How We Got Here
How many of you managed to start your first diet and become aware and/or uncomfortable with your size at an early age? (Weight Watchers circa 1999, anyone?) Weight loss and being skinny was all around us between low rise skinny jeans, ANTM, celebrities in the media, to seeing our mom on the latest fad diet. We were taught the smaller the body the more we were accepted.
Life went on through years of parent-supported dieting motivated by not being the big kid anymore. As a result, I developed Binge Eating Disorder. To add to it, in my early 20s, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s (an autoimmune condition) and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
With these diagnoses, the weight loss messaging was now not only about being accepted by a fat-phobic society, but also, losing weight so I can treat my conditions and become ‘healthy’.
My self-worth, life’s purpose and energy was spent trying to lose weight so I could be accepted, have an easier life, and most importantly, be healthy. After YEARS of being OBSESSED with creating a “healthy” lifestyle (read: a lifestyle conducive to weight loss) that wasn’t consistent, body dysmorphia, and orthorexia, a tiny inconvenience turned major life event happened.
It was a Sunday morning, I just finished meal prepping and cooked myself some eggs. As I was washing the pan, I set the plate of eggs by the sink (can you see where this is going?). I was hangry, in a rush cleaning the pan, and was ready to sit and relax…only to spill soapy water ALL OVER my eggs. I. Was. Pissed. I threw the plate in the sink, screamed, and started crying. Over eggs.
This was the kind of tantrum know all to well - the smallest thing happens but you’ve been bottling everything up for so long it, you explode like a mento in a Coke bottle. It isn’t about the insignificant event of the eggs. It is about ALL the things leading up to it.
After egg-gate 2019, I knew it was time to make a change. Over the course of the next 3 years, I worked ruthlessly healing my eating disorder, questioning my beliefs and conditioning around health and weight loss, healing my body dysmorphia, and discovering my self-worth. It was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.
Through my healing journey, I learned more about what it truly meant to be healthy. To my surprise, what I discovered was the opposite of what we, as a society, have ALWAYS been lead to believe. (Especially since the early 2000s when we declared war on obesity)
Weight loss is not the cure for health.
Your habits are. The things you choose to do every single day. (Research backs this up - some linked below).
Now in the pursuit of a SUSTAINABLE healthy lifestyle, I leaned into my education in health promotion, researched & applied habit change techniques, had some trial and error, connected with myself, and cut through the bullshit of societal messaging. Through all of this, I realized that living healthy lifestyle is possible and sustainable habit change is how you get there.
Over the last 1.5 years, I have taken action creating a healthy lifestyle by committing to sustainable habit change. Changing my lifestyle from an obsessive weight loss approach to sustainable habits has resulted in HUGE improvements to my physical health (insulin, blood pressure, sleep, thyroid antibodies, inflammation, just to name a few) and has given me back my mental health. In three words - Sustainable habits work.
Now, I teach women who have struggled like me, how to create a healthy lifestyle by taking action on sustainable habit change.
Reference Articles:
Modifiable risk factors & Mortality
The Obesity “Epidemic” (News article, not research article)
