A lifetime of dieting has made Kelly Baker miserable, exhausted and, ultimately, heavier. In this blog she documents her mission to give up yo-yo dieting and slim down for good.
I clearly remember going on my first diet when I was perhaps 12 or 13 years old. I weighed 62kgs and at 177cms I would have been as thin as thin can be.
I didn’t think I needed to lose weight. Nobody thought I needed to lose weight! But I did think I should be on a diet because I was convinced that’s what girls (and women) did.
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I may have picked up this idea from my mother. She certainly never made any reference to my body and if I spoke disparagingly about my physique in any way she was the first to gently correct me.
But she was a dieter herself and while she would never have outwardly encouraged me to join her, sub-consciously I felt restricting what I ate would please her. And you know what, it did.
I’m certain it wasn’t intentional, but it seemed that the less I ate, the more I was approved of.
Perhaps my mother admired my tenacity. Possibly it made her feel less alone in her own body obsession. Maybe she just wanted a buddy to diet with? I don’t know. But going on that first diet was a mistake and a costly one at that.
That diet was the official start of a wholly unhealthy obsession that slowly but surely taught me to loathe every inch of myself.
You see, once I began to restrict my food intake I swiftly forgot the fact that my long legs were strong and allowed me to run for kilometre after kilometre without tiring and fixated instead on the fact they weren’t model skinny.
I ignored my broad, shapely shoulders and my taut, flat belly and instead focused on my small bust size.
In short, I yearned to have a different body entirely and on a daily basis I told myself I could get that body if I dieted hard enough.
Of course, anyone who has dieted will know that quite simply isn’t true and never will be. Yes, you can lose weight (generally temporarily — more on that later) but the body you were born with is the one that will see you through life and no amount of starvation will change your basic shape.
What it will do is sap your strength and energy. It may also screw with your metabolism. Worse — it will hurt your heart and make you miserable.
It may even leave you lonely and cut off from life and all its beauty. Most importantly — it will cause you to gain weight.
That’s right. Dieting will cause you to gain weight. And that’s official. In recent years reams of research has shown that the more we restrict ourselves, the more desperate we become.
Accordingly, we begin to think about food 24/7 — which eventually causes us to eat! And eat… and eat.
I am a living example of this. More than 20 years have passed since I went on that first diet and while I’m still 177cms I can assure you I am no longer 62kgs. If only.
No, today, I weigh considerably more. I know this because I weighed myself yesterday for the first time in many months.
The number on the scale made me want to cry. And it made me want to go on a diet. But this time I am going to do things differently.
It scares the living daylights out of me but instead of embarking on a diet I am going to do the exact opposite.
I am going to attempt to eat naturally and who knows maybe I’ll lose a kilo or two along the way. Maybe I won’t, but what I will do is put the diet demon to rest once and for all.
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One last thing… I’m going to need your help. So, I promise to write honestly and hold nothing back, if you promise to drop me a line from time to time.
Let me know how you’re going with your diet and weight loss dilemmas too. Maybe together we can kick this thing once and for all.
Vital Stats:
Kelly Baker
Age: 40
Height: 177cm
Weight: 71.5 kg
Challenge Of The Week: Stay off the scales, eat three meals and one snack and say no to sugar. (Yikes — even writing this makes me woozy with anxiety. I’ll let you know I go.)
Kelly Baker is The Weekly’s Health and Beauty Director. Click here to follow her on Twitter and here to follow The Weekly.
Your say: Do you have any commiserations or words of encouragement for Kelly?
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