I've always been curvy, and always known it. While never overweight, I was always acutely aware of being "thick" and never quite appreciated the strength of my body. Dieting has been a part of my life since high school, when I remember going to Weight Watchers with my mom in the pursuit of losing 10 lbs. Today is the day I am embracing intuitive eating, and that I reject chronic dieting. I am sick and tired of diets that frankly do not work -- and never will work.
Diet culture swindles you out of time and money in the pursuit of an unattainable goal. I just want to live my life, and recently discovered that there's another way.
According to Be Nourished, an intuitive eater is defined as a person who “makes food choices without experiencing guilt or an ethical dilemma, honors hunger, respects fullness, and enjoys the pleasure of eating.” Today is the day I start living my life in this way – I will enjoy food with experiencing guilt, I will honor my hunger and my fullness, and I will enjoy the pleasure of eating.
Here are the four reasons why I am saying “fuck diets” and embracing intuitive eating:
Diets do not work. And they’re a waste of money. What about intuitive eating?
I’ve done every diet ever. Weight Watchers… Jenny Craig… Lose It… everything. And yet – my weight has stayed in the same ~15 lb range for the past 15 years. If I stopped and counted how much money I’ve spent on programs, apps, supplements, packaged food, etc. – it would be in the thousands. T H O U S A N D S.
I’m also calling some degree of BS on elimination diets that are really just a mask for controlling your caloric intake. Get an allergy test and determine what you are actually allergic to or what is actually causing your migraines, or talk to your doctor about doing a medically supervised elimination diet. Do not do an elimination diet for 30 days and then be gleeful that you lost 15 lbs., but don’t take the care to reintroduce foods thoughtfully to actually see what your sensitivities are.
They’re a waste of time.
Diets take up a ton of mindshare that you can use elsewhere – with friends, family, or turbocharging your side hustle. Chronic dieting has been in my life for as long as I can remember. I used to say, “Dieting is my main hobby.” How pathetic is that! The time you spend entering calories into an app, calculating points, worrying about what you can eat when you go out, meal prepping or buying packaged food that you don’t end up eating – this is all a huge fucking waste of time, money, and energy.
I’m so excited to get hours of my life back and put into my blog, my photography, my clients, my family, and my friends.
I love to eat, and I also love my body! Enter Intuitive Eating
I have accepted that I’m never going to be a size 2. I like to work out, not to achieve some calorie deficit, but to move and feel present in my skin. My fiance appreciates my body, and I know how to dress for my body. While it’s unfortunate that people still unfairly judge others based on their size, the more people that say ENOUGH – the more this stigma goes away.
I also obviously love to eat and cook -- food is a pleasurable, amazing thing, and why should we assign morality to a food where there is none? Chocolate is a beautiful thing. Spicy noodles -- also a beautiful thing. Vegetables and fruits -- wonderful. Fries -amazing. Margaritas the size of your head -- as shown below -- there is NO REASON to castigate this.