Tag Archive for: disordered eating

Top 5 Reasons Why Diets Don’t Work

Many people swear by diets. They tell me the diets work, but when I point out tha they go back on the diet when they regain the weight, so essentially the diets don’t work, they shake their head and finally get it.

A diet isn’t just those flashy branded weight loss companies (you know which I’m talking about). Dieting is any form of food restriction such as cleanses, “lifestyle” changes,  restricting foods or entire food groups. It’s all dieting!

Dieting programs and weight loss schemes (yes, schemes!) are a part of a $72 billion industry, therefore it’s no wonder many people fall for its tricks. These companies profit off of telling consumers that “they are not good enough in the body they are in” and they promote “shrinking your body” in order to be happy, healthy, and worthy.

As humans, we naturally internalize these negative and harmful messages and believe we must “fix” ourselves, and therefore give in to the various weight loss products, programs etc. available on the market.

There are numerous reasons why you should avoid diets—they mess with your health, they make you feel shame and guilt about your eating, and they take away from the pleasures of eating.

Let’s look deeper into why diet’s don’t work?

Here are the top 5 reasons why diet’s don’t work:

(1) Diets are not sustainable

Yes, diets may lead to weight loss in the short term. However, once the dieting rules and restriction go away—the weight is regained (plus more)! The literature states that 95% of people who diet end up gaining the weight back that they previously lost. Of the 95%, about 2/3 of those people gained back MORE weight than they started out at.

This cycle of losing and gaining weight brings on the vicious cycles of restrict/binge eating, or yo-yo dieting, which actually causes more harm to your body and your health than good:

  • Impacted metabolism
  • Increased weight gain
  • Increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension
  • Negative body image
  • Increased frustration

(2) Dieting is starvation in disguise 

Purposefully restricting meals or food causes your body to go into a state of fight or flight. When your body is not receiving the fuel it needs from food, it will go into full-on survival mode. Restricting food sends the signal to your body saying “hey we are in a famine right now, it’s time to help me survive” .

Your body will then begin to compensate to keep you going by:

  • Lowering metabolism
  • Stimulating a chemical in the brain to make you consistently think about food
  • Store/hold onto fat
  • Shut down non-essential systems to promote survival (like reproductive systems)

With all of these compensating measures at play, this is why it is difficult to lose weight time and time again with dieting and food restriction; your body is working hard to keep you alive (since it thinks there is a famine out there!)

(3) Dieting can cause disordered eating

If dieting goes on for long enough, this can lead to the development of disordered eating or eating disorders, and more commonly, binge eating.

Binge eating is a biological reaction to deprivation (which we know is because of dieting). Here’s what happens: there is a chemical release of neuropeptide Y (NPY) which is secreted in the brain when there is not enough calories being consumed (specifically CHO since this is the brains fuel source). The secretion of NPY increases the motivation to eat, delays satiety and stimulates food intake which can feel like binge eating!

Binge eating is a survival mechanism resulting from dieting and food restriction.

(4) Diets lead to food obsession 

Reducing food intake not only makes you feel irritable, fatigued, have brain-fog, and lack motivation, but you will think about food… ALL.THE.TIME.

As a dieters, you often blame yourself for this feeling (being preoccupied with the thought of food), but it is actually a natural biological reaction to food restriction. Of course you will think about food all the time if your body is hungry!

This biological reaction is, again, a survival mechanism. Your body is doing its job!

However, the diet industry want you to believe that something is wrong with you. But your body is not the enemy!

(5) Dieting causes intense cravings 

Diet programs and “diet rules” tell you what foods you should and shouldn’t eat, or give you a “good” food list and a “bad” food list.

If this idea of “good” and “bad” foods is kept up long enough, you will begin to think about and crave the very foods you are restricting. As humans, we are driven by our unmet needs. If you tell yourself “I can’t have ice cream anymore”, all you’re going to think about is eating ice cream.

So if you think you’re addicted to (insert food here), it’s likely that you’re not actually addicted to it but it’s the dieting and food restriction causing you to think about it and crave it!

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Are you ready to leave dieting behind? Pop your name and email in the boxes below to get started with your Break the Spell of Diets in 3 days online experience.

 

The Impact of a Dieting Parent(s) on their Children

It’s not unusual to have at least one parent in the home dieting at any given time. And often, both parents are on the diet bandwagon, sometimes following the same diet, and sometimes vastly different diets.

What message do you think this sends to your children?

Mom and/or dad are eating differently, and they are trying to change their bodies which sends the message that there are good foods and bad foods, and that there must be something wrong with their body if they are trying so hard to change it.

Research shows that children of parents who speak about weight are more likely to have negative feelings about their own bodies and experiment with unhealthy behaviors such as not eating enough, using laxatives, detoxes, cleanses and diet pills.

In one study published in the Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics, adolescents where more likely to control their weight in unhealthy ways and binge eat if their parents spoke about weight loss in their presence. This was seen in both sons and daughters. However, when parents engaged in conversations that were focused only on healthful eating behaviors, these kids were less likely to diet and use unhealthy weight-control behaviors.

In a second study published in Body Image, parents who spoke about controlling their weight were more likely to raise high schoolers who were dissatisfied with their bodies.

 

Parental Diet Talk

A parent’s “diet talk” and modeling of unhealthy “dieting” behaviors sets the scene for their children to develop a poor relationship with food and their body.

Children are like sponges, they soak up everything they hear and see parents do. You may not think they are noticing what you are doing or saying, but they are. Kids notice everything!

When you look in the mirror and mutter under your breath how your tush looks so big, your child hears this and interprets it as “my tush is big, there must be something wrong with it.”

We, as parents must be VERY careful not to discuss weight, dieting, and labeling of foods  around our children.

 The messages surrounding dieting, weight loss, body image, and food will stay with children FOREVER and impact them for the rest of their life.

6 Side Effects of Parental Dieting on Children

1. Develop Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders

 If you diet in front of your children, they are more likely to restrict their own intake, binge eat, and engage in emotional eating because they saw mom or dad engaging in these behaviors (children are modeling what they see).

One client shared with me that she learned to binge and purge from her dad (and he didn’t even know it). She witnessed him binge eat after dinner most nights of the week, then go into the bathroom and purge. Years later, she is trying to recover from her own eating disorder.

2. Develop a Dieters Mindset

 Children will pick up on messages, phrases or actions they see within the home. If you are displaying “dieting” behaviors, like tracking food, negatively discussing certain foods/food groups, weighing/measuring your foods, and speaking poorly about your body, this will be internalized by the child and kickstart their own “dieters mindset”, or “dieting habits”.

Here’s a common scenario:

Mom/Dad: “I can’t eat that, it has so many carbs! I’ll gain 20 lbs. by the morning!

 

Child: Hears this statement and immediately decides not to eat any carbs because it is now associated with ‘instant weight gain’.

3. Fall into the Toxic Trap of Diet Culture

If children have been surrounded by dieting messages from their parents, they are more likely to fall into the negative, toxic trap that is known as diet culture.

Diet culture is all around us—in advertisements, social media, in the workplace/school, and so much more!

Diet culture conditions use to believe that our self-worth is tied to weight, body size, what we eat, and what we look like.

With strong dieting messages in the home PLUS a world saturated with diet culture, the child will inevitably have a poor relationship with food and a negative body image.

Don’t set your child up for a life of food struggles and body hatred. Embody the habits you desire for your children!

4. Negatively Impact Child’s Weight, Growth and Health

Due to extreme restriction, bingeing, or a combination of the two, children can become significantly under- or over- weight. This can lead to health issues down the line (i.e., nutrition deficiencies, missed milestones, weakened immune system, disease etc.)

5. Create Body Image Issues

Because the child has been hearing mom or dad speak negatively about their body, the child will internalize these messages and in turn also never feel satisfied with their bodies.

Here’s a common scenario:

Mom/Dad: “Ugh, I’m so fat! These jeans don’t fit me like they used to.”

Child: Hears this statement and associates weight gain with feelings of sadness, shame, negativity; also demonizes the idea of a larger body. These thoughts about body image can transcend into adulthood.

6. Cause Mental Health Issues

Dieting is harmful on a physical level and a mental health level. Dieting causes one to feel like a failure, have low self-esteem, depression, and low self-worth. This trickles down into all aspects of life and relationships.

If your children are grown, married, and have children of their own, consider how your dieting habits are impacting your grandchildren when they come to visit.

Make a conscious decision to be more aware of your actions at home and help change the trajectory of your children’s (and grandchildren’s) future relationship with food and their bodies.

 

If you’d like support, just reach out to me and schedule a complementary call at http://TalkWithBonnie.com

 

And join me later today to hear about the dieting mistake that I made and it’s impact on my daughters (and how you can avoid making this same mistake). It’s all happening in my private Facebook Group HERE.

(If you are reading this after April 7, 2021, the replay of today’s live training is in the Facebook Group for you to watch at any time. Click here to join our group.)

3 Big Reasons to Take Down Diet Culture

How many times have you seen, heard, or gotten into a heated discussion on the topic of the latest diet trends or weight loss tricks?  It’s everywhere these days, on TV, social media, books, and people claiming they have the hot new approach to help you shed weight fast!

Being a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, I am constantly asked what I think about the latest diet trend that has been pushed on us.  I have spent the last many years of my career helping clients break the spell of diets and dismantle Diet Culture beliefs.  And, when I’m asked those questions about recommending a new diet, it reminds me that there is so much more work to do to help people learn to trust in themselves again.

A major reason that I am so passionate about helping people break free from diets is because of the harm that Diet Culture causes.

Diet Culture is a system of beliefs that focuses on and values weight, shape and size over health, and it equates thinness with higher status and worthiness.

I see the damages of Diet Culture starting younger and younger. Little girls just 9 and 10 years old asking their moms for a diet. These little girls covering themselves up with sweaters and baggie clothes because they are ashamed of their bodies.

This makes me sad. But it also makes me angry at Diet Culture and lights the fire under me to continue to push back against Diet Culture and help women, and these young girls, love themselves for the beautiful person that they are  and respect their bodies for the amazing things it does every day to keep them alive.

3 Reasons to Take Down Diet Culture

#1: Diet Culture is Dishonest

“Stay away from carbs, they make you fat”.

“The reason you aren’t losing weight is because of all the dairy you consume”.

“Cut out gluten from your diet, it’s really bad for you”.

Diet Culture has spent a lot of time and money trying to convince you that there are certain foods out there that are “good” or “bad’ for you. The food they characterize as “good” will help you lose weight, while the “bad” foods will make you gain weight.

Food fads are encouraged by Diet Culture with the support of the food industry. When scientific research is published, Diet Culture cherry-picks the information that best supports their agenda and launches campaigns to herd consumers to jump on their bandwagon, spending money on their products, lining their pockets.

Listen, there is a difference between implementing nutrition guidelines for your health, and demonizing foods because of the belief that it’ll make you gain weight (or prevent you from losing weight). Now, you might say “no, I’m avoiding this food because it’s not good for my health”. If in fact, this belief is not tied in any way to your thoughts about your weight, then yes, perhaps not eating that food might be in your best interest. But if that belief is tied in any way into your body size, then it is being co-opted by Diet Culture.

If you need further clarity on this, just hit reply!

#2: Diet Culture Disregards Your Best Interest

Any eating pattern that emphasizes how you look over your mental and physical well-being is detrimental. Diet Culture thrives on black-and-white thinking. Eat foods on the “good” list and you’ll lose weight (“good”); eat foods on the “bad” list and you’ll get fat (“bad”). Thin = win in Diet Culture’s mind.

Here’s the thing – people are literally dying to be thin and Diet Culture completely disregards this. Maybe you have suffered with an eating disorder or know someone that is. It destroys your life. Every waking moment is spent worrying about what you’re eating, wearing, how you look, how other people are looking at you etc. It is all consuming. Yet Diet Culture continues to push and push and push.

Your body does so many amazing things for you every day. Just imagine if you didn’t have the use of your hands, legs, or eyes. Would how small your body is be important then?

There is peace in accepting your body as it is in this very moment. This doesn’t mean that you’re “giving up”. This just means that you refuse to let Diet Culture push you any longer. And, instead, you will focus on giving your loving body the respect it deserves, while feeding it well and moving in a way that feels good.

#3: Diet Culture Destroys Your Self-Worth

One of the biggest reasons to shut down Diet Culture is because it’s constantly giving you the message that you’re not good enough. It makes you question your self-worth, often calling attention to things you never considered flaws before.

“Got a muffin top? Never eat these 5 foods again to get rid of it!”

“Do your thighs touch? Do this cleanse to fix that problem!”

Messages like these are toxic to women of all ages. It’s teaching them from a young age that they are nothing more than a sum of their parts and if those parts don’t add up to an unrealistic ideal, they need to do whatever it takes to get there. This has the potential to lead them into a dangerous relationship with food and exercise, twisting their self-perception. Diet Culture destroys your self-esteem and ultimately your self-worth. You come to believe that you are not worthy of love, not worthy of that job you are going for, not worthy of friendship, kindness etc. Diet culture steals your happiness and breaks you down.

It’s Time to Take DOWN Diet Culture

The truth is that body size doesn’t always equate with health. There are plenty of people who are in smaller bodies who have a plethora of health issues. On the flip side, there are people in larger bodies that have no medical issues at all. Diet Culture wants you to be at war with your body because that’s how companies who support it make their billions of dollars every year.  Don’t fall for these tricks, it’s time to break free of Diet Culture and get off the hamster wheel of dieting, for good!

Do you want to join me in taking down Diet Culture? Let me know in the comments below!

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week

Eating disorders affect everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, sexuality, or background.  With today’s media and advertisements showing stick-thin models as the “right” way to look, it makes sense why so many people may develop an eating disorder. A negative body image can lead to serious eating disorder.

 

National Eating Disorder Awareness (NEDAwareness) Week starts this Sunday, February 26th and runs through March 4th.  The theme of this year’s NEDAawareness Week is It’s Time to Talk About It. The National Eating Disorder Association wants to encourage you and everyone else to talk about eating disorders.

 

The two most commonly talked about eating disorders are bulimia and anorexia nervosa.

 

Bulimia is the act of bingeing and purging.  A person with bulimia will often consume more calories in one sitting than they would in a normal day.  This bingeing leads to guilt and self-shaming which turns into purging.  People with bulimia are often a healthy weight but are struggling on the inside.

 

Anorexia nervosa is a disease that tricks your mind into seeing a distorted, often larger, version of yourself.  A person with anorexia starves themselves, forfeiting calories as well as many vitamins and minerals that are necessary to keep their body running.  People with anorexia typically appear thin and fragile, but that isn’t always the case.

 

Although these may be the two disorders that you are familiar with, there are other disordered eating behaviors that you should be aware of.

 

Binge-eating disorder is very similar to bulimia, but without the purging.  A person with binge-eating disorder engages in uncontrollable, continuous eating past the point of fullness.  This is the most common eating disorder in the United States.

 

Orthorexia is an “unhealthy obsession” with healthy eating.  A person with orthorexia nervosa has a fixation on righteous eating and it usually starts as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully.

 

Regardless of which eating disorder is exhibited, those who are struggling with one seek ways to change their body.  Today’s media makes it hard to find happiness and peace in your own body, so it is important to promote your own body positivity.

 

In order to break free from the daunting stress and pressure from the media, I encourage you to embrace intuitive eating where you can begin to trust your inner body wisdom to guide your eating. Intuitive eating can help you love your body again and change your relationship with food.  This takes time, patience and support.

 

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please share this information and seek help immediately. The sooner you do, the sooner you will find peace with your body.

 

If I can help, please email me at Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com.