By now, you all know how I feel about diets and diet culture. I could write dozens of blog posts about the topic and eventually, I will. But this is one I’ve been meaning to write for a long time.
Thanks to Facebook’s “On This Day,” I remembered an incident that happened to me a year ago this month. I was eating a piece of cake when someone asked me what wedding diet I was on. Completely caught off guard, I swallowed the Funfetti, took a deep breath and said, “I’m doing this thing where I can eat as much cake as I want.”
She looked intrigued; confused, a little delighted; what is this incredible diet that could allow you to have cake until your heart’s content?!
“I’m not on a diet,” I finished.
It was a little awkward. I smiled and walked away with the rest of my slice of cake.
Honestly, I had to laugh. I tried not to let it rattle me, but it did make me feel sad for the world we live in. A world where women (and men) are expected to lose weight and change their bodies for weddings and special occasions. It’s not her fault that society has solidified these messages over and over until we feel it is our deepest obligation to live up to certain beauty standards.
I felt compassion for her because, just a few months prior to that, I had the same mindset she did. When I first got engaged I went into full diet and restriction mode, so I can’t blame her for missing the deep shift that had happened within me. My eyes had not yet been open to the harm and injustices of diet culture and hers were not yet open yet either.
So, here are 5 reasons why that shift happened, and why I hope you won’t diet for your wedding (or encourage others to do one, either). Also, if you missed it, here’s the blog post I wrote when stopped dieting for my own wedding.
5 Reasons Why I Hope You Won’t Go on a Wedding Diet*
I define “diet,” by any eating plan that is intended to help you lose weight. You can call it wellness or a “lifestyle change,” all you want, but if it’s restrictive, rigid and aimed to help you lose weight, it is a diet. Personally, I think “shredding for the wedding,”or over-exercising can be just as harmful.
1. Diets make relationships harder.
It seems pretty counterintuitive, right? We gear up for a lifelong commitment with our partner by doing something that completely pushes us away from them. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider this: diets take up a tremendous amount of time and mental space. It requires so much energy to be on a diet. There’s meal planning, extra (and very attentive) grocery shopping, counting, and tracking… sometimes there are even meetings, appointments, times to weigh yourself, and other time-consuming steps to ensure you’re sticking to the plan.
On top of all of that, there’s the mental time it takes to think about every food choice you’re making, dwell on the bad choices you’ve made, repent for slip-ups, seek out “better options,” turn things down and say no to others. Top that with the mounting frustration when you’ve made all of these time-consuming “good choices,” and nothing about your body or your weight that seems to change anymore (because ultimately, diets don’t work). As someone who spent 4 years on and off of a diet, I can tell you that I estimate devoting at least 30-40% of my brain power to thinking about weight loss. How. F*cking. Sad.
I know now that everything else in my life suffered because so much of my mind was somewhere else– including my relationship. That’s how diets work- they drain you of your focus and energy. They make you irritable and sad. It makes it hard to listen to yourself and others when your diet is louder and more distracting. When I gave up my wedding diet, I felt closer to Bryan because there was finally room in my head and heart for him.
2. Your partner fell in love with you exactly as you are.
Your wedding is about the deep and unwavering love between you and your significant other; a love that should be as strong as ever when they agree to marry you. My hunch is that if someone wants to marry you, they probably like how you look as is. Actually– they probably really love it!
I used to think that Bryan wanted me to be thinner, but it turns out that he doesn’t even care. He’s loved the way I looked through several fluctuations over the course of 12 years and he’s reiterated several times that he just wants me to be happy. All of the thoughts I initially pinned on him were narratives I was creating and projecting on him.
I also think about the way Bryan’s body may or may not have changed over the years and how I genuinely have not noticed. I think even if I ever did notice, I wouldn’t care. I love him for all the things he is as a person. If your partner truly wants you to lose weight for your wedding, I would spend time thinking about your relationship and shared values.
3. When you go on a diet, you are sending yourself and the world a message that there is something shameful about the way you currently look.
You are telling yourself that you– as you are right now, are unacceptable for your own wedding day. You might think “she’s overthinking this,” but I truly believe that this mentality sets a tone. For starters, it tells the world that you believe brides SHOULD be thin, and there is no other acceptable way to be a bride. Consider how harmful it is to spread those messages, especially to brides-to-be in larger bodies.
I also genuinely believe the desire to change your body for your wedding seeps into other thoughts, too. Personally, it made me feel undeserving of the love and adoration I was given because I didn’t yet look “acceptable” for the part yet.
When I first got engaged, I desperately wanted to tone my arms and lose at least X pounds because I thought my body was in unacceptable shape to be the center of attention. In my heart of hearts, I believed that’s what my guests wanted; I thought they wanted me to be thinner. I thought they would be disappointed if I wasn’t. This is what diet culture and the wedding industry leads you to believe; that it is your job to shrink yourself for your wedding.
As someone who is vulnerable to those messages, I was aggressive about losing weight; determined to put my desires aside for a year to fulfill my duties as a bride. What I eventually learned is that, most likely, this is not what my loved ones wanted for me. At least, considering how restrictive and miserable I had been, I would certainly hope that’s not what they’d wish for me. I would hope that each and every one of them would want me to be happy, full of pride and not making my physical and mental health suffer.
4. “95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight in 1-5 years.” And did you know that 1 in 5 dieters will go on to have an eating disorder?
I was on Weight Watchers on and off for four years. Four. Years. Think about this: if this diet worked, I would have only had to be on it once, and not for very long.
Of course, at the time, I thought it was ME who was failing. I thought it was ME who couldn’t seem to push myself far enough to make those last few pounds come off. I thought it was ME who kept slipping up or not tracking enough and THAT is why I couldn’t lose more weight. It never once occurred to me that it was the diet that was failing me. It never once occurred to me that I wasn’t losing weight because my body simply did not want me to.
And what proof did I have that my body didn’t want me to? Within 3 weeks of coming off of Weight Watchers and resuming a relatively “normal,” (read: not binging and not depriving) eating routine, I gained a substantial amount of weight– literally, I landed on the exact weight I was when I started on Weight Watchers. I had a panic attack of all panic attacks when that happened, but now I realize that my body was clearly begging for nourishment. I’m so glad my body got what it needed and that I looked more like myself on my wedding day. It was further evidence that where I started was where my body was meant to be.
I met a woman at “Body Love” event who told me she was very much restricting and dieting before her wedding. She told me that she was jealous that I stopped dieting before my wedding and started resuming to my normal weight. She told me that she binged so intensely on her honeymoon that she came back 1o days later and tried on her wedding dress to find that it did not fit at all. She looks back on her wedding photos now and feels sad that she had restricted so much and made herself so much smaller than her normal set point. She said she doesn’t even really look like herself in the photos.
I’m so grateful that I look at my wedding photos and don’t feel that way. It’s so difficult to look at photos of myself during times when I was strictly dieting and I’m so glad my wedding photos will not be included in that category.
Furthermore, the stress of losing weight for my wedding was so overwhelming that I went into disordered territory and have been actively recovering ever since. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it 100 times more, an eating disorder isn’t an illness you can turn off once you’ve decided you’re done. Many dieters slip into this territory and are never able to turn it off– in fact, 1 in 5 do. Dieting changes your relationship with food and the effects can be permanent.
5. On your wedding day, you will be a glowing, radiant light filled with love. Happiness and joy will ooze out of every pore and all of your loved ones will see that light and fawn over you. I promise they will see this light no matter what you weigh on your big day.
If you’re going on a wedding diet to feel better about yourself on your big day, consider that you have choices. You can choose a path of acceptance and appreciation or an uphill battle of shame, guilt, and deprivation. I hope you choose the former and lead by example for others that this path is the one worth taking. Either way, you will look beautiful.
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