How going on diets completely ruined my relationship with food

When I got to university I put on a lot of weight in that first year.  In retrospect there were a lot of reasons for it, including the complete change in lifestyle, more accessiblility to pub food and grog and other personal reasons.

I was really upset about this having always been naturally skinny and never having an issue with food or weight.

So off I went to a dietician to get some help.  This lovely well meaning lady gave me lots of practical advice on food and the weight dropped off pretty quickly.  However some of the advice was not so helpful, for example the topics of certain foods came up such as orange juice and butter.  I was informed quite instantaneously that I was not allowed to eat these things at all.  Up until this point I’d never conceived of certain foods being ‘ banned’.  I didn’t eat them because they simply weren’t available or I ate little bits an it never affected my weight as it was in balance with the rest of my diet and I was quite active.

So this was the start of the idea that there were ‘good’ foods and ‘bad foods’ which is a really unhelpful message that discourages balance and creates guilt.  It affected me as such that I’d spend periods of time avoiding ‘bad’ foods and losing weight and then going back to them and putting it back on.

What if she had just told me to limit those foods to once a week – to let me have a little bit, and then a little bit more once I’d lost the weight. It would have been much more helpful to work within the paradigm of balance rather than restriction and deprivation.  this affected my relationship with food for  years and encouraged me to go on a endless stream of diets as I kept yo yoing from once extreme to the other.

I recently read a book (the science of neuro-slimming) that informed me that the brain is a reward center and thrives on pleasure. Therefore it makes logical sense that anything that involves punishment ie/ a gruelling exercise regime for most of us, or deprivation is likely to be short lived.  We are primed for pleasure and I believe our birthright is to be happy and healthy.

However sometimes we get the wrong advice from well meaning people.  The best example of a good weight loss technique I have read is from the doctor in the book French women don’t get fat by Mirelle Guilano.  He encourages her gently and compassionately to identify her  bad habits and restore balance in her eating and lifestyle habits.  She was a bit like me she had a changed in lifestyle that affected her habits.

There is also a whole ‘nother layer to this linked to the way we cope with stress and emotions and cultural pressures on us that can work in reverse, however I’ll leave this for another post.

For now I want to let you know how I am addressing my attitude to food, exercise, weight and health:  I am starting from a place of loving me right now no matter what I weigh and I’ll focus on positive things such as cooking a beautiful meal for myself, enjoying a walk in nature or a gym class.  I simply refuse to do anything I hate or makes me miserable in the name of skinny or beautiful.  I know I am beautiful right now and I want to take care of myself because of that. xx

Honor is a psychologist with a special interest in women’s emotional health.  For more info visit her at http://honornewman.com

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