Diet Trends Come and Go.
Diet trends come and go.
In the 70s, table sugar was advertised as a pick-me-up for housewives. In the 80s, cabbage soup was all the rage. The ’90s brought in low-fat everything, only to be replaced with low carb everything. And remember when there were ideas about eating like cave people? That was fun. Now it’s keto everything, which is fabulous if you are a child with a seizure disorder, and otherwise, not sustainable or good. Oh and noom. Which is not a diet, but is a diet.
*diets don’t work sustainability, so replacement of them was and always will be, inevitable.
Now, eating is more confusing than ever. The diet-wellness culture suggests that food will save us. That it will cure incurable diseases, prevent viral transmission, will prevent aging, and all of the undesirable things. If only.
Food itself, is neutral.
Our culture makes it far more powerful than it actually is. If you’ve felt that pull, consider yourself a human. And please know there is another way.
The normalization of orthorexia, a very real and culturally normalized eating disorder, is horrifying to me. Preoccupation with perfect eating leads to extremely distressed living.
It is within your rights to eat foods for the sake of their nutrient content. It is also your right to eat food simply because it tastes good. Trendy eating suggests that one of these options is good and the other is bad. I would like to challenge that idea.
Intuitive eating makes room for all foods. As does your body. Fear, anxiety, distress, guilt, and shame are far worse for you physiologically than ANYTHING you’ll EVER eat. Ever.
At this point in my life, I have more of an aversion to trendy food then I have an interest in it. Eat trendy food if you enjoy it. But please do not feel as though you must eat on trend with food to be a healthy human. Or to be a human who is welcome on this planet.
Trend shop elsewhere, maybe? I understand that legging shorts and mom jeans are cool now. Those, were cool when I was a child. I wore the shorts, my mom wore the denim. Neat that we’re going back there?🤦♀️
Something that cannot be trendy?
Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter cannot be a trend.
STAY.
Body Image and Self Love
Are you around on Tuesday night?
8PM EST / 5PM PST?
Join me, @tiffanyima, @missalexlarosa, and @tessholliday when we chat about all things body image and self-love with the fabulous humans @moxxiemade.
This event is FREE interactive forum hosted on Zoom, accepting donations for @thelovelandfoundation - an organization supporting the therapeutic needs of Black women and girls. This is an organization that I support independently, and I’m over the moon that this event will further that support.
Head to @moxxiemade to sign up! Or check out the link in my stories.
Can’t wait to see you there!
xoxo,
a
Your Body Knows How to Handle Food
It is expected that you’ll eat past comfortable fullness if you haven’t eaten enough. If you haven’t eaten in too many hours. If you’ve not been able to meet your energetic need. If you’re avoiding foods that satisfy for the sake of the foods you might feel you ‘should’ eat and enjoy.
This is expected. This is not a moral issue.
And if this happens, know that you won’t always be full.
Wait.
Then eat again.
Especially if you’re not a fan of the uncomfortable fullness that follows not getting enough, regularly incorporated food. Or the less happy digestive process that follows irregular energy intake.
Empty isn’t good. Full isn’t bad.
Your body knows how to handle food.
Body Diversity is Intentional
This is why your instagram #fitspo influencer is not helpful. Moving like they do will not result in you looking like they do. Assuming they look like that, anyway.
This is why #diet culture icons messing with your food choice is not helpful. Dietary salvation is for sale, but it is not interested in anything but creating return customers. You might eat like ‘them,’ but you won’t have their lives or their bodies. And there’s no telling how honest they’re being, anyway.
This is why your #wellness guru is not helpful. Many of the humans peddling solutions are unqualified to do so, (hey @gwynethpaltrow), and worse, use their qualifications to keep you coming back. For the benefit of their wallets. Wellness deities are my least favorite things.
With any and all messages about being in a body, consider the flow of cash. These messages are banking on your vulnerability. And are completely unsound.
Move if you are able. If you want to. In ways that feel good. Eat a variety of food, if that is accessible to you. Eating anything is always better than aiming for perfect food. Not.a.thing. Don’t bother your head with fancy supplements or cleanses or detoxes.
Practice self-care, your way.
You can do all the things, and your body is going to look like your body. That’s not a mistake. That is very much by design.
BODY DIVERSITY IS INTENTIONAL.
Save your time.
Save your sanity.
Save your money.
Read: resilience
I think about this all the time.
I talk with my clients about this all the time.
By virtue of being children, we have fewer resources than we do as adults.
This is not a matter of opinion, but rather a fact.
This is why it is so essential for children to have healthy attachment figures.
This is why it is so important for children to have permission to eat all the food.
This is why it is so important for humans who are raising young humans to address their relationships with food and body and bias as they raise eaters.
AND
If you used food as a coping strategy as a child, that was an act of resilience. Not an act of gluttony. Or some naughty thing. This may well have been a means of survival. Read: resilience.
Because the act of eating leads to the release of neurotransmitters that help us feel good. This is not a matter of opinion. This is one of the reasons that humanity has persisted.
The act of eating leads to dopamine and norepinephrine release. The byproduct of eating certain food leads to serotonin release. These are…
REAL LIFE FEEL GOOD HORMONES.
When nothing feels good, eating does.
Reliably.
Consistently.
On a chemical level.
Thank goodness and gracious.
Many of my clients have experienced being shamed in the context of feeding themselves as young people.
Many of my clients experienced shame in response to their bodies changing related to eating resourcefully. Mostly projected on them by early attachment figures and medical professionals.
And it doesn’t matter if this body shame happened ten years ago, or thirty or fifty.
I know these memories stick around. And I’m sorry.
Your body was never a problem. Not then, and not now. You were resourceful and brave and I am so grateful that you persisted today.
How would your relationship with food change if you viewed it as a means of being resourceful?
How might you feel about your younger self if you reframed your eating patterns in the context of resourcefulness?
Evolve or repeat
New Year reality; “you’re not enough so buy this” message is going to be replaced with “you’re not enough so diet...” This year, consider that there is another way.
Change is so hard. And being stuck in a pattern that doesn’t serve us? Sometimes, even harder than the change itself. And other times, the change itself is hard as can be, and worth the difficulty.
Recovering from an eating disorder and moving away from diet culture is hard. It takes work, persistence, patience, self-compassion, drive, and all of these things, repeated, endlessly.
But we are presented with two choices: evolve or repeat.
In my life, I have chosen both. You likely have, too. Living with a chronic illness and a progressively debilitating illness, at that, is a lot. I have fought against my body. I have talked shit about my body. I have gone to great lengths to change my body. I have paid real money for miracle solutions that left me miraculously with less money and less self-confidence. And by no means, is this process over. But when I choose to sit with acceptance of what is, I’m not judging myself or my process or my body.
I’ve had MS for over 20 years. I’ve been disabled for the better part of 10, probably. I didn’t realize that my body moved differently until seeing myself on video eight years ago. And then after that, I acquired a limp that my dentist teased me for…I didn’t go to the dentist for two years after that.
In the last five years, I have started using mobility aids. I am disabled. And my disability is changing. My body is evolving in ways that I don’t love. But I am not repeating the pattern of beating the hell out of myself for the sake of beating the hell out of myself.
I wonder if you can offer your self, your body, similar compassion. I wonder if you can make the next choice one that frustrates your eating disorder, or flies in the face of diet culture. Expect it to feel uncomfortable. And keep going.
Our bodies are in a state of constant evolution. When our minds are doing the same, there can be harmony.
EVOLVE. Let’s go, 2020. Ready.
I am a Fat Positive Nutritionist
I AM A PROUD FAT POSITIVE NUTRITIONIST
And while I’m here for all bodies, I am not interested in the unfair elevation of the experience of privileged bodies.
I get messages from folks telling me that they hate me and my page. That I am not to be trusted as a nutrition professional. That I must be speaking to small-fat bodies when I say that all bodies are worthy of care, of recognition, of recovery, of respect.
And although the discourse in my inbox is upsetting, it is NOTHING compared to the bullshit that humans who live in larger bodies are made to contend with, every day.
I can block folks. I can choose to not respond. I can choose to educate and fight and advocate.
And these are my choices because of the privilege that I live with.
So when I say I am fat positive dietitian, I’m here for ALL fat bodies. Small fat, medium fat, super fat, infinity. Fat bodies that live with and without disease or disorder. Fat bodies that have dieted and felt as though they failed, and dieted again. Fat bodies that engage in physical activity, or not. Fat bodies that are able to access nutritious food, or not. Fat bodies that have experienced disordered eating or eating disorders, or not. Fat bodies that prioritize health, whatever that means to an individual, or not. Able fat bodies, and fat bodies with disability.
I am a fat-positive dietitian because working otherwise is perpetuating weight stigma. Weight stigma is deadly. I am a Health at Every Size® dietitian because neglecting to operate from this paradigm, particularly in the context of treating humans with eating disorders, is negligent at best, deadly at worst.
I’ve learned a lot in eleven years. Most importantly, about the importance of sitting down, learning from those with experiences that I have not had, and challenging the weight-centric treatment paradigm.
I am looking forward to a new year of LOUD fat positive voices. Dismantling fatphobia and weight stigma is good for ALL bodies.
Vadiveloo, 2017