weight loss and "diet culture"
So, I've been recently gotten the motivation and put in the effort to try losing weight. Not that I've never tried before, but other parts of my brain have stifled my will and drive to actually do it, so what I've accomplished over the past two months feels monumental to me.
First of all...
A Huge Fuck You to Diet Culture
Diet culture in general is probably the most discouraging and toxic thing about mainstream society and I hate it. I'm not going to name all the different trends and buzzwords that have popped up over the years, but one of the common threads between them all is shame. Shame about weight, appearance, how fast you're losing, what you're eating... Just about everything. And as a certified chubby person, it really gets to a point.
I'm not the type of person who is motivated by shame. Maybe it works for others, but never for me. I try to start a diet based on shame and then I'm off of it within a week because shame doesn't taste or feel good.
Too much of diet culture likes to suck the fun and enjoyment out of life. It's always black and white for most influencers and little nuance and grace when it comes to the process of losing weight itself. I shouldn't have to cut out cultural foods in order to be healthy. Nor should I have to limit my enjoyment of food in the fear of being fat.
The mindset of diet culture is like a suffocating and controlling poison, and severely Anglocentric. Part of it is also just plain fearmongering about food and a kind of morality olympics, especially when certain foods get assigned "good" or "bad", when it all really just depends! Truly. They take the message of "not eating anything in excess" and turn it into an absolute: do not eat.
Me and My Weight Loss Journey
I admit, I'm not going to be the best person to look at if you want to be serious about weight loss. I've been more passive about it and I'm definitely not eating enough fiber every day to send colon cancer running, but I've found a balance that lets me at least try.
So far, since I've started, I've lost about 9.1 pounds. It's not even a fourth of my goal, but it's fine with me. I've just been using a calorie tracker to stay within calorie deficit, aiming to just lose 1lb a week. I feel great most days and eat about the same as I always have, which still includes junk and fast food, as long as I keep my total daily calories within the deficit. It has its ups and downs, but I'm never starved nor am I upset about not eating the food I love.
I mostly have two creators I'd like to credit for motivating me and reframing the way I think about food. Kylie Sakaida (@nutritionbykylie) and Liam (@PlantSlant). They've helped me a lot to identify a lot of the bullshit going around in the dieting world and showing me that I don't have to take away certain foods to eat healthier. Sometimes it takes adding something nutritious to make a meal balanced.
I still have about 45-ish pounds left to reach my goal, so I know I still have quite a journey left to go through. But this has been working for me so far, and I'm glad that it's paid off in a way that still has me feeling good!
I'll try my best to update whenever I reach a milestone, so hopefully that adds to my motivation.