to lose weight. Environmental, social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual factors all play into our health. Generally, eating lots of fruits and veggies, whole grains, limiting alcohol, not smoking, and getting regular exercise and sleep all help to increase longevity. These things do not even include mental, social, emotional, and spiritual health that might be impacting your body's ability to fight disease.
As Linda Bacon has referenced in her book (and Isabel Foxen Duke has quote her many times), curing heart disease by treating weight loss is like curing lung cancer by treating yellow teeth. Health issues are often correlated with having a higher weight but weight only "weakly predicts longevity." Again, skinny does not necessarily mean healthy. Skinny people can eat crappy foods, take bad care of themselves and get sick too.
Changing your diet might change your biochemistry and physiology but it may not change your weight.
3. I'm not accounting for the people who have changed their body weight.
I know people who have lost significant amounts of weight and have been able to keep it off. To you, kudos. If you dieted to get there, you're especially rare because about 3-5 people of 100 are able to pull that off.
This, as my homegirl Isabel (have I mentioned she's got a really amazing FREE video series out?) puts it in her latest podcast with Kaila Prins, is a bad bet. If somebody told you to make an investment of $10,000 and there's a 3% chance you'll get paid $200,000 but if you lose, you could actually end up in debt, would you take that wager? Call me Mr. Wonderful, but I don't like those odds.
So, now that I've clarified a few inaccuracies, here's what I meant to say:
1. Even if you are able to permanently lose weight, you might not lose so much weight that you finally look like a Greek statue or the cover of a magazine.
If you are truly doing it in a sustainable way, it probably consists of slow and steady changes that happen gradually over time. You might lose 10 pounds permanently but never the 30 you were hoping for to get back to your high school karate fighting weight.
2. You might be able to lose so much weight that you look like a Greek statue but it requires more than what diet companies advertise.
Changing your body permanently is not as easy as diet companies would like you to believe. It's not just eat just eat these weird kale cookies for 30 days and look like Halle Berry.
Look at, say, an Olympic athlete. Having swum for many years, I knew even at age 11 that I did not have what it took to get to the Olympic level of swimming. I straight up didn't have the dedication. Getting to the Olympic level would have required 5-6+hours of training per day ALL YEAR LONG. This would have meant relinquishing academics, piano lessons, snowboarding on the weekends, having friends and even just watching old episodes of Wings on USA.
For me, this was too much to give up. I had to know what was happening in that Nantucket airport. What would you have to give up in your life to get your body to this "level?"
It's just a lot of time and you have to do it FOREVER. FOR-EV-ER!
3. You might be able to lose so much weight that you look like a Greek statue but it makes you crazy and obsessive around food and exercise. Your whole life, including your career and relationships, might be consumed by it. If it gets really bad, you can develop an eating disorder that requires years of expensive treatment and causes long-term health problems.
One can look at other women in my field, like Maddy Moon, to see how what seems like a healthy pursuit of a goal can spiral into obsession. Eating disorders are really hard on people's lives. I saw that and heard about it during the time that I worked for an eating disorder treatment center. Bad eating disorders can cause bone issues like osteoporosis. Purging behaviors can cause digestive distress and tooth decay. And, having worked in the billing department, I know it is EXPENSIVE.
One final disclaimer: I'm not trying to dismiss anyone who was ever interested in weight loss as frivolous or foolish.
I'm saying this because there's a lot of misinformation out there that has real consequences for people in their lives. I care about giving people accurate information so we can make informed decisions about how we want to spend our lives.
Thanks for reading this super long post. I hope it was useful.
Math is easier than human emotions sometimes.
At a point not too long ago, shortly after my conversion to intuitive eating, I was at a crossroads. A few things were shifting in my life and I was feeling a little uncertain about the future.
Meanwhile, my wonderful partner had just finished a program that would put him and his classmates on the path to lucrative and promising careers. I went to celebrate with them.
And I was happy for them. The celebration started early on in the day and basically consisted of constant access to delicious food and beverage all day and well into the night. I allowed myself to eat, drink and be merry. Intuitively.
Or so I thought. As the day went on, I felt a few old fears creeping up. I felt really full. Then, this old mean voice came up in my head again. Amy Poehler might call it, "the demon."
"Ugh" It said, "You're so fat."
"Eating all day? You're out of control." It said.
Ever the people-pleaser, I said to that demon, "I'm not 'out of control!' I have a calorie tracking app so I'll just put in what I ate today and I'm sure it'll be fine."
When we got home, I needed to prove myself to that asshole demon, so I started filing away all the data. Half-way through, I stopped. For one thing, the numbers weren't what I wanted to see. They didn't make me feel better. They didn't prove anything to the demon.
I felt the sadness and anxiety well up in my throat.
This was the big "a-ha! moment" for me. I realized that I didn't care about "getting fat" really. I didn't feel like I had "it" together. Probably because I spent the day hanging out with a bunch of people who were celebrating feeling like they had "it" together.
Perhaps you can relate. Life can feel out of control at times. It's why I used to find great solace in tracking and controlling food.
Adding up the calories of the beers and burritos I consumed was easier than trying to figure out my career trajectory.
The fancy clinical word for this is "coping mechanism." It's something I heard a hundred times while working at the eating disorder treatment center. Many times eating disorder "behaviors," like restricting, binging, purging, or obsessing about food served a purpose for those using them. They provided a way of managing a tough time.
If you find yourself emotionally eating or thinking about food or feeling fat or feeling like you WANT to control food, here are some things you can do:
1. Identify the "behavior" as a coping mechanism.
There's a big difference between eating ice cream mindlessly for hours and eating ice cream because you knew you had a hard day at work.
If you notice that you're eating weirdly or getting extra anxious around food, it might be a symptom of something else going on in your life. Awareness is so underrated but it's so helpful. Just knowing that what you're doing serves you in some way can help you realize what's going on.
2. There might be a more direct way of managing your distress.
If you do notice that your "behaviors" crop up more when other things are going on, it's an opportunity to address your issue head on. Instead of compartmentalizing by doing something else, notice what triggers "behaviors" and address the triggers. Treat the cause, not the symptom. This might mean seeking out a therapist or another professional who is trained to help you work it out.
In my case, I had to accept my own situation and learn how to be happy with that. I journaled a lot and tried to find ways to get a little more clarity about my next steps.
3. Trust Yourself and Your Body
Remember that you can't really control your body weight. Increasing research suggests that your body weight is set to to stay within a certain range that is healthy for your body in particular. The fancy science people call this, "set point theory." While you may temporarily be able to restrict food, ultimately, your body wants you to be healthy and survive. It will take measures to keep you where you are supposed to be.
Sometimes relaxing into this can help us be present to and mindful of the issues in our lives and the "coping mechanisms" we're using to manage the difficulties in our lives.
And honestly, it's easier than doing math.
