Weight Watchers has announced that it will offer teens free memberships this summer. This is like a dealer offering free drugs to teens in order to get them hooked for life and keep them coming back for more.

Dieting is like a drug.  When you begin, there is a surge of excitement and a high.  You find your plan, get your materials, set your goal weight and begin.

You lose weight and ride a wave of ecstasy as the praise and adoration floods in and your spirits soar. This shit is awesome, you think. 

I know this sounds like a particularly bold statement so bear with me. People are often concerned with having fat on their bodies and then eating foods that people associate with being fat. One way to handle this concern is to not give a flying fuck (sorry mom) what anyone thinks of your body or what you eat.  For people who are not quite there yet (and it's ok - it can take awhile), they can be caught in a bit of a catch 22.  They want to relax and eat foods they enjoy, but they are still worried that these foods might be responsible for their size. The good news is, there are no such thing as fattening foods!

Did you know that fat feelings are not actually about fat? Fat feelings are an expression of discomfort about something going on in your life. Yet, we are so conditioned to feel like there is something wrong with our bodies that we blame all the discomfort we are feeling on our bodies.  Then we make a plan to change our bodies. This plan is a distraction from the real issue. It is also a way to feel like we are bringing control and certainty into life situations that feel chaotic and scary.  So it's a brilliant coping mechanism, but it doesn't address the real issues.

I was discussing anti-dieting and intuitive eating with a friend over the holidays. I could tell he didn't really get it and the kicker was when he said "I think there is value in trying to stay fit, even if it's hard." (I'm pretty sure he meant "thin" when he said "fit".)

This statement suggests if we simply worked harder, we could all be thin. In reality, this is one of the main misconceptions that keeps people trapped in the dieting cycle for so long. For my friend who said this - he works out and eats "healthy" and stays thin so he thinks everyone can.  This is what many people believe in our culture and it is why the diet industry is booming and why fat shame exists.  People ask themselves, if everyone else can lose the weight or maintain a healthy weight by society standards then why can't I?  

I recently had a reader ask: "How do we change this {diet} culture?  We all talk about how horrible it is, then we perpetuate it by telling friends we're fat. I see how young women dress and think that it's very hard to be young and not in perfect shape. There is also no modesty. Everything is shown these days. Young women must feel the need to look perfect all the time because everything is photographed, "shared", and posted. It's a tough time to be self conscious and yet have to put yourself out there to be a part of social media."

Here was my response:

For the last several years, I have been standing on the scale backwards when I go to the doctor and they want to measure my weight. I know that weight does not equal health, and I know that in the past, whatever the number was, used to send me into a tailspin of euphoria or anxiety that wasn't based on anything other than a number.  I didn't want to subject myself to that stress anymore.

Last year, when I went to the gynecologist, I did the weight backwards as usual. Then, the doctor brought me into her office. After she affirmed that everything looked great and that I had no problems, she told me to lose weight.  I told her that I don't diet anymore and I gave it up because it's bad for my health.  She said, oh of course, diets don't work, but you need a lifestyle change.  At the time, I didn't quite have the nerve to challenge her anymore than I already had, so I swallowed the lump in my throat and doubted myself.  I mean she's a Dr. right?

Have you been feeling icky about food and your body? Do you feel sluggish and fatigued? Are you often trying to get to the gym but just can't? Do you look at the covers of magazines and the stars of TV shows and despair and wish you had their body?

I'm not going to tell you you "need" anything. But if you are looking for relief from feeling crappy and want some ideas, here are some  cleanses that might help you feel better in 2018. 

Are you afraid to give yourself unconditional permission to eat? It’s not surprising if you are afraid. Many people are – which is why so many people restrict themselves. Some people restrict intentionally, and some people don’t even realize they are doing it.  But everyone thinks that restriction is what they “should” be doing and they even beat themselves up if they aren't restricting enough.  

Recently, my mentor Rachel Cole posted this blog about how to feel good in our bodies.  I want to take a moment to point out why we might be feeling bad in the first place. Then, it might be clearer why what she suggests we do to feel better is so true and so helpful. 

If you are currently dieting, you may find that dieting is not making you feel good.  You get really excited at the beginning of the diet.  You lose some weight and feel even better.  Then it gets harder to maintain and your negative voice gets louder and you start to feel like a failure.  Then you gain the weight back and feel even worse.  Yes, you are in pain and it is coming from dieting. Dieting is bad for us mentally, physically and emotionally.  

Do you think that anyone can lose weight if they try hard enough? We have been taught that intentional weight loss is possible, that it can happen for anyone, and that it is the golden ticket to living your best life.  That makes it hard to stop attempting to lose weight. To make it harder, everyone has heard about someone who has lost weight and kept it off, which makes everyone think that it's their fault if they can't do it too. 

When lead paint, asbestos, cigarettes and BPA were found to be harmful to ourselves and our children, we made every effort to minimize or eliminate them or at least post warnings about them routinely.   Diet culture is another nefarious intruder that we need to protect ourselves and our children from.

Diet culture is like carbon monoxide, killing us silently in our sleep. Which is why I want everyone to wake up. 

Do you have holiday parties to go to and you'd rather run and hide? Are you worried that people will be judging your appearance and commenting on your body, either positively or negatively? Unfortunately, it's true, this happens.  So what can you do to prepare for the party and go and have a good time?

Here are some tips and things to remember:

How do you want to feel this holiday? Did you know you have a choice? Here is an excerpt from my journal many years ago.  Trigger warning: I was in the thick of diet mentality and hated myself. I have also included an excerpt from a more recent year showing how things are different and how I feel now. Nothing has changed materially in my life circumstances but everything has changed internally and it makes all the difference.  

At the end of this post, I will tell you the top 3 things I did to change my perspective and change my life for the better. Read on and tell me, which way do you want to feel?

Need a good reason to break up with diet culture? How about 50 great reasons! Things that make you go Hmmmmmm..........

1. 98% of diets fail.
2. Dieters gain most of their weight back, if not more, within 3 years. 
3. "Dieting causes the condition it's supposed to cure.  Most people who diet would be happier, healthier, and thinner if they never dieted." Paul Campos - The Obesity Myth
4. There is no proven method for sustainable weight loss.
5. The largest predictor of weight gain is a diet.
6. Dieting is the most common precipitating factor in the development of an eating disorder. https://eatingdisorder.org/eating-disorder-information/underlying-causes/
7. It’s hypocritical for us to prescribe behavior to fat patients (labeling food good/bad, restricting intake, relying on the number on the scale for feelings of success) which we would diagnose as eating disordered in thin patients. (Deb Burgard - http://www.bodypositive.com/top10.htm)
8. Dieting is a $61 billion dollar industry based on getting you to not like how you look so you will spend money on it's solutions.  (Even better for them that they offer solutions that don't work so you will keep having to come back. A previous CEO if Weight Watchers even admitted they know most of their business is based on repeat customers.)
9. BMI was never created to accurately give any information about someone's health, it was created by a statistician to describe the weight of a population.  All weights under the BMI bell curve are NORMAL.  Only the middle part is average.  (So why do Dr.'s say everyone should be in the middle?) For more reasonsBMI is bogus (as if you need any more)  - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439
10. Over weight - over what weight? Who says what is over?

I just finished reading Tracy Mann's Secrets From the Eating Lab.  With regard to the concept of not dieting - it was filled with great and useful information to support why diets don't work.  I would recommend it to people looking for studies and scientific data to support why diets are not good for you. 

The author also aptly suggests - why are we all concerned with weight anyway? She explains that fat is not going to kill as much as we have been led to believe, if at all, and that heavier people actually tend to live longer than smaller people.

However, spoiler alert,  I actually didn't like the book at all and I’m about to tell you why. 

My friend sent me an article about intuitive eating.  It was titled "What Happens to Your Brain when you go on a Diet".  Articles like this intrigue and disgust me. We all know that diets aren't as trendy anymore.  So it says all the right things; dieting makes you gain weight, everyone has a set point weight that the body wants to get back to after dieting, they make note that the “calories in and calories out” is “old”, and they even mention that you can maintain a healthy diet and gain weight which is true.  They warn of bingeing in reaction to deprivation and how the stress hormones from dieting can impact your health. They mention how dieting makes you stop listening to your body’s own cues. They even say that being slim doesn’t mean your healthy – they say it in parentheses (as if they don’t really want to say that).  It all sounds like they are against dieting – right?  

My daughter's first day of middle school is today.  6th grade.  Last night she confided that she is nervous and wants to go back to elementary school.  She is afraid she will get lost. I am afraid she will get lost too, but in a different way. 

I am afraid she will get lost emotionally and spiritually as is so common with girls in middle school. I am afraid she will start to value her looks over her intelligence. I am afraid she will start comparing her body to everyone else and judging herself or others. I am afraid she will find herself lacking from listening to other women complain about their bodies, or listening to other girls going on diets, or from participating in social media full of photo shopped and filtered pictures or by watching tv and seeing the millions of ads telling her what is wrong with her and how she can fix it for only $19.99 a month.