How many times have you started a new diet, the fresh and exciting appeal like the last one that failed extravagantly like its many predecessors? What is it about the cycle from diet/deprivation to dieting and bingeing, from weight loss to weight gain, that feels so incredibly difficult to break? Why is all the pain and suffering that precedes dieting so easily overcome with the promise of weight loss? The feeling of a fresh start, so powerful, creates false hope of success in the face of a large body of evidence that diets really don’t work.
There are many reasons why weight loss seems like the only way to improve self-esteem: it’s an external measure trying to cure an internal problem, and this can seem much easier and less scary than trying to regulate food based on of hunger against hunger. emotional needs. For those caught in the restriction-overeating cycle, learning to regulate physical, satiety and emotional hunger can be very hard, confusing and time-consuming emotional labor, while going on a diet is familiar and tempting. The amount of attention a woman receives for weight loss can be unparalleled, only to be overcome by equally strong feelings of shame if she does regain the weight. Dieting is said to make us “good” people, who control basic impulses, while diet breakers feel like “bad” people, careless and lazy. (or much worse)
Aside from the deprivation and restriction the diet endures, the dichotomy of good and bad foods it sets up, dieters who are prone to disordered eating or eating disorders may tend to find that they are more obsessed with food in general, and especially with the foods that are. trying to limit as much as possible. There is a cruel irony here that is very painful to understand. That’s why so often dieting actually causes weight gain in the end. As with many self-destructive behaviors, noticing the behavior and understanding its origins can be very helpful, but also very scary. Psychotherapy can help with self-understanding and fear and can help you learn new, more sustainable eating skills. It’s important to remember that the difference between starting therapy and starting another diet is that therapy has a better chance of helping in the long run if you can stick it out and find the right support team.
Eating disorders are extraordinarily painful, humiliating, and emotionally humiliating problems. Although not everyone with an eating disorder has tried dieting, the restrict-crave-binge cycle with or without purging is familiar to many. One of the hallmarks of an eating disorder is its good-bad/all-or-nothing thinking dichotomy. This thought also contains many “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts.” He is usually very self-critical and perfection is the goal. Once again, the cruel irony is that “permission,” the opposite of eating thought disordered, is the opposite of dieting and the most promising thing for recovery.
I do not mean to imply a free eat for all. Love structure and boundaries (a term I like from Don’t Diet, Live it Workbook by Andrea LoBue, LMFCC and Marsea Marcus, LMFCC) are really different from self-punishment and unachievable perfectionist goals.
I want to add more thoughts on shame. Shame is one of the hardest feelings because it hits the core of who you are rather than shame over mistakes you’ve made that could be righted. There is so much shame associated with weight gain and overeating for many reasons, but to a large extent, I believe that dieting and the weight loss industry contribute greatly to body shame and hatred. How many of you reading this had someone in her family try to put them on a diet when they were young? Instead of being given the chance to experiment with food and learn your body’s desires and limits naturally, you may have been taught to feel restricted with food and ashamed of your body from an early age.
And now for the topic that is possibly the number one topic of interest for many or perhaps most women: weight loss. How, you ask, are you going to lose weight if the diet doesn’t work? And what about the “obesity epidemic” and health concerns and size bias? What about gastric surgery and weight watchers not really dieting anymore? How about Overeaters Anonymous and withdrawal? As with any global topic, there will be many answers for different people. Lately, there have been more voices talking about letting the body find its own weight instead of trying to impose a preconceived number on each and every body. There is a concept called “weight neutrality”: the idea that your weight is neither good nor bad, but what it is. In her article, “Are You a Weight-ist,” Dr. Sari Shepphird asserts that weight discrimination is a more prevalent bias in our society than racism. Here are some examples of weight obsession noted by Dr. Shepphird: “Fat people are unhealthy and lazy,” “Losing weight is just a matter of willpower,” “Thin people are more in control and are more disciplined”, “thin = healthy”, “fat is not attractive, thin is attractive”. Our society has been indoctrinated with these ideas so deeply that it’s easy to forget that they boil down to nothing more than prejudice and discrimination. And this toxic negative thought turns against oneself and against others. For more information on these concepts, visit www.bodyposition.com, or
Are you an ist weight? www.eatingdisordersblogs.com/treatment_notes/
“Do I have an eating disorder?” This is a very important question, and I think you should take an honest look at it rather than return to the safety of another diet. If you think you have an eating disorder (there are many websites that address this topic with quizzes), your direction around weight loss may become a bit clearer because addressing an eating disorder requires special attention and care. If you don’t have an eating disorder, you may have some signs of an eating disorder. These are the kinds of questions a therapist can help you with.
Some of the special attention and care that I mention above are aimed at learning to take better care of yourself. Why do you eat the way you do and how can you understand the role of emotions in your eating patterns? Why are you so focused on weight loss above all else? If you had more tools, skills, and support to manage binge eating, would you eat less in the long run than if you were on a restricted diet? Why (if you do) do you move your body in a hard and exhausting way? Are there ways that you can move and move in your body that you could start using right away to feel better about yourself? What is it about self-improvement activities like yoga that feels threatening or creates resistance in you? How could you find ways to improve your inner self-esteem? Is it true or false that losing weight can bring you inner peace? Geneen Roth’s first book has “break free” in the title. Of course, this is a really difficult and complicated project, but will the diet take it?
If you’ve read this far, here’s a question: have you ever stopped to think why diets haven’t worked for you? Take a moment to sit down and look at your own experiences. If you are currently on a diet, this can feel very threatening. However, there are usually times on a diet when you’re not so sure why you’re doing it. If you’re not currently dieting, are you idealizing or exalting what really happened the last time you dieted? Did the diet help you with your self-esteem or cause negative feelings or excessive worries to be swept under the rug? Did you feel anxious about being “bad”? Were you very anxious to start “maintaining” your weight loss? Or increased the number of times you purged or took harmful drugs?
If you’re open to it, I’d love to hear about your experiences with the diet and any thoughts you might have on how you really feel about the diet. Feel free to contact me by email: [email protected].
Note: This article was originally published on the Eating Disorders Reference Website.
