Retiring from the job of Professional Dieter without an impressive ‘before’ and ‘after’ but with more YES’s
Tired of all the NOs around what and when to eat, I am experimenting with finding more things to say YES to and never saying NO!
For a change let’s talk about those of us who don’t end up being a weight loss success story. And believe me, in the clan of experienced dieters we are a majority. I think I represent a large number of people when I say I am just so tired of all the failed attempts to loose weight. I am also tired of all the successful attempts that were followed by the return of all the pounds that disappeared and then some more. I am tired of having big dreams about loosing weight and fitting into a size 8 or 10 even only to break my DIET before I loose 10 ounces even. I can’t care less whether someone calls all these behavioral changes weight loss programs or a lifestyle changes. Every experience that involves saying NO to your choices about what you eat and when you eat is a DIET in my dictionary and I am tired and sick of all of them.
But I am also tired of feeling FAT. And I am tired of doctors treating me like I am a guilty killer of this human body. I am also tired of all those who are thinking “well take responsibility and do something about it!” I think those of us with high BMIs should be among the categories being protected by law against bias and discrimination. I wonder if anyone has researched the correlation between exposure to weight-based bias and weight gain. I am sure many of the pounds I carry are here because of stress, much of which is driven by being bullied because of the pounds I carried. I have now quit going to all my doctors and am looking for real doctors whose services do not include bullying patients and making poor assumptions about them.
As a Sudanese American I come from an African-Arab culture where it’s okay for people to say things like “you have such a pretty face but you will be stunning if you loose 20 kilogram”. For some it’s even acceptable to comment on the shape of your body and where it stores fat in a social setting. And I joined a Western culture where all of this has become a taboo in personal and social settings. But the pressure is on in a passive way through the media or just by linking each and every health risk to BMIs.
I personally allowed all this to make me feel like I didn’t deserve to be healthy because of my body mass index. Time and time again, I felt like a failure when saying NO to myself frustrated me into quitting a diet. So when I failed to loose weight I would just start saying YES to unhealthy habits altogether which is a terrible way to treat my body. Of course, my body would then start storing more fat, my BMI would increase, and my health would deteriorate- physically, mentally, and emotionally. If this resonates with you, you know that it also involves hating your body and how you look much of the time. But I have one of two choices now: stay in this cycle of emotional and mental exhaustion or break it!
I am writing this because I am now experimenting with breaking the cycle. I’m using a principle that constantly worked well in most aspects of my personal and professional lives: “what we fight fights us back and what we align with enables us.” So I’m choosing to fight less and align more.
As an experienced dieter, I spent a lifetime fighting bad habits and they won every time! If I can’t win my war of NOs’ against bad habits, I think I may find success in creating YES alliances with good habits. So here I am on my second week of my YES experiment. It starts with loving my body for real and appreciating that it carried me this far into life. It persevered in spite of health practitioner predictions. Much of the fat it stored is just proof that it fought hard battles against stress for me through emotional eating and low metabolism. Time to honor this wonderful machine and show gratitude to the Creator for making it and preserving it thus far.
And if you honor and love someone, they’ll probably hear more YES’s from you than No’s. Actually let me qualify that. The YES’s better be guilt-free YES’s, which can be near impossible for an experienced dieter. Another thing we try to do for those we genuinely love and honor is to make them happy everyday not on some distant future date. And this is exactly what I am trying to do for my body: finding the things that will make it happy every single day and saying YES to them. I am now gradually just adding good habits to my day and slowing down to allow my body to enjoy the change and benefit from it. I started last week by going back to my daily walking routine and drinking lots of water. Don’t ask my how many ounces or cups. This is not a DIET and I am not measuring or anything or banning anything. And NOOOO! I am not trying intermittent fasting or the Keto diet or researching surgical interference.
This week I am getting more religious about eating my vegetables and adding some yogurt to my diet. Next I will work on my sleep and relaxation habits. I know my body more than any doctor, dietician, or scientist. And as an experienced dieter, I have extensive expertise with what makes this body happy and I will keep saying YES to more and more of these happy habits. My theory is that when I add enough of these, bad habits will have no room to go. But I am keeping this a secret for now as I am continuing to make peace with the bad habits. I don’t want them to come get me until I build my fortress of good habits around this beautiful and wonderful body! And before I go, a big NOOOOOOO to all sorts of bullying and judgement and good bye to the concept of will power!
