at best diets are a distraction.
why diets don’t work
The way I see it, we’re here doing this work so that we can stop being ripped to and fro by diet culture. Even the diets that have been designed by well-meaning well-respected professionals from all sorts of backgrounds, even the diets designed by professionals I respect greatly. Diets don’t work because the ideology behind them is faulty.
Diets are a distraction, they pull us out of our bodies and force us to ignore ourselves to get through them. We may live in a militant society obsessed with power and control, but your body is not a battlefield, no matter how many people compare it to one. Your body is a living organism that willingly houses other living organisms in symbiotic relationships, and in some cases even creates other living organisms inside of it. So anything that has potential to sever or disrupt this relationship should be highly suspect to us.
Diets are someone else’s understanding of how a human body should work, but they don’t take into account how different every BODY is. Not because they’re lazy, but because it’s impossible. There is an endless array of possibilities in how different bodies will respond to any given stimulation, or substance. Science provides us some cues, sure, but everyone’s brains are so different that these cues may read differently depending on whose brain is doing the processing.
Since our brains and our bodies are intimately connected to each other and no one else, then we should probably learn to listen to them, and not other people. Of course, you could live your whole life following diet protocol after diet protocol, and many people do. But if you were to do that you would be relinquishing your sovereignty, while also teaching yourself how untrustworthy you are. But if you can’t trust yourself, then who can you trust?
Diets are the learned habit of denial of self, which is only a virtue if you are an orthodox christian.
In our culture we are taught to use force, rather than patience, understanding and love to change [ourselves + others]. In life this shows up mainly as denial of feelings, rejection, or hatred of your true self, careful grooming, weight-watching, and verbal bullying, or creating consequences for ourselves if we “fail” or “slip-up.” In our diet it looks very similar.
We are trained from a young age to wish we were thinner, more muscular, had bigger breasts, or butts, smaller feet or a tiny, button nose. We are taught that there is a perfect look out there that is obtainable through massive amounts of control, restriction and consumerism. We are fed the lie that we can buy our way to beauty. We are taught that the ways that our bodies shift over time should be hated, feared, and dreaded. That our value is in our aesthetics, and our bodies need to be visually appealing at all times.
This is what diet culture thrives on. But diet culture also thrives on a more insidious aspect of the human experience— Wellness (as a proper noun, not a verb). Wellness that has been made into a lucrative industry promising rest, relaxation, inner peace, and perfect health once you arrive; which is ever on the horizon as long as you spend thousands of dollars on supplements, skincare routines, “superfoods” and fitness coaches.
Diet and Wellness are two sides of the same coin.
I’m not sure which I detest more, because both prey on individuals who need help, and are stumbling their way into what it means to take care of themselves; but Wellness seems to go after the people who also feel sick, who feel unwell, who are in dis-ease. Wellness promises healing and rejuvenation without the real work. The Wellness Industry says, “You can’t be whole on your own.” Just as diet culture says you will only find health through restriction, bullying and destroying your relationship to food.
Ironic, perhaps coming from a person who calls herself a Holistic Wellness Coach. Please notice that the difference is that I am not selling you anything except support and guidance on accessing your own critical thinking, and revisiting your unhelpful patterns. I believe you can heal without ever taking a supplement, or buying a sauna, or getting an acupressure mat, or even hiring a coach. I believe that your body has everything it needs when you learn to live life like a human again.
What if instead of implementing regimens we focused on creating rituals?
The nitty-gritty:
You’ll never find your perfect health through a diet, because eventually every diet will land you in a nutrient deficient state— even strict carnivore— unless you are carefully counting, calculating and composing your meals like a chemist, or taking supplements to fill in the gaps. But does that really sound like living? Be honest.
Remember, there are no “good or bad” foods. Everything has a time, a place, and a season. Even still there are foods that are nutrient dense, life-sustaining golden nuggets of delectable perfection, and there are survival foods. The survival foods are not “bad,” they have no morality whatsoever. They are simply not meant to sustain us for very long, and may cause issues if they are relied on too heavily.
Diet culture says, “eat this, but not this.” It creates rules, structure, and rigidity.
Structure can be very helpful, but rules and rigidity have no place in a mammalian diet. Have you ever seen a cow say, “Nah, better not, I’m watching my weight.”? Of course not! [nor any other animal for that matter] This is a uniquely human issue. And it makes sense since we are the mammals who are the most removed from our natural environments— at some point it gets confusing to be this far from nature.
I am against dieting because I believe dieting breeds an unhealthy relationship with food. It’s a modern invention of capitalism and scarcity. Dieting lends us to black and white thinking, and difficult to meet expectations. Food is meant to nurture us, to help us to build our bodies, to support our detox systems, to heal us from within. Dieting trains us to view both foods and our bodies as the enemy. It trains us to focus on what we want to change rather than how we can better support ourselves.
What’s worse is most dietary research has been done on men’s bodies, because women are very difficult to study. And with what we know about bioindividuality, hormone cycles and the difference between male and female bodily needs, you can bet that a lot of these diets are extra harmful to women, especially when started young.
Are you in the habit of dieting? if so these questions are for you:
i invite you to set aside 1-2 hours to answer these questions, fully + honestly.
IF you would like further support in deconstructing your answers, please book a 1:1.
Why do you feel the need to diet?
What are you trying to accomplish through dieting?
What are your beliefs about your body?
Do you believe that your body is here to serve you, take care of you, and keep you alive?
Do you believe that your body is against you, trying to attack you, or is angry at you? [These are all things I believed at one time, no shame here.]
Can you tell when your body becomes disregulated? What are some of the cues?
How do you feel when you are forced into something?
How do you feel when you are invited into something?
Do you like it better when you are told what to do, or when you are offered the chance to understand what to do and how to do it? Please elaborate on your choice.
When it comes to your body, do you understand your needs easily? If not, what do you feel blocks you from accessing your needs?
When you’re on a diet how do you react to your cravings?
How do you think this reaction affects your future relationship with food?
What do you think would be a healthier way to deal with your cravings?