Diets are attempts to make sense of the world. My longing tells me that if I could just stick to a diet, all would be well. Magical thinking tells me that if I lost weight, I could return to eating as I have before but with a new body. Magical thinking tells me that a one time diet fix will fix me. (And yes, the media will keep feeding that magical thinking to sell more diets, diet foods, and diet books.)
Here are some of the diets that I have tried:
The grapefruit diet.
The fasting for 3 days at a time diet.
The 1000 calorie/day diet.
The run 5 miles/day diet.
The no white sugar diet.
The no high fructose corn syrup diet.
The no wheat diet.
The all raw food diet.
The tuna diet.
The low carb diet.
The Atkins diet.
The one piece of chocolate a day diet.
The no breakfast diet.
The no dinner diet.
The diet tea diet.
There have been many more. I forget them all. I’ve made them up or read about them or someone told me what was working for them and I thought I’d give it a try.
I attach to a new diet as plan for living, a way to solve my problems. They usually work for a while. I’m liable to lose weight if I stick to the diet for some period of time. I feel good about myself because I am thinner. I, of course, prefer those diets with instantaneous results. The more radical the better. I come to believe that the diet is the solution. If only I could stick to the diet, then everything will be okay.
I can use a diet to lose weight. But all diets are a trick. Eventually I reach some threshold of deprivation. I’m underfed, hungry, angry, cranky, lonely, tired. I become a bad parent, a bad partner, a bad friend. To maintain the diet, my life has to revolve around what I am or am not eating. There is no fun in the life of the dieter.
The flip side of my magical beliefs around diets, is that I believe that my weight is my problem. If only I were thinner life would be … easier, happier, smoother, more successful... I blame myself and my lack of will power for my problems. I become attached to the story that I cannot truly live my life until I loose the weight.
It is all a bunch of crap. My happiness does not depend upon my weight. A diet is a never a solution, but only feeds my problems by feeding my shame. There is no diet that is a solution. Diets are a path to continue living in hell while holding onto the eternal hope of entering heaven when I just get my food in order.
The only way out is to quit dieting all together. The only way out is to learn to eat to nourish and care for myself rather than to reward or punish myself. The only way out is to become a mindful eater.
