HOW TO DITCH THE DIET MENTALITY
The first principle in the Intuitive Eating book is to ditch the diet mentality. You may be reading this and thinking this does not apply to you as you are not on a diet. However, I encourage you to keep reading as diet culture is sneaky, subtle and influences all of us. For example, how often do you hear a neighbour talking about the keto diet or your best friend who is cutting out carbs, or your hairdresser who is doing intermittent fasting. No matter where you look diet culture is all around you.
The problem with diets and diet culture is that they ask people to rely on external factors such as eating only after 10 AM or eating only protein and vegetables. Instead of connecting to your body’s inner wisdom and listening to hunger and fullness cues, diet culture would have you listen to the rules set by someone else. When did we stop listening to our bodies and relying on the advice of the media and co-workers? I am not saying it is not ok to listen to others. I just want you to be aware of where you get your information as well as why you are choosing to follow the information. Is it to make you feel better? Or is it for someone else’s approval? Or possibly for a society who has made you believe a smaller body is a better body.
What is a diet?
Dieting is defined as “restricting oneself to small amounts or special kinds of foods in order to lose weight”.
As we all know, restrictive diets rarely work. They may work in the short term, however they are generally not sustainable. Up to 95% of people that go on a diet fail. In her book Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison states that, “68 percent of Americans have dieted at some point in their lives. But upwards of 90% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it back within five years. And as many as 66% of people who embark on weight-loss efforts end up gaining more weight than they lost.”
If dieting is so ineffective, why do so many people rely on it? This is because of diet culture.
What is diet culture?
According to Christy Harrison diet culture is a system of beliefs that:
“Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, which means you can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like the impossibly thin ideal.”
Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, which means you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of time, energy, and money trying to shrink your body, even though the research is very clear that almost no one can sustain intentional weight loss for more than a few years.
Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others, which means you’re forced to be hyper-vigilant about your eating, ashamed of making certain food choices, and distracted from your pleasure, your purpose, and your power.
Oppresses people who don't match up with its supposed picture of “health,” which disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of color, and people with disabilities, damaging both their mental and physical health.”
It's sexist, racist, and classist, yet this way of thinking about food and bodies is so embedded in the fabric of our society that it can be hard to recognize. It masquerades as health, wellness, and fitness, and for some, it is all-consuming.”
Ditching diet mentality
Ditching the diet mentality can be scary. You may feel you’ll lack control and never be able to stop eating. However, with proper guidance, re-training and positive self-talk, you will find an eating style that works for you where you can have a positive relationship with food and your body.
With the knowledge that you don’t need to be thin in order to be healthy, you can begin to ditch the diet mentality.
6 Tools to Ditch the Diet Mentality
Education. Read books like Intuitive Eating, Health at Every Size and Body Respect. Follow non-diet dietitians/nutritionists on social media. Listen to podcasts like Food Psych and Nutrition Matters.
Identify diet culture mentality and start to challenge it. In order to continue on your intuitive eating journey, you need to actively reject diet culture. No more detoxes or juice cleanses. Try to get into the habit of noticing when diet mentality thoughts arise and challenge them. Mindfulness can help you here by acknowledging a negative thought and working to change it. Scrub your social media feeds. Unfollow anyone who makes you feel like you need to change your body to be more appealing or more successful.
Have a safe zone you can escape to you and avoid triggers. Diet talk that is triggering can be harmful when you are trying to change your beliefs around diet culture. It's helpful to have a safe zone that you can retreat to. This might be supportive friends, social media that's free of weight loss talk, or reading a book that has nothing to do with food or body image.
Donate clothes that don’t fit. Keeping clothes around that no longer fit into can be a trigger for negative body thoughts. Donate those clothes. Keeping those skinny jeans around as “motivation” is not helpful.
Buy clothes that do fit. It is time to buy clothes that not only fit, but that you feel good and confident in.
Be kinder to yourself. I will say this a million times but as you work to change your beliefs, make sure you do it with self-compassion. I will never tell you this is easy. You are challenging beliefs you have had from a young age. It is ok if some days are harder than others. Remember this is your journey. It is not a race. Please be kind to you as you navigate your journey. Prioritize food and movement that makes you feel good instead of food and movement that you hope will make you look a certain way.
If you read that and realized you need help to move past diet culture, please know that I am here for you. I have been in your shoes and I can help! Book a discovery call and we can chat.
