Tag: diet culture

Gaining Weight on A Low Calorie Diet

So, you’ve been restricting calories to lose weight. For whatever reason, perhaps because you have an eating disorder, because you think you need to look a certain way to wear a bathing suit, or because the media and our culture have forced you to look upon yourself with distaste and wish for something better.  You’ve googled what to do and low-calorie diets and meal plans come up immediately.  “If energy in is less than energy out and the pounds will melt right off!” the articles say.

Maybe that was you 1 year ago, and you tried the diet, and it worked! But then you couldn’t maintain the restrictive lifestyle (because who could??) so the weight came back on. Then you tried again. and again. Now you’re restricting your calories under the façade of a “diet” just like you did before but this time you are noticing that you’re gaining weight!! Why the fuck is this happening??

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your metabolism @you

Well let me tell you – honey, your metabolism is mad.

When you attempt to lose weight quickly with low calorie meal plans, sure you lose some fat, but you ALSO lose muscle.  Your muscle mass is the most important factor that keeps your metabolic rate high.

Let’s say before you started dieting you were able to maintain your weight easily on 2700 calories a day. (These numbers are just examples). Then you go on your first low-calorie diet and lose 10 pounds quickly. While that rapid weight loss is initially encouraging it is not as fantastic as you may think.  You see, those 10 pounds include muscle loss.  So after a few weeks when life gets in the way and the diet is no longer sustainable, the weight comes back on AND your metabolic rate has dropped from 2700 to 2300 because of the muscle loss. With each new diet your metabolic rate decreases even more until your maintenance calories are lower than your diet calories – hence why you will eventually gain weight on low calorie diets.

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Unfortunately, this is a common problem and one of the reasons why the diet industry is an evil multi-billion-dollar industry. You see when these low-calorie meal plans work initially, people then blame themselves when they aren’t able to sustain them.  Then they continuously attempt to recreate the results of the first time but every time you force starvation onto your body through the guise of a “diet” you are furthering metabolic damage. This is also why when the weight comes back on eventually, you gain more than you started with. It’s not your fault, it’s the lies of diet culture that “innocently” suggest unsustainable and dangerous meal plans on people desperate for a quick fix.

So, you’re in a metabolically suppressed state commonly known as “starvation mode” – what do you do? Well the first step is obviously to STOP low calorie diets.  When I was stuck in this situation the only thing that worked for me was to eat eat eat until my metabolism caught up with me. No, your metabolism is not “broken,” I promise you that is impossible. Yes, I gained he weight back to where I was before I ever attempted my first diet… but I’m so much happier loving myself in this body than I ever was torturing myself in my calorie restricted body.

Interview With Caroline Dooner – Creator of The Fuck It Diet

Untitled-design-12Recently I had the absolute pleasure of connecting with Caroline Dooner.  Caroline is the creator of The Fuck It Diet, which teaches radical normal eating to chronic dieters. She also teaches intuition and advocates hardcore for #rest. You can follow her on instagram, and get her free intro course, “Eating Should Be Easy” over on The Fuck It Diet.

When I was going through my own recovery I stumbled upon her website and it felt as if her words were speaking directly to me.  Caroline has been through the ringer of diet culture and found a way out that I strived to emulate.  Her writing and philosophies on making eating simple were such powerful sources of inspiration for me and many others trapped in diet culture.  Today she continues to help people through her blog, podcasts, and e-books.  She believes that eating should be easy because, fuck it, it’s just food right?

I was delighted when she agreed to answer some of my burning questions and it was wonderful to be able to get her seasoned perspective.

RR: Why the name “The Fuck It Diet”?

CD: It’s how I felt when I finally realized that dieting was backfiring and doing the opposite of what I have always hoped it would. It’s how I felt after being on diet after diet, hoping that the next one would finally heal my food addiction. It is the true exasperation of realizing it’s never going to work.

RR: What was the life event that inspired you to start the site?

CD: I had been dieting obsessively for 10 years. You could call it an eating disorder, or you could just call it obsessive dieting, there is a big overlap for lots of people anyway. But I was Paleo, and bingeing on all the paleo treats I could get my hands on, and finally started hearing whispers in the Paleo community, that not eating enough carbs will hurt your metabolism, and wreck your hormones, and make you more insulin resistant, which had been the thing I was trying to heal.

But the event/moment that spawned it, was my 24th birthday. I binged on squash pancakes and low sugar almond flour cupcakes, and had a legitimate epiphany. I can’t do this anymore. This is going to keep happening over and over and over, until I step out of this cycle, learn to eat normally, and heal my relationship to weight.

 I had tried to heal my eating many times before, going on stints of intuitive eating, or something similar. But it was never truly the cure, because I was still trying to eat the smallest amount possible, and still petrified of gaining weight. The Fuck It Diet was different.

RR: How long did it take for you to heal your relationship with food? 

CD: It was a process that evolved over the first few years of my no-holds-barred eating, and my work on deeper and deeper body acceptance. But I would say that between 6 months to a year is where I noticed a big shift.

Even still, just over the course of eating a certain food for a week would change my relationship with that certain food. So there were small victories, and then bigger shifts that happened over time.

RR: In your opinion, what you think the most negative impact of diet culture is?

CD: It’s really hard to choose just one, but diet culture puts you at odds with your body. The way you trust it, and your appetite, and your weight. It makes you totally out of touch with your own wisdom, intuition, cravings. And ruins your health and self-esteem.

RR: Do you think that diet culture is responsible for the rising rate of eating disorders?

CD: Hell to the yes.

RR: Your blog and podcast focuses a lot on spiritual healing – do you think it’s harder to recover if you aren’t spiritual?

CD: Ah yes, it’s such a good question. I have always been seeking guidance, or peace, or help, or knowledge on a spiritual level. And I know that is why and how TFID revealed itself to me. But there are some pretty basic facts and truths, like the biological and metabolic reaction to restriction. Even energetic principals aren’t necessarily “spiritual”. And I am expressly anti-dogma of any kind, diet dogma, spiritual dogma, or otherwise.

Trust in a bigger picture, and a bigger purpose than just being tiny and beautiful will certainly be a big help, but short answer: no. You don’t have to be spiritual to recover.

(pssst. she has a great podcast about this topic here)

RR: What would you say to girls who are afraid of this mindset because of their fear of getting “fat”?

CD: That this is what those businesses want you to fear. That that is just this heartbreaking thing that we have been perpetuating, and it’s so destructive and toxic. And I understand, I was the same way for years. Fat was the last thing I would ever accept being. It’s also because we have so many beliefs about what being fat means. But it’s just so misguided. What’s that JK Rowling quote? “is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’?”

RR: What is your most important tip to successfully practice intuitive eating?

CD: Do not get caught in the trap of believing you need to be eating the smallest amount possible. That’s a diet. We need to actually feed ourselves.

RR: What has been the most inspiring recovery story you’ve witnessed/had a hand in?

CD: It’s honestly too hard to choose, but in general, my favorite kind of story, and this happens again and again, is that healing from food and weight obsession, opens up a confidence and creative spark that allows people to really trust their own genius, go against the grain, choose a life that people might not understand. It let’s people really listen to their true desires.

RR: What is your number one piece of advice to someone struggling to recover/normalize their relationship with food?

CD: Do not discount how interconnected our relationship with weight is with our relationship with food. You cannot heal the one without the other.

RR: And finally, just for fun – what’s your favorite food?

CD: My favorite food is cheese. No contest.

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Huge thanks to Caroline for giving me the opportunity to pick her brain.  It meant a lot for me to be able to have this opportunity considering how incredibly helpful I found The Fuck It Diet and everything she put into it while I was struggling to recover.  If you’ve never heard of The Fuck It Diet – it’s about time you checked it out!

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Diet Myths Busted!

Diets rarely work, they’re based on information perpetuated by companies that are interested in selling products and don’t have the interest of the actual consumer in mind.  Diet culture has taken over our society and it is a harmful trigger to many eating disorders, especially orthorexia.  Here we will take 5 popular diet myths that have gained popularity and begin to understand why they’re wrong… and bust them! (if you’re confused why I’m saying “busted” instead of “debunked” then take a peek at the video above..)

Cutting carbs helps you lose weight – Newsflash! Your body uses carbs as its main source of energy! When you cut out carbs the myth proclaims that your body will burn fat stores as energy but the truth is it burns muscle tissue.  When your body starts breaking down this lean muscle your metabolism slows down because muscle keeps your metabolism up.  There’s a lot of health risks involved in cutting carbs out of your intake.  Also low carb diets are just a fad diet, meaning the second you lose the ridiculous amount of self control it takes to keep them up all of the weight will come piling back – especially since your metabolism was lowered in the process.

Eating fat can make you fat – This has got to be one of the most bullshit diet myths out there.  And it was all conceived so that food companies could make more money by selling low fat processed versions of their products.  The truth is that healthy fats can help prevent and reverse heart disease, shut off cravings, and speed up your metabolism. In fact if losing weight is what you are aiming to do, eating fats regularly in your diet while eating intuitively has proved to make you feel full faster and for longer thus leading to less overall consumption of calories naturally without intentional restriction. Plus fat adds flavor and enjoyment to life and that’s what’s important.

Eating after 8 is bad –Apparently the reasoning behind this particular myth is that if you eat too close to bed time then your body won’t have the time to burn off the energy by moving around during the day.  Here’s the thing though, your body uses the calories you consume whether you are moving or sleeping.  Even while you’re sleeping (actually especially while you are sleeping) your metabolism is resetting all of your bodies systems and pushing you through REM sleep – it needs energy to do all of that and ensure you get a good nights sleep.  Also, Is your body a business?  Does it have closing hours?  Hell no – if you are hungry after 8 then EAT – it’s always better to honor your body’s cravings in an effort to eat intuitively then it is to ignore the natural signals your body is sending you.

Only eat once you’re hungry – Why wait until you are miserable and hungry to eat?   Why ever put yourself in this state when you could just keep yourself satiated all day long? If you eat breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner on a regular schedule and each meal or snack before you become starved then you’ll always be satisfied and never miserable.  From a weight loss perspective this is ideal because when you are hungry then you are more likely to binge on food out of starvation, whereas if you eat regularly the urge to overeat is less likely to come up.

 Losing weight is all about willpower – This myth perpetuates yet another myth that not-thin people are lazy or lack self control which extends into the real world thin privileged society we all live in.  There are so many more factors than just “willpower” that factor into every individuals ability to lose weight whether those are genetic, environmental, hormonal, etc.  Plus, some people aren’t meant to be rail thin and their metabolism protects them from that.  There is so much more to losing weight healthily than just self control or willpower.