How to not give a fuck about your weight

"OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE FOOD THAT WE PUT IN OUR BODY" 

This is a bit more of a personal post and self-help guide as I feel we all need it as we are making the jump out of lockdown. It can be hard at times as we return back to going out for meals at restaurants with waiters wearing masks and screens between you and the next table. Additionally, we are bombarded with the new obesity strategy by Downing Street where we are being increasingly forced to count calories and avoid 'unhealthy' foods. What madness I say. 

From keto to paleo, superfoods to juice cleanses, clean eating and raw diets, we have been confronted with an array of dieting advice. The idea that we have to be in a constant pursuit to become thin as supposedly thinness is the key to happiness, health and all my dreams coming true. BULLSHIT. The annoying thing about diet culture is that it is never something that we cross off our list. There is somehow always more to do. We can easily get ourselves stuck in the diet cycle and develop disordered relationships with food. So often, we are taught how to diet but not how to eat for enjoyment, satisfaction and nourishment. 

But when we think about it. Food is just food. It was the medium of our first relationship. As we were welcomed into the world, we were held, cuddled and fed. We first associate food with safety and love and we should rightly continue to do so. We have to avoid the pressure of social media and the plastic surgery apps that are targeting young people, amplifying anxieties about size and appearance and distorting people's eating patterns and relationship with food. 

I would like you to ask yourself the following questions: 

• Why do you worship thinness? 
• Why do you equate thinness to health and moral virtue? 
• Why do you think losing weight will make you attain a higher status? 
• Why does society spend a massive amount of time, energy and money trying to shrink our bodies? 
• Why do we demonise certain foods and elevate others? 
• Why are we hyper-vigilant about our eating? 
• Why are we distracted from our pleasure, our purpose and our power? 

Our belief has been ingrained by society that a smaller body is healthier, more desirable, more deserving than a happy body and that should not be the case. By moving away from this culture, we have the opportunity to make ourselves free. This is a process that I am still tackling but it will not be a short one. It is fighting off everything that we are told to constantly restrict bad foods and develop an attitude where food is just food. 

Diet culture is the reason why we feed ourselves narratives that we are one more diet away from beauty, success and happiness. It teaches us that our self-worth is tied to our physical appearance and dieting is the answer to all our insecurities, struggles and problems. But let me tell you this, when I was 7 stone there was still parts of my body that I hated just like I did when I was 11 stone. Diets constantly promise us the world but they never give them. 

We are never going to fully love our bodies completely. There will always be something that you want to change about your body but the real action goes in whether you give into that thought and attempt to change it. As the minute that you lose that extra pound, something else will come up. Therefore, it is important that you focus your happiness not on changing your outward appearance but on how you can be inwards as a person. This can be in strengthening your relationships and creating memories, not counting calories. 

The path to ditching the diet culture is a long one but will ultimately lead to happiness. First of all, clean up your social media feed. There are loads of positivity accounts now on instagram, which promote normal looking bodies. I am trying to spend less time on Instagram and more time in the real world. If you look around at the different body shapes when you are out, you will quickly begin to realise how every body is different. You will notice every body without judgement and without having this unattainable body shape in your mind. 

Secondly, reject diet culture. I am slowly beginning to do this which is difficult as you are constantly surrounded by vocabulary such as 'clean eating' and 'treats'. You have to learn to have food neutrality. This embraces the philosophy that all foods can and do work. Tell the rigid and chaotic behaviour to fuck off.  Get curious with food by trying new dishes and understanding how it feels in your body. As you get curious, there may be food you find don't sit well, leave you feeling sluggish or in some way don't make you feel your best. Observing this means that you are able to be mindful about your choice, checking in with your body to decide what sounds good and how much of it you need. 

Food is much more than nutrition. It is about satisfaction, socialisation and community. It is about pleasure, flavour and tradition. The wellness diet has told us merely to look at food in terms of nutrition and negate the emotional and mental aspects of it. We have to keep in mind our holistic health - this means considering your mental wellbeing just as much as you do your physical health. If your mentality about food and movement is making you obsessive and anxious rather than nourished, then you are NOT actually supporting your health. 

The fact is that we are not what we eat. We are our passions, ideas, goals and experiences. We have feelings, desires, relationships and connections. So it is time to stop looking at food as the be-all-end-all of health. Stop looking at it as the pursuit of happiness. Too often, I equated being thin to being happy. But the reality is, that I felt pretty crap being skinny. I equated my worth to a number on the scale, a clothing size and not who I was as a person. 

I felt that nobody ever told me the side effects of being exposed and pursuing this diet culture. These being: 

• binge eating 
• slow metabolism 
• loss of muscle mass
• food obsession 
• loss of innate hunger/fullness cues
• shame, guilt, anxiety
• disordered eating 
• loss of menstrual cycle

I have become more astute now in spotting diet culture and I realise that it perpetuates everywhere. We have all being indoctrinated by it. On adverts and in government policies, I see so many quotes to do with losing weight being associated with wellness. The idea that it is a lifestyle, not a diet. The idea to detox your fridge. The idea to have a certain number of carbs, fat and protein per day. The idea to only have a certain serving size and amount of meals, snacks or points in one day. The idea of shifting habits. We all have unconscious diet mentality. 

Tell the 'guilt free' food to fuck off. All food is guilt-free as we need to eat to survive. Tell the idea of clean eating to fuck off. Tell the idea of detoxing to fuck off. Tell the idea of cheat meals to fuck off. Who are you cheating on? Our health is more than the food we eat. 

For this week, I ask you to question and challenge your own thoughts. If you find yourself thinking that I shouldn't be eating something, ask yourself why. You are never going to be the perfect eater because quite frankly the perfect eater does not exist. I tried for so long in my life to eat perfectly and it just made me miserable and restrictive. I am questioning and challenging these thoughts everyday of my life by reminding myself that I cannot let calories stand in the way of me living a happy life with strong relationships. 

Building a good relationship with yourself is a worthy investment as you spend quite a bit of time in your own head. Therefore, you have to learn to enjoy it without punishing it by restricting food. Learn to restrict your usage of social media instead. Carve out time to let your mind wander and have five minutes without television, music, internet, podcasts or books. Just close your eyes or stare out of the window. 

For so long, I felt trapped in my eating disorder. I would be obsessed with what I would eat and when I ate instead of just enjoying the spontaneity of life and the moment - of deciding to have ice cream for breakfast or eating at 1 in the morning. But I found that once I was put in a foreign country by myself, I learned to accept the spontaneity of life. I am not going to lie and say that this has got easier since being in lockdown as I have had to trap myself in my house for a prolonged period of time, however, I know that I can get back to that point. 

As a person, you will only truly feel free when you lean into the perks of being alone. Take advantage of the physical and mental space of being in your own company and learn to love it at times. Acknowledge the things that you are grateful for. Self reflect on your achievements and turn towards a more positive voice to reside in your head rather than that of diet culture. A culture that is a murderer. 

Compare yourself to yourself. Be kinder towards other people by giving genuine compliments that have nothing to do with their appearance. When you stumble, be your own best friend. Leave perfectionism behind and all of this, will improve your own self-esteem. By raising your self-esteem up, you will learn to stop sabotaging yourself, you will feel more deserving of good things and you will be more attractive in any kind of relationship. Ultimately, making your life happier.