Ditching the diet culture- a baby steps positivity thread

[thenewaveragebear1983]

I’m really trying to change my relationship with food and with myself, and ditch the endless diet culture. It’s really hard because I’m scared if I stop tracking, I’ll gain loads of weight, and also because these things, this culture, it’s all I know. It’s the only way I’ve ever been told to be healthy, to be attractive and to be happy.

i read lots (on here, and in the wider world) of people who have already done it, and it’s all very positive and everyone sounds so sorted and like it’s the easiest thing to just not do what I’ve done every single day for 25 years. But what about the people like me who are trying to break free and finding it hard, struggling with conflicting thoughts, struggling to let go of our safety nets and our food rules because we rely on them, struggling with disordered eating patterns.

I am wasting my life, have already wasted huge chunks of it, wasting it to this and I want to break free of it. I spend so much time preoccupied with food/calories/eating less/grams of carbs…. It’s exhausting. So I’d like a thread of all the other good things. Celebrating the myriad good choices I make that enrich my life, make me feel good, and make me happy- which I often overlook because of a number on a set of scales (It probably shouldn’t be in weight loss chat but I wasn’t sure where else to put it)

no scales chat , no calories/macros chat
no self flagellation - there’s plenty of other threads for this.

Please join me!

todays positive steps:
I ran 11km this morning with my husband in the rain on a hilly horrible route. This year I’ve tried to add more strength training into my routine so I’ve laid off the long runs so I was pleased to get round this route in just over an hour given the lots and lots of hills

I’ve hidden my bathroom scales until my birthday which is Mid July. 😥

After 6+ week with no bathtub I am really looking forward to a hot soak this afternoon and a bit of pampering- we are out tonight for Ds’s footie awards night.

So yesterday we went out and went for food afterwards, I had a burger and it was delicious and this morning I have not “checked the damage” on the scales or made any promises/commitments to compensate for the extra food intake. They’d a huge positive step for me.

I’m going to spend some time prepping a few bits for my lunches this week, I am going to make a quinoa salad and some seasoned chicken which I can add to my lunches.

I’m out next weekend at a gig in Manchester- I know clothes and what to wear will be a big issue for me. I’m already anxious about it. I saw a lady last night in slim jeans, a black and white striped top and a pale pink blazer with trainers and she looked really effortlessly chic and cool, so I have sat on vinted and bought the exact same outfit (not the jeans but I have them anyway). Hopefully they will look as nice on me!

I have two wins today:

finally got around to doing some gardening because the sun actually came out and it wasn’t freezing

I did 2 sessions of Caroline Girvan which means I completed Iron series. I’m really chuffed with that, it’s taken me longer than 6 weeks but I have done every session in order and I didn’t think I would so I’m pleased with myself. Moving on to epic series next, this time I have done measurements.

I haven’t counted calories or weighed myself all weekend, but you know, I’ve been ok. I haven’t gone mad at all, I have just eaten my meals and that is ok. I have had dessert after dinner, but again, no guilty feelings or tracking. Considering I was really hungover this morning, I am really pleased with my efforts.

i’m looking forward to the week ahead.

Therapy. You need to sort out your mindset. You sound fit and I guess are at a healthy weight, so to get yourself free of the 'diet culture' demons then getting to why you have this food thing is key (and you can only blame society so much), many people don't have such a complex attitude about food, so find out why you do and then work through steps to change it.

I really relate to your feelings about diet culture @thenewaveragebear1983 and I'm stuck in a similar cycle. I'm almost at the target I'd set for myself and have come to the realisation that the problem isn't my body, my weight, the number on the scale- it's my head, my self-worth and the negative self-talk that's taken over.
I've no doubt therapy would probably help but it's not an option for me just now. I hate how much I think about food and how I judge myself by what I've eaten.
At the moment I'm focusing on eating well- not necessarily in a calorie deficit or to hit certain macros (though I do make an effort with protein and calcium for health reasons) but just good, nutritious food that I like to cook and eat.
It's really hard. I haven't broken the habit of tracking on MFP- I worry I'll undo my hard work- but I don't let it rule what I eat so much any more.
There's a good thread on here in the recent past by someone talking about this- it was called something like "fuck it" 😂

@NahThen thanks for your post. I do think therapy would help me too, but yes it’s something I just haven’t got available to me right now, and actually it’s probably worse to start something and not be able to afford to finish it (cost is the prohibitive for me)

I’ll be honest, I’m finding it hard to trust myself without my tracker. I did tot up today. I don’t want to talk numbers on here but before I did it I asked myself the difficult questions I try hard to avoid- am I happy with what I ate? Did I enjoy it? Did I need it? Will the number change anything? I think I needed to tally up because deep down I knew that some of my choices weren’t great and I needed to ‘check’. A big part of the diet culture for me is the safe food/bad food mentality (and I don’t need a therapist to know that sending a teenager to slimming world, thank you mummy, is the root cause of this 🤦‍♀️)

I consider it all tiny baby steps, undoing a lifetime of this and it’s in everything and everywhere. A lot of the current ‘wellness’ trend is just dieting by another name, and the pressure to now not just be slim but also be gym toned is also always there.

Thanks for your post as well @mondaytosunday , I think finding out why is just one tiny part of it though and actually working through and making the changes is hugely difficult.