The root of dieting is actually a coping mechanism. It’s an attempt to cope with internal and external stresses.
Internal stresses such as shame, guilt, fear and anxiety and external stressors such as fat-phobia and the truth that the world we live in holds beauty and thinness on a pedestal.
Some of these stressors are based purely on the external fatphobia and values of our culture. For example, dealing with judgements of others on the basis of body size, managing discrimination from professionals such as doctors and colleagues or generally trying to lose weight in order to fit in.
Dealing with fatphobia – external pressures
Loving the body we are in today without losing weight requires a commitment to proudly being ourselves knowing that we will be judged by others.
Let’s be honest, weight bias is real in our culture today. But I see that we have 2 choices with how to deal with this as we live our lives today:
Choice number 1
We can bow down to it. We can:
- Stay in at the weekends
- Honour the ideal body type
- Wear jeans when it’s 30c outside
- Say no to dinners out because we’re scared to eat or scared that we’ll lose control
- Have sex with the lights off
- Have no sex at all
- Blame ourselves for our behaviours such as binge eating, emotional eating and body checking and body shaming which are in fact a direct consequence of diet culture.
- We can yo-yo diet, binge eat, beat ourselves up, purge, control etc
- We can be scared of food, our own minds and be ashamed of our own bodies.
- We can starve ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally.
ORRR…
Choice number 2
We can choose to stand proud in who we are despite the judgements. We can:
- Stop hiding ourselves
- Start buying and wearing clothes we like now, not when we;ve lost X pounds
- Enjoy our food choices
- Put on a bikini or swimming costume and go swimming in the ocean
- Go on holiday and enjoy ourselves without having to go on a diet before or after it.
- Have sex with the lights on and in all different positions
- Stand up for ourselves and other women who are being discriminated for their body size
- Choose to pursue health at every size
- Show up to nights out and reunions
- Refuse to join in with body shaming behaviours, such as dieting, body shaming etc
- Live our lives TODAY, NOW in this body without waiting for a weight loss fairy to pretend to fix us.
How long have you been waiting? How long do you have left to experience your precious life on this incredible earth in your miraculous body?
The choice is yours and only yours…
Dealing with internal pressures
Sometimes we may project our own non-weight related stress issues onto our bodies, for example, generalised anxiety. We do this because we’re trying to grasp control of something that’s going on in our emotional world.
Women who are naturally more prone to anxiety (due to a multiple of different factors) may diet or restrict to a greater extent than others. They feel that they are unable to sit with their emotions, especially without planning or pursuing a diet or a plan of action to get themselves ‘under control’.
The huge problem with this is that dieting, restricting and attempting to manipulate the body is only a distraction for the underlying anxiety. So using dieting as a comping mechanism only takes us further away from the real ‘problem’ and actually causes more ‘problems’ overall due to the yo-yo affect that dieting has.
Our time and energy is wasted on the neverending seeking of thinness and acceptance in society.
We become even more obsessed as time goes on in an attempt to maintain or to reach our ‘ideal body size’. Because we think that by doing this we will be protected from judgement and be accepted and loved.
But what actually happens is our health becomes compromised due to ending up on the diet-binge cycle, yo-yo dieting or suppressing our weight, energy and mental health.
Our relationships suffer because we are ashamed to be seen in the bodies we have. We say no to nights out. We make excuses for meals out. We have sex with the lights off, a T-shirt on or have no sex at all.
We lose confidence in ourselves due to the inability to stick to diets or because of the fear of holding onto something that we know isn’t natural for us.
The more we try to keep ourselves safe and loved through chasing thinness, the more we lose the things in our lives that actually really matter.
And then there comes a point – a breaking point – where we can’t diet for a second longer, we can’t deal with the immense hate we have toward our own bodies and we can’t live like this anymore. The anxiety, the control, the out of controlness, the guilt, the shame, the panic, the circle again and again. We’re exhausted but we don’t know what else to do…
That’s where I come in. 
If you’re willing to let go off the restrictive behaviours and learn how to deal with fatphobia, poor body image and to take care of yourself in more productive and loving ways then I can help.
My end the diet binge cycle master class is perfect if you’re stuck in either:
- the diet-binge cycle
- constant yo-yo dieting
- restriction that you just can’t let go of that’s controlling your life.
If you prefer 1:1 support through your transformation, reach out to me here.
I offer a free coaching call to those who are serious about getting help with this and whether we’re a good fit to work together or not the call with bring you clarity and enable you to get clear on your goals and what has prevented you from reaching them in the past.
You will get a clear action plan to overcome any disordered eating and body confidence issues fast and forever!
