Unexpected Lessons From Ditching Diets
PART ONE
Back in 2023 I started a series similar to this on Instagram. I’d record short form video talking about the lessons which had surprised me as I started eating intuitively, and inevitably, quit dieting.
Those videos never seemed to resonate, I felt frustrated for sure, because I continued to be fascinated by the lessons and the ways in which diet culture had it’s nasty little claws in my entire life.
I’ve just recorded a future episode of the podcast, in which I’ll be sharing a few unexpected lessons, you’ll even hear me ask if I should bring this series back and bring it to Substack?!
Well, spoiler, I’m doing it anyway.
I just opened Substack and read an incredibly emotional note from someone who is deep in her grief. I’m here at my desk, hot tears on my cheeks because, in so many ways, grief is what got me here too.
Content Warning: death of a parent, cancer, anxiety and grief.
The first time I had a panic attack was in 2007. I was sat in a boardroom, the company I worked for were holding a charity event and I’d volunteered myself because it was for Cancer Research. There I sat, an awkward 20 year old amongst heads of departments and the CEO. Someone — they deserve a warm pillow for their entire life — suggested an ice breaker “Let’s go round the table and share our personal experiences with Cancer.”
Um, what?!
A few years earlier my Dad had passed away from Melanoma, and whilst later I realised his death defined me for years, I couldn’t believe I was going to have to share this story. Each person sat and shared, someone cried, and as they got closer to me the buzzing in my ears was loud as fuck, my cheeks were burning and my heart felt like it was going jump out of my chest.
I got through the story, pushed through the rest of the meeting, and felt ridiculous.
A decade later I realised that not only had this been a panic attack, it would be the first of many. Most of them mild, when I was trying to relax, my mind would wander and like some kind of morbid security blanket the heart palpitations would try to remind me that I am indeed still alive.
Other times my health anxiety would spiral out of control. The fear that a random ache or pain was something serious, sometimes lying awake at night worrying that I wouldn’t get to see my own kid grow up. I am more than capable of rationalising my fears, and yet it persists.
Losing my Dad at such a young age, when so many other areas of my life had been changing for the positive AND I’d lost a lot of weight during his illness, it created a mental default: I’m not allowed to let things feel too good, if they do, something will come along and destroy it.
Unsurprisingly I’m incredibly self aware of my body and any changes, and since my Dad passed away, SPF became a non negotiable for me and I stay out of the sun. Not only do I take after my Dad, pale, freckly skin with red hair, I now have a family history of skin cancer.
When I was in my late twenties I was introduced to personal development, and self help books. I’d always been interested in Psychology and this felt like an entry into that space — I’d later to come to realise most of it was discriminatory fluff and bypassed trauma. I started considering my values, and a word that came up for me was longevity.
I wanted to live a long life.
…and then the fat phobic thoughts started.
“Ha, if you really cared about living a long life you wouldn’t be fat”
“Longevity? You can’t even lose weight.”
“Do you really care about living a long life?”
Every single anti fat narrative that health organisations, Governments, Doctors, employers, media outlets, and the diet industry had spewed out over my life reared their ugly anti fat head. And I believed them.
My healthy anxiety was worsened by diet culture and anti fatness. Nobody would care that my mental health was in tatters, that I was anxious all the time, crying myself to sleep worrying about my “health”, because I was pursuing a smaller body. Because, and I say this with my entire fat being; it was never about health.
Even now, after ditching diets, the rumbles of “you’re slowly k*ll*ng yourself” on social media is a lot for my mental health. I no longer believe it or spiral about it, but it stings. It hurts that people genuinely do not care about my health, and also want to speak about it and have an opinion.
