I recently had a really good zoom chat with Rebecca. We had been “friends” for 12 years, back in the early blogging days. Awhile ago I noticed her instagram changing, like mine, to a more health at every size, intuitive eating, non-diet culture subject matter and I reached out to have a chat with her about her journey.
We both kind of came to it slowly. And then we both reflected back to the “old” days and realized just how disordered we were. Her story is not my story, so I suggest you follow her on social media/blog. But it got me questioning what started this new journey for me.
I would say that doing keto was really the big wake up call at how restrictive I was. Trying to be under 25g of carbs a day is not sustainable, not healthy and really shouldn’t be “the norm.” Counting calories, like I’ve done for almost 20 years now, isn’t necessarily the best thing either. I’m glad that I started to ease up on that, and eventually stopped it entirely. Why? Because constantly thinking and tracking calories only makes food your #1 thought at all times.
In previous posts I’ve talked about healing my relationship with exercise: not using it as a punishment for eating, not using exercise as a way to earn my food. Not spending so much time working out that I don’t get to do fun stuff.
The problem I am facing is that I’ve done the restriction for so long, my brain is just used to it. It’s hard to break that habit. I’ve also wondered if I have totally screwed up my metabolism by restricting for so long. When I think back to where I had plateaus with weight loss, it was always around the same weight. The first time it was 170 pounds–and that’s when I started working out every single day AND I lowered my daily calories to 1600 a day. The second time was after I had Logan and when I eventually started doing keto. No matter what I did, even lowering my calories to 1400 a day, I didn’t get much lower than that 170. So maybe I need to face that that is where my body just wants to be normally. Sure, you can restrict and maybe lose a little bit more, but will it be easy? Will it be sustainable? Maybe your body looks the way it looks because of biology and genetics. It really isn’t as simple as “calories in vs. calories out.”
Rebecca shared this excellent article with me and I hope everyone takes a few minutes to read it.
Bethh
This has been a really interesting and thought-provoking series of posts. One question I was reflecting on recently: if I observe a person in my life perhaps going down the consumed-by-diet-culture path, is there anything helpful I can do or say?
I suppose every story and person is different but I would like to have some thoughtful phrases in mind if I’m in a conversation that could maybe use some redirecting to healthy ideas.
Lisa Eirene
Oh this is a great question. Let me think about it and maybe I’ll do a post!