The allure of the diet.
New Year’s rolls around and it’s time for resolutions. Undoubtedly they involve losing weight and time at the gym. (Who’s don’t anymore?) What’s this year’s diet gonna be?
You college roommate is getting married. The other bridesmaids wear sizes ranging from, well, below yours to way below yours. Gotta do something and fast. Keto? 16/8 intermittent fasting? That ad you saw run between shows at a completely inappropriate time to be awake watching tv last night?
Maybe you just had baby number 2. You are sooooo tired of anything that resembles spandex and to hell with resting, you’ve gotta be instagram ready like the other (unrealistic) moms flaunting the return of their abs. “What kind of plan will support baby growing, and me shrinking?”
Why is that diets are so alluring?
Well, the allure is in the hope. Hope is a fundamental need for us humans with a soul and mind. It is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. The archaic meaning went as far as to equate hope with the word trust.
But before hope enters the picture, there must be desire. Then we set about the mission by searching for the fastest ways to achieve what we desire, often at any cost. Whatever promises to fulfill that desire in the shortest amount of time, with the least effort, and (presumably) with lasting results this time is what we are game for next. After all, last year’s kale smoothie diet failed by week 2, and you need to make it til at least Spring Break this time!
So when a new diet pops up on social, offering all of these commitments and more, 1) it seems too good to be true and 2) absolutely your gonna try it!
Old mission aborted… x months’ gap has passed… new plan effective immediately! Here we go again- hang on! (Cause you’re gonna be grumpy a lot.)
But what would happen if we put our hope in things proven sustainable instead- in fundamentals of nutrition and well being? What if we really listened to our bodies, and learned to give them what they need? What if we did it out of joy, curiosity, respect, and excitement?
The answer is: it would work this time. Sustainable health would be achieved.
Here’s the caveat though- what true health is, and what you want it to look like might not be the same. And, secondly, it will take effort.
Let’s take a look at the first part of that caveat, which is actually premised on the desire underlying the diet.
Often we desire to be leaner, fitter, stronger, sexier… to just lose that last 8 pounds. Why though? What’s really underlying this obsessive attention on looks and weight? I’m not saying anyone does/does not need to loose weight or get healthier. What I am hoping to expose, however, are the true motivators behind the never-ending ride on the dieting roller coaster. And if you truly are just trying to better your health, why is the obsession around it taking you to such extremes?
Our desire is not often truly about better health, but rather specifically about losing weight. After all, society praises “slender” and seems to demonize any weight above what’s downright unrealistic and usually unhealthy.
Here are some factors typically behind our desires to shape-shift or lose weight:
Self esteem-
Sadly, we often lack a sense of pride in who God made us, the cruel world rejects us just as we are, or past life trauma leaves you feeling less than, not good enough, and worthless. This can lead to seeking a sense of identity, and self-worth, through shape-shifting, which often involves losing weight. Despite our inner needs for comfort and acceptance never being met through restricting foods and even achieving temporary weight loss, this mentality keeps us focused on the wrong solution. We often crash and break the diet out of desperation and fatigue, then blame ourselves for not being strong or disciplined enough. We determine to do more, go longer, and be stricter this time… and the cycle continues.
Shame-
Shame is a deeply distressing feeling because it strikes at the core of who you are. Presenting unrealistic expectations, photoshopped comparisons, and not-so-subtly setting forth society’s views on what is the ideal body to have, social media and the weight loss industry are big contributors to shame and body hatred.
Shame also comes from a sense of failure. Maybe you have embarked on a diet in the past, and it worked… at first. Completely unsustainable, you gradually wean off of the diet, whether intentional or not, and the weight comes back, though more than what you lost in the first place (because this is how the body copes with a feeling of lack and threat). The spiral of shame and unhealthy thoughts and feelings about food begin anew.
Perfectionism-
Once the concept of “healthier” enters your thinking, it’s nearly impossible not to start down a rabbit hole that never ends. “If this is good, more must be better.” “If this is bad, none is the best.” The black and white thinking promoted by diets, while masquerading as “guidelines to make it easier”, enslaves us and quickly leads to imbalance in every sense- physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual.
Lack of fulfillment-
Similar to lack of self-esteem, a lack of fulfillment in life can often leave us feeling empty, and not enough. We wonder what’s wrong with us- what’s broken. Identifying a lack of fulfillment, or any other emotional struggle, is difficult. Working through it? Downright painful and confusing. So we strive to change our outsides, in the hopes that it will fix our insides.
When any of these are at the center of our desire to loose weight or hang on ferociously to our workout routine, fear is the driver. The desire is to feel a sense of security that cannot come from our weight or size pushes us, rather than one to be the best version of ourselves we can be and take care of ourselves well!
Now let’s address the second part to the caveat around achieving sustainable health:
For those caught up in the restricting-overeating diet cycle, learning how to regulate the hunger, fuel properly, balance satiety with fullness, and delving into the emotional realm can be a lot of intense, hard, confusing, and time-consuming work. Jumping on a new a diet is familiar and enticing, and easier.
The cruel irony of the good food/ bad food dichotomy is that it creates increased obsession over food (especially the type we try to avoid), and sets us up for failure when indefinite restriction inevitably buckles. It’s the limitations of the diets and the perceived feeling of deprivation that lead to their repeated failure, regardless of what those restrictions are.
As with many self-defeating behaviors, realization of the behavior and understanding the shortcomings can be liberating, but also very scary, leaving us searching for a new construct. All too often, this hole is filled with yet another quick-fix diet, and the cycle continues.
Understanding the human body, metabolism, nutrition, our endocrine systems, nervous systems, and their interplay is complicated. It seems too expansive to grasp for most, overwhelming and confusing even on a good day. Every health “expert” claims their protocol is the single best way to eat, and it’s easy to feel like the rope in a game of tug-of-war between all the dogmatic diets.
But Gibson's Law holds that:
“For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD.”
Though everyone else thinks their PhD diet is superior to all others, the best diet for your body is the one that works best for you.
By works, I don’t mean “the diet you feel safest on” or “the diet you like following”. I mean the diet that allows your body to self-regulate optimally, fuels you adequately for the lifestyle you desire to live, supports healing of any underlying disease or struggles you have, allows for satisfaction, flexibility, and pleasure, and is 100% sustainable day in and day out, for the rest of your life.
That’s your PhD diet.
Just like getting an actual PhD at a university, establishing your optimal diet will take time to create, and you will likely need to keep changing, growing and experimenting as your life evolves.
But remember the adages “Anything worth doing is worth doing well” and “You get out of it what you put into it.”?
There is nothing wrong with hope. Hope motivates us. Hope keeps us going when times are tough. And we all understand in profound ways the feeling of disappointment- the opposite of hope.
Diets that promise all you are wishing for will inevitably lead to disappointment because 1) they are not sustainable, 2) health cannot be achieved quickly, 3) they are not backed by science, and 4) no one can guarantee how your body’s physique will respond to any diet, sustainable or not!
Fad diets = Disappointment
So, again I ask you- why do we put our hope in something that guarantees disappointment?
For many of you, a new diet, or maintaining one, gives a feeling of a new beginning, a chance to feel better about yourself, opportunity to finally achieve your goal and maybe steal some notice at the party. The new diet falsely provides hope of success, even in the face of a great deal of evidence showing diets don’t work.
Before you hop onto the next diet train that flies by and passes in 8 months max, I encourage you to consider the following:
What if you had fantastic self esteem?
What if you never felt shame?
What if you loved your life and felt fulfilled?
What if a magazine featured YOU on the cover, just as you are today?
My suspicion is that everything about your relationship with food would change overnight. A freedom would settle in, alongside a desire to treat your body well and nourish it properly.
No longer would you be driven by comparison or self-hatred, but by compassion and care. Respect for true physical and emotional health, and desire to eat in a nourishing way, would replace the restriction and rules.
What is your true desire- sustainable health and happiness, or fleeting feel-good?
If you need help creating your PhD diet, and support to seek true body wisdom and learn to nourish yourself in a sustainable way, reach out.
The next time a girlfriend offers you a cinnamon-infused lemon and coconut milk smoothie spiked with cayenne, and swears it’ll melt away whatever you want to melt away, politely decline. Let the train roll on by; you don’t need a ride this time.
