28th January – Dieting a radical form of body modification
I accept YOU for all your thought patterns even if they do seem unrealistic at times.
Don’t hate yourself to make someone else rich. Ever heard that? It’s true.
The way some people feel about themselves, especially in my experience, we have to act a certain way and look a certain way in order to be happy. We will throw money at any guru in order to find nirvana. The freedom, the unbinding or attachment to what holds us back from success. They have the answer, they must be right! We desperately want it to be true.
I have been reading alot on body acceptance and self awareness pages cause this week. Society tells us unless we are a certain weight or size then we are “fat”, overweight and lazy and that we should be doing more. Eat less & exercise more. At what cost?
The latest fad or diet product is out on the market that promises to strip away the pounds in little to no time. The latest gym gimmick or product is the answer to our prayers. Sign up now and your dreams will be fulfilled and you will be an accepted member of society. Torturing our bodies with never ending diet plans, gym memberships, thigh blasters & worshipping photoshopped images of bikini ready bodies in the social pages is enough to drive anyone with poor self esteem mad.
Whatever happened to accepting our bodies for what they are at this particular point in time while on the journey to good health and happiness? Why the self loathing and hate? Why do we constantly go searching for the miracle product that promises to make us happy. It only sets the user up for failure. Why should I be focusing on food group ratios, weighing and obsessing over fat and water losses.? What kind of sick people are we to be so caught up with ourselves and the latest diet plan that promises to take away our hurts and solve all our problems. It really is not that simple. Ask anyone in your circle of friends if they are on a diet, and you will find the most common is answer is yes and/ or contemplating going on a diet and then go in and waffle about their latest discovery of diet porn that promises a new body in 4 weeks. It really is unrealistic and unhealthy.
“I lost 5kg in one week on the soup diet!”" “I was a good girl , I didnt eat that chocolate slice oh but I had a low fat yoghurt, a muesli bar & bag of gluten free/fat free crisps!!” “I put on so much weight on that cruise time to eat salad for a month!” “I am on the wedding dress diet I have to look perfect for my big day!” “He will love me, if only I was smaller!” “Look at her, she has really let herself go”. “Should you really be eating that?” “Oh I have already had junkfood today, whats another packet of biscuits gonna to matter? time to start the “diet” again next week” “I was so bad over Christmas, my new years resolution is to be skinny, workout & not eat rice for a year!”
How are the above statements not bordering on insanity? I have used them many times over they years, and have heard others utter them to each other in social circles. I am certainly not a saint. This just encourage patterns of eating disorder behaviour & obsessive tendencies.
Who the hell are we to judge and comment on other people’s eating habits and offer our pearls of wisdom?. It really is non of our business. We dont know that person’s journey. We cannot possibly comment unless we are that person walking in their shoes. What about just loving that person for who we are? It is possible to be able to love ourselves no matter our size and not see life as a constant starvation diet of shakes and empty wallet pockets?
The amount of money I have poured into training sessions, memberships, diet products, magazines, subscriptions, pills, counselling & psych sessions, medication, thigh and tummy tucker underwear, cookbooks, e books, blogs, everything just promises and promises. I shudder to think of the cost, sometimes I think I take 5 steps forward and 10 steps back cause my mind isn’t in the same place where I want to go.
We may go alright for a while cause the idea is new and exciting but like most things it gets old then the previous habits come back the ones we tried to avoid cause it was “bad” and “naughty”. That negative attachment to food and exercise it will constantly beat on the front door and will not leave us alone. It’s not until we can sit down and truly face ourselves and say that eating food is a natural function and healthy, it’s okay to eat to survive. I highly doubt the cavemen would look into reflections of the pond and say to themselves I am so fat I think I will eat less today and go and cry in their mammoth stew! I would imagine that they ate to survive & ate only when they were hungry.
This experiment is harder than when I first envisioned. Perhaps my mistake was to still think in “diet” or “deprivation mode”. Cannot have this or that & eliminate food groups. NO CARBS or FAT! You aren’t worthy! Guilt sets in. Not trying hard enough. You are fat & lazy.
You couldn’t even finish jogging the 8.2km fun run the day before, you had to walk the last few kilometres. Fat pig. Unrealistic thoughts maybe thinking that my fitness would be where it was 3 months ago? Setting myself up for failure before I began?
See that’s another punishing thought process. That negative association and comparisation to others I am trying to avoid using. Over time I am sure that I can overcome & just be happy with being me. A healthier version, that is strong, fit and just living her life to the fullest and not in a fog of regret & diet bars.
Whatever just happened to eating just whenever we are hungry?
No set times or bullshit rules.
Is enjoyment for good food lost forever in the sea of the billion dollar diet industry?
Can we really lose the love hate relationship for food and ourselves and just “let it be?”
Remove the stressful elements of our behaviour & let love take over.
That will continue to be my working progress.
Thankyou for reading, and here’s to a happier February 
Eat food when hungry not for emotional fulfillment
We only have one shell lets look after it the best we can.
January 28, 2013 at 9:37 pm
I agree with most of what you write. Although I don’t think having an intolerance towards excessive/unhealthy levels of fat is necessarily the same thing as being intolerant towards larger people (or excessively large people!)
Of course, we’re not just talking about aesthetics – or genetics – though. We are talking – in the vast majority of cases – of people who eat excessively and/or eat the wrong types of foods excessively. I’ve been one of them for practically all my adult life. And although I’ve never been on a diet per se, I have gone through periods of eating more or less healthily. (Mostly less!)
But I do believe that I have found the holy grail of how to lose weight in a sustainable (actually, lifelong) manner that doesn’t involve counting calories, eliminating food groups or becoming neurotic or obsessive about food. It also doesn’t involve feeling miserable and hungry or cravings or diet industry products of any sort.
Well, I suppose you could call it a product inasmuch as it cost me seven (count ‘em!) whole British pounds and I bought it in a local supermarket a week ago!
I’m talking about Paul McKenna’s book Hypnotic Gastric Band. It seemed like an interesting concept and I felt whimsical that day. I’m so, so grateful that I was guided to buying that book because it has changed my life, literally overnight.
I read it in a day. I didn’t listen to the hypnotic CD. But I did, immediately, start to follow his Four Golden Rules because they seemed eminently sensible to me.
Immediately, and in the week since, I have reduced my portion sizes to a third of what they used to be before I read the book. My eating has gone from erratic, with ridiculously poor food choices to regular, with mostly very decent food choices. I instantly ditched all crisps, chocolates and puddings. Not because they are ‘banned’ or because I was forcing myself to, but because my new way of eating meant that I had absolutely no desire to eat those things.
And the fantastic – no, miraculous! – thing about it all is how utterly effortless it has been. This has not taken superhuman levels of willpower. It’s been perfectly natural and perfectly easy. Which is why I know I can follow this for the rest of my life. And if I can do it, I’m pretty sure most people can.
Anyway, I enjoyed your post, so felt like sharing…
February 12, 2013 at 4:12 pm
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