Good Life Cuisine
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Week 1: Reject Diet Mentality
The Intuitive Eating book teaches us that the first step in learning how to eat intuitively is to reject the diet mentality. What is the diet mentality? I didn't find a definition in the book. To me it seems that the diet mentality is a belief, or a set of beliefs:
- I need to lose weight to be happy; gaining more weight will make me more unhappy
- If I don't pay special attention, I will gain weight. I am not to be trusted with food. I eat too much
- Therefore, I need to diet, to restrict my self. I need to restrict the intake of food, and maybe some foods all together. I also need to maximize the amount of calories I burn through exercise
- I didn't manage to lose weight because I wasn't trying hard enough. Diets work, people lose weight constantly following diets. It's all me. But one day I will find a diet that will work for me, I will stick to it long enough and lose all the excess weight
What do you understand under diet mentality?
I have been dieting my whole adult life. Maybe I didn't call it dieting - but one way or another, I used external measurements and rules to choose the kinds and quantities of food I was eating. I was even quite successful in it - I managed to lose 25% of my body weight and to keep it off for two years. But I realize I still didn't find a long term solution. Here is my current understanding of the underlying problem.
The problem with diets is twofold. To begin with, diets simply don't work. They are a temporary change of our behavior, and lead to deprivation. Once we reach a certain point when we had enough of deprivation, we fall back to our old habits. This leads to regain of any lost weight, and often, we even end up gaining extra pounds. Look here at a typical scenario describing this vicious circle.
The second problem with diets is that on the long run, they screw up our relationship with food. Every time we diet, we teach ourselves two things:
- That some foods are bad, and off the table for us
- We reaffirm to our selves that we are convicted to life of awful self deprivation (diet = deprivation, if you have a diet mentality, you are either on a diet, or in between – knowing that one day you'll undertake the next one)
And this is at the core of binging – going on an out-of-control over-eating spree. This is because every time you do allow yourself to eat a certain food, or to let go of the diet regiment, limits, counting – you try to make the most of it and end up over-eating.
How do I Intend to Practice the Principle?
How can we effectively reject the diet mentality? The book suggests that we should follow these three steps: (1) recognize and acknowledge the damage that dieting causes (2) be aware of diet-mentality traits and thinking (the authors suggest to forget about willpower, being obedient, and about failure) (3) get rid of dieter's tools.
Now I don't find this very concrete. So, here is what I intend to do during this week – the week of "Reject Diet Mentality":
- Reflect and write on my own dieting history and behavior. When did it start and how did it evolve? Where do I show the diet mentality in my behavior today?
- Write down my list of pros and cons of dieting. Examine the cons and the underlying beliefs. Test the beliefs. Are there more valid alternative beliefs to adopt?
- Start creating an Intuitive Eating plan. In the plan, pledge the rejection of dieting, mentioning the specifics of my current diet mentality. Read this article from zen habits describing the role of a written plan for creating a new habit (http://zenhabits.net/2009/09/the-habit-change-cheatsheet-29-ways-to-succ...).
Do you have any ideas on how we could practice application of this principle?
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 15:57
As has often been said, I think the most important thing about lasting weight loss is to realize that it's a lifestyle change and not a temporary fix (which is what "going on a diet" really is). That mindset helps makes the process more positive, as opposed to an anomalous activity that you hope to quit doing the minute you hit your goal. Food is pleasurable and necessary for life -- it seems much more productive to learn how to permanently improve our relationship with it rather than treating it as the enemy. Not that I've, uh, mastered how to do this by any means. However, one thing I've learned over the years is that it's all tied up with self-esteem for me, i.e., when I feel great about myself, I make healthier choices, but when I feel lousy about myself, I do the opposite. My own challenge is to keep my self-esteem up, which can be tough in a culture that reviles overweight people (and overweight women in particular).
-- Wingette
P.S. I know it's an annoying nitpick, but I am a hopeless ex-English major: please note that one wants to "lose" weight, not "loose" it. The latter is an antonym for "tight." Sorry!
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 19:17
Wignette,
It does sound obvious, doesn't it? I've came to this conclusion a long time ago. And yet, I still find it difficult to fully embrace this principle. And it ties back to exactly what you point to: self-esteem issues. This is how I started dieting, as a teenager who needed to prove his worth by trying to be more like the "cool boys". And then, not being able to lose weight (and not understanding why) was an additional blow to my self-esteem. And every time we don't follow through with our commitment, we undermine our self-esteem.
The problem is, as you say, that without a healthy self-esteem, it is difficult to make the healthy choices. So it's a bit of a chicken and an egg problem. I think, healing our wounds, and working on improving our self-esteem is a first step. But if the issues with food run deep, we might need to work on both.
P.S. Thanks for letting me know about the spelling mistake. I was never sure about lose vs. loose. It's a bit difficult to write a blog in your non-native language :-)
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 22:32
If English is not your native language then you should be proud of yourself -- you write better than a few native-speaking college graduates of my acquaintance. ;)