Four Things To Do Instead of Dieting
In my previous post, I wrote about Weight Myths and Diet Traps, including how repeated medical studies have shown that diets just don’t work. Confronting this truth can be scary, and can leave you feeling even more confused about what to do with food and your body. In this post I’ll be covering what you can do instead of dieting and how to break out of the diet-binge-gain-shame cycle.
It Starts With Disembodiment
Diet culture has pressured us to move from an internal state of living in our bodies, appreciating them for what they can do, and fully living our lives, to an external state where we spend our time evaluating our bodies from the outside and visually comparing them to the current “ideal”. We’re no longer focused on how our bodies feel, but on our appearance and on others’ opinions of how we look. This leaves us needing external validation to confirm that we’re acceptable. We’re trusting others to know better than we do what our bodies need. We’re also relying on others to let us know if our bodies are worthy of approval. This is disembodiement.
Trying to manipulate our bodies by eating a certain way or by exercising with the intention of altering our appearance disembodies us as well, separating us even more from our physical selves. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and they always will. For all the dieting that’s going on the in the world, we still see a wide range of bodies every day, because that’s normal. Everyone looking like the ideal is what’s not normal.
A New (Old) Way: Towards Embodiment
In order to move back to a place where we’re living in our bodies and focusing less on the external gaze, we need to step away from diet culture and to let go of the hope that things can be different right now, regardless of what diet and wellness companies are telling us. It’s time to let go of the notion that there is an ideal body, and that we need to be striving for it. We’ve been collectively brainwashed, and it’s time we de-program ourselves.
Imagine if a baby was crying because they were hungry, would you say to them, “You shouldn’t be hungry right now, it’s not time to eat yet.”? Yet as adults, it is acceptable (and expected) to deprive our bodies of food because of what we’re told our bodies “should” be doing and when, even if it means ignoring hunger. Returning to our original way of being (embodied) is the key to healing our relationships with food, our bodies, and eating.
For most of my life, it’s been extremely difficult for me to accept and fully live in my body, both due to its shape and to the many health challenges I’ve faced. Accepting my body exactly the way it is in the moment, just the facts, without fighting it, wishing it were different, or thinking it’s unfair, was the first step to no longer trying to escape it, which allowed me to move towards embodiment. Acceptance is something I still work on every day because it’s a practice and rather than a goalpost.
The follows steps are four powerful ways you can start to move back towards embodiment and freedom:
1. Spotting and naming diet culture when you see it.
As the knowledge that diets don’t work continues to spread, the diet industry is finding ways to disguise dieting, often rebranding it as wellness. Regardless of how it’s packaged, dieting will always be disordered eating. Here are some devious ways diet culture shows up in our day-to-day:
Using Sneaky Words for Dieting: such as “clean eating,” “detox,” “reset,” or “wellness protocol.”
Food Tracking: tracking calories or macros as a way to “control” intake.
Joyless Movement: a focus on exercise as a way to burn calories (rather than for fun or to improve overall wellbeing).
Food Rules: restricted eating hours (intermittent fasting), eating specific amounts or types of foods.
Food Labeling: “good” vs. “bad” foods, “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” foods, “guilt-free” or “clean.”
Body Focus: a focus on body weight, shape, or size (rather than on the internal sensations in the body.)
BMI as an indicator of health or provider of meaningful information about weight.
When you notice these things come up, simply saying to yourself, “this is diet culture,” will help you start distancing yourself from these false messages.
2. Weight and food neutrality.
Weight and food neutrality refers to removing moral judgements from food and from body size, shape, and weight. No more “good” or “bad,” it just is. Have you ever felt virtuous because you ate a salad instead of a steak and fries? Do you feel like you’re a better person when your weight goes down? That’s what we want to break away from.
Rather than focusing on good and bad, consider how you feel in your body, and how the food you eat feels in your body. This is what matters. A body is a body, and food is food. Let’s stop judging both.
3. Befriending Your Body.
Being present with and in your body might feel scary and hard, and I’m not suggesting you dive in and force yourself to be there right away. Start by dipping your toe into the idea of embodiment through the development of somatic skills, self-compassion, and nervous system regulation, which can be found in programs like Befriending Your Body.
Your can’t do anything well if your nervous system is chronically in fight, flight, or freeze mode, least of all the work around body and food. The foundation for any work in this area has to be creating a sense of safety and groundedness, so that you can slowly start to come back into your body.
Once your nervous system is more regulated, you can work on getting to know your internal body signals again, trusting them, and acting accordingly.
4. Intuitive Eating
Intuitive Eating means eating according to what your body is telling you and asking for. It’s eating in the way your body was naturally designed to eat. Intuitive Eating may take time, practice, and patience. You need to learn how to eat again without all the noise from diet and wellness culture getting in the way. Skills include chewing food properly, paying attention to hunger and satiety signals, and choosing the foods that would feel best in your body.
If you find it difficult to eat intuitively, this may be because there is too much dysregulation in your nervous system to be able to be in your body and listen to its subtle cues. If being in, with, or connected to you body is particularly difficult, starting with nervous system regulation (reducing fight, flight, or freeze states) before anything else will be key.
If you’re tired of dieting and hating your body, I invite you to give yourself a break and try a more natural, kind, and compassionate way of taking care of yourself.