I'm a food blogger, and I have a horrible relationship with food.
A small disclaimer this post mentions eating disorders and suicidal ideation, so if that's too much, I encourage you to skip this.
Sending you love.
Many wellness-centered blog posts on my archived lifestyle blog, whereshebegins.com, talk about my experience with getting into fitness and following an intermittent fasting schedule.
When I read my old blog posts, I get sad because I can vividly recall people reaching out to me, letting me know that my fitness journey inspired them. People would tell me that they got into IF because they saw how "successful" it was at helping me reach my "ideal" shape. The truth is that the person I was at the beginning of my fitness journey is not who I was at the end of my journey. Overall, I wanted to feel healthier - mind, body, and spirit, but unfortunately, my journey didn't result in optimal health.
It started out great. I was strengthening my mind-body connection. Building better habits and really taping into being more disciplined - but the thing is when you have a history of body dysmorphia, disordered eating from trying fad diets since 6th grade, and binge eating - the line between "being disciplined" and becoming obsessive about hitting your fitness goals can get blurred very easily.
Long story short, 10 months into IF and after I completed a mile a day for 100 days, I saw my body change and built a new relationship w the gym. Because I was so entrenched in diet culture, I assumed that shedding pounds and gaining muscle would mean that my life would automatically get better… well, 2019 hit, and I realized being thinner doesn't magically make your life better regardless of what diet culture tells you.
In 2019 I was going through a lot - my weight felt like the only thing I had some sort of control over. I was probably the loneliest I had ever been, was incredibly stressed out due to grad school, planning to move across the county, I totaled my car, and to top it all off, I was going through a separation from my partner of 5 years.
There were days I would go to the gym 2x a day to give myself a reason to get out of the house and stop crying. I was confused because I was in the "best shape of my life" yet I wanted to die. It felt so surreal, because again when you grow up as the fat kid and are immersed in diet culture, you're programmed to think that being thinner is the key to happiness - so when I was in the best shape of my life and hated my life - I was puzzled. I literally would've been ok if I went to sleep and didn't wake up. It didn't click until a year later that my experience was shaped by heavily believing in diet culture. Looking back, I would have significantly benefited from unlearning myths around weight and mental health while simultaneously prioritizing movement and building strength.
I share all of this to say that diet culture is a lie.
I've previously shared on the blog how rejecting diet culture is a daily practice. Still, when you're a food blogger and interact with 100s of people about food, it can be challenging to filter through the noise.
Recently it's felt like a lot of health and wellness creators, especially those that promote a plant-forward diet, seem to repackage diet culture and weight loss under the guise of "living better" or "living a life free of disease and illness," and frankly, it's exhausting. It doesn't matter if it comes from a thin white woman or a thin Black woman that used to be fat; the messages they're sharing are rooted in diet culture, and it's not helpful.
As a food and wellness blogger who no longer subscribes to diet culture, I feel that it's my responsibility to provide an update on what those years of IF and obsessive fitness have done to my body.
My binge eating habits were only exacerbated with IF. It took me roughly 15 months to stop binge eating. I used to eat to the point that I was excessively full and wrote it off as having one large meal a day. IF also wreaked havoc on my hormones and my body's ability to regulate my blood sugar. Considering that I have been on every fad diet you can imagine throughout my life (except for keto because WTH is that), I have absolutely zero hunger cues in my gut. Put differently, I no longer "feel hungry" like most people. I have to set reminders to eat or notice drastic mood changes, which signals that my blood sugar is dropping and it's time to eat ASAP. As a result of everything mentioned, I had to spend roughly 8 months addressing my hormonal health solely in the hope of repairing the damage my last "fitness journey" caused.
I don't share this to scare anyone into thinking they'll have the same experience as I did because that's not how life works. Instead, I am sharing this because I felt that it was necessary to be as equally open and transparent about the aftermath as I was about losing weight.
I'm grateful that I can write this a few years later, in a much better place. I've gained some weight over the pandemic, and there are moments when I think about going on another "weight loss" or "fitness journey." See how pervasive diet culture is?! But then I'm reminded that those thoughts are from years of believing in diet culture. So instead of dwelling on a few extra pounds, I shift my mindset to gratitude. I am so grateful for my body for carrying me through some challenging times, namely an ongoing pandemic.
If you take away anything from this post, please let it be a clear understanding that your life will not get drastically better just because you're thinner.
The idea that you'll be the happiest you've ever been when you lose weight or gain weight to get your ideal body type is 100% a myth. Your life will not get drastically better just because you're thinner. The idea that your happiness is correlated with your weight is rooted in fatphobia and perpetuated by diet culture. So be free and celebrate your body for how it is now and understand that as we grow and experience life, it may change, and that's ok too.
