Ep. 26 Why Letting Go of Dieting Feels Worse Before It Gets Better

Why do we start dieting or controlling our weight and body in the first place? I think there's three main reasons.

The first one is that we are doing it to feel more worthy.

We have learned through our culture that a smaller body is better.

We're told it's more attractive, and we get this idea that if I'm smaller, if I look more beautiful, then I'm going to be more accepted, more loved, and more valuable.

And so controlling your body and your weight is one of the ways that we do it in a culture that values thinness.

If you had parents who were dieting and you just learned this is the way you eat and this is what you were focused on, perhaps you might remember accompanying your mother to a Weight Watchers [laughs] meeting like I had done when I was a young teenager.

It was just the thing that you did.

Another reason is to feel healthier.

Perhaps a doctor recommended that you needed to watch your weight or lose weight, you had a health scare, or you were just kind of feeling disconnected from your own sense of wellbeing and you had this desire to get back on track.

And diets and exercise programs, that is what is on offer in our culture.

And this third one, which I don't think is very conscious, this is often more subconscious, it was a way to control their life, a way to feel in control.

So in some other areas of life, it felt chaotic.

There was things they couldn't control, disruption maybe in the home, emotional disruption, and dieting and controlling your body was a way to have some semblance of control in your life.

Dieting ends up becoming this feeling of safety and emotional regulation.

This sense of safety with dieting is the allure of it for a lot of us.

It gives you a nice plan.

[laughs] It says, "Just follow the rules.

Just go step by step." And for our survival mind, it wants to know.

It does not like being in uncertainty.

So if you say, "Hey, just follow steps A, B, and C, and you're going to get thinner, and then you're going to feel better, and that's gonna feel safe," you're like, "Sign me up.

Of course." It gives you guardrails.

If you have otherwise felt very out of control and kinda chaotic around food, following a plan and a diet feels safe.

That especially feels comforting when you don't trust yourself around food, or your experience was, "When I wasn't following this diet or plan, I was feeling worse.

I wasn't engaging in good health behaviors.

I didn't know how to take care of myself." It also could be that we come from in an environment where maybe our parents or those around us weren't taking care of themselves, so we picked up those habits and ways of eating and behaviors and just thought, "This is how we're supposed to live," but then you end up not feeling good in your body.