As I blogged about yesterday, I have a lot of shame about food, weight and diets. I feel a lot of shame because I am overweight and have spent most of my life “failing” at diets. But I am starting to challenge that shame.

Let’s revisit the dictionary definition of “shame” :

“the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.”

Dictionary.com

I feel shame because I have failed at diets. But have I actually done anything dishonorable? Or improper? Or ridiculous? HELL NO.

This is how most diets work: (1) eat this, (2) don’t eat that, (3) follow our advice and you will lose weight. Sometimes, “eat this” is a type of food. Other times, it’s a certain number of calories or points. But all diets boil down to “Eat this, Not that, The End.”

I have tried a lot of diets. Some seemed reasonable. Some seemed crazy. But they were all built on a shaky myth of self-control. I had to have enough self-control to follow the rules and restrictions of the latest diet. If I had enough self-control, I would lose weight. If I did not have enough self-control, I would fail.

If I was good, I would lose weight. If I was bad, I would not.

Whether I failed or succeeded was on me. The diets were infallible. They trotted out their success stories with Before and After photos and promised that I would lose weight so long as I had the discipline to restrict carbs or stay within my points budget or only eat sweets on Saturdays. Then the diets would trot out some math or science to prove that eating a certain way would give me Super Cheetah Metabolism or would result in a calorie deficit. How could I argue with math and science? How could I argue with Before and After success stories?

Except popular diets only trot out selective math and selective science. In their books, pamphlets and commercials, they just show the math and science that makes them look good. Remember, diets have become an industry unto themselves. They want to sell you something. They are playing with our emotions to make money!

(Bastards.)

Popular diets are premised on the idea that if we follow their rules, we will lose weight. Therefore, if we do not lose weight, it’s because we were too weak to follow the rules. It’s not the diet’s fault that we are pathetic!

But as I talked about in this post, we are biologically programmed to EAT ALL THE SUGAR. We are denizens of the 21st century with the DNA of cave people. Our cave ancestors did not exercise self-control when they found a ripe fig tree, because that would have been counter-productive. They had to EAT ALL THE FIGS right away because by tomorrow, the baboons would have stripped the tree bare.

Self-control is no match against the ancient biological imperative to EAT ALL THE FIGS.

Diets fail, not because the dieter is weak, but because diets do not take into account our biological imperative to eat any and all sugar.

I have not failed at diets. The diets have failed me.

So let’s circle back to that definition of shame.

Have I done anything dishonorable? No, I have not. If anything, the diets have been dishonorable by leading me to believe that I could lose weight simply by following their advice. Their advice sucked. Their advice did not take my basic biology into account.

Have I done anything improper? Good Lord, no!

Have I done anything ridiculous? Absolutely not. Diets are pervasive. In the twenty-first century United States, we live in a pro-diet culture. Diets are seen as the solution to weight woes. I have not done anything ridiculous. I have just been very, very human.

The shame I feel in connection with food, diets and my weight arises from the belief that if I fail at diets, it’s because I am weak and pathetic.

I would like to take this opportunity to formally reject that belief. It’s a toxic belief and I am evicting it from my heart, mind and soul.

I am not weak or pathetic. I am awesome, powerful and fierce. I got misled by diet culture, but that’s okay. Millions and millions of people have been misled by diet culture. I’m in excellent company.

Diet culture has failed me, but am I doomed?

Hell, no! ! I’ll continue writing about this next week.