Bad Diet Advice (It's not what you think).
The Weekly Fill: You have a biological drive to diet. Let me explain.
I have a lot of conflicting feelings about dieting.
In one sense, I totally understand why diets exist. I even see the need.
On the other hand, I hate what they've made us believe.
I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but I used to live with this exhausting internal battle. I hated the diet world and wanted nothing to do with it, and yet I secretly questioned if dieting was the only way to reach my 'health' goals.
I'm assuming I'm not alone. The diet world has this weird grip on our lives, pulling us in even when we don't want to go. Maybe worse, keeping us coming back even when it's never worked.
It's hard to understand (or maybe we choose not to), but there is a biological drive to diet.
That doesn't mean you have to engage with them, but understanding why you feel a pull towards dieting explains a lot about what you need.
You have a biological drive to diet.
Six years ago, when I declared I quit health and walked away from everything I had built my life on, I was shocked to find how much I had missed it.
It didn't happen right away. Initially, I was perfectly content not working out and eating endless bowls of cereal (my secret food love.) But not long into the anti-health journey, I found this pull back into the structure of the health space.
But not long into the anti-health journey, I found this pull back into the structure of the health space.
It took me a LONG time to admit it. Mostly because I wanted to protest diets for all of the hurt, pain, and suffering they have caused so many. Yet, I couldn’t deny I missed health or at least the act of caring for myself.
At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was missing, but it was worth noting I wasn’t finding what I had hoped I would in quitting health. I longed for something more.
While I can't say I'm back in the diet space, I do think there are many things we can learn, not from the diets themselves but from why we're so attracted to them in the first place. There is something within most diets that fulfills a need.
The latest podcast takes an unexpected turn into bad diet advice — it's really not what you think.
I talk about why you have an internal battle between not wanting to diet and wanting to. It also explains why you keep returning to diets, even when they never work.
I know it's a weird spot to land. Contradictory even. It might feel ironic, but like most things, you find what you were looking for in the balance, not extremes.
The best place to land in the health space is by taking parts of what the diet and anti-diet worlds offer and putting them together into something that makes sense.
But doing so means we must talk about why you crave diets (or at least feel drawn to them).
Keep reading as I share what I think are the three best tips from the dieting and the anti-dieting world and how to combine them into something that works.