There is an Alternative to Dieting.

Essentially, It is:  Stop Dieting. Stop trying to lose weight.  Start understanding that dieting is NOT a solution in that it’s very unlikely to make you thin for longer than 2-5 years at the very most - and actually, it’s much more likely you’ll end up heavier than where you started.  .. and begin relying on your Internal Wisdom. 

There’s plenty of Marketing for this Alternative, and a hefty hourly fee… will get you help in the form of individual online contact, from one of a multitude of “dubiously licensed online counselors”  who charge about the same hourly rates as the professional Therapists and Psychologists who are licensed through State, Federal, or National medically-recognized agencies. 

Will this Alternative result in getting you Thin or to a “Normal” BMI weight?
Perhaps…. If your body is already in the “normal” or “overweight” range and has always been there. However, if your body has ever been well inside the “Obesity” BMI weight range for more than one or two years, it is Extremely unlikely.

For almost everyone, what happens is that a “successful” implementation of this alternative process will result in your body weight returning to, and settling at, its highest individual Set Point. For more information on that future probability read these articles: 
Set Point, and Running Down the Up Escalator.

Here's the Bottom line.

Below is an article in support of the Alternative to Dieting.

Why You Think About Food Day and Night & What to Do About It.
                      by Vania Phitidis of Peaceful Eating. co.uk

"Do you think about food first thing in the morning and last thing at night (and about a million times in between)?

Do you wake up worrying if you’ll be able to control your intake,  go to bed at night evaluating your day and judging yourself based on how you managed your eating – and then making promises about how you’ll eat tomorrow?

Do you perpetually feel guilty for eating?

Why??????? 

The one reason you’re crazy around food is because you want your body to look different than it does.

That’s it. Simple.

And… you have bought into these beliefs:

•  controlling how much or what you eat – or both of these – will give you the body you desire, make you a better person, or likely both.
  
  
•  your size defines your acceptability, your health, or both
  
  
•  you can control your biology and influence your genetic make-up.
  

Almost every woman I’ve worked with has realized that if she’d never gone on her first diet (to try to change her body size) she would never have developed a dysfunctional relationship with food. Ever thought to yourself you wish you were the size you were before you started dieting?

 Why you want to change your body in the first place.

The primary reason you want to change your body is because you fear not being accepted.

Acceptance/ belonging is a primary driver for human behavior. Without acceptance, we are outcasts. Alone. Unable to find a mate to procreate, or a community to help us when we need it; to provide comfort, solace, connection and play.

Bottom line: we are social creatures and we need acceptance to survive.

Everyone I’ve ever worked with received this message at some point in her life. It appeared in different voices and with variations in language (verbal and non-verbal):

If you’re fat/big, you’re unacceptable (which translates into unlovable).

In westernized culture – and indeed increasingly in others, there is a rare body shape that is particularly coveted. A small percentage of people naturally have this body shape – which is slender, slim hipped (though the latest requirement is with some curves, but only in the ‘right’ places) and long limbed. It’s rare because these people don’t have ‘thrifty genes’ which store fat easily. In past millennia, few of them would have survived.

People want what’s rare. We desire what is scarce. Marketing strategies feed on this! If you can achieve, accomplish or acquire what is scarce, your status increases and hence your acceptability. Think of Ferraris.

Insert this into the very real, growing culture of weight stigma and its associated interwoven social issues: Fatphobia, Thin Privilege and Diet Culture.

And let’s not forget the role of our economic system: capitalism works on selling stuff! The way to sell stuff that doesn’t meet our basic requirements, is to create a perceived need by preying on our basic human need for acceptance and belonging. The global market for weight loss was estimated to reach $586.3 billion in 2014!

Doesn’t the dieting industry employ a brilliant business model? Look at all the repeat customers who think they are the failures (because they can’t get or stay thin), rather than the product! Imagine buying any other product, say a kettle that didn’t work… would you keep going back to buy it again and again?

  It comes to this.

Because you have wanted to change your shape to gain a greater sense of belonging, you’ve engaged in trying to manipulate your weight. And you’ve done that through restricting.

The trouble is that if your body is put through unsubtle and sustained caloric deficit, you will crave food. The longer this goes on, the more your brain will fixate on food and eating – which makes complete sense – because if our brains didn’t do this, our species wouldn’t survive.

The truth is – you can’t control your biology.

Any ‘successful’ attempt at weight loss has undoubtedly failed eventually, or you wouldn’t be here reading this. Our survival instinct is very strong – and our bodies work incredibly hard to maintain homeostasis – also known as your set point. Our bodies have a range they like to stay within – based on our genetic make up (though influenced by our history of dieting). Dieting slows your metabolism, making your body become more efficient at storing anything you ingest. It also raises cortisol (stress) levels which slows digestion, and signals the body to store fat.

But it’s not only the physical deprivation that creates this fixation.

It’s also the perceived deprivation which is created by the thoughts you have about food and eating that may not have anything at all to do with what you’re actually consuming.

Any judgments you have about food and eating, any demands you make about how you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be eating, and any guilt or shame you feel associated with your eating or your body, will create a deprivation mindset – even if you’re not physically restricting those foods!

If you’re familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, you’ll know about the ‘forbidden fruit.’ Eve was not going hungry: she wasn’t physically deprived of food, but couldn’t resist the apple simply because it was forbidden. She fell from grace – and took Adam along with her.



The way out of this madness.

It’s simple, though that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Stop trying to change your body. Leave. It. Alone.

The truth is that trying to manipulate your weight has failed in the past and will fail in the future. This is true for 95% of people who do it. If you were boarding an airplane and were told there was a 95% chance it would crash, would you embark? One of the most consistent predictors for weight gain is ever having dieted!

Stop physically restricting calories or types of food.

If you keep doing this, you will stay fixated on food, and you will have urges to binge.

Drop all judgments about food.

That means nothing is good or bad (including you).

Drop all rules about food.

Give yourself permission to eat any food, without guilt, preferably when you’re hungry.

Drop all your judgments about bodies.

This means all bodies are good bodies, whatever their shape and size. All bodies are valuable and worthy and deserving of respect and care.

Disengage from diet talk and extreme fitness & exercise regimes.

Stop following the diet gurus! Throw out your scale and every dieting book or magazine you own. Move your body in ways that make you feel good. Disengage from diet talk at the office, with your friends and in your home.

Remove the words ‘should’ and ‘have to’ from the way you speak about your eating or exercise (and anything else!).

So you want to lose weight for health reasons?

Unfortunately there is a lot of myth in the public realm about the connection between health and weight.

I saw a funny though sad cartoon the other day of a big-bodied man at the doctor’s with a stake through his chest. The man shouts ‘Doctor! I’ve been impaled!’ The doctor looks non-nonchalantly over at him and says ‘Well, maybe you’ll feel better if you lose some weight.’

There is undoubtedly weight stigma within the medical profession – and that’s truly awful for people in large bodies.

That said – here’s what I know:

•  Not everyone who is so-called ‘overweight’ is unhealthy.
  
  
•  Not everyone who is of so-called ‘normal weight’ is healthy.
  
  
•  Weight loss will not improve every health condition, and it’s certainly not the cause of all health problems!
  
  
•  Attempting to lose weight through dieting for any reason – health or not – is likely to fail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The reasons for wanting to lose weight do not change the fact that dieting increases your chances of gaining weight!
  
  
•  You can improve most health markers without dieting or losing weight – by moving your body in ways that feel good; and by eating according to your hunger, fullness and what makes your body feel energized and balanced – as well as for pleasure.
  

If you have health problems and you’ve been told you should lose weight to solve them, please educate yourself about weight and health.

  But will I lose weight?

I have no idea. You might, and you might not. It depends on your genetic make up, how long you’ve been dieting, how committed you are to not restricting – and a bunch of unknowns about bio-chemistry and the mind-body connection.  I know people who have. I know people who have not.

But what I can promise you is you’ll feel free and relaxed around food, your sanity will be restored and your quality of life improved – not just around food! You will stop waiting for a number to be reached before you start to live your life and do the things you want to do.

Plus – you will become an advocate for the solution, instead of contributing to truly terrifying statistics – like the fact that 81% of American 10 year olds fear becoming fat, and 71% of 7 year olds are dieting. You will become an advocate for people of all shapes and sizes to be treated with equal respect.

Each time you engage in trying to alter your body, and judging any body (as good or bad), you’re contributing to these growing social problems. I’m not saying this to guilt trip you. I’m saying it because it’s true. Otherwise it’s like saying ‘I stand for the abolition of slavery!!!! But I want to keep mine…’

Although it’s simple – it isn’t easy. Accepting ourselves, and belonging to ourselves first and foremost is not easy to do in a culture that is obsessed with the thin ideal, in an economy that cynically undermines our unquestionable enoughness for profit. It’s hard to do when every which way you turn there’s a new diet, a friend who’s lost weight (and getting approval from others because of it), advertising that bombards us with messages that our health and happiness are tied to a number on the scale, or a doctor telling you everything will be better if you drop a few pounds.

It’s impossible to do without knowledge, a radical paradigm shift, support and community. Even with these you’re swimming against the stream."

The article above is an Excellent depiction of support for the Alternative-to-Dieting choice.

                       
Whether our Choice is Dieting or the Alternative-to-Dieting, everyone wants our money. Not only do numerous Marketing interests .... (which includes the medical profession) .... want to sell us "Help" to get our bodies Thin, they want to sell us  "Help"  to emotionally adjust to staying Fat.

The author of the article above, Vania Phitidas, is one of the multitude of online “Life Counselors” specializing in “Intuitive Eating”, and “Body Acceptance”.  She Blogs at "Peaceful Eating".

She appears to be a normal-weight female in her mid 40s, a former bulimic, with no personal history of obesity.

Like most of the current "online life counselors", she has no actual credentials or licensing except for the fact that she is registered somewhere as an “Intuitive Eating Counselor”, a “Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training teacher”, and “Self-Esteem teacher”, who is involved in a “More to Life” program.

A resident of the United Kingdom, she appears to be college educated with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Masters in Education for Sustainability.  Apparently she charges about $120 per session, which appears to be the usual rate for the majority of similar "life counselors".

Each of has has the freedom to choose any form of  "HARD" that seems personally right for us as individuals, and I see ALL of the choices available as equally valid ones. 

My own personal choice has been to choose to Embrace Dieting and make it into a Hobby that is enjoyable much of the time. However, part of that very Dieting Hobby is to become aware and to consider Alternatives to Dieting.   It is not a one-size-fits-all world, and what is the right choice for ME, may be the wrong choice for YOU.  Also, what is the right choice for TODAY, may not be the right choice for TOMORROW.  Those who want to know more about me, and my dieting and weight history can read the article ABOUT ME here at DietHobby.

Emotional eating is normal behavior.  We don’t need to feel bad about it; find out WHY it happens; or stop doing it.

Here at DietHobby, (See Archives from March 18, 2016 through April 6, 2016 - first one: Here ), I  Scrapbooked a series of silent gif images, mostly film clips with superimposed dialogue about food and eating, in order to illustrate the fact that our bodies are designed to make Eating Food involve our Emotions. 

It isn’t accurate to define our eating behaviors as “emotional”  or  “physical.”  The process of Eating Food, …including our Food Choices…, is BOTH physical and emotional,  in differing degrees and combinations. 

Everything we eat affects us physically AND emotionally.  All food affects our blood sugar and gives us sensual pleasure …makes us feel good.  Like all other body processes that are designed to make us feel good, it’s impossible to separate food from emotion. 

Food is not “just fuel”, just like sex is not “just reproduction”.  The body’s relationship with food, like the body’s relationship with sex, is interwoven, and driven by both physical and emotional desire. Labeling our food choices as motivated by one or the other is neither practical nor realistic.  This type of thinking about food and eating is an inaccurate, oversimplification of a complicated biological process.

“There are about seven people in the world who righteously use food as fuel.
Six of them are professional marathon runners from Kenya... ”

Our physical and emotional hungers work together …including our need and desire for food.  We receive information from all of our feelings of hunger.  Our bodies are designed to make Eating Food emotionally satisfying, as well as physically satisfying.

Eating IS emotional. Food, like sex, has an impact on the way we feel. The effects may be temporary, but they still exist, and we are allowed to utilize food as a coping mechanism if we so choose.

Everything we do in life involves CHOICE. Even refusing to choose is a choice. All of our Behaviors are based on the personal, individual choices we make as we follow our own true life VALUES.  Each of us has the mental power and the physical ability to make and follow through with personal and individual choices about our own Behaviors, despite feelings of physical or emotional hunger, ….including what, when, and how much food we will eat at any particular time.

Some might be thinking…
........“But where do I draw the line? If I let myself eat emotionally I’d NEVER STOP.”
And the answer is
........“Each one of us individually gets to draw the line.”
Where ever we want to draw it.

Every human behavior brings consequences, either positive, negative or both.  Although we have the ability to control our BEHAVIORS, we have NO ability to control our RESULTS, …the eventual outcomes of our Behaviors. 

Human bodies have many genetic differences, including height, skin color, eye color, facial features, muscle development,  placement of fat deposits.  No matter what eating and/or exercise choices we make, our bodies are limited by our genetics, and less than 2% of the population can ever become a slender, shapely model such as we see in advertisements.

Despite our individual differences, specific physical Behaviors will guarantee certain specific physical Results.  If we CONSISTENTLY eat LESS food than our individual body needs, that body will become thin, weak, tired, and hungry.  If we CONSISTENTLY eat MORE food than our individual body can use, we will store it as fat.  This is a Physical Fact of Life that Can’t be Changed.   People, however, do have the ability to choose their own Attitude as well as the positive or negative Values they place on being “Thin” or  “Fat”.

However we do it, …“eating”  …including “overeating” or “undereating”… is not a vile behavior that is supposed to lead to feelings of shame.  Each of us is free to eat however we choose at the time, for whatever reason.  

Bottom Line:   We are adults, and we can do whatever the F*** we want.

Note: Originally posted April 7, 2016 - Bumped up for new viewers

See: Charts of my Maintenance of Weight-Loss, Years Four Through Ten+.

and

The Finish Line.

Here at DietHobby, occasionally I share Updates about my ongoing Maintenance Status.  Here are some Charts that show my Current Records. 

I have been consistently tracking all of my daily food and my daily weight since September 2004.  I recently posted some Charts detailing my weight-loss and calorie history. 

See: Charts of My Weight-Loss & First Three Years of Maintenance; and Charts of my Maintenance of Weight-Loss - Years Four through Ten+.


This chart shows my ongoing Maintenance Weight Plan.

Here are some of my CURRENT RECORDS:
 

This Chart shows my daily weights during the past THREE years of maintenance. October 2013 through July 18, 2016 (the present date).

This Chart shows my daily calories during the past THREE years of maintenance. October 2013 through July 18, 2016 (the present date).

For more calorie detail, see the Three charts below which show my
Total Daily Calorie Averages for the past three years - Beginning 7/19/2013 through 7/18/2016. 

This chart shows that my total daily calorie average was 903 calories per day, during the one-year period from 7/19/2013 through 7/18/2014.

This chart shows that my total daily calorie average was 814 calories per day, during the one-year period from 7/19/2014 through 7/18/2015.  

NOTE: During the above-time-period I experimented with logging my actual food into the online program: "My Fitness Pal", and while doing this, I logged only my Daily Calorie Totals (along with my water & vitamins),  into my personal "DietPower" program, therefore ... Except for the Calorie Count, which is accurate,... the detailed Nutritional Data shown is incorrect.

This chart shows that my total daily calorie average was 903 calories per day, during the one-year period from 7/19/2015 through 7/18/2016.

 For earlier information about my weight & calorie history see: Status Update - Records: My past 8 years (August 2012).

Additional Status Update articles can be found in the DietHobby ARCHIVES.