The first week of the 10 week intuitive eating challenge is nearing its end. The principle of the week was: “reject diet mentality”. How did it feel? Please share your insights. At the beginning of the week, I posted about 3 things I will do to try and adopt the principle. I am so glad I had this mini-roadmap. It brought a lot of important insights to surface. Let me share with you the insights about the first two questions I asked myself at the beginning of the week (I will take on the third question in a separate post).

1.    My own dieting history and behavior

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?

This question has caused quite some reflection and soul searching. I went back to the past. As the book itself suggests, we often start dieting during one of the life transitions (leaving home, marrying, starting a new job…). My first ever diet happened on my transition from childhood to adolescence. Suddenly, next to the all-consuming play, something else starting to become important. Girls. Being cool. I wanted to be like the cool boys who were liked by girls. But I never was the type. Although an extrovert, I am sensitive. I am all about reflection and deep relationships. I don’t score so well on the first impressions – I get overwhelmed when put in a social spot-light, in an unknown situations. I do well one-on-one, and I first need to learn about a situation, before I can start mastering it. It’s just the way I interact with the world.

I didn’t realize any of these things. All I saw was that my body was different. While some of the cool boys already started to get the manly lean features, my body was still round, and I had a bit of fat around my waist, strong thighs and chest. I started being obsessed by my body. I desperately wanted to be like the cool boys, and in my young mind, this was equal to losing weight. So I started dieting. In addition, my family well-meaningly encouraged my dieting trials. The mindset was: all you need is some willpower and some discipline. The underlying messages were hurtful: there was something wrong with me, I needed to better myself; not being able to change my body not matter how hard I tried just confirmed that.

My diet mentality has deep roots. Why did I so desperately need to prove myself? I think it has to do with the relationship with my dad. He’s a guy from a different time, raised in a tough post-war environment of a Balkan village. His father left them while he was an adolescent. Soon after, he joined the army. In his family, he used similar strategies that helped him survive and thrive in his world. He was emotionally distant. He rarely showed affection, and when he did, it was usually conditioned – a reward for you doing something that pleased him. He criticized to better everyone around him. Or simply to make them to do or behave in the way he wanted. The strategy that this relationship has thought me was that I need to change my self to be accepted - whenever people whose acceptance I seek don't like something about me. 

I took all this into my dieting, and it went on for a very long time, for more than twenty years. These issues run deep, and still affect me today. I am very afraid of gaining weight. I find it difficult to detach my identity from the way I look like. If I gain weight, I feel like a failure. Also, I really want to lose more weight. I believe a lean body will bring me happiness (that I will finally be okay).  

Will I be able to heal these old wounds? I am trying, but it’s a slow process. I wish to take that boy for a walk, to comfort him and tell him he is okay, he is beautiful and wonderful and talented and smart and full of life energy and joy. I want him to play and not to worry, because everything will be okay. He is okay. I also know now my dad did his best. He didn’t know better, and me neither, but I do now.

2.    The pros and cons of dieting

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?
PROS
CONS
I will finally lose weight.
While the dieting may result in weight loss on a short term, on the long term I will only gain more weight. Dieting is not the solution; it’s a major cause of my gain weight so far. In addition, I know I can live a happy life with a couple of kilos above my “ideal” weight.
I will feel in control of my eating / if I don’t diet, I will be out of control.
Deprivation and food obsession resulting from dieting are a major cause in my binging. Believing that I’ve failed (instead of that diets failed me) is a big part of the entanglement of my emotional eating. It is only through healing the old wounds, being kind to myself and learning new intuitive eating skills. This will be a great gift of a happy and healthy lifestyle I will give myself.
If I don’t diet, I will gain more weight.
I probably will, unless I learn how to listen to my body and learn how to overcome binging. I know from experience that my weight tends to stay stable when I’m 80% successful with this (yes, even with some exceptions). In addition, it’s okay if along the way, I adopt a couple of healthy rules and good eating habits next to just following my body’s cues.
I will never be able to learn how to stop eating when I’m full.
With practice, I will. I will have to overcome some roadblocks, and learn some new skills. I will need to learn how to take more time for food and eat more mindfully. I will also have to avoid the trap of using intuitive eating as a replacement for dieting – if I aim for perfection, and feel bad if I don’t stop in the middle of every meal, I will be back to square zero.
If I eat when I’m hungry, eat what I want, and until I feel full and satisfied, I will still gain weight.
See above: “If I don’t diet, I will gain more weight.”