Are You a Pseudo-Dieter?

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After years of jumping from one diet to the next and being a slave to the scale, Val hit rock-bottom.

Fed up with the weight-loss roller coaster and obsessing over every morsel she ate, she swore off dieting.

Yet, months after joining the anti-diet movement, she still shuns carbs, avoids snacking and seconds, never eats after 6:30 p.m., and runs an extra mile whenever she has dessert.

Val is a pseudo-dieter.

She genuinely believes she’s given up dieting, yet she continues to engage in dieting behaviors.

As a result, she still experiences many of the side effects of dieting, including thinking about food all the time, struggling with intense food cravings, feeling out of control with her “trigger foods” (ice cream and chips), and feeling guilt, shame and anger when she thinks she’s eaten badly.

Deeply Ingrained
As with Val, the diet mentality can be so deeply ingrained—or hidden under the guise of “health," "wellness” or "lifestyle change"—that you may not realize you're actually pseudo-dieting and that your restrictive eating behaviors are making you vulnerable to the physical and psychological damage dieting causes.

Falling into the pseudo-dieting trap is completely understandable given how ubiquitous and seductive our diet and wellness cultures are.

Here are some more examples of pseudo-dieting:

  • Eating only “clean” or “whole” foods.

  • Limiting carb or fat grams regardless of what you want or what your body needs.

  • Determining what you deserve to eat based on what you ate earlier in the day or if you exercised, rather than your hunger level.

  • Compensating for eating “bad” foods by doing extra exercise, skipping your next meal, eating less tomorrow, or going on a cleanse.

  • Allowing yourself to only eat at certain times of the day despite your hunger level.

  • Becoming vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc. for the sole purpose of losing weight.

Releasing the Diet Mentality
Just like an official diet program, pseudo-dieting disconnects you from your body inhibiting your ability to hear and honor the messages it’s sending you.

And, as I mentioned earlier, all restrictive eating, no matter how it’s labeled, leaves you vulnerable to the pitfalls of dieting, from binge eating and weight cycling to food preoccupation and social withdrawal.

Escaping the dieting roller coaster and experiencing true food freedom requires fully letting go of your diet mentality and relearning how to nourish your body based on its internal cues versus external rules—that is, eat intuitively.

As pseudo-dieting behaviors can be quite subtle and disentangling from our pervasive diet culture can be very difficult (but not impossible!), it can be helpful to receive support and guidance. I’m here for you if you need me.