If there’s one thing that most people feel really passionate about, it’s food. Whether you see food as a source of joy and comfort or as a source of frustration and deprivation, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of us have pretty complicated relationships with the stuff we eat.
When you pair food (which some people consider a four-letter word) with diet (which I definitely consider a four-letter word!), the relationship becomes ever so much more complex. When we participate in diet culture, we often stop enjoying food for the wonderful things it can bring to our lives – satiety, energy, comfort – and start thinking of it as something we either have to have or can never have. How many times have you vowed to never eat pizza or chocolate or ice cream again? How many frozen Lean Cuisines and dry salads have you forced yourself to swallow?
One of the best things I ever did for myself was to stop dieting. For years I ate based not on my intuition or needs, but by what a book or website or diet guru said I should eat. I thought of food in terms of morality. If I ate something “good,” then I was good. If I stumbled and ate something “bad,” I was bad. Finally, I realized that this was no way to live. I felt I had two choices: I could keep lowering my calorie intake in hopes that my body would get smaller (and, magically, stay that way), monitoring every single thing that crossed my lips and judging myself and my worth based on that information… or I could eat what I want to eat, when I’m hungry, to the point where I am not hungry anymore.
Intuitive eating can be a scary thing, especially if you have spent most of your life on a diet. How can you possibly trust yourself to know what’s “right” to eat? How can you stop if you don’t have a set of rules that tells you when to put the fork down? The truth is, it takes practice. You have to learn to trust yourself, to listen to your body’s hunger cues. And, honestly? You might need help. If you tend to overeat and binge, then it’s probably a good idea to talk to someone about why you can’t stop. If you can’t let go of diet mentality and assigning morality to food (and yourself), you might need to talk to someone, too. Just don’t talk to someone selling a diet book or plan!
I have never done a crazy diet. I haven’t lived on cabbage soup or eaten nothing but maple syrup and lemon juice for a week. But I have starved myself all day and then gorged at night (that’s an actual diet!). I have counted more Weight Watchers points that you can imagine. And nothing has tasted better than letting all of that go, and recapturing the joy of enjoying food. Not even having a smaller body.
We celebrate with food a lot. From birthdays to graduations to weddings to holidays, food is often the focal point of our family and social lives. And I think that’s lovely. If you can learn to eat intuitively, and if you can learn to let go of the guilt that so many of us feel when we eat, then food-based celebrations can stop being upsetting and triggering, and can (hopefully) go back to being joyful and fun like they (hopefully) were before we ever heard the word “diet.”
Of course, the world can be a very mean place. And especially if you are fat, the idea of not monitoring your food intake, of not punishing yourself for your “bad” choices, there are going to be a whole lot of people who will rise up to remind you you’re doing it wrong. They’re concerned about your health! They aren’t sure you know that the reason you’re fat is because you aren’t doing some no-carb, low-carb, no-fat, low-fat, Paleo, South Beach, Dr. Oz diet! They are here to save you from your gluttonous self! Hopefully, you can drown out this unkind, unwarranted criticism with the sound of your chewing something satisfying and delicious.
Okay, then, poll time! Answer this quick question, and then hop over to the comments and tell me: What’s the craziest diet you’ve ever tried?
