Getting Fat While Fighting Diet Culture

I have always bucked diet culture.

I grew up in the 90s. Oprah talked about her struggle with her weight almost every day. I watched endless advertisements for Slim Fast and Weight Watchers. My father watched his cholesterol and never ate the crust on his pie. “That’s awful fattening, ” he’d say. My mother frequently embarked on a week-long cabbage soup diet, a diet they used at the hospital to compel quick weight-loss prior to heart surgery. And I had two older sisters trying to fit into their high school jeans. Everyone was either dieting, falling off a diet, or preparing for a diet… except me.

Intuitively, I knew that eating should be easy.
Dieting was so unnatural. Dieters were hungry and miserable, continually summoning all their will-power and muzzling their instincts. Weighing food, counting calories, ambitious workout routines… it all looked exhausting and no one was able to keep up with it. If the most disciplined people I knew couldn’t maintain a dieting lifestyle, I didn’t stand a chance.

So, I refused to play.

Instead, I consistently chose the extra-large portion.
always 3 scoops of ice cream.
always a second piece of cake.
always the buffet.
I made moderation a joke.
In my refusal to consider portion sizes, I ate till my stomach hurt.
In my refusal to consider calorie richness, I ate until I felt sick.
In my refusal to allow the diet industry to take the pleasure out of eating, I ate way beyond the point of enjoying my food. I ate everything that was available. I ate and ate as though with every bite I was looking the diet industry in the face and flipping the bird.
But in my stand against dieting, I hurt myself.

I hated being told what to eat more than I cared about my body.
Without any regard for how I was feeling physically, I continually ate supersized portions of taboo foods just because there was a voice in my head telling me that I shouldn’t.

I wanted to rebel against diet culture and eat freely, but I still needed to learn to connect with my body, respond to my fullness cues, and eat in a way that makes me feel good. Intuitive Eating balances these forces. It’s never too late to shape your relationship with food. I’m only now exploring the principles of Intuitive Eating, and I think it has a lot to offer me and my relationship with food at this stage of my journey.

So how did I get this far (80 pounds lighter) without going on a diet? and without Intuitive Eating? I pushed myself to make changes without making any rules. I refused to count calories or limit my portions. Instead, I studied. I learned what foods are health promoting and how food contributes to disease. I learned about caloric density. I challenged myself to eat more beans, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. I cooked! I bought vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. I tried new ingredients. And I ate without guilt or rules… at home, at restaurants, at parties.

You might want to explore Intuitive Eating if:

• you’re an overweight rebel like me
• you associate food with negative feelings like guilt
• you struggle with an eating disorder
• you continually track calories in your head
• diet culture has polluted your relationship with food or people

If any of this resonates with you, check out my other posts on these topics:

• Is your EGO sabotaging your diet? which also explores how your attitude towards dieting can impact your effort.
• Could this be the cure to binging? about taking more pleasure in your food.
• You can have your kale and eat your cake too. about eating healthfully without giving up the foods you love.
• Is obesity a form of malnourishment? about how dieting and binging don’t meet your nutrition needs.
• I am on the slow and sustainable path. about my personal health journey.
• I make changes without making resolutions. as an example of how to challenge yourself without imposing rules.

Image by Christine Sponchia from Pixabay