It’s been about three years since I gave up diets and diet culture for good.
My last diet was in early 2021. In July of that year, after dieting consistently for 38 years, I committed to never doing it again.
I had been dieting since about 1985, when I discovered Weight Watchers at age 15 and was encouraged, validated and celebrated for losing weight that, looking back, I didn’t need to lose.
That’s almost four decades of hardcore yoyo dieting; alternating between starving myself and overindulging. I grew up doing it, from high school, through college and on into my 20s, 30s and 40s.
I felt dieting and losing weight was required or expected of me by society, my family, and basically everyone. It was an unspoken expectation, for the most part, but it was real nonetheless.
Can you imagine how good it felt to break free from all that BS in 2021?! At the age of 51, I finally had the confidence and courage to give diets and diet culture the old heave-ho. It hasn’t always been easy – maybe I’ll write about that part sometime – but it’s been incredible for my mental and physical health.
You see, the strangest thing happened. For all those years that I was dieting, I was convinced that if I didn’t diet, I would gain weight (as if that’s the worst thing in the world). But you know what was actually making me gain weight? THE DIETING.
Yes, that’s right – diets make you gain weight. Not only would I overindulge afterward – because psychologically I had denied myself everything I loved for weeks or months, which induced excess once the diet was over.
But also, restricted eating and dieting of any kind, including fasting, tells our beautiful and brilliant bodies that we’re starving. When our brain feels hunger and deprivation, it sends dozens of signals to the body to hold onto fat, hold onto weight, hold onto everything as if our survival depends on it!
It’s the smartest system ever; it kept our ancestors alive when they went through periods of feast and famine. During times of famine, metabolism all but shuts down and our bodies hold onto everything. It’s only when we’re eating freely again that things slowly go back to normal in our bodies. And if we lost weight during one of those famine times, our body was programmed to put it all back on – and a little extra, just to be safe. This is all very natural – it’s how we evolved.
So why do we fight our own bodies and natural evolution in this way? Because in our culture, we’re taught from birth that thin is best.
There’s a $90 BILLION diet and weight loss machine that profits from making us all feel like we should be on a diet and/or losing weight. And although there are reputable medical studies show that diets cause obesity, you don’t hear much about them. That’s because it’s far more profitable to perpetuate an endless cycle that benefits only those hawking weight loss promises and lies.
But it’s not for me – not anymore. In the three years since I quit dieting and diet culture, I’ve learned there’s a whole world of freedom out here. I feel amazing. I eat when and what I want to. I listen to my body and honor what it tells me it needs. I move when and how I want to. I no longer touch a scale except when I visit my doctor once or twice a year.
And you know what? Not only is my mental health better, I’m happy to report my physical health is pretty darn good, too. I feel very lucky and blessed.
Also, my weight has been consistent for the past 2.5 years. It is kind of amazing. After my body adjusted from that last hardcore diet I was on, my weight became consistent. I quit dieting and I quit gaining weight. It’s that simple; the numbers don’t lie. My weight might fluctuate a wee bit between visits, but over time it remains right around the same. The chart of my weight data is above if you’d like to see (numbers removed, but you can see the trend over the last couple of years).
I wish I had discovered this life lesson many years earlier, but I’m so glad to know it now – and to share it with you.
I realize you might not believe me. There are a lot of voices telling you to diet and lose weight, but not many telling you to be free, eat what you want, live your life and love your body regardless of your weight.
I hope you’ll find your way to freedom sooner than I did, but better late than never.
