Getting Out Of Diet Culture Mentality

So much of your fitness journey is mindset work. There’s a lot of UNLEARNING things you were taught to believe as a kid or young adult. Our beliefs and feelings can help or hinder our fitness journeys. I know this all too well.

I let all the BS I was taught to believe about how much I should weigh, how my body should look, what I should eat, etc… to run my whole life. It ultimately made me hate myself, starve my body because I didn’t feel I was worthy enough to eat and then binge because my body needed to be fed.

It became this vicious cycle of starvation and weight loss and then bingeing and weight gain. That cycle continued my whole life. Until I finally decided it needed to end 2 years ago because I killing myself and I could no longer continue to destroy my life.

Are our lives similar? I started gaining weight as a young kid because I used food to numb the pain of abuse I was going through. As my body got bigger, the adults around me made it very clear this was unacceptable. I was put on diets, made fun and so much more. I was never taught how to healthy relationship with food, just that my worth was measured in how much I weighed.

What Does Diet Culture Mentality Teach Us?

Diet culture mentality helps the fitness industry make as much money as possible. Actually, diet culture mentality trickles down into lots of industries making a huge proft, off our self hatred.

Diet Culture Mentality Teaches us:

1. Only thin bodies are beautiful and good enough.
2. Only thin people deserve to eat.
3. You must eat as little as possible.
4. You must exercise as much as possible.
5. Thin people don’t need to exercise or eat healthy, only bigger bodied people.
6. Bigger bodied people need to earn food with exercise or starvation.
7. You must lose weight as fast as possible or it’s not “working”.

AND SO MUCH MORE! Have you been taught these? These are all BS!! Every single one of them is 100% BS!! Unlearn this all!

Repeat Customers

When you believe you need to to eat as little as possible, exercise as much as possible and lose weight as fast as possible, that is the diet culture mentality of the fitness industry talking.

They know they need you to believe you can’t do it on your own. They also know they need you to get results quickly so you think it’s “working” and you keep coming back to them. They also 100% know WHAT THEY TELL YOU TO DO IS NOT SUSTAINABLE! They absolutely know what they are having you do is not sustainable and you will gain back weight.

Actually, when you use what they tell you to use and you lose weight but you gain weight when you stop or can’t keep up with the strictness any longer. That is the hook, line and sinker! That is how they get you.

They shame you. You are being conditioned with feeling shame for not being able to continuously follow an unsustainable way of living on your fitness journey. THEY KNOW IT!! They want you to get those fast results because it is more likely you will keep coming back.

How many times have you done a certain diet, gotten results, “failed” and went back to that same plan again because you “got results”? You just thought you weren’t “good enough” to keep up with it. The truth is, ABSOLUTELY NO DIET IS SUSTAINABLE.

What is a diet?

A diet is when you only eat certain foods, restrict calories, restrict certain foods, exercise to earn foods, and feel bad about eating certain foods (ie, bad foods, good foods).

Being on a diet is different than eating healthy and working out as part of a healthy lifestyle. When you are on a diet, you see it as a short term punishment for your body being bigger than what society tells you to be.

NOURISHING Your Body, Mind & Soul

You deserve to have fun on your fitness journey. You deserve to enjoy your fitness journey, not feel like you have to punish yourself. Eating healthy and exercising is not a punishment. It’s a gift you give to yourself. It is a huge part of self love.

Healthy foods and exercise can make your body feel incredible. They are not only for fat people who need to change their bodies to be more worthy. They are not a punishment.

Here are some tips you can use that can help you get out of Diet Culture Mentality:

1. Think of exercise as something that can make you strong and Nourish your body, mind & soul.
2. Think of food as fuel that nourishes your body, mind & soul.
3. What kinds of foods does your body feel best after you eat?
4. Find an exercise that you ENJOY and do that.
5. Cook meals with whole foods, vegetables, fruit and protein.
6. Focus on how you can FEEL your best.

Nourish

You know how you’ve always watched people who eat healthy and exercise and wished you could be like them? You can be. It’s not that they have better willpower than you. It’s that they allow themselves to not beat themselves up about their bodies and what they eat and they just enjoy the process.

They eat when they are hungry. Stop eating when they are full. They don’t overly stress about the whole thing. Sounds crazy right? After a while, that can be you too. You DESERVE to leave diet culture mentality behind. Say goodbye to diet culture mentality. It hasn’t benefited you so far and it’s not worthy of your time, energy and stress.

WAS THIS BLOG HELPFUL? I hope so! Feel free to leave a comment below of what you found to be helpful about this blog in your fitness journey.

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