Emily's Story: It's All Downhill from Here

From time to time, I like to share a client experience to illustrate how Intuitive Eating can help you have a more trusting, peaceful and relaxed relationship with food and your body.

Recently, I was catching up with my former client Emily and she shared how different this holiday season already feels for her. With her permission, I’m sharing her story with you.

Emily’s Story: It’s All Downhill from Here
I remember very clearly my thoughts and fears around food that always surfaced at this time of year and talking to you about them when we were working together.

My October birthday had always triggered the “downhill” part of my year.

Starting with my birthday and continuing through New Year’s Eve, I would be diet-free.  

This meant giving myself special permission to eat without any restrictions for three and a half months before beginning a new diet on January 1.

Since I knew deprivation was just around the corner, I experienced a lot of Last Supper bingeing episodes during this time.

This year, I already feel such a major difference.

It no longer feels like this special time of year where I finally have an excuse to eat cake or candy. These things are always available to me now since I’ve stopped dieting and started giving myself unconditional permission to eat no matter what time of year it is.

It is such a freeing experience.

Unlike Any Birthday Before
On my birthday this year, there wasn’t any part of the day or the following weekend that I felt the need to “go for it” with my eating.

In years past, I would always eat until I was uncomfortably full on my birthday and often for a few days after as I polished off the leftover cake and other “special, rare treats.”

This birthday felt like my first big “test” of the season.

Having this new experience under my belt is so rewarding and it’s a testament to the power of Intuitive Eating, especially when paired with your expertise and gentle guidance. 

Peace with All the Pumpkin Things
Also this month, my roommate and I went to Trader Joe’s and bought a bunch of the fall snacks, all the pumpkin things.

It felt like a fall-treat buffet for the first few days. I was having so much fun trying all the new foods that I ended up eating more sweets than I usually do and felt a little sick.

I certainly wasn’t mad at myself for it. Instead, I viewed it as an informative experience.

I realized eating that amount of sweets didn’t feel very satisfying in my body so I may not want to do it again. And, I understood that since they were all new foods, it was normal for me to eat a lot of them right away.

As the days have gone by, unlike past years, I don’t feel out of control with all the fall treats or preoccupied with them. In fact, I forget we have a lot of the snacks we do!

This feels so completely different than when I was stuck in my restrict-binge cycle and it’s a huge relief to know I will not be starting another diet come New Year’s Day.

Every day, there is something new to learn and observe, but there hasn’t been a time in my life that I felt more at peace and at ease with food and my body. 

What the Diet Ads Don't Tell You

I'm all fired up!

Over the past few months, I’ve been bombarded with ads for diet programs.

It’s worse than the New Year’s onslaught.

And, it’s infuriating.

The diet companies seem to be preying on people’s vulnerabilities during this unprecedented time of great fear, stress, anguish and uncertainty.

It feels like they’re saying we should be more concerned about losing weight than surviving a devastating global pandemic.

It’s Not a “Diet”
In an attempt to be seen as relevant, acceptable and cool to consumers today, most diet companies are careful to claim their programs aren’t diets but rather “wellness plans” or “lifestyle changes” or “biohacks."

Yet, their programs include telling you what, how much and/or when you’re allowed to eat.

Sounds like a diet to me!

I want to scream when I see the dieters (actors?) in these ads prancing around the screen exclaiming how easy it’s been to lose X pounds in just X weeks.

The truth is, you can lose weight on pretty much any program.

What the diet companies don’t tell you, however, is there is only about a five-percent chance you will maintain your weight loss.

They also don’t tell you it’s likely you’ll regain more weight than you lost as up to two-thirds of dieters typically do.

So much for the “life-long” or “permanent” results they often promise to deliver!

One has to wonder how they even go about tracking their “lifetime” results.

Warning: Potential Side Effects
In addition to rebound weight gain, following are some of the other potential side effects of dieting you aren’t warned about:

• Leads to harmful food rules, disordered eating and eating disorders

• Increases food obsession and body preoccupation

• Triggers intense cravings and binge-like eating

• Reduces your ability to recognize and honor your hunger and fullness cues

• Makes you scared to eat in situations where you won’t have complete control over the food

• Causes you to miss out on shared eating experiences with family and friends

• Drives you to sneak food and eat in secret

• Makes you afraid to keep certain foods in your house out of a fear of losing control with them

• Brings about mood swings and emotional eating

• Provokes feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, fear and hopelessness

• Erodes body trust, self-trust, self-esteem and confidence

• Results in weight cycling (yo-yo dieting), which can lead to adverse health conditions

• Slows your metabolism

• Raises your cortisol level because dieting is inherently stressful

• Encourages a disordered relationship with exercise

• Consumes most of your time, energy and headspace, while other parts of your life suffer, like your relationships, social life, career and hobbies

If you have a history of dieting, you’re likely quite familiar with many of these outcomes.

It’s also likely you’ve blamed yourself, your lack of willpower and your lack of self-discipline when a diet didn’t work.

Please understand this: You don’t fail a diet—a diet fails you!

Never Be Allowed
Imagine if diet companies, like drug manufacturers, had to include all of the potential side effects of dieting in their advertisements.

Here's what the originators of Intuitive Eating have to say about the futility of dieting and the harm it can cause:

“If dieting programs had to stand up to the same scrutiny as medication, they would never be allowed for public consumption. Imagine, for example, taking an asthma medication, which improves your breathing for a few weeks, but in the long run, causes your lungs and breathing to worsen.”

Become Fully Informed
When you’re unhappy with your eating and your body, the success stories promoted in the diet ads can understandably tempt you to try one more diet.

I get it. I’ve been there myself.

The desire to diet and lose weight is completely understandable given our weight-stigmatizing, thin-idolizing culture, our tendency to conflate weight with health, and the illusion of control dieting provides in a world full of uncertainty.

While I am anti-diet, I completely believe in body autonomy including the right to diet.

I also believe people should be made aware of the physical and psychological harm dieting can cause so they can make a fully informed decision about what’s truly best for their overall wellbeing. It’s unethical to do otherwise.

If you’re considering participating in an intentional weight loss program, I encourage you to do your research.

Look for solid scientific data demonstrating a program leads to long-term, sustainable weight loss (i.e., multiple years versus a few months) for the majority of its participants—without causing any adverse side effects or requiring constant self-monitoring.

Don’t be surprised, however, if you discover it doesn’t exist! 

Dieting Won’t Bring You Peace and Wellbeing
If you want a healthy, peaceful relationship with food and your body, despite what the $72 billion diet industry wants you to believe, it can’t be achieved through dieting.

Rather than put all your energy toward depriving yourself for a short-term result with potentially harmful long-term consequences, what if you put it towards healing your relationship with food and your body, reclaiming your ability to eat intuitively, and engaging in weight-neutral self-care so you can truly experience the peace, ease and wellbeing you’re longing for?

The Pizza's Aroma Hugged Me Like a Warm Blanket

Last week, one of my favorite bakeries reopened.

It’s a neighborhood co-op I’ve been going to for decades that closed in mid-March due to the pandemic.

I quickly ordered one of their half-baked pizzas. I had been craving their pizza for months and wanted to ensure I got one before they sold out.

As I baked it later that evening, the distinctive aroma of its sourdough crust wafted through my apartment.

My body responded as if it was being hugged by a warm blanket.

The aroma transported me to a time years ago when I frequently picked up one of the bakery’s pizzas to bake for dinner.

It was a time in my life when things felt simpler, less uncertain, less heartbreaking.

I was struck by how much just the smell of the pizza comforted me—even more than its taste, which I also quite savored. 

Of course, it didn’t take away my sadness, anger, pain and uncertainty.

But, for a brief moment, it did provide some much-needed comfort.

Demonized by Diet Culture
Despite its tremendous power to soothe, diet culture has demonized comfort food.

It has taught us to feel bad, guilty, weak or ashamed when we turn to it to navigate tough times.

As a result, we often feel we have to justify our desires, hide our eating, and make up for our “food sins.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rightful Coping Tool
Food’s ability to soothe our mind, body and soul is something to embrace and celebrate.

Providing comfort is just one of the many roles it plays in our lives, one of the many ways it meets our needs, and one of the many gifts it gives us.

For many of us, food is an easily accessible coping mechanism—one that has a rightful place in our emotional coping toolkit.