While Everyone Was Dancing, I Was Sneaking Chocolate Truffles

While cleaning out a file drawer, I came across a document I created many years ago when I was dieting. It was a recording of my weight.

Seeing those numbers caused me to pause and reflect on the person I was when I was entrenched in diet culture.

It was not a pretty picture.

Although I couldn’t see it then, my obsession with dieting and weight loss turned me into someone I really didn't like.

My efforts to become more likable made me completely unlikeable.

At the time, however, I thought I was hot stuff. I walked around with an air of superiority because I believed I had cracked the code. I had finally achieved what so many others struggle to do: I lost weight.

But that wasn’t the only thing I lost.

I also lost touch with myself, my body, my values and what truly mattered.

Addicted to Weight Loss
When people complimented me on my smaller size, little did they know they were rewarding me for having a pretty disordered relationship with food, exercise and my body.

Unbeknownst to them, their praise encouraged me to pull the reins in tighter, to eat even less and exercise even more.

My original goal weight was no longer enough.

I had become addicted to losing weight and the admiration I was receiving. I didn’t want my high to end so I kept moving my target weight lower and lower.

Withdrew from the World
The more obsessed I became with micromanaging every morsel I ate and every mile I ran, the more I withdrew from the world.

I started stressing out about social events. My food and exercise rules made socializing, especially over food, very difficult.

Already a homebody, I found myself staying home even more. 

I avoided parties, happy hours and restaurant gatherings. I was scared to be around food that was off-limits and worried I’d lose control once I started eating, especially after a glass of wine. I fretted that if I stayed out too late it would hurt my running performance the next morning.

I also became anxious about traveling.

I feared going to places where I wouldn’t be able to control what food or running spots I’d have access to. I’d cram my carry-on bag with all my safe, allowable foods.

Sneaking and Bingeing
As my list of illegal foods grew, I began playing hide-and-eat.

I started sneaking my forbidden foods and eating them in secret—often at night while standing in the kitchen in the dark.

I was ashamed to be seen eating anything “bad,” especially the large quantities of it I craved. I worried about getting caught and tarnishing my super-disciplined, healthy eater image—an identity I took a lot of pride in.

Because I was depriving myself so much, my secret eating took on a binge-like, Last Supper quality.

I’d urgently stuff cookies into my mouth all while telling myself “What the hell, I might as well go for it because I’m never going to let myself do this again.”

Relationships Suffered
With most of my time, energy and headspace focused on controlling my weight, my relationships suffered.

When I hung out with friends, I was often preoccupied with thoughts about what I shouldn't eat, what I wanted to eat and how my body looked.

My rigid rules also started to drive my boyfriend away. Understandably, he grew increasingly frustrated with my resistance to eating certain foods, my insistence on exercising every day, my reluctance to socialize, my mood swings, and my need for complete control.

I was no longer the fun-loving, easygoing gal he once knew.

Completely Different Person
I was now a person who would contact a food manufacturer to express my outrage when they increased the calorie count on their soy crisps.

I was now someone who, while everyone else was dancing at my friend’s wedding, would sneak handfuls of chocolate truffles off the dessert table and hide them in my purse to eat alone later in my hotel room.

I was now someone who almost missed a morning flight because I just had to get a 5:00 a.m. run in before leaving for the airport.

I was now a hyper-vigilant dieter who spent more time tracking my calories, miles and weight than I did connecting with others, laughing and enjoying life.

I was so ensnared in diet culture and so desperate to conform to the thin ideal that I was oblivious to how dieting was damaging my physical, mental, emotional and social health.

Stopped Me from Going Back
Although I am appalled by and ashamed of my behavior, I feel compassion and sorrow for my younger self who bought into our culture’s very convincing, toxic narrative that thinness would bring me health and happiness and that the size of my body determined my value and worth.

I also feel gratitude for finally being able to see so clearly how my dieting and anti-fat bias were harming myself and others.

My cringe-worthy behavior ended up playing a key role in helping me escape diet culture, recover from chronic dieting, uproot my anti-fat bias, and heal my relationship with food, movement and my body.

Whenever I was tempted to start dieting again, I reflected on the person dieting turned me into and the incredible damage it did. 

Knowing that I never wanted to return to that person and place again motivated me to stay on my healing path.

I Now Eat Xmas Cookies Guilt-Free. And Stopped Researching Diets.

What’s your relationship like with holiday eating?

Do you love all the holiday fare yet feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, guilt or shame for eating in ways you typically don’t? 

At night, do you lie in bed resolving to start a new diet and exercise program in January?

Do you wish you could enjoy the holiday season without being distracted by all the food noise in your head? 

If so, you’re not alone—and it doesn’t have to be this way.

My clients have discovered that after working for a while on divesting from diet culture and eating more intuitively, their experience with holiday eating is much different than years prior. 

Over the years, their comments have sounded like this...

Zero Strings Attached
“I used to give myself a free pass to eat anything I wanted during the holidays. It wasn’t really free, however, as I believed I had to pay the price come January 1 by going on another diet and working out more. It’s so liberating to be able to enjoy all my holiday favorites with zero strings attached.”

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Stopped Stuffing Myself
“Since I’m no longer planning to cut out carbs in January, I no longer feel the need to stuff myself with sweets before they are off-limits.”

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No Looming Threat
“From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, I felt like I was engaging in one long Last Supper before my next diet started. The physical discomfort I felt from eating every meal as if it was going to be my last one convinced me all the more that I needed to get back on track in the new year. 

Thank goodness I now know it was the looming threat of another diet that was causing my scarcity-driven Last Supper eating. Without another diet around the corner, I'm now able to eat in a much more satisfying way.

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More Present and Engaged
“Once I started giving myself unconditional permission to eat whatever I want any day of the year, I stopped feeling obsessed with all the holiday food. I still love making it and eating it but I no longer think about it all the time. I'm now much more present for my loved ones and more engaged in other aspects of the season.” 

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Feel a Sense of Ease
“I used to go into the holiday season feeling deprived from my latest diet. As a result, I felt out of control with all that good food. It was like I had found water after being lost in the desert for months. I couldn’t get enough of it. Once I understood it was the dieting, not a lack of self-control, that caused me to eat in a binge-y way, I stopped restricting and eventually started feeling a sense of ease and peace with food."

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No Longer Feel Bad
“I still sometimes eat until I’m super full because the food is so delicious! The big difference is that I don’t feel bad about it anymore and I don’t feel like I have to make up for it.”

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Relief to Stop Researching
“In years past, I always spent New Year’s Day researching detox and diet plans. It’s a relief to know that this year I won’t be wasting my money on an expensive cleanse package or my time trying to learn the rules of a new diet program.”

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There's No Guilt
“My holiday eating is so much more enjoyable now that I no longer feel guilty for eating a bunch of Christmas cookies.”

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A Priceless Gift
Of course, the shift to more peaceful, pleasurable holiday eating doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to move away from diet culture toward a more intuitive relationship with food and your body.

Most people, including me, have found that with patience, practice and perseverance, the food stuff gets a little easier with each passing year.

To be able to eat with ease and gusto during the holiday season, and all year round, is a priceless gift—but even more so, it’s an inherent human right—that everyone deserves, including you.

You Don't Have to Earn Your Pie. Or Make Up for Eating It.

Along with all the delicious food, the Thanksgiving holiday often comes with an unsavory serving of diet culture.

For a pleasurable, peaceful eating experience, keep in mind these Thanksgiving don’ts:

1. You don’t have to earn it.
Despite what diet culture wants you to believe, you don’t have to do anything to earn your Thanksgiving meal. You don’t have to do an intense workout or not eat all day to deserve a spot at the table. 

2. You don’t have to make up for it.
Just like you don’t have to earn the right to eat, you don’t have to make up for your eating after the holiday by working out extra hard, skipping meals or starting a cleanse or diet.

3. You don’t have to justify.
Whether it’s having seconds or thirds, filling your plate with mostly mashed potatoes, or eating pie for breakfast, you don’t have to justify your choices to anyone. You have the right to eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

(For tips on handling the Food Police in your life, head on over to here.)

4. You don’t have to feel bad.
Diet culture wants you to feel bad, out of control, weak, guilty and ashamed for eating a lot. You don’t.

It’s normal to sometimes eat simply for pleasure and to sometimes eat until you're stuffed, especially when enjoying foods that are novel and only around for a brief period.

5. You don’t have to participate.
Just like people who avoid discussing religion, politics and money, you don’t have to participate in diet and weight talk.

One approach for navigating it, especially when dining with a wide range of people, is to nonchalantly change the subject.

For example, if your cousin starts raving about his latest diet or your mom comments on someone's weight, steer the conversation toward a different topic, such as “I’d love to know what shows everyone is into right now” or “What’s your favorite holiday memory?”

Of course, these five don’ts are helpful to practice not just on Thanksgiving, but every day of the year.