These two complementary books are revolutionary in their importance. Dieting and dieting culture has overtaken most developed countries and has become a billion dollar industry. Most importantly, however, it has probably been what has contributed most to what is known today as the “obesity epidemic” among health care providers, and yet, what do most health care providers prescribe as an antidote? More diets!
The newest and best science is pointing toward the fact that diets cause more harm than good, and just about every diet counts. Whenever you tell someone not to eat something, what does that person then, instinctively crave? Whatever it is you’ve forbidden them, of course! And after restricting whatever it is you’re restricting – calories, carbs, fat – it doesn’t really matter – after losing weight, the body seeks to regain the weight, by doing whatever it takes. So people tend to regain the weight, plus! And yo-yoing is worse for you than just being a bit overweight, in terms of causing more inflammation and heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and the unwanted health consequences of the overweight in the first place.
Because let’s face it, if we’d just accept ourselves in the less-than-“Twiggy”-as-ideal-bodies, we’d not have to worry about the dieting. Our priority should really be about health. And if it’s really and truly about health, then we’d throw away the scales and talk about fruits and vegetables and whole foods and exercise and that would be that. We’d not be supporting Weight Watchers, and NutriSystem, and Jenny Craig and all the others who are making millions and preying on those of us who have fallen for these very smart business models.
So what do these books say? Basically, that we were born with the internal cues that tell us when we’re hungry and when we’re full and we have to try to reach back in to find those signals and respond again to them. To do this, we must trust that our bodies are really good at this and it’s ok to respond to them, even if they sometimes tell us that it’s ok to have a slice of cake because it looks delicious and we love this kind of cake and even if they tell us not to finish everything on our plate because we’re actually full. The books also encourage movement of any kind, not just punishing workouts at a gym and give guidance on how to avoid emotional eating which many find quite challenging. And they also encourage one to dig deep and find a way to care for oneself – that is, to carve out time to really see to one’s own needs that are being superficially cared for by food but that if tended to more deeply, then food won’t need to serve as a pacifier.
I think that almost every woman I’ve met has dieted at some point in her life. So many would find either of these interesting and helpful.
Let’s try to move our conversations away from how we look to what we can achieve!!
kindread spirits 