How to Anti-Diet

The anti-diet movement is a well-needed antidote to the diet culture we have long been instilled with. For as long as many of us can remember, being thin has been seen as ‘good’ and fat as ‘bad’. From throwaway comments on unflattering paparazzi pictures in the 2000s, to the promotion of detox teas and appetite suppressants in more recent years; it is insidious how diet culture beliefs have been so widely perpetrated. 

Diet culture believes that to be healthy, we have to be thin. It promotes endless weight loss products, workout regimes and fad diets. Diet culture wants us to believe it has our best interests at heart, but it is not healthy – either physically or mentally. Low carb diets are encouraged, even though carbs are the body’s preferred source of energy. 1200 calorie diets are seen as the gold-standard of weight loss but are actually the nutrition requirement of a toddler. Diet culture’s obsession with thinness is mentally unhealthy, promoting disordered eating that can tip over into eating disorders for some – the mental illness with the highest mortality rate. 

Anti-dieting is instead concerned with overall health and wellbeing, not thinness. It believes that weight is not an important health marker, so weight loss should not be the goal. It focuses on eating to nourish the body and the mind. Diet culture believes you should eat only the healthiest option on the menu when you go out to eat; anti-diet culture knows that pizza (or whatever else your body is craving) is best for your overall well being. It’s going to a friend’s birthday and being able to eat a slice of cake without obsessing over ‘working it off’ later. The world of anti-dieting can feel like a bit of a minefield. Where do you even begin? I’ve listed some tips from my own experience below to help you get started. 

1. Unfollow any negative influences
   
   We’ll start off with the most straightforward tip: unfollow any accounts or pages that make you feel inadequate. Even better, follow some positive influencers instead (my personal favourites include @victorianiamh and @dietitiandeanna). It is SO much easier to start your anti-dieting journey when you aren’t constantly seeing triggering ‘what I eat in a day’ videos. Don’t get me wrong - a lot of people who post diet culture content have good intentions (and are probably caught up in the beliefs themselves) but you don’t owe it to anyone to follow them. 

2. Remove food stigma
   
   I know, this is so much easier said than done. Years of believing that things like fries are ‘bad’ and you are ‘naughty’ for eating them is hard to unpick. So, let’s start small – replace any moral connotations with completely neutral words. For example, fries are ‘savoury’ and ‘salty’. Repeat after me: food has NO MORAL VALUE. I, for one, am very partial to pizza. It’s one of the things that people know about me as a person – a friend even got me a pizza necklace for a birthday once. I used to think of pizza as a ‘cheat’ meal and ‘junk’ food that I would only have as a ‘treat’. This was always accompanied by feelings of guilt afterwards. Now I eat it regularly and try to remove the negative terminology from it – eating pizza should not make me, or anyone, feel guilty. Making small changes to shift your mindset from negative to neutral goes a long way.

3. Body neutrality

   
   Practice body neutrality! Being able to love your body is, of course, amazing. Although after years of hating your body, it might be something that feels out of reach, and that’s okay too! Instead, rather than focussing on what your body looks like, focus on what it does for you. That it takes you from A to B, it digests your food, it keeps you alive (through a pandemic, no less!). I definitely don’t feel like I love my body yet, it’s a work in progress. But when I think about all it does for me, I certainly feel a bit less negative about it. When I go on a hike and look back at the start point, I find it hard not to be impressed that my own two feet carried me so far. 

4. Intuitive eating
   
   This sounds like it could be almost a fad diet in itself, but it is THE anti-diet. It’s all about eating to nourish your body and your mind. Your body knows what is best for it, and intuitive eating is all about listening to your body’s cues. Eat when you’re hungry, even if you’ve only eaten breakfast an hour ago. Still hungry after dinner? Go and have some more! Have a sandwich for lunch rather than a salad if that’s what you feel like. Some people equate intuitive eating with eating nothing but pizza, crisps, fries and the lot. And this might be the case at first. But after a while of allowing yourself to eat any food you like, most will find they crave a mix of healthier and unhealthier foods. Anti-diet doesn’t mean anti-health – you still want to give your body a balanced diet to fuel it. But a balanced diet includes everything – that means bread, chocolate, fruit and any food you previously thought was off limits. Foods previously binged on will lose their sparkle when you’re free to eat them whenever! I find myself eating chocolate on most days, while also getting my five a day.

5. Exercise for overall well being, not weight loss.

   
   Exercise has so many benefits, but for many it is purely used as a method of weight loss. For me, and so many others, it hugely helps with mental health. Not only that, but it is great for your muscle function, bone health and overall longevity. And exercise isn’t just HIIT workouts and long runs – the best exercise is one you like. Whether that be team sports, walking, yoga or cycling; any exercise is good exercise. It doesn’t need to be every day either – if you feel like you need a rest day (or days!), listen to what your body is saying. 

   Remember that all of this can be very hard! Shifting your mindset is a huge task. Take small steps, celebrate the little victories and, most of all, be kind to yourself.