The diet mentality is very good at posing as a healthy mentality. The reality is far from healthy though.
In my nutrition practice I often have people who come to me and don’t think that they’re dieting. But more often than not, the diet mentality is present. And when we talk about eating intuitively, about really eating what, when, and how much our bodies truly need on an individual level, dieting gets in the way. Dieting is a barrier to intuitive eating.
Let’s dive into some of the more subtle ways that you may still be engaging in dieting behavior/thinking.
- Counting macro, carbs, points, calories, etc: Counting is a mental game. One that requires some effort. And it doesn’t have to be obsessive to be creating distrust in your body. If you have to count you are basically telling your body that you don’t trust that it knows how much you actually need without attaching a number to it. And that’s dieting.
- Allowing yourself to only eat at certain times of the day: I know this is a big one in our day and age of the glorification of Intermittent Fasting. If you have rules around when you are allowed to eat, you aren’t listening to your body to tell you when you’re hungry. You are following a rule. That’s dieting.
- Having to make up for your food choices: If you eat a perceived “bad” food/meal and do things like eat a salad for the next meal to make up for it, or work out extra afterward, or vow to be “good” tomorrow, then that’s the guilt/shame that comes from diet mentality. You also aren’t listening to what you body wants/needs for movement or nourishment because of that guilt/shame.
- Blocking hunger signals by drinking lots of coffee or diet sodas: Low calorie or 0 calorie beverages can affect our hunger cues. This is a form of restriction and may be a pattern of behavior that is not overt dieting, but is problematic as it may affect your hunger levels later in the day (think overeating at night).
- Faking it in public: If you eat one way in public and another way by yourself, then you are posing as a dieter. There are so many social pressures to “eat right” and that is the diet mentality in full force. This can affect what and how much you eat behind closed doors because you didn’t actually eat what you wanted when you were out with friends, for example.
- “It’s a lifestyle”: if I had a quarter for every time I heard that one! If it was a real lifestyle, you wouldn’t stop and start it over and over. Restriction is not sustainable and is not a lifestyle.
- Going vegetarian/vegan/gluten free/etc for weight loss: There are perfectly great ethical and health reasons for eliminating food from your diet, but weight loss is not one of them. If you are eating a certain way merely to lose/maintain weight, then you are dieting.
The list goes on, but there you go.
Eating behavior is very nuanced. Understanding why you eat what you eat is important. My hope for you is that you can remove yourself from dieting and start listening to your body so that you can discover food freedom and find optimal health.