How to Keep Perspective When Everyone Is on a Diet
It might seem like everyone you know has a weird relationship with food every January – maybe Whole30, maybe sugar detox, maybe it’s a genuine commitment to keto. What if you are not involved in this occasion, and all this is a bit too much? Anti-Diet author and registered dietitian Christy Harrison gives us some advice.
Understand that many “healthy people” have a different name.
Diets and weight loss are rarely referred to by such names. Instead, the idea that you will lose weight if you change your diet is often touted as a happy side effect of a healthy diet or other lifestyle changes.
This is why eating patterns that move around wellness or wellness can creep into our brains in the same way that diets are diets in disguise, or they include a stigma about larger bodies, perhaps unspoken but largely implied.
So if you are trying to avoid dieting, keep in mind that you will probably have to avoid this as well. For example, unsubscribe or mute any Instagram account that uses photos of thin people when they post health and wellness posts.
Set boundaries
So, your best friend is determined to give up sugar, and you better not think about diet or restricting food. How do you maintain your relationship without arguing and wasting all your conversations on her new, mmm, wellness plan?
Harrison suggests simply setting boundaries. Ask a friend if you can avoid talking about “what we eat and how we are exercising right now,” and instead keep talking about everything else that matters to the two of you – after all, your friendship isn’t just about food. …
“I think if they’re good friends, they’ll do what you ask,” Harrison says, even if they don’t quite understand. And perhaps this discussion will prompt them to reflect on their own attitudes towards diet.
Have your own project
If you tend to get noticed in what other people do, it is perfectly understandable, since we are social creatures, it can help decide what you are doing instead of being restrictive or passionate about food.
Perhaps now is the time to learn about intuitive eating, or, as Harrison puts it, “ true intuitive eating, not a bogus version of diet,” which assumes that you are intuitively eating your way to weight loss.
Instead, you can just eat and not expect your food choices to do any particular magic on your body. “You have the time and space to focus on your career, your relationships, your social justice, your reasons for caring, changing the world — you have a lot more to live with beyond [just thinking about] your diet,” Harrison says.
Take a long perspective
No diet lasts forever. Whole30 is one grueling month if people live this far. Many New Year’s promises expire by mid-January, and even if someone loves a new way of eating and loses weight, they will most likely stop loving it for several months, maybe a year.
You don’t have to rub the odds of failure in your friend’s face – remember, you’re trying to respect each other’s boundaries and not argue about food – but thinking about where each of you will be in five years can help keep you in perspective.