How to Ditch Diet and Weight Talk

When you’re working on breaking up with diet culture and healing your relationship with food and your body, you’ll likely become hyper-aware of how much your family members, friends and coworkers (and random strangers!) talk about diets and weight.

Whether it’s your mom raving about her new weight-loss plan, your trainer talking about his latest diet hack, a colleague complaining about how “bad” she’s eating, or a friend's frequent comments on other people’s bodies, diet and weight talk is everywhere.

If you’re like me, you probably used to participate in these conversations without giving it a second thought. This is completely understandable given how ingrained, habitual and normalized diet and weight talk are in our culture.

However, it doesn’t have to be the norm or acceptable, especially if you find such talk triggers negative feelings about your eating and body, causes you to doubt the path you’re on, tempts you to try one last diet, or just feels downright tiresome.

If this is the case, here are a few strategies for ditching diet and weight talk.

Don’t Contribute
When someone starts talking about these topics, don’t add fuel to the fire. By not contributing to the conversation, it will likely quickly peter out, especially if you’re engaging with just one person.

Change the Subject
There are a gazillion other things to talk about so changing the subject is usually pretty easy. Most of the time, the other person won’t even realize what you’ve done.

Remove Yourself
Remove yourself from the conversation by simply walking away or making an excuse to leave, such as needing to use the restroom or get back to work.

Make a Request, Set a Boundary
If you feel comfortable with making a specific request regarding what would be the most supportive or setting a boundary regarding what is no longer acceptable, following is some language to consider. Of course, what you say will depend on the situation and who you’re talking to. 

• Focusing on diets and weight has caused me to have a disordered relationship with food and my body. Will you help me create a healthy one by no longer talking about dieting and weight loss when we’re together?
  

• We waste so much time and energy talking about what we shouldn’t be eating and what’s wrong with our bodies. Can we agree to ditch the diet and weight talk and focus on more fun, interesting and meaningful subjects?
  

• I’m reclaiming my life from our toxic diet culture. Will you help me by not talking about or sending info on weight loss and diets, including detoxes, cleanses, resets, reboots and any other form of food restriction?
  

• All this talk about diets and weight feels so oppressive and disempowering. How about we make a pact to no longer discuss these things?
  

• I respect that you approach food and weight differently than I do. Can we agree to honor each other’s choices and not talk about these topics anymore?
  

• I love talking about all sorts of things with you, however, diets and weight are two things I won't talk about.
  

• I’m learning how to eat intuitively and accept my body. I'd appreciate if you supported me in this process by not bringing up anything about diets and weight. If you’d like to learn more, I’m happy to share my experience with you.

You Have the Right
Keep in mind that not everyone will remember your request or boundary, understand it or respect it—especially if they’re entrenched in diet culture. Thus, you may have to remind them multiple times, explain it further or be firmer.

Even if your conversations feel uncomfortable and scary, don’t give up.

You have the right to ask for what you need, to have your needs met, and to surround yourself with unconditional support

What Will You Regret?

This passage from author, activist and wise woman Anne Lamott has long resonated with me:

“Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.”

In the past, I’ve shared how I let my so-called inadequacies and imperfections stop me from fully living.

I let the size of my body dictate the size of my life.

While understandable given the weight-stigmatizing world we live in, it breaks my heart when I think about how much of our life we waste hiding out, berating ourselves for not having the “right body” and obsessing about how to fix it.

I often wonder, if we weren’t thinking about this, what would we be thinking about?

Where would we be putting all our time and energy?

How different would our lives be?

How different would the world be?

My highest intention is to help end all this needless suffering so none of us regrets not going swimming.

If you fear you may regret all the things you didn't do because you were taught your body wasn't good enough, I encourage you to get support.

Life is truly too short to let your body size dictate the size of your life.

Can You Pinch an Inch? The Harms of Body Checking

Can you “pinch an inch?” 

(Please don't try.)

If you were a TV viewer in the 80s, you're likely very familiar with Kellogg’s “pinch an inch” ad campaign. 

And, as the Special K commercials encouraged us to do, you likely tried to see if you could indeed pinch an inch of flesh at your waistline. 

According to the cereal company, pinching an inch or more meant there was a problem with your body. 

But, hey, no worries, they had the solution! If you ate a bowl of Special K cereal every morning, that shameful inch would melt away!

Not only did Kellogg’s body shame millions of people to sell its product, it also taught us, especially impressionable young girls like me, the practice of body checking. 

Body Checking Defined
Body checking means frequently seeking information about your weight, size, shape or appearance by repeatedly engaging in behaviors such as:

• Stepping on the scale to check your weight

• Using skinfold calipers to measure your body fat percentage

• Measuring body parts with a tape measure

• Looking in the mirror and other reflective surfaces (e.g., store windows, display cases)

• Evaluating the fit of your clothing, belts, rings, etc.

• Pinching and squeezing your flesh

• Feeling body parts for fat, muscle or bone

• Wrapping your hands around your wrists, arms, thighs, stomach, etc.

• Comparing your body to recent or old photos and videos of yourself

• Zooming in on various parts of your body in photos and videos

• Comparing your body to other people’s bodies

• Asking other people for their opinion of your body

Escalated With Dieting
While I learned to perform a few body checking behaviors as a pubescent tween, like pinching my waist, my body checking really escalated in my thirties during my most restrictive dieting days.

I’d weigh myself every single morning after working out and before getting into the shower. Sometimes, I’d step on the scale multiple times a day if one was nearby.

When getting dressed, I’d obsessed over whether my clothes felt looser or tighter compared to the last time I wore them. 

Every time I encountered a mirror at home or work while alone, I would turn sideways to check the size of my stomach, often sucking it in to try to make it look flatter. 

Sitting in work meetings, I’d wrap my hand around my wrist under the table to gauge its size. 

And while lying in bed at night, I would perform a routine check of my stomach, thighs and other body parts, feeling each area to see if anything had changed.

Harmful Coping Tool
I didn’t know back then that this constant scrutinizing of my body had a name. I also didn’t realize the harm it was causing. 

I was just trying to do what I thought I needed to do to control my weight, to conform to our culture’s unrealistic body standards, to feel acceptable, worthy and safe in a world that was constantly telling me I wasn’t good enough (including cereal companies!).

If the number on the scale was lower, if my jeans fit looser, if my stomach looked flatter, if I could pinch less belly fat, then I felt relief—albeit temporary—from the body distress I typically felt weighed down by.

My body checking was a way to cope with my uncertainty about who I was and my place in the world. 

It was a way to alleviate my fears and anxiety, to soothe and comfort myself, to reassure myself that I was okay. 

It was also a way to motivate myself. 

If I liked the feedback I received, I was motivated to keep doing what I was doing, to keep undereating and overexercising. If I didn’t like the feedback I received, it motivated me to pull the reins in tighter, to eat even less and exercise even more.

It didn’t matter how my body felt (ravenous! exhausted!). It only mattered how it look.

While I thought my compulsive monitoring was necessary, it kept me overly focused on my body leaving little time, energy and headspace for far more important things.

It caused my mood to swing from elation to despair and dictated how I went about my day and how I interacted with others. 

Although it could momentarily ease my anxiety, it ultimately amplified it. Although I was attempting to feel better about my body, it ultimately increased my body dissatisfaction. 

Life On the Other Side
As I began healing my relationship with my body, I came to understand how harmful my body checking behaviors were, including how they were fueling my disordered eating and exercising.

By working hard to overcome my beliefs and behaviors (including challenging toxic messaging from companies that profit greatly from us feeling badly about our bodies), I was able to eventually cultivate a more peaceful, neutral relationship with my size and shape. 

Looking in the mirror a few times a day to style your hair, ensure your shirt is buttoned correctly, or check for food in your teeth is something most of us do. 

Repeatedly looking in the mirror throughout the day, fixating on the size of your stomach or the shape of your hips, is something none of us should feel the need to do to survive oppressive social constructs that put bodies on a hierarchy.

If you engage in frequent body checking, I encourage you to get support because there’s so much more life to live on the other side of your mirror.