By Shannon Hayes Buescher
The diet industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry – $60 billion to be exact.
Let that sink in. Think about the diet books, plans, bars or supplements you have purchased to lose weight. You move on from one diet to the next, because one never seems to last very long or only gives you results for awhile, and then seems to stop working. And then you spend more money.
But where does this leave you? It leaves you stuck in the traps of an industry that has you chasing the “perfect” body – aka thin and fit – and chasing after a body that may not be in your genetic predisposition, at least to the degree that we see plastered everywhere. What we often forget or don’t realize is that we all have a genetic weight range that our body is supposed to be. Just like eyes are brown or blue, and hair is black or brown, the same holds true for weight. But when we fall prey to the promises of the diet industry, we can alter our range, making it higher.
You buy into the diets that have you eating too little calories and depriving yourself of food groups, or dare I say, sugar. And you lose weight. You sustain that weight for a hot minute, but then regain all the weight you lost, and then some. But what the industry has you believing is that it is somehow your fault. Your willpower, your discipline, your self-control is not enough. The industry reinforces what too many feel – that they are not enough.
So many people long for a peaceful relationship with food and their body. But peace cannot exist when there is war. The diet industry messages that you are sent, assure that you will have to fight really hard to find this.This is why it is so easy to get sucked back into another diet.
But you are always enough. No matter what size your body is, no matter what food you just “can’t stop eating,” you are enough. Let that sink in. Instead of getting stuck on a particular food, try to understand what emotion that food soothes or the deprivation you put yourself in when you eliminate it out of your intake while on a diet. Think about what it would be like to accept your body and to respect it. What would it be like to do things for your body instead of against it?
You see, when you begin to feel like you are enough and find more peace and kindness, you start to see through the industry. You stop buying in and start investing all that time and energy that once was filled with dieting, with you. And the beauty is, you rediscover the parts of you that were always there, just waiting to be seen.
Buescher is a registered and licensed dietitian. She has over 15 years of experience with nutritional counseling in sports nutrition, eating disorders and a non-diet approach to food. Visit hayes-nutrition.com.
