As a chronic dieter for most of my life, it hasn’t been easy to kick the dieting habit.
I grew up in a home where food was so restricted that my siblings and I learned to “sneak” snacks and sips of soda. My mother was on and off diets for as long as I can remember, a habit she unknowingly passed on to me.
I loved my mom dearly, but one of our last conversations was about dieting. She was in hospice, and I was on Jenny Craig. I remember when my brother brought a bowl of microwave popcorn into the hospital room and I reached for it, and my mom gently chided me for breaking my diet. “Tara, you’re being bad,” she said. I know those weren’t her last words to me, but it’s what I remember.
Since then I’ve tried many different weight loss approaches — intermittent fasting, cutting carbs, Whole30 and, most recently, Noom — all of which have felt like restrictive diets wrapped up in different marketing packages. “Diet culture has been so shape-shifting that even diet companies now are saying, ‘We’re not a diet,’” said Evelyn Tribole, a registered dietitian and a co-author of the popular book “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach.” “But yes, they are.”
Now there’s mounting scientific evidence to suggest that restrictive dieting makes you want to eat more, slows your metabolism and makes it even harder to lose weight in the future.
Tired of the dieting roller coaster, I made the decision about a year ago to never diet again. I put my energy into practicing mindfulness, learning to meditate and enjoying cooking.
