Stress Reduction is Awesome
Am I suggesting that food should be the only way that you manage stress?
Nope.
Am I suggesting that if you eat, you won’t experience stress?
Nope.
But the act of not getting enough food puts stress on your body. Your body prepares for famine, and in doing so, activates a cascade of stress hormones to protect you because inadequate energy means you need stress hormones to function.
Another neat human trick for survival!
You can’t be both undernourished and simultaneously relaxed.
This applies whether you’re on a new year, new diet, are contending with an eating disorder, or just didn’t have the ability to eat because of a chaotic day. Your body doesn’t need to know the WHY. And it does know how to respond.
This applies to EVERY BODY. This is not dependent on body size. AT ALL.
Stress reduction is awesome.
Food is mandatory for engaging in ANY stress management anything.
This year, opt-out
And we don’t know what it’s going to look like yet, but there is going to be another diet trend it is going to sweep the nation in 2020. And it is going to work in the same way that all other diet trends have worked.
Briefly, with minimal effect for most, costing a lot of money and even more mental and moral blowback.
THIS YEAR, OPT-OUT.
I don’t know what the sparkly trend will be this year, but you better believe that there will be something new and fantastic and promising to save us all.
Grapefruit didn’t work. Cabbage soup didn’t work. Fat-free didn’t work. Low-carb didn’t work. Extra high-protein didn’t work. Paleo didn’t work. The caveman diet didn’t work. Weight Watchers didn’t work. Nutrisystem didn’t work. Slim fast didn’t work. The whole 30 didn’t work. Clean eating. Is not a thing. Celery juice? Gross. Oh, and noom? That’s a diet.
The history of dieting is extraordinary.
Restriction by another name is still restriction. Your body doesn’t care that THIS ONE is supposed to be THE one.
The most common and frustrating outcome: unsustainable metabolic challenges that don’t serve most humans and leave folx feeling like failures. Except failing a diet means that your body is choosing to keep you alive. Which makes me wonder why we call that failure, at all.
If we are going to play with the new year, New You concept, then let it be about a year of rejecting diets.
You still need to eat
Your body image might be terrible. The bottom of a trashcan kind of terrible.
You still need to eat.
Regularly.
Adequately.
Consistently.
Forever.
The fact that body image is actually a processing in your brain issue and not an actual body issue means that attempting to change your body will not address the root cause.
Have compassion.
Be gentle.
Experiment with speaking kindly to your body, even if you do not feel comfortable in it.
Especially if you don’t feel comfortable in it.
Don’t let the decoration fool you
Diet culture at the end of the year is the same life vacuum that it is all year round.
With glitter. And tinsel. And bows.
Same false promise.
Same body pressure.
Same success(?) rates.
Same noise.
Don’t let the decoration fool you.
And I understand that you might be tempted. And I see you if you’re not ready to reject diet culture. And I understand that fatphobia may keep you in the diet cycle. And I apologize if weight stigma has led to others to recommend that you stay with it. Just. One. More. Time.
And I’ll be here, either way.
Be Gentle
No matter what or how much you ate.
No matter what or how much you drank.
No matter if you sat all day long.
No matter what diet culture will line the shelves and flood your inbox and invade your eardrums tomorrow.
Nourish yourself as you would nourish a human that you adore. Practice the self-care that you’d wish for a human you love.
Be gentle.
Be gentle.
Be gentle.
Put it Down
Almost every session that I have had over the last two weeks has in one way or another, touched on concern about the opinion of other humans, with regard to food and body experiences.
That’s not to say that concern about body talk is unique.
That’s not to say that concern about food talk is unique.
But this intensity is real. And if you’re feeling it too, know that you’re not alone.
I’m sorry if you are made to sit through uncomfortable conversations, and know that you can come out on the other side.
I’m sorry if you are made to feel bad for taking up space. It’s yours.
I’m sorry if you are made question the food choices that you make over the next few days. Those are for you. Alone.
I’m sorry if you are made to defend your body over the next few days. It’s yours and you belong here.
People who make comments about the bodies or food choices of other humans have their own food and body stories.
I feel very confident about this statement, and do not believe that there are exceptions to it.
You don’t need to carry other people’s fatphobia, weight stigma, dieting trope, or food stories.
PUT. IT. DOWN.
The Worst Holiday Decoration
Diet talk. Body talk. Unhappy food talk.
THE WORST HOLIDAY DECORATION.
Your values.
Your autonomy.
Your opinions.
Your truth.
Your power.
Those will persist through and after the season.
You're Worthy of Boundaries
They might have told you stories about the right way to be in a body.
They might have told you that you were doing it wrong.
They might have asked you to work against your body.
They might not have seen your struggle. Or known what to do with it.
And they might have seen it. And encouraged you to keep going.
You may have made the hard choice to set limits on contact with these humans. You may have set boundaries to protect yourself. You may see them rarely as a means of self-preservation. You may recognize that their messaging was never about you, but rather, a reflection of their experience. You might not feel convicted of that yet.
And maybe you’ll see them this week.
They might want to talk about food and bodies and diets and socially encouraged disordered eating patterns. They might ask about why you’re eating what you’re eating. They might repeat patterns that you’ve tried to disrupt. They might behave in ways that reaffirm your need for boundaries and separation and space.
You’re worthy of your boundaries. And you can uphold them even when you are temporarily sidestepping them because the holiday season demands it.
Hold fast, dear ones.