Is Diet Culture Really Toxic?

 

I remember the morning I first posted on Facebook about my binging so clearly. My heart was racing as I drove to work at 530am. My secret was out. I knew by the time I got to work, inevitably there would be comments on my post from my friends and followers back east and the thought made me want to vomit. 

Disordered eating, binging, anorexia, orthorexia, bulimia, body image dysmorphia: None of these are things we want to talk about, or associate ourselves with. But I have suffered with all of them. I wouldn’t say I have an eating disorder anymore, but I would say I still really struggle with disordered eating. 

What does that even mean? For me it means that when people say we should all just intuitively eat, I laugh. What is that? How in the WORLD would I ever intuitively know when, what or how much to eat? Just by listening to my body? Nope. Not this body. I started betraying her nearly 29 years ago. And now I am going to expect her to TELL ME when she’s hungry and WHAT she needs and HOW much? I get the concept but how does that even work, really?

I have been trying really hard this last four months to listen to my body. To enjoy eating whatever I want. To love my body at any stage, any size and any shape. I have been struggling. I want to be anti-diet. I want to protest that I have to be a size 2 to be important, worthy or of value. I want to show the world that we can be healthy at all sizes. . . 

The problem? I don’t buy it. I know I’ll get flack for this. I know there will be people who think I am shaming or pointing fingers. But I just don’t buy that we are healthy at any shape. I do believe we should not get our value from our size. I do believe anyone and everyone has value and worth regardless of their weight. 

But I don’t think someone like me, can be told to intuitively eat, learn to love my body at any size, and be ok with being overweight. Because I am not.  I have really tried. Truly. 

So what can I do? I want to be anti-diet culture. I want to acknowledge that diet culture can be toxic and bad for some people. But I also want to acknowledge that it can be good for others. Like me. I am someone who doesn’t know how to trust my body after years of betraying it. So following a plan, someone telling me when, what and how much to eat, that helps me. That makes ME feel better. It may not be for you, but it is for me. 

I read a post on IG a few weeks ago, from someone who is anti-diet, pro intuitive eating, and I really like her content. She posted something about how when people argue that physical health is important (because people have argued that being overweight is not ok when you intuitively eat) but that mental health is as or more important. It REALLY struck me. Not because I realized how much better my mental health has been these past four months because I have been intuitively eating but because my mental has been really poor. 

I FEEL better when I am lean and in shape. It may just be how I am programmed. I FEEL better when I follow a plan that tells me how to eat. I feel better when 50% or more of my nutrition comes from vegetables. I just do. But when I am trying to intuitively eat, those bags of chips, the junk food I wouldn’t eat on a nutrition plan (dare I call it a lifestyle?!?) they call to me. I want them. Even if they make me feel like crap after. 

Okay, so what is the point of me writing this post? It’s because for the last five days, I have followed a reset. A reset I’ve done several times before. I have been trying to be anti-diet. And then I couldn’t take it anymore. My clothes didn’t fit and I felt horrible in my own skin. So I plunged in. And I committed to my workouts. And DAMN do I feel amazing today. I am down a few pounds. I feel leaner and stronger. And I feel more calm because I know what I am doing. 

It may not be for everyone, and as I said in my profile name (this is my first blog post officially!), I am a messy mama. I may be singing a different tune a few months from now. But today. Today I know I am exactly where I want to be and am doing exactly what I want to be doing.