“What did you gain when you stopped dieting?”
I asked, you answered! I love these responses so much. It really makes me so happy when people tell me the good they’ve gained when they stopped dieting or restricting their intake.
When I say dieting, I’m talking about being on a non-medically-induced diet that restricts or puts certain parameters on what you can or cannot eat in order to lose weight. I find it problematic because it puts too much of an emphasis on our food choices and, in particular, how those food choices impact our body size.
Plus, we know that dieting is a risk factor for developing an eating disorder. We also know that dieting rarely produces long-term weight loss. Unfortunately, “fixing” your body doesn’t actually fix what’s going on internally. Because we’re all different, I can’t say that every single time someone goes on a diet bad things happen. But the odds look that way, and at this point in my life I’m not willing to take that risk and I don’t advise other people to do it either.
For a lot of people this “dieting” thing is very serious and does take up a lot of brain space. It can make it hard to eat out and socialize with friends. It may require us to move around our schedule. But honestly the worst part is just that it takes up so much mental energy to think “Can I eat this? How many grams of X are in there? Oh no, did I eat too much? I’m still hungry and I just ate. Now I can’t stop thinking about breakfast tomorrow.” Etc, etc.
Just because you stop restricting doesn’t mean you’ve “given up on your health” — it means you’ve decided that your health and well being are larger than what you eat and worth more than how much you weigh. This is really, really hard and can take time.
