While Everyone was Dancing, I was Sneaking Chocolate Truffles

While cleaning out a file cabinet recently, 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 lower and lower.

Withdrew from the World
The more obsessed I became with micromanaging every morsel I ate and 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 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 couldn’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 mood swings, and my need for complete control.

I was no longer the fun-loving, go-with-the-flow 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 then hide them in a napkin inside my purse to eat later in my hotel room.

I was now someone who almost missed a 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 innocent 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 the harm dieting was causing.

My cringe-worthy behavior ended up playing a key role in helping me escape diet culture, recover from chronic dieting, 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 Thought I had to Earn the Right to Eat

As I was standing in line at my favorite bakery following a Sunday morning run, the woman next to me exclaimed:

Well, you certainly deserve a pastry! You've earned it!

Years ago, when I was stuck in diet mentality, I would have completely agreed with her.

Back then, I believed in order to enjoy a scone, muffin or cinnamon roll, I had to earn the right to, usually by eating “clean” and exercising excessively.

It was only after consuming many bunches of greens and running many sweaty miles, that I’d give myself permission to sink my teeth into a buttery baked good without feeling guilty or ashamed. I had worked hard for it!

Earning the Right to Eat
Do you ever feel like you have to earn the right to eat something in particular or to eat at all? Do you question whether or not you deserve to?

It often looks something like this:

• I had a big lunch at the restaurant so I shouldn’t eat much for dinner, even though I’m really hungry.

• I’m going to diet for the next few weeks so I can eat whatever I want on vacation.

• With a body like mine, I don’t deserve to eat what skinny people can get away with.

• I had a really hard day today; I’m entitled to this ice cream!

• I really overdid it on the Halloween candy, so no dessert for me this week.

• Since I skipped my workout this morning, carbs are off-limits today.

• I’m not allowed to eat certain foods until I lose weight.

• I’m celebrating my birthday tonight so I need to burn some serious calories at the gym this morning.

An Oppressive Belief System
Our diet culture’s “earn it and burn it” mindset is damaging and dangerous.

It fuels diet mentality, drives disordered eating and, ultimately, negatively impacts your physical, mental, emotional and social health.

The idea that you have to earn the right to eat is an oppressive belief system created by diet culture. It causes you to obsess about what you shouldn’t eat and punish yourself for your "bad" choices rather than trust your inherent ability to nourish yourself.

You Deserve to Eat—No Matter What
There is nothing in the world that makes you unworthy of food.

Despite what diet culture wants you to believe, your eating does not have to be earned or paid for. 

You have the right to consume whatever you want, whenever you want and however much you want. 

You have the right to eat what looks good, tastes good and feels good in your body.

You deserve to eat without judgment, guilt or shame.

You deserve to eat without justifying, questioning, monitoring, moralizing, counting and compensating.

You deserve to eat with ease, freedom and gusto.

You deserve to eat no matter what.

It's your birthright.

Innate Capacity to Trust Your Body
Like all humans, you were born with the innate capacity to trust your body, your appetite, your instincts and your desires.

Diet culture disconnects you from this inner knowing. But you can reclaim it.

You can start by noticing when you question if you've earned the right to eat or if you deserve to eat. When that voice in your head pops up, hit the brakes and challenge your thinking.

Ask yourself: Where did this belief come from? Is it true? Is it based on my inner cues or external rules? Is it helpful or harmful? Is it driving a fraught, disordered relationship with food or a peaceful, trusting, pleasurable one? 

This type of self-inquiry will help you free yourself from our oppressive diet culture and empower you to reclaim your ability to eat intuitively so you can spend your time, energy and headspace on more fulfilling, meaningful pursuits.

I’m Being So Bad! I’m Not Supposed to be Eating This!

A few years ago, while dishing up a bowl of oatmeal in the buffet line at a retreat center, a guest next to me was adding fresh berries to her granola.

As she drizzled honey on top of the fruit, she turned to me and said, “I’m being so bad! I’m not supposed to be eating this!”

Her comment caught me off guard.

Uncertain how to respond, I just smiled at her and went about my breakfast-gathering business.

Hoping to Hear
I’m not exactly sure what response the woman was looking for, but I have a few ideas.

It’s possible she was hoping for some reassurance that she and her actions were okay, that she wouldn’t get caught cheating on her diet or completely go to pot after eating an apparently forbidden food.

Maybe she felt that by confessing her food sin she’d be absolved of the guilt she was feeling.

Perhaps she wanted me to give her some sort of permission, like, “Hey, you only live once—go for it!” or “Heck, you work hard, you deserve it!”

Or she might have been hoping for a bonding moment, a shared experience of being bad. Something along the lines of: “I hear ya. I’m going to pay for eating all these carbs!”

A Lasting Impression
Although it lasted only a few seconds, the encounter left a lasting impression on me.

I was struck by her need to call attention to her food choice, especially to me, a complete stranger. It was as if she was trying to say: “I know better! I rarely eat like this so please don’t judge me based on this one food crime.”

The entire episode left me feeling a little sad.

I could actually really relate to what the woman was experiencing because I saw myself in her when I was imprisoned in the diet mentality.

Our Oppressive Diet Culture
This is what our toxic diet culture has done to us.

It has convinced us that there are good and bad foods and that we’re either good or bad depending upon which list we choose from.

It’s made us believe our choices are a reflection of our character, morality, willpower and intelligence.

It has conditioned us to feel guilty and ashamed of our innate human desire to eat and enjoy pleasurable food.

It’s trained us to think we need to apologize and atone for our so-called eating transgressions.

And, it’s caused us to spend an insane amount of time, energy and headspace thinking about what we should or shouldn’t eat.

Designed to Keep Us in Line
Food moralism is designed by an oppressive system to keep us in line. In our attempt to be obedient and follow the rules, many of us have developed a really disordered relationship with food and our body.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

At any moment, you can decide to defy diet culture and reclaim your power.

Perhaps your first step is simply becoming more aware of when you judge your eating—and yourself—as good or bad. Start to question whether this is really true and if such labeling is helpful or harmful.

Stealing is Bad; Eating Food Isn’t
If I could go back in time to that buffet line, I would look at that woman with compassion and empathy and say something that may have helped her view the situation and her beliefs differently, something like:

Are you stealing the food? No? Well, then there’s absolutely no reason to feel bad or guilty. Truly. Enjoy your breakfast. Lick the bowl clean. Don't look back.