Dear Diary: I’m Breaking Up With Dieting (part 2)

I figure I should talk a little bit about why I’m breaking up with dieting. The short answer: I’ve literally been dieting for ever. I’ve felt too fat since I was in Kindergarten and a little boy in khaki shorts told me my cheeks were chubby. It trickled around to classmates, doctors, and basically what felt like every human who I came into contact with. I was just too big.

So the spiral began. And by the time I was out of high school I was 336 pounds, and so completely broken on the inside from a really tough upbringing. But one day I finally reached my lowest moment, out of nowhere. I was living in a tiny apartment in a small Virginia town, working at a little bookstore, and barely making ends meet. I came home from work one night, walked through the front door and back to my bedroom, free-fell onto the bed, and started sobbing.

It wasn’t that I just wished so badly to be skinny. It wasn’t that I wanted to have a beach body (hello, all bodies are beach bodies). It wasn’t even that I wanted the number on the scale to go down (I didn’t even own a scale at the time).

I was just so tired of feeling awful, and mostly inside. I had been told for decades that I was too fat, and as much as I didn’t want it to, it sunk deep into my heart by the time I entered adulthood.

Diet Fails

I had tried and failed so many times, and truly felt like I just did not have what it would take to lose such a massive amount of weight! I didn’t have a goal weight in mind, but I knew I wanted to feel better. Believe it or not, as much as I didn’t understand how the foods we eat affect how we feel emotionally and physically back then, I did know that it must have something to do with it.

The next morning, I started weight watchers. Now mind you, this was YEARS ago. As in, like 16 years ago. I really have no idea how that program works these days. But at the time I was absolutely desperate and I felt like I needed something that wasn’t drastic. Cutting out sugar or bread or pizza wasn’t going to work for me because inevitably moments of “weakness” (now I know these moments as just… well…life) would happen and I’d enjoy those yummy foods.

The First Year Of Losing Weight

That first year, it truly felt like small changes. Just little things like using less mayo on my turkey sandwich, or eating more fruits and veggies, or using better portion control. It felt like guidance, for my eating and exercise habits. I didn’t realize how terribly I had been fueling my body everyday, until I started tracking my food. I truly started feeling better once I learned a little more about nourishing my body. It didn’t feel like a diet. It felt like a lifeline.

So it was good. I’m very thankful for it. I lost about 100 pounds that first year.

It was after that first 100 pounds that I started struggling again. And that’s when I dove into all. the. diets.

You name it. For the following few years I tried every single diet. Some of them worked temporarily. One of them (that is so terribly unhealthy at its core that I shutter to think about it) got me all the way down to 169 pounds (which is tiny for me), but that only lasted one day. It was a slow crawl back up to 185/190 from there. And that’s where my body has hovered for several years now.

Diet Diary

Anywho, that’s just some back story to bring you up to speed on my healthy journey. Back to my diary. 😉

No matter what I’ve ever done, nothing has kept me any smaller than I am right now. While most days I feel fine with it, there are some days when I get out of balance. That’s what provoked me to write this diary series.

I’ve come soooooo far in how I approach healthy living. I’ve learned how to nourish my body in a way that I can still enjoy what I’m eating and the body movement I’m doing, and I’ve also learned to love the girl in the mirror. My eyes are opening more and more every day, to what pieces of diet culture I’m still hanging onto, and that’s what I want to get away from. Diet culture.

It’s About Relationship

You may have read in my entry from yesterday, that I weigh myself every morning. Welp, today I didn’t. It feels a little weird, but I feel pretty good about it. I don’t want to completely part ways with the scale, because I personally don’t want the kind of relationship with the scale that I absolutely cannot handle being anywhere close to it. I want to be at peace with it. Not run away from it. But for now, I want a break. Just a little break, Ross. Don’t go cheating on me. 😉

So that was step one in making a little shift. I also did a different type of workout yesterday than I ever do. I went to the gym and lifted free weights with Phil for about 20 minutes. That’s pretty different than my 55 minutes of intense cardio that I usually do at minimum nearly every day. I’m not giving up my intense workouts, but I’m paying better attention because it is so easy for me to slip into the feeling that I need a 55-75 minutes intense cardio workout every single day. Those workouts aren’t bad or wrong. I’m just focusing on making sure that I’m staying in balance and not falling into the trap of diety habits.

Healthy Vs. Dieting

The point is that not all of the things I do concerning my health, are dieting. And I have no interest in throwing away all my healthy-living goals. But in recent years, my goals have shifted. I don’t just want to get small (though some days I do fall into that mindset), I want to be free.

Freedom to me looks like not having to track every single bite of food I put into my mouth. It’s being ok with hopping on the scale, but not being consumed by it. It’s looking in the mirror and seeing my body as good, exactly as it is. It’s trusting my intuition with what my body wants and needs for nourishment in any given moment. It’s being truly ok with the size that I am, knowing that doctors tell me I’m the picture of health. Yes- my BMI is higher than what’s on the charts at the doctor’s offices. But BMI is crap, and if I could get that though my thick skull, I’d be one step closer to this freedom that I so desire.

What Is Diet Culture?

I’m learning a lot about diet culture lately, mostly through a few people I follow on Instagram, and it’s really refreshing. That mixed with a bit of an eye-opener to some work I still need to do to get away from diet culture myself. For anyone reading this who doesn’t know what diet culture is, I googled it and stumbled upon this really great explanation.

It’s worth clicking that link. 😉

My goal in the last few years has been to learn to eat intuitively, instead of trying to eat as little as possible. It’s been to move my body in ways that challenge me to the max (because I truly enjoy that), but also in various ways that I love. Like walking. I love walking. It’s been to trust my intuition with what my body needs, and to listen to what my body is telling me. These are ways I’m leaning into freedom, rather than falling into old habits of dieting.

Dieting and Body Image

It’s kind of crazy that I lost all that weight and was still unhappy with my body. I actually think became more critical of my body, the more weight I lost. I distinctly remember lying in bed the night of my breaking point, and not caring at all about the appearance of my body. Sure, I cared at times. But not like I did when the weight started coming off. It’s like the more I lost, the more obsessive and out-of-balance I became.

That’s so crazy to me. You lose the weight like everyone tells you to, and then you start criticizing your body more than ever. If you’ve ever lost weight and experienced this, you’re not alone! Not only has it been the case in my own journey, I’ve found this to be the case in many people who have a weight loss story.

I think one reason this happens is because we get so fixated on the scale and on “crushing our goals” that we become overly critical about every detail. We think if we hate ourselves into submission, then we’ll make ourselves do the thing. Whatever that thing may be. Eat even less. Exercise like crazy. Refuse to eat yummy foods. Decline social invitations. Whatever.

And then, when our bodies are like “No, dude. I’m good where I am.” we ramp up the intensity of our efforts, but instead of finding healthy, wholesome, all-around progress that’s actually good for our entire wellbeing (not just our waistline), we slip into that dreaded dieting cycle.

Dieting Is Not Longer Worth It. Health And Freedom Are Worth It.

I get it. Not everyone is at this place. I can only speak for me. And I, Jennifer Wagner, have gone through too much with my weight to be consumed and critical. My health will always be important to me. Moving my body will always be important to me. Nourishing my body with a wide variety of foods will always be important to me. But when you’ve given years of your life away to dieting, only to find yourself lingering at the same weight for years, I think you come to a point where dieting is just not worth it.

Even at the cost of not being as absolutely tiny as I can possibly be.

Alright, this one’s getting long, so I’ll stop right here!! I’ll be back in touch! Oh! I should have an anti-diet goal for today. Hmmm…. let’s see. My anti-diet goal for today is to tune into my hunger cues. I’m going to eat when I’m hungry, stop when I’ve had enough, and trust that I can make the right decisions for the wellbeing of my body.

Have a great day, friend! Come find me on Instagram!