The word “diet” can have two different meanings.
First, a “diet” can mean, simply, the food you eat on a day
to day basis – nothing more.
In our society, however, “diet” is a word commonly used to
infer a weight loss method. A “diet”, in
the typical cultural sense, is usually intended to be only a temporary change
until a certain goal is achieved. When I
talk about “diets” in this blog, I am talking about them in this “weight-loss” sense
of the word.
When I talk about “diets” I am not talking about a person who has food allergies or food
sensitivities and needs to refrain from eating dairy, gluten, soy, or
whatever. I am not talking about a
person who is diabetic or a person with a thyroid dysfunction.
When I talk about “diets” I
am talking about the epidemic of weight-loss techniques running
rampant in our country.
In order to minimize confusion or because of the growing
negative connotation, some people have adopted the phrase “lifestyle change” to
indicate that they are not on a diet. If, however, your “lifestyle change” is a
weight loss agenda in disguise, it is still a diet.
Below are 10 reasons why I believe “dieting”, in the weight
loss sense of the word, is harmful to your health.
(First is a quick snapshot of what I am going to talk about. Second, Margarita of Weightless posted this awesome article about "Diet Ditching". I decided to expand on her ideas in this post today. Please refer to her article for the original.)
-It is a common cause of overeating.
-It has a failure rate of 95 to 98 percent.
-It encourages distrust in yourself and your body’s natural signals.
-It encourages food obsession.
-It causes you to lose touch with yourself which leads to emotional and mental suffering.
-It limits the definition of what is healthy.
-It takes control over your decisions.
-It creates a negative relationship with food.
-It stops you from being fully present.
1) Dieting manipulates your appetite. Dieting is about tricking your senses. How
many times have you seen the phrase on the cover of a magazine that says
something about weight loss “tips” or “tricks”?
Why would we call them tricks, if they were not intended to deceive? Your body is not this evil thing waiting to
overtake your life and your happiness.
Your body, mind, soul, and spirit make up who you are as a whole person. Trusting your body, not tricking it, will lead to health.
2) Dieting promotes overeating.
Especially in very restrictive diets or starvation diets, constant
abstaining from food can trigger a binge eating episode. You don’t binge eat because you have weak
will-power. Binge eating is the body’s
natural reaction when it is being starved of vital nutrition. If your body does not get enough nourishment,
it will eventually override your brain’s decision to diet. Your natural survival instincts kick in and a
binging episode can occur. After the
episode, when the body and the brain finally get food, you are left with
feelings of disgust, shame, and discouragement.
But it is not your fault. Dieting
is like trying to control your body as a machine. Your body is not a machine; it is a
gift. And if you listen to your body's
needs you can work with your body, not against it.
3) Diets fail. Period.
Even those rare people, who have successfully dieted, most likely, miraculously,
learned that it is good to take care of your body because your body is
good. This realization results in loving
one’s body and treating it better.
Weight loss was a side-effect.
4) Diets exist because of the belief that the body is inherently bad. Margarita from Weightless writes:
People often think that they have two options:
diet or eat anything in sight. Attuned
eating (i.e., not dieting) isn’t about eating whatever you want when you want.
It’s not about eating potato chips or fast food all day, every day. …According to Judith Matz, an author and therapist who specializes in
eating issues, “What we’re saying is to eat what you’re hungry for when
you’re hungry…[You] use your internal cues so you’re making decisions based on
what’s best for you physically, emotionally and spiritually.” … “You’re
deciding and coming from a place of nurturing and taking care of yourself,” Matz
said. You’re thinking about what really nourishes you, and there are many
different levels of nourishment…”
5) A consequence of dieting is food obsession. When I was living the diet-life, there was no
room in my brain for anything else but what I ate and what I didn’t eat. There is so much information out there about
what is good for you and what is not.
Ads, commercials, magazines, friends, and family are constantly bringing
up dieting and food choices. I read this
passage that could have come straight from my own mind:
What “should” I eat? Can I eat that pasta or piece
of cake? Nope, it’s too many calories or too many points. How many calories
does that have? If it’s not non-fat, I can’t have it. When’s the next time I
can actually eat again? I’m hungry, but that portion is all I can eat. I’ve had
all my calories for the day already. OK, this is seriously my last bite. I want
to eat that, but I can’t. I can’t have any chocolate. I can’t stop thinking
about it, though.
...Enough to drive a person nuts. Yet, we persist in saying that diets can be good for people.
6) If you are on a diet, you will begin to identify yourself entirely with your will-power and your diet results. You will begin to lose touch with what it means to sit down with family and friends to enjoy a meal together. You will forget what your favorite foods are. And you will forget how to listen to your body’s natural hunger signals. Your personhood will slowly be reduced to the number on the scale. And your self-worth will slowly become attached to the success or failure of your diet.
7) Diets are replacing health.
As a society, we have lost the true meaning of health and instead put
“diet” in its place. I am shocked at how
often we associate weight-loss with health.
I have several posts about this already.
Click here to read yesterday's post concerning this topic.
8) Persistent dieting will, eventually, take control of all your decisions. If dieting
becomes a part of your life, you might skip parties so you don’t have to face
“bad” food. You might start avoiding
restaurants and gatherings. You might
choose not to hang out with your friends because you are afraid to fail at your
diet. Food is a big part of life. If you control your food intake with
unrealistic standards, you will start controlling your life in the same way.
9) Diets promote a negative relationship with food. Because all weight-loss diets have foods that
you cannot eat, those forbidden foods become “bad”. Food is not inherently bad or evil in itself. Contrary to what the commercials say,
chocolate is not sinfully delicious.
Also the “I will start my diet tomorrow, therefore, I must binge eat all
the junk food in the house today” cycle is a dangerous way to view food and
eating. I know so many people have this
approach to dieting because this picture and this picture too from Pintrest would not be funny.
10) My final point is that dieting stops you from being fully
present. I have a sad story about how
diets can cause you to miss out on life’s important moments. Last summer, I was still desperately trying
to control my food intake. I couldn’t
yet give up dieting or counting calories.
My brother and his girlfriend were visiting (I hadn’t seen them in a
long time) and my husband and I met up with them for lunch. It so happened to be the annual Russia State
Fair (for all the non-locals, that is the church picnic).
So we walked “up-town” and helped donate
to the church by buying from the lunch stand.
All morning, I was giving myself a pep-talk about how I can get through
it. I didn’t eat much breakfast because
I was scared of a high calorie count.
The whole time we were in line, I was figuring out what food to get that
would cause the “least amount of damage”.
The whole time we were eating I was counting and re-counting how many
calories I thought I was eating. The
whole rest of the day, I was going over in my head how to make up for all those
calories I already ate.
The unfortunate
thing is, I don’t remember a single conversation with my brother from that
visit. My mind was not present that
whole day because of my “diet”. It makes
me so sad to think about that opportunity that I missed out on. Thankfully, I realized what a tragedy that
was. And by the grace of God, I am
trying to not let that happen again.
Giving up dieting has been, hands-down, the BEST decision of
my life. Giving up diets has lead to
other really great decisions, as well.
Because I let go of the control, my marriage has improved. My faith has grown because I allow God the space in my life that my diet was taking
up. And
getting rid of unrealistic dieting expectations has dramatically reduced my
depression and anxiety.
I encourage everyone to stop dieting and start living a nourishing life. You deserve it!
I will leave you with some pro-active ways to “ditch the
dieting” from Weightless. (Thank you, Margarita, for your ever insightful posts):
- Listen and attend to your body’s hunger and satiety cues. In other words, try to eat when you’re hungry, and stop when you’re feeling full.
- List all the ways that ditching dieting has improved your life (or, if you haven’t given up dieting, how it might).
- Explore why you’ve dieted.
- Check out some great resources.
- Learn why diets don’t work.
- Celebrate your body, and what it’s done for you.
- Think about what you’re hungry for in your life (other than just foods).
- Take the time to cook yourself a delicious, nourishing meal.
- Slow down and savor your meal. Smell the aroma. Taste the flavors. Focus on the textures.
- Avoid multi-tasking while you’re eating. When you’re eating, just eat.
- Avoid fat talk.
- Recycle all your diet magazines and books.
- Participate in a physical activity that energizes or soothes you.
- Spring-clean your self-care routine.
Drum roll please….
Announcing today’s Painting of the Day:
{Girl with the Pearl Earing by Johannes Vermeer, Painted copy by Mary Borchers}
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