In many of my blog posts, I’ve written about our relationship with our bodies and body image. For me, this topic comes naturally having lived in the body image world since the day when I was twelve years old and noticed that my girlfriend’s knees were bony and mine were, let’s say, not bony.

I notice these kinds of things and question them which can sometimes get me into trouble. In this case, it’s not that it got me into trouble exactly, but rather it put me onto a path of noticing body types and deciding which ones I preferred and wanted to have.

Because this attachment around body image has been with me for so long, I know how it feels to want what we naturally don’t have. To crave so intensely a body that is not mine. It’s painful and all encompassing. And that gets me wondering…

How well do you know your body? I have to admit that for forty years, I didn’t know my body at all. I totally dismissed what my body wanted as I tried to control it so I could be thin. If I felt hunger pangs, I’d ignore them. Actually, I was a bit meaner than that and told my body I didn't trust it because if I fed it, it would just go and get fat.

I was so stressed about food and controlling myself to be thin for so many years, I had sort of turned into a tightly wound person, someone who was totally focused on what I looked like. But let’s face it, trying to be something we’re not is a lot of work. It’s takes a lot of energy and quite frankly, it can make for a very ego-centric person.

Fortunately, the opportunity to learn about dieting and body image showed up in my life and I was able to see the mess I had created.

I like to eat and feel full which is why restrictive dieting never worked for me, even though I insisted on trying to control my weight for forty years.

A salad could only take me so far toward feeling satiated. And, if I’m being honest, I learned to really, really dislike salads, all low-cal foods, and dieting in general. Which begs the question, when you don’t like something, if it brings forward feelings of loathing, why are you continuing to engage? Well, for me, it boiled down to that size six dress in my closet. Or maybe it was the pants that absolutely needed me to eat salads for lunch and dinner in order to fit.

Truly, this is no way to eat nor is it any way to live.

It saddens me to see so many drugs on the market to assist with weight loss. Some of these drugs are FDA approved, but does that mean we should take them?

Weight loss drugs have a storied past for sure. In the 50’s and 60’s the weight loss drug of choice was amphetamines. According to an article written by Jacques Peretti in the Guardian, they were banned in the 70’s due to being highly addictive and causing heart attacks and strokes.

The door had been opened however and the pharmaceutical companies could not resist the opportunity to sell to women (and men) who were desperate to lose weight.

Diet culture. It exists and instead of being angry at it, I have a different approach.

Accepting it.

Sometimes, accepting something for what it is and softening around it can create an opportunity to see it in a different way.

Diet culture, as we know it, has been with us for decades. It has informed how we eat, think, and dress for several generations. In our desire to lose weight, we have prescribed to a system that has led us into restrictive behaviors creating a victim approach to life, one that is contracting in nature.

I’m a clothes person. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been attracted to clothes. In the summer when I was eight or nine, I taught myself to hand sew little tops using lacy handkerchiefs, which I proudly wore. Making my own clothes became a necessity when my arms and legs were too long for conventional clothes. I was forever perusing fashion magazines, keeping myself up-to-date on all the latest fashion trends. I took fashion seriously and working to stay thin was paramount. Any weight gain would ruin everything.

Restrictive dieting, meaning constantly being hungry and denying myself the pleasure of food, was a pattern I established. It never occurred to me that dieting for over 40 years was unnatural, it’s just what I did.

I had no idea what my natural body rhythms were or what my body really wanted me to eat.

Even though I gave up dieting eight years ago, I sometimes wonder if I should lose some weight. Why? Well, for starters it’s a concept that’s very ingrained in me.

I started my first official diet at the age of twenty-two, not because I needed to lose weight but because I was supporting a friend and losing a few pounds didn't sound half bad. We joined Weight Watchers and I ended up losing around 20 pounds. Man, did I look good, skinny with protruding hip bones – just like Twiggy who I had idolized in high school.

We all know the story though, lose weight, gain it back, lose it again, gain back more. Gosh, dieting became the thread that ran through the story of my life – for forty years.

Have you ever thought about how amazing the human body is? Honestly, it’s mindboggling.

One of the really cool things I admire about the human body is that it gives us information. Sometimes I think we humans look at our bodies like they’re something we have to endure. But truly, we couldn’t be alive on this planet without it and no matter what our body looks like, we really should be honoring and listening to what it has to tell us. 

For instance, excess weight can be an indication that the body is out of balance.

Life is interesting. We’re presented with so many ups and downs, good days and bad days.

I tend to have challenging days and a lack of patience is my biggest challenge. I can screw up a perfectly good day by being impatient. With the help of my husband, I’ve started to come to terms with being patient mainly because he’s impatient with my impatience.

When I was in my early twenties, I went on my first diet. I did it to support a friend and I ended up losing twenty plus pounds. That in itself didn’t start my dieting career though. It was the comment I received after the weight loss from a male acquaintance who I thought was a demi-god. He said I looked hot. And that’s how dieting became my new best friend.

How could that one statement have impacted me so? How could this one comment keep me dieting for the next 40 years? Let’s take a look, because that’s exactly what happened.