Chapter 1

Principle One

Reject the Diet Mentality

Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

If dieting programs had to stand up to the same scrutiny as medications, they would never be allowed for public consumption. Imagine, for example, taking a cholesterol medication that improved your blood results for a few weeks but, in the long run, caused your arteries to clog. Would you really embark on a dieting program (even a so-called sensible diet) if you knew that it could cause you to gain more weight and affect your emotional well-being?

Dieting Leads to Weight Gain

Many people are aware that dieting doesn’t work in the long run, but most are surprised to learn that dieting actually increases your risk for gaining even more weight. Since the late 1940s, a large body of research has shown that the act of dieting promotes weight gain in a variety of age groups, from children and teens to adults.

There are profound biological mechanisms at play that trigger rebound weight gain from dieting. As far as your cells are concerned, they are being subjected to a famine, and they’ll do anything to survive. Your cells have no idea that you are choosing to restrict your calories (or some group of foods) for weight loss. One well-known survival adaptation they have is to slow down metabolism. A six-year follow-up study of contestants on the weight-loss show The Biggest Loser showed that, compared to their baseline, the contestants’ metabolisms were suppressed by an average of five hundred calories (Fothergill et al. 2016). Predictably, they gained back a significant amount of their weight.

Another way the body survives dieting is by cannibalizing its own muscle. That’s because energy is so important that the body will destroy its own muscle to burn as fuel (the muscle is converted to carbohydrates). That’s like being so poor that you can’t afford the heating bill or to buy wood for a fire, so you burn your kitchen cabinets for warmth. The Biggest Loser study also showed this effect. The contestants actually had more lean tissue at the beginning of the competition (Fothergill et al. 2016)! Six years later, their muscle was not restored to their baseline levels. They also had lower levels of leptin—a hormone that triggers feelings of fullness.

Fat overshooting is another way the body tries to survive the dieting process (Dulloo, Jacquet, and Montani 2012). In essence, the loss of both fat and lean muscle tissue triggers the body to gain more weight in the form of body fat to survive. Hormonal changes also make you more hungry and preoccupied with food.

Altogether, these powerful compensatory adaptations make sustained weight loss extremely difficult for most people. This makes for a great business model (built-in repeat business) for the nearly $60 billion-per-year weight-loss industry. It’s the only business that produces a product that doesn’t work but is not blamed for this failure—the consumers blame themselves.

The Paradox of So-Called Healthy Weight

We have long-argued that there is little support for the position that weight loss is mandatory in order to achieve health benefits from lifestyle changes.

—Ross et al. 2015

Perhaps you have pursued weight loss for health reasons and believe you have no choice but to diet. Maybe your doctor told you to lose weight in order to be healthy. There is a body of research that shows otherwise.

In his book The Obesity Paradox, cardiologist and researcher Carl J. Lavie describes how the war on obesity has actually created bigger health problems. High-quality studies on millions of people show that being at a lower weight does not confer better health or outcomes. He concludes: “Health should not be measured by a number on the scale or the size of your jeans” (Lavie 2014, 230). Two recent studies also came to a similar conclusion:

  • A UCLA study found that fifty-four million Americans are labeled obese or overweight, according to their BMI, but they are actually healthy (Tomiyama et al. 2016).
  • Overweight patients with type 2 diabetes were placed on weight-loss diets and supervised over six years by physicians; a control group of similar patients received no treatment. The researchers were stunned to discover that the dieters had a worse prognosis than the control group, who had maintained their overweight status (Køster-Rasmussen et al. 2016).

The pursuit of weight loss, even in the name of health, perpetuates body-weight bias and stigma. These are forms of prejudice that make assumptions about your health and value based solely on your size. Sadly, weight discrimination, like discrimination based on race, has a negative impact on health (Bacon and Aphramor 2011).

Healthy behaviors are important regardless of size. That’s why there is a growing movement called Health at Every Size (HAES), which shifts the focus from weight management to healthy behaviors that are sustainable (Bacon and Aphramor 2011; Tylka et al. 2014). This approach challenges the notion that your BMI reflects your health practices, health status, or moral character (Tylka et al. 2014).

Dieting Hurts Your Psychological Health and Well-Being

Many of our clients romanticize their first diet like a first love—it was so easy and effortless. The weight just came off. But that first dieting experience is the seduction trap that launches the cycle of weight loss and gain. With each diet, your body adapts and learns how to survive, making it even more difficult to lose weight. With each failed weight-loss attempt, a learned helplessness becomes stronger, resulting in poor self-efficacy and empowerment (Ross et al. 2015; Tylka et al. 2014). Consequently, many of our patients feel like failures—but it is the system of dieting that has failed them.

It’s no wonder that dieting also increases the risk of eating disorders, including binge eating. Dieting contributes to body dissatisfaction, food and body preoccupation, food cravings, distraction from other personal health goals, reduced self-esteem, and weight stigmatization and discrimination (Bacon and Aphramor 2011; Tomiyama et al. 2016; Tylka et al. 2014; Mann 2015).

When the dieting mentality is engaged, your eating decisions are dictated by the diet rules, which mandate what you eat, regardless of your food preferences, energy needs, hunger, and so forth, all of which can trigger feelings of deprivation. No diet plan could possibility know your hunger level or the foods that satisfy you. The dieting rules also trigger an inner rebellion, because they are an assault on your personal autonomy and boundaries.

Even when you are not on a diet, your mind may still have the insidious mentality of dieting—the shoulds and should nots of eating. This mental construct creates an obstacle to Intuitive Eating.

Intuitive Eating is based on attunement and uses the direct experience of your body. Is your body experiencing hunger? Is your body comfortably full and satisfied? It’s a process of listening and responding to the needs of your body. The dieting mentality erodes trust in your body, because “the rules” micromanage and dictate your food choices, regardless of how you feel. This creates a cognitive dissonance, a clash between what you are experiencing to be true and what you’re told to do, which leads to confusion about eating, with the common lament: “I don’t know how to eat any more.”

The activities in this chapter will help you to

  • cultivate self-compassion;
  • explore your dieting history;
  • recognize and acknowledge how dieting has interfered with your life, both physically and psychologically;
  • explore the benefits of letting go of dieting;
  • identify the diet mentality’s traits and thinking; and
  • get rid of the tools of dieting.

Cultivating Self-Compassion

It’s important to keep in mind that every eating experience you have, whether perceived as negative or positive, is an opportunity to learn about your body. Intuitive Eating is not a pass or fail process—it’s a learning experience. A toddler learning to walk will dawdle, stumble, and fall, but parents delight in each and every step and respond with compassionate encouragement. We can’t imagine a parent scolding a little tyke who takes a misstep and falls: “You idiot, get up!” Similarly, it’s important for you to cultivate self-compassion rather than shame and blame. Research indicates that adopting a self-compassionate stance toward difficult experiences related to your body may help facilitate Intuitive Eating and overcome body dissatisfaction (Schoenefeld and Webb 2013; Albertson, Neff, and Dill-Shackleford 2015).

Self-compassion is associated with well-being, increased feelings of happiness, and greater personal initiative to make needed changes in your life (Neff 2003, 2016; Neff and Costigan 2014). Some people have expressed concern that self-compassion might be used as an excuse for overindulgence or letting yourself off the hook, but this is not the case. Self-compassion is simply having a neutral but understanding consideration of yourself and your actions. Research has shown that self-compassion helps people overcome their guilt with their eating choices (Adams and Leary 2007). Self-compassion can thus help promote change. This is because self-compassionate individuals do not criticize or bully themselves when they make mistakes. This makes it easier for them to admit vulnerability and mistakes, change unproductive behaviors, and take on new challenges, such as Intuitive Eating.

So before we begin exploring your dieting history and related issues, let’s begin the work of cultivating compassion. The following exercises are based on the research and exercises of Kristin Neff (http://self-compassion.org), and adapted with her permission.

Self-Compassion Exercises

  1. Think about times when you were struggling with your eating. How do you typically respond? Write down what you typically do and what you say to yourself. Be sure to notice the tone of your thoughts—are they harsh and intense or gentle and kind?
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. If you had a dear friend or loved one who was struggling with his or her eating, how would you respond? Write down what you would say to your friend. Also note the tone you would use with a friend or loved one—is it harsh or kind?
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________
  11. Is there a difference between the way you would talk to your friend and the way you talk to yourself? If yes, what factors or fears come into play that lead you to treat yourself and others so differently?
  12. ________________________________________
  13. ________________________________________
  14. ________________________________________
  15. ________________________________________
  16. How might things change if you responded kindly to yourself (like the way you typically respond to a close friend who is struggling)?
  17. ________________________________________
  18. ________________________________________
  19. ________________________________________
  20. ________________________________________
  21. Bullying and fearmongering in the name of health do not work and may actually worsen your health in the long run. Do you use self-criticism or self-bullying as motivators for your eating issues? Reflect on a recent difficult situation with your eating or body. As you call the situation to mind, see if you can actually feel the emotional discomfort in your body. Describe how this feels.
  22. ________________________________________
  23. ________________________________________
  24. ________________________________________
  25. ________________________________________
  26. What compassionate words or phrases could you use to replace the inner bully? Think of a kinder, more supportive inner dialogue. It may help to think of what a caring friend would say to you when you are suffering. How does that make you feel emotionally and physically?
  27. ________________________________________
  28. ________________________________________
  29. ________________________________________
  30. ________________________________________

Your Dieting History

Over the years we have had many clients report that a particular diet really worked. Yet upon closer reflection, that was not the case at all. Our clients had temporarily lost weight, but then they regained all the weight (and often added even more, compared to their baseline).

The purpose of this section is to help you see the truth of your dieting history. While this worksheet looks at your weight history—the focal point of dieting—we want to stress that Intuitive Eating is not about scales and numbers. Intuitive Eating is not a diet! Dieting promises weight loss, and we want you to examine the truth of these promises. Did you lose weight permanently, or was it only temporary weight loss? Or are you like the millions of people who not only regained the weight they lost but also gained more weight (as has been shown in study after study)?

Dieting History Worksheet

Using the worksheet below, list your age at the time of the particular diet, your reason for dieting, the type of diet, the duration of the diet, amount of weight loss, and amount of rebound weight gain. You may use the “other” column to add your own notes.

Using the information from the Dieting History Worksheet, answer the following questions.

  1. Consider why you started dieting. Did you feel pressure to lose weight from family, friends, or a physician?
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. How did your first diet feel? Was it easy, even effortless? How so?
  5. ________________________________________
  6. ________________________________________
  7. What was the longest period of time that you sustained a weight loss from dieting?
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. What trend do you see with your body weight, since your first diet?
  11. ________________________________________
  12. ________________________________________
  13. Currently, do you find it more difficult to stay on a diet—both mentally and physically?
  14. ________________________________________
  15. ________________________________________
  16. How often have you said that a diet worked because you had a temporary weight loss? When you review your dieting history, was the weight loss ever permanent or did the weight gradually come back?
  17. ________________________________________
  18. ________________________________________

How Has Dieting Interfered with Your Life?

There is a huge cost to the pursuit of dieting, beyond financial. Dieting can cause a lot of harm to your behavioral and mental health, as well as your social, relationship, and physical health. The following inventory helps you to examine how dieting has affected you.

Inventory of How Dieting Has Interfered with Your Life

This list includes consequences that result from dieting. Check all that apply to you. Each column has space at the bottom to add consequences not listed here.

What Are the Personal Benefits of Letting Go of Dieting?

Answer the following questions, using information from both the Dieting History Worksheet and the inventory of how dieting has interfered with your life.

Part 1. The Different Costs of Dieting

  1. How has dieting affected your social life?
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. How has dieting affected your eating behavior?
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________
  11. How has dieting affected your mind and mood?
  12. ________________________________________
  13. ________________________________________
  14. ________________________________________
  15. ________________________________________
  16. What physical consequences have you experienced from dieting?
  17. ________________________________________
  18. ________________________________________
  19. ________________________________________
  20. ________________________________________
  21. How much time and money have you spent in the pursuit of weight loss?
  22. ________________________________________
  23. ________________________________________
  24. ________________________________________
  25. ________________________________________

Part 2. Comparing Fantasy Thoughts with Your History

  1. What kind of thoughts do you hold that may be fueling a fantasy of going on one last diet?
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. Considering your dieting history and the subsequent impact on your weight, eating behavior, social life, and mental state, what would be some reasons for you to let go of dieting, once and for all?
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________

The Dangers of Weight Cycling

When you embark on diet after diet, it leads to weight fluctuations, which researchers call weight cycling. Weight cycling itself takes a toll on your physical and mental health. Research over the past twenty-five years has shown that weight cycling is inextricably linked to adverse physical health and psychological well-being (Dulloo, Jacquet, and Montani 2012; Tylka et al. 2014):

Letting Go of the Fantasy

Even when you are clear that dieting does not work for you and, moreover, that it causes harm, it can still be difficult to let go of the fantasy of weight loss and achieving a “new you”:

  1. What are your beliefs about weight loss, in general?
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. What are your beliefs about your own weight loss?
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________
  11. Where did these beliefs come from? What is their origin?
  12. ________________________________________
  13. ________________________________________
  14. ________________________________________
  15. ________________________________________
  16. How do you fantasize life changing for you if you pursued weight loss?
  17. ________________________________________
  18. ________________________________________
  19. ________________________________________
  20. ________________________________________
  21. How have your beliefs about weight loss affected you?
    1. Have you put some aspects of your life on hold until you lose weight (such as pursuing jobs, relationships, or activities)?
    2. ________________________________________
    3. ________________________________________
    4. ________________________________________
    5. ________________________________________
    6. ________________________________________
    7. Reflect upon your responses to question 5A. What would you need in order to explore your desired pursuits in your “here-and-now body”?
    8. ________________________________________
    9. ________________________________________
    10. ________________________________________
    11. ________________________________________

Holding on to the fantasy of weight loss can keep you stuck in the diet mentality, even when you do not plan to engage in dieting behavior.

Getting Rid of the Tools of Dieting

Weighing, measuring, and counting are external tools of dieting. And so is collecting dieting books and articles. Which of these tools or techniques might you still be using? Review the twenty statements below and place a check by those that apply to you.

Review the statements—the dieting tools—that you checked off. There may be a lot of them, and that’s okay. It’s important to start just where you are. We work with people all the time who use several tools to “keep their eating in check.” With time, you will learn to let go of them, bringing you to a healthier relationship with eating. For now, select the three tools that you feel might be easiest to let go of.

  1. Write down the first tool you choose to work on. Describe one step you could take to let go of it. (For example, when eating out, rather than selecting the lowest-calorie entrée, you could choose an entrée that would be satisfying to eat, regardless of calories.)
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. Write down the second tool and describe one step you could take to let go of it.
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________
  11. Write down the third tool and describe one step you could take to let go of it.
  12. ________________________________________
  13. ________________________________________
  14. ________________________________________
  15. ________________________________________

Dieting Mentality: Exploring the Hidden Forms of Dieting

Your self-critical dieting voice may be so familiar to you that you don’t even notice it. This may make you inadvertently turn Intuitive Eating into another diet with rules and shoulds, which will leave you feeling stressed out and guilt-ridden. Because of this, it’s important to learn to recognize the dieting mentality. You might not be following any official diet, but your mind might still be in the habit of using the language of dieting, which, in turn, can promote restrictive eating behaviors. Additionally, some eating plans are actually dieting plans, cleverly marketed under the guise of eating for your health. Review the statements below and place a check next to those that apply to you.

Dieting Mentality Reflection

Review the diet mentality statements you checked off.

  1. Do you see any patterns in your thoughts or behaviors?
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. How frequently do you have these thoughts or speak them in conversation?
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________
  11. How has maintaining this language kept you in a diet mentality?
  12. ________________________________________
  13. ________________________________________
  14. ________________________________________
  15. ________________________________________

As you begin to practice the principles of Intuitive Eating, these thoughts and behaviors will fade into the background and eventually disappear. Whenever you’re feeling bad about what you ate, reflect on what you’ve just said to yourself—there’s a good chance it was some form of dieting mentality. For now, simply labeling these types of thoughts as “diet mentality” is a great step. Because paying attention—without judgment—is needed for meaningful change to take place. This is a characteristic of compassion, which plays an important role in the journey of becoming an Intuitive Eater.

Wrap-Up

In this chapter, you learned about the importance of cultivating compassion and examined your dieting history and dieting thoughts. You practiced ways to let go of the tools of dieting and the language of dieting. Please keep in mind that we live in a dieting culture, so it is easy to be triggered. Letting go of the diet mentality will be an ongoing practice—remember to be patient with yourself.

In the next chapter, you will learn another way to let go of the diet mentality—by listening and honoring your body’s cues of hunger.