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I have a couple of confessions to make. First, I’m listening to Taylor Swift while writing this. Second, recently I almost had a relapse with my most toxic relationship – diet culture. More specifically, trying to restrict my eating to lose weight. Breaking up with Diet Culture has not been linear.
Here’s how it happened. As a health coach, I am consuming a lot of content, often out of curiosity about how other professionals are helping their clients. I recently downloaded a free guide to “getting your most fit body in four weeks for women” from a prominent leader in the fitness industry. It contained all the usual stuff- restricting calories, workout plans etc. No doubt effective, for the 4 weeks you do it. It also included the recommendation of using the app “‘my fitness pal”. Oh, interesting I thought, (just out of curiosity) I’ll download it and check it out.
The daily calorie consumption recommendation was 1200 calories per day. Yep, the recommended daily calorie intake of a toddler.
Ok so here come the red flags 🚩
Well, I already missed one red flag – the title of that freebie should have set my alarm bells off. As I know that anything that’s a quick fix is not sustainable.
🚩The second red flag – opening the app.
First, you put in your height and weight (I gave an estimate as I haven’t weighed myself in over 10 years)
Next, you enter your daily activity level, I put in lots of desk work, plus my workouts (it didn’t give me the option to add walking my dog).
From there it calculated the number of calories I could consume, because of course an app can understand the complexities of my energy needs. The daily calorie consumption recommendation was 1200 calories per day. Yep, the recommended daily calorie intake of a toddler. Alarm bells were ringing but I was hormonal and bloated so thought cool I will give it a try tomorrow. Just to see if it’s a useful tool (of course, it’s insane how our minds can rationalise unhealthy behaviour). Then you track your meals and calorie intake, and magic happens you are thin.
Let me tell you, the moment I downloaded that app and made the decision to try it my brain switched into restriction/binge mode.
Let me tell you, the moment I downloaded that app and made the decision to try it my brain switched into restriction/binge mode. I said to myself I’ll try it and track tomorrow, suddenly I was eating an entire bag of salt and vinegar chips and every piece of chocolate in the house (apologies to my husband for eating all his chocolate) in anticipation of entering food tracking mode.
I’m not saying chips or chocolate are bad, but the only reason I was eating them was out of that anticipation of entering into a restricted state of food intake, not because I was hungry and wanted them. Study after study shows that restricting our food intake with strict rules leads to stress, slower metabolism and increased binging. It’s biology, our bodies need the energy to survive. If you severely limit your food intake, survival mode kicks in and your body is telling you you need to eat.
I am on a long conscious journey of unlearning these toxic diet culture behaviours.
The more you restrict the louder the alarm bells from your body. It’s sending you the hormonal cues to eat, because surprise! You’re hungry!! You are tired and all you can think about is food. So you binge. It’s only natural, it’s your body’s way of preserving itself. Then you feel guilty and restrict yourself again. Stuck in a cycle in perpetuity.
It’s awful right? But it doesn’t need to be like this. Guess what! I didn’t ever use the app, I snapped out of it and deleted the app. Just its presence on my phone had me feeling guilty that I “should” enter my meals into it. F*ck that.
Through hard work, I have built a lot of awareness around this behaviour and I am on a long conscious journey of unlearning these toxic diet culture behaviours. But it doesn’t mean I’m not susceptible to the occasional relapse.
So how do we break this cycle?
This is what helps me
It can be so tempting to go for these result-toating short-term programs that promise you your best body. But at what cost? Your sanity? Constant feelings of guilt? A rebound to binge behaviour? I say- No thank you.
I choose to nourish my body, eating when I am hungry and enjoying food. I choose to move for enjoyment, to be stronger and for my mental health.
What do you choose?