These Intuitive Eating Principles start off with a bang, extolling us to reject the notion that 1) we must lose weight as a result of our efforts to be healthier and 2) that dieting is a reasonable way to accomplish that goal. Wow! That is huge, for most of us requiring a paradigmatic shift in our thinking ….it strikes at our very world-view.
Here is the description of this principle from the Intuitive Eating website:
1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
https://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/10-principles-intuitive-eating
This principle is an interesting one for me because I assumed I would easily integrate it into my life. You see, I’ve never actually successfully dieted. The couple of diets I might have tried in my life never lasted more than a day or two before I said ‘eff-it’, certainly before any weight could possibly be lost. I’m now thankful for my lack of success in dieting because I wasn’t pulled into the yo-yo diet roller coaster and as result my weight did not cycle, which I now know has been a plus for my health.
However, I’ve realized over the last few years that just because I’ve never been a dieter doesn’t mean that the ‘diet mentality’ hasn’t and still doesn’t affect me. I may never have actually successfully dieted, but I lived many years being unhappy with my body and, believe me, I thought about dieting a *lot*..much of my mental real estate was preoccupied with feeling bad about what I was eating, and thinking I should be eating something else. Dieting definitely felt like it was something I should be doing, and my inability to successfully do so lead to many negative feelings about myself.
Even now, it is hard to completely banish those habitual thoughts. I often fall into the trap of moralizing food and/or my food choices and feel like I’m being ‘good’ or virtuous when I, for instance, have a plain green tea and ‘bad’ when I have a green tea latte…or any kind of latte. The diet mentality can sneak in when I am looking to improve my nutrition and, for instance, work to increase my fibre intake by eating more salads (which I love) or other fibre rich foods. At times like that I confess my thinking can go beyond the health benefits of increasing fibre intake (easier digestion, more energy, etc.) to include a whisper of ‘maybe you’ll go down to a size 16 again’.
This is where mindfulness and self compassion come into the picture. First, I work at paying attention and recognizing when diet mentality thoughts arise…which isn’t as easy as it seems. We often let our thoughts wreak havoc in our head without paying much attention. But, with intention and practice we can learn to notice when we are having unhelpful thoughts. At this point it is important to be compassionate with ourselves. There is no point in developing mindfulness and self awareness around unhelpful thoughts and patterns if we are going to use it as another excuse the beat ourselves up further…”oh hey, jerk, you are moralizing food again” is not what we are looking for. Instead, look for ways to affirm that recognizing the diet mentality is a great first step and offer ourselves compassion…acknowledge how hard it is to live in our culture and not have these thoughts because diet messages are everywhere. If we don’t offer ourselves compassion when we see ourselves clearly, we won’t be likely to dare to be honest with ourselves very often. Practicing clarity (mindfulness) and self compassion will greatly support our goals in rejecting the diet mentality.
A big challenge for people in rejecting the diet mentality is the potential loss of connection that we get from talking about body and diet challenges with others. I think this is a crucial consideration for those of us who want to work at extracting the diet mentality from our lives. Body bashing and talking about our latest diet plans (also called Fat Talk or Diet Talk) is a common way to bond socially. So for anyone who doesn’t diet, it can feel rather alienating to not engage in the diet talk happening at work over lunch, or even downright aggressive to state we don’t diet ourselves, daring to imply that we like ourselves as we are.
It takes some practice at feeling comfortable not engaging in diet talk, but it does become easier. The more comfortable I am with the idea myself, the easier it is to be around others share and not feel like I am being judged, or also that I am not judging other people by having a different approach to weight and health. Compassion, both for ourselves and others is again a helpful mindset. Ragen Chastain who writes an awesome blog called Dances with Fat ( https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/blog/) has a great approach that can be helpful, something she calls The Underpants Rule – in that we are all responsible for making choices for our own body. Not only does this support us in feeling good about our choice to break free from the diet mentality, but it helps us to remember to be respectful of other’s choices, even if they are different then ours. It isn’t our job to convert others to Intuitive Eating or a weight-neutral approach to health, but maybe we can inspire by being an example of what life is like when we break free from the diet mentality and live life to its fullest.
Self Reflective Questions:
As you consider the Diet Mentality and what it means in your own life to let it go, consider:
- What do you notice? What are situations, in your life, or the things that you do right now that are shaped by how you relate to the Diet mentality?
- What do you feel? What emotions arise for you when you think about dieting, or letting go of the diet mentality?
- What does it mean? What are the implications for your life in letting go of the diet mentality? How does it change how you view the world?
- What will you do? What are some concrete actions you can take to move away from the diet mentality? Do you still have diet books in your house? Is your Facebook feed filled with “thinspiraiton” and/or “fitspiration?” Are you still holding on to a pair of jeans that you are hoping to fit into?
Thank you for reading and I hope you join me again next week for discussion on the next principle, Honour Your Hunger. You can keep in touch by following me here on my blog, or on social media, Twitter (https://twitter.com/bodyrespect) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bodyrespectsaskatoon) Another option is to sign up for my e-bulletin and have a copy delivered directly to your inbox, along with other news and happenings.
Additional Resources:
Books:
- Intuitive Eating, by Tribole and Resch
- The Diet Survivors Handbook, by Judith Martz
- The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos
- Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon
- Fat! So? By Marilyn Wann
Blogs:
Articles:
- Why Fat Matters (by yours truly)
- How “Quitting” Exercise Made Me Healthier, Happier, And Less Obsessed With Calories – One of the traps of the diet mentality is approaching exercise as a punishment for taking in calories, this blog post explores that struggle
- The Underpants Rule
- Releasing the Possible Future Body – Here is a blog post I wrote about Releasing the possible future body