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Rewilding myself
Jul. 26th, 2021 10:22 amBack in March I posted about how I had decided to go on the Fuck It Diet in an attempt to find out what would happen if I stopped yo-yo dieting.
I've been on and off diets since I was 25, and I've varied between a size 12 (US 8) at my smallest and 22 (18)at my biggest. I have been plagued all that time with the belief that I had no upper limit. I thought that if I stopped dieting I would simply get larger and larger until I could not move.
I knew from all those years of dieting that I had a lower weight limit - a weight below which I could only force myself with great effort. And - if I did make it below that weight - my health would go haywire, and I would find myself uncontrollably eating chocolate biscuits all day long.
But I discovered various sources from Health At Any Size to Intuitive Eating that claimed that everyone had an upper weight limit too. These sources claimed that if you simply ate only when you were hungry and stopped when you were full, your weight would normalize within a weight range defined by your upper and lower weight set points.
As I was convinced by the research that said that dieting was bad for you, and as I had begun to develop symptoms of binge-eating disorder, this sounded (a) too good to believe, and (b) like something I should try nevertheless.
So, yeah, back in March I came off the Slimming World Diet and began to eat whatever I wanted whenever I felt hungry. I retired my scales, so I don't know how much weight I put on, but I went up from being a size 14 to being a size 20. This was unsurprising but very depressing and made me extremely anxious and sad.
Still, the books said that during the refeeding process (when your body was being convinced there was no famine any more) you would go right up to the top of your weight range first. But crucially - if you kept your nerve and didn't diet - you would then go back down a little before you settled somewhere in the middle of your range. So I persisted.
Amazingly enough, I did then begin to go back down. My belt got looser by a good two inches. I found that I fitted better into a size 18 than the 22 I had been eyeing with regret a month before. And now I have indeed settled somewhere around the size 18 that I was when I started dieting at age 25.
I've got to consider that a huge triumph, and relief. So yeah. I can say from personal experience that the HAES, Fuck It Diet people are right. If you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, you do stabilize around a weight somewhere in the middle of your range. And it will be fatter than you hope, but not as fat as you fear.
I've been on and off diets since I was 25, and I've varied between a size 12 (US 8) at my smallest and 22 (18)at my biggest. I have been plagued all that time with the belief that I had no upper limit. I thought that if I stopped dieting I would simply get larger and larger until I could not move.
I knew from all those years of dieting that I had a lower weight limit - a weight below which I could only force myself with great effort. And - if I did make it below that weight - my health would go haywire, and I would find myself uncontrollably eating chocolate biscuits all day long.
But I discovered various sources from Health At Any Size to Intuitive Eating that claimed that everyone had an upper weight limit too. These sources claimed that if you simply ate only when you were hungry and stopped when you were full, your weight would normalize within a weight range defined by your upper and lower weight set points.
As I was convinced by the research that said that dieting was bad for you, and as I had begun to develop symptoms of binge-eating disorder, this sounded (a) too good to believe, and (b) like something I should try nevertheless.
So, yeah, back in March I came off the Slimming World Diet and began to eat whatever I wanted whenever I felt hungry. I retired my scales, so I don't know how much weight I put on, but I went up from being a size 14 to being a size 20. This was unsurprising but very depressing and made me extremely anxious and sad.
Still, the books said that during the refeeding process (when your body was being convinced there was no famine any more) you would go right up to the top of your weight range first. But crucially - if you kept your nerve and didn't diet - you would then go back down a little before you settled somewhere in the middle of your range. So I persisted.
Amazingly enough, I did then begin to go back down. My belt got looser by a good two inches. I found that I fitted better into a size 18 than the 22 I had been eyeing with regret a month before. And now I have indeed settled somewhere around the size 18 that I was when I started dieting at age 25.
I've got to consider that a huge triumph, and relief. So yeah. I can say from personal experience that the HAES, Fuck It Diet people are right. If you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, you do stabilize around a weight somewhere in the middle of your range. And it will be fatter than you hope, but not as fat as you fear.
