Complimentary caution: This post includes my personal journey with food and dieting. I encourage you to take care of yourself by passing on it if it's a topic that's especially hard for you.
I was 11 years old when I went on my first diet. It’s interesting how we talk about diets. We go on diets. Like it’s a trip. It certainly has felt like an endless journey of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, that’s for sure.
I started dieting because I wanted to be as skinny and lanky as my 6th grade classmate Nora. My diet consisted of eating one sandwich per day Monday through Friday and nothing on the weekends. I did that for about 6 months. I lost a lot of weight but it was never enough. Even when classmates insisted I was skinnier than Nora now, I could not see it. My hips were wider and my legs were shorter than hers. I was never going to be shaped like her or any of the women in my mom’s fashion magazines but I didn’t get that. I just saw myself as too big and therefore unlovable. At the time, I wasn’t that conscious of the unlovable part but that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? If we can just make ourselves fit the norm of beauty and attractiveness, only then will we be lovable.
My parents didn’t even seem to notice until one day my dad realized how little I was eating and forced me to sit down and eat a chicken breast. Once I “cheated” on the diet, I began eating and eating and gained all the weight back within 1 month. I had “failed.” And so the spiraling began, again and again and again for 40 more years. No matter how healthy each consecutive diet was or how science-driven the claims were (ie. Clean diet, elimination diet, gluten free diet, juice cleansing, etc.) the mind games, guilt, and shame were the same every single time.
For the last 10 years or so, I’ve recognized how crazy-making this behavior is. And yet, I keep doing it. It’s hard not to. In Western culture, we have an intense morality around food and we are indoctrinated with fat phobia. When those messages start dancing with my internal narrative about “not being enough” - it’s the perfect storm.
At the same time, we are constantly looking for ways to feed ourselves faster and more unconsciously – to keep up with our schedules, our inboxes, and social media feeds. We’re discouraged from slowing down to cook real food and bombarded with promotions for processed foods and pre-prepared meals.
When’s the last time you just ate—sitting down and not moving—focusing only on what you’re eating without doing something else at the same time? When’s the last time you actually looked at your food in appreciation of the nourishment it was providing you?
I’d be lying to you and myself if I said I’m “all better” now; that I’m not susceptible to the dominant cultural paradigm or my inner gremlins. It’s all in there, hardwired over generations. It’s not going anywhere. What I can say is that I’ve managed to turn the volume down a little and I can recognize those patterns and step out of them—occasionally. It’s still a journey and always will be. It’s not linear and it’s definitely not a new gold standard to judge myself against. It’s the judging I need to quit not the food.
One of the most powerful things anyone has said to me about my journey was during my Ayurvedic Health Counseling training last year. One of my faculty advisors pointed out that I wasn’t letting myself be nourished by any of the food I ate—especially when that food was what I considered to be “bad.” That struck a chord. It was a big AHA to realize that the way we THINK about our food influences how well our bodies digest it, break it down into nutrients, and absorb it.
Since then, I try to look at what I’m taking in and digesting, food and otherwise, from that lens. Not a lens of “Is this good nourishment or bad nourishment?,” but “This is going to nourish me and I’m grateful for that.”
Nourishment can mean literal nutrients, comfort in eating it, or something else. It’s a great pause. I eat more slowly. I chew my food more. I’m present while I eat. Not every time, mind you. In fact, I do that maybe only 50-60% of the time but that’s a lot more than never and I’m open to keep showing up and seeing where this goes. It’s liberating and illuminating and not always comfortable. I know I am actively creating a different relationship with food—and with myself—and both are less fraught with guilt and shame.
What’s my secret? Well, a big part of it is Me. Eventually this sunk in: if you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. I decided to try something different and stopped dieting. I can also say Ayurveda is part of my secret. But Ayurveda can be used as a way to justify disordered eating, too, and I have done that in the past and I don’t want to encourage that notion here.
The wisdom of Ayurveda that is supporting me right now is that there is no right diet or lifestyle for everyone. We are all made up of unique constitutions and we need different food to nourish us at different times of the year and different times of our life.
As much as I loved the structure and rules of diets (so I didn’t have to think about it), I’m leaning into taking the time to pay attention and respond to the rhythms of life inside and out as they arise for me. The answers to what we need to be healthy and happy change for each of us. One size does not fit all.
