Diet Culture is Kind Of Like Your Shitty High School Boyfriend
I broke up with diet culture ages ago, but we’ve gotten back together a few times unfortunately. It says it’s changed (news flash: it hasn’t) and I get smooth talked into some new plan that’s going to be my salvation. This time it’s different, it claims. It’s all a lie and the diet culture narrative is a dangerous one. Ages back, I hosted a “funny” blog where I wrote fervently about my shortcomings as a human and my lapses in judgment that left me wondering how I don’t fall down more. I stopped writing there after I got pregnant ‘cause (I don’t know if you heard) I had the worlds worst pregnancy.
Quick story about that: I once had to barf and instead of just barfing in the garbage can that’s in the back room, (I worked at a bank) I thought I would run down to the bathroom located in the basement instead. I didn’t make it, of course. I threw up all over the stairs, the floor, myself. I had to clean it up with shitty paper towels - BEFORE SOMEONE CAME DOWN TO PEE - because we hired people to clean and therefore we apparently didn’t need to stock our own. Such a magical time.
Anyway, this is an old post about how I broke up with diet culture after having tried and failed JJ Virgin’s “The Virgin Diet” which claimed you could still eat whatever you wanted. It’s another weird form of restriction involving nut butter and Psyllim Husk? (That autocorrected to asylum which is honestly? Fitting.)
Dear Diet: I’m over you.
I told Twitter that I binge ate 15 cookies today, and they totally didn’t judge me. Which is crazy because I judged me, so why not them? I’ve found myself sneaking around as of late, hoarding cookies and other sugar-based goods like it’s communist Russia and I’m on food rations. I’ve never experienced cravings for something quite like sugar before. Cigarettes? No problem. Alcohol? Whatever. Coffee? Well I’d miss it, but I certainly wouldn’t be planning elaborate, sneaky missions to acquire it. (Maybe I would, I mean, all hail the mighty java) My “health” journey started right after Christmas last year. I found myself face first in a diet book. JJ Virgin’s diet. I never subscribed to diet culture. In general, I think it’s gross. I think we as women, and maybe some men, have grown accustomed to obsessing and scrutinizing every food or exercise based decision. In a world where we’re bombarded with limitless garbage food, and a full blown addiction to sugar and carbs, we’ve certainly gotten to a point where we devote WAY to much brain power to this shit.
As a side note, I purchased a scale a while ago. That was a terrible idea. The idea of the scale was to get on it like once a week to just check in. Too bad I get on it at least three times a day. Making sure to take off every last scrap of clothing so that I’m getting a “full picture”. In any given day I can fluctuate 7 pounds. So, I start real light in the morning and then by the evening with my gut full of liar cookies and tarts, I’m back up again. How did I get to this point? Back to JJ. She appealed to me because she encourages her readers to discover what causes problems for them, in their body. No you don’t have to go without dairy if it doesn’t cause issues for you, you CAN have eggs after the three weeks of starvation and smoothies – so long as your body likes them. I jumped in. Head first. Lapping up the almost immediate weight loss I experienced (bloating, water weight etc.) and over the moon about an immediate difference in mood, levels of irritation, headaches, and fatigue. This was my salvation. But of course, nothing is. (Spoiler alert: I am.) After a time I plateaued in weight. Thinking to myself, okay so now I just need to start to move my body. I did a couple stints on the elliptical, even tried to go jogging which ended horribly – my dog and I tripped over each other several times, and somehow in that time I convinced myself that I deserved all of the treats, and then immediately after I ate all the said treats, I chastised myself and dove head first into a shame spiral. Then I’d get back on the “diet horse”, feel a little success, “cheat”, shame spiral. You get it. It’s a cycle and it’s all quite, exhausting.
*Sidebar: can we just talk about the word ‘cheat’ and how much I hate it? How dare you associate me treating myself with some kind of inscrutable act. Such a subtle way instilling profound guilt. GROSS.
I’m god damn tired, of hating myself when I want to have a cookie. I’m tired of having to constantly rationalize why I deserve something, or how much I have to work out to ‘earn it’, or how I’m always thinking about the size and shape of my body. If I was a little bit this, little bit thinner, little bit that, everything would be perfect. I am tired of convincing myself that every ailment I have is because of what I put in my body. I’m tired of feeling frustrated and anxious eating anywhere other than my house because there are just no options for me. I’m tired of the lack of god damn options in my shitty little grocery store in my tiny town I live in because North America’s food is owned by like two people and we’re all at the mercy of whatever they fucking decide. I’m tired of having to plan weeks in advance if I want to go away, go camping or hang out with people that just don’t eat the same way I do. I’m tired of hating myself when I want to have a god damn cookie.
Shame spirals aside, I’ve come to a few conclusions.
Regardless of how much weight I lose, I’ll still be the same person. Maybe more confident, but the same. Still riddled full of weird daddy issues and poor communication skills.
I don’t actually have to subscribe to a specific diet dogma. I think we can all appreciate how theres 8,000 diets to choose from, all with varying levels of weirdness. Remember the juice cleanse? That was dumb. Remember when Atkins was all the rage? Even dumber. I’m all for eating healthy, but the fact that people make actual millions off of the fact that women are programmed to attach their self worth to their physical appearance is nauseating.
I can have a god damn cookie. And I’m not a bad person.
Most importantly, my self worth isn’t attached to my physical appearance. I fooled myself into thinking that the diet was so that I would ‘feel good’ and it was for a while. Until I stopped losing weight and then all of a sudden it wasn’t about how I was feeling it was about how I stopped losing. I wish I was woke. I wish I didn’t have any attachment to how my body looked and focused only on my mental clarity and my ability to get through a conversation without visualizing stabbing the other person. Are you with me still?
Healthy eating is intuitive and I let myself believe that someone had to TELL me what healthy eating entailed. I know myself. I know my body. I know what my body likes and doesn’t like. I know that the health game is a marathon, not a sprint. I know that in the end, I have an immeasurable amount of things to be grateful for, my health included. No metabolic disease, a stable job, a nice house and an amazing husband and extended support system. WHY am I utilizing my brain power to obsess over this thing? This gross diet, exercise thing? Well I’m not anymore. Cause fuck you, sugar.
Oh and also, a beer. Fuck I miss beer.
I think I’m going to post one of my old funny blogs every week or so, and then when I run out, I’ll make more - girl you know me. If you found this blog funny, please! Share it! Tell the world! The only way we’re going to affect positive change when it comes to the next generation of young people is by shouting to the world the things that we want to change.
