Becoming a Diet Culture Dropout

In honor of Valentine's and Black History, it feels important to share a little bit of my story. CW: talk of dieting, food, weight 

I recently talked to Caroline Dooner of The Fuck It Diet about leaving diet culture behind. I don't remember exactly where I was, but I remember the feeling. I felt so tired from tracking macros and workouts and researching menus. I felt so tired of waiting to fit into "goal" clothing or waiting to do things when I "looked" how I wanted. 

One of the biggest things I remember is realizing no matter how thin and fit I became, I would never be white. That sounds so silly but it is true. 

My body would never achieve the privileges and benefits of a thin, white woman. I would never be white like my grandma or my mother or my cousins. And those are the people I loved and thought I should aspire to look like. They were the same people I saw on TV acting, singing, being attorneys. They were my doctors, my teachers, my friend’s hot older sisters. 

I would NEVER be them. 

So...why am I continuing to torture myself? Why am I continuing to shrink to fit into a mold that was not made for me at all? 

The re-realization that I could be myself and be worthy with the body I inhabited was so powerful, it shifted the tide of years of yo-yo dieting and punishing exercise. 

I let the batteries on my scales die. Both my scale scale and my food scale. I abandoned the rigid food schedule I had for myself one meal at a time. I started to inhabit my body. I allowed my mind to explore more interesting and important things outside of food and calories. THERE WAS SO MUCH MORE THAT I COULD THINK ABOUT. There was so much space on my brain. 

The process has been anything but a straight line. But my job, being a fitness instructor, has kept me dedicated to myself and my own body. Showing up as I am for my clients and classes has kept me honest. Being un-apologetically me helps show others they are allowed to be themselves. 

I am so grateful for the community I have built in person and online. The wonderful people who continue to show up as themselves and remind me that I can be myself. Self love, recovery, and radical dissent from diet culture is allowed here. You're allowed to be yourself. You are so much more powerful showing up as yourself.