Why Dieting is a Dirty Word

I may not be healthy, but neither is she.

From questions of “Are you pregnant?” (no, I’m not) to “Are you REALLY going to eat that?” (why yes, yes I am), it’s no fun being fat. And sometimes it’s hard to love fashion, when “fashion is not for fatties.”

Since my childhood, weight has always been a constant struggle; from being a size 10 to upwards of an 18/20, vanity sizing has been both my friend and my foe. I know that I will never be waif thin or long and lean, and at the very least, I want to feel healthy & sexy in my body. Clothing companies aren’t going to make that easy on me, no matter what my size, so why should I?

Living in the Mid-West, particularly in a Big Ten College Town, leads to a lot of unhealthy eating (and a lot of watching the runners jog on by). Between the hurricane, a break-up, losing my regular workout routine, and an intense graduate school program, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pack on the pounds.

And worse than packing on the pounds? Feeling my physical and mental health deteriorate through it all.

To try and rectify the past, and build up a healthier future, I’ve flirted with a Diet. But I think Dieting is a damned dirty word. It encourages us to think about our bodies in quantitative terms (the number of our weight, our BMI, the size of our pants) rather than qualitatively (how we feel, how we look, what our overall health is).

So I’ve been trying to think about my “Diet,” not so much as a Diet, but a Resolution for a Healthier Body.

The Faux Beau and I have been flirting with the South Beach Diet; during the Summer, we successfully managed to complete Phase I and move in to Phase 2. Then an onslaught of trips, VERY limited funds, and a shortened schedule made us slip up big time!

One of the most appealing aspects of the South Beach Diet is that it really isn’t so much of a diet at all. Rather, it seems to be a guide to healthy eating (specially for decreasing heart disease and cholestorol); it comes in many forms, and is similar to the Sonoma Diet. It encourages you to eat healthy fats and carbs, to decrease the processed foods in your diet, to break your addiction to artifical sugars and sweeteners. In short, it fills your body up with healthy proteins and fats, fiber, and natural sugars, while breaking your body’s dependency on foods with high glycemic indexes.

Many of the more satisfying aspects of the “Diet” include: eating until you fill full; allowing you to eat at restaurants (and offering suggestions of best options!); and a no-guilt policy towards days that you break it and holidays.

When it comes to food, I find that listening to our bodies is the most important thing we can do. When I do this, I am at a smaller size, yes, but I also have more energy and stamina. Instead of listening to the small voice in my head reminding me how good that double cheeseburger would be, or how the cheesey soup sounds better than the veggie filled one, I should listen to the other parts of my body too– my stomach, intestines, heart, and lungs. If my heart starts pounding at the sight of that cheeseburger, maybe I should pass it up in favor of a salad that won’t push my cholesterol up…

Does anyone else feel the pains and struggles of weight management? How do you cope with it? Are you restrictive of your diet at all? Do you find successes in “Diets,” whether its as simple as being a vegetarian or as complex as counting points?

TiLT! [October 23th!] An accomplishment– actually getting this list up on a...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Subscribe to comments Comment | Trackback |

Post Tags: