While Everyone Was Dancing, I Was Sneaking Chocolate Truffles

While cleaning out a file drawer, I came across a document I created many years ago when I was dieting. It was a recording of my weight.

Seeing those numbers caused me to pause and reflect on the person I was when I was entrenched in diet culture.

It was not a pretty picture.

Although I couldn’t see it then, my obsession with dieting and weight loss turned me into someone I really didn't like.

My efforts to become more likable made me completely unlikeable.

At the time, however, I thought I was hot stuff. I walked around with an air of superiority because I believed I had cracked the code. I had finally achieved what so many others struggle to do: I lost weight.

But that wasn’t the only thing I lost.

I also lost touch with myself, my body, my values and what truly mattered.

Addicted to Weight Loss
When people complimented me on my smaller size, little did they know they were rewarding me for having a pretty disordered relationship with food, exercise and my body.

Unbeknownst to them, their praise encouraged me to pull the reins in tighter, to eat even less and exercise even more.

My original goal weight was no longer enough.

I had become addicted to losing weight and the admiration I was receiving. I didn’t want my high to end so I kept moving my target weight lower and lower.

Withdrew from the World
The more obsessed I became with micromanaging every morsel I ate and every mile I ran, the more I withdrew from the world.

I started stressing out about social events. My food and exercise rules made socializing, especially over food, very difficult.

Already a homebody, I found myself staying home even more. 

I avoided parties, happy hours and restaurant gatherings. I was scared to be around food that was off-limits and worried I’d lose control once I started eating, especially after a glass of wine. I fretted that if I stayed out too late it would hurt my running performance the next morning.

I also became anxious about traveling.

I feared going to places where I wouldn’t be able to control what food or running spots I’d have access to. I’d cram my carry-on bag with all my safe, allowable foods.

Sneaking and Bingeing
As my list of illegal foods grew, I began playing hide-and-eat.

I started sneaking my forbidden foods and eating them in secret—often at night while standing in the kitchen in the dark.

I was ashamed to be seen eating anything “bad,” especially the large quantities of it I craved. I worried about getting caught and tarnishing my super-disciplined, healthy eater image—an identity I took a lot of pride in.

Because I was depriving myself so much, my secret eating took on a binge-like, Last Supper quality.

I’d urgently stuff cookies into my mouth all while telling myself “What the hell, I might as well go for it because I’m never going to let myself do this again.”

Relationships Suffered
With most of my time, energy and headspace focused on controlling my weight, my relationships suffered.

When I hung out with friends, I was often preoccupied with thoughts about what I shouldn't eat, what I wanted to eat and how my body looked.

My rigid rules also started to drive my boyfriend away. Understandably, he grew increasingly frustrated with my resistance to eating certain foods, my insistence on exercising every day, my reluctance to socialize, my mood swings, and my need for complete control.

I was no longer the fun-loving, easygoing gal he once knew.

Completely Different Person
I was now a person who would contact a food manufacturer to express my outrage when they increased the calorie count on their soy crisps.

I was now someone who, while everyone else was dancing at my friend’s wedding, would sneak handfuls of chocolate truffles off the dessert table and hide them in my purse to eat alone later in my hotel room.

I was now someone who almost missed a morning flight because I just had to get a 5:00 a.m. run in before leaving for the airport.

I was now a hyper-vigilant dieter who spent more time tracking my calories, miles and weight than I did connecting with others, laughing and enjoying life.

I was so ensnared in diet culture and so desperate to conform to the thin ideal that I was oblivious to how dieting was damaging my physical, mental, emotional and social health.

Stopped Me from Going Back
Although I am appalled by and ashamed of my behavior, I feel compassion and sorrow for my younger self who bought into our culture’s very convincing, toxic narrative that thinness would bring me health and happiness and that the size of my body determined my value and worth.

I also feel gratitude for finally being able to see so clearly how my dieting and anti-fat bias were harming myself and others.

My cringe-worthy behavior ended up playing a key role in helping me escape diet culture, recover from chronic dieting, uproot my anti-fat bias, and heal my relationship with food, movement and my body.

Whenever I was tempted to start dieting again, I reflected on the person dieting turned me into and the incredible damage it did. 

Knowing that I never wanted to return to that person and place again motivated me to stay on my healing path.

I Used to Track Hit Songs. Before Calories Came Along.

Yesterday, I was reflecting on how when I was a kid, New Year’s Eve meant lying for hours on the brown shag carpet in our family room in front of our large stereo credenza.  

Every year, I would excitedly attempt to write down every song on our local radio station’s countdown of the top 100 songs of the year. 

This was the early 80s, so a list wasn’t available online. I had to create my own.

I tried to stay glued to the radio as much as possible so I could track each song when it was announced and played. I remember anxiously scrambling back to my spot after a bathroom break to ensure I didn’t miss anything. 

I kept those lists for a few years so I could reflect on the hit songs and what was going on in my life at that time, like favorite outfits, crushes, roller-skating parties and sleepovers.

Tracking My Body
Sadly, as I grew older, my list-making changed from recording fun things like popular songs to meticulously tracking calories, good and bad foods consumed, workout days, miles ran, the number on the scale—all the things diet culture tells us we need to vigilantly monitor to achieve our ideal body.

While tracking these things often gave me a sense of accomplishment when I did the “right” thing, they also caused tremendous distress, anxiety and guilt when I didn’t. 

My tracking kept me overly preoccupied with my eating, exercise and body. 

And, it consumed a ton of my time, energy and headspace. (It was especially time-consuming as apps didn’t exist back then to simplify the process; much of my tracking was done on paper and eventually on spreadsheets.)

Disordered and Disconnected
If you have a history of dieting, you are likely quite familiar with tracking things like pounds, calories, points, carbs, macros, workouts, steps, hours between meals, etc. 

And, maybe like me, you eventually started to realize what you thought was helpful was actually harmful, that all your tracking was contributing to an unsatisfying and disordered relationship with food, exercise and your body and preventing you from living a full and fulfilling life.

Once I stopped tracking, I began to see how much it had disconnected me from my body. 

Eating decisions were often made based on what I was allowed to have according to my food tracking rather than what my body needed or wanted. 

Exercise decisions were often made based on what workout I had recorded the day prior or how much I ate the night before not on what my body needed or wanted in that moment. 

If I Did Track…
I don’t track anything these days but if I did, I hope it would be all the ways I treat my body with love, respect, care and tenderness and all the things I do to expand my life rather than shrink it. 

But far more importantly, if I did track anything, I'd like it to be all the meaningful things I hope I'm doing to enrich the lives of others, alleviate suffering and make the world a better place.