What You’re Searcing For Isn’t Found in a Number

No one begins a diet because they want to feel bad.

Even when dieting stems from self-punishment, behind the diet is the hope: Once I lose weight, I will feel better.

The attempt to lose weight comes with the promise of feeling better. And this promise is often kept—but only temporarily.

Diet culture comes with easy-to-follow rules, structure and a false sense of control. When you start a diet, you’re granted the assurance, “If I have a problem (the way my body currently looks), I can be the solution to my problem.” This assurance provides a sense of self-efficacy and personal power. If you follow the rules of the diet, you will have the results you want.

At first, diets can make an overwhelming world feel more manageable. Anxiety from other areas of life starts to fade. Instead of focusing on problems that are outside of your control, or ones you may not know how to solve, you can now focus on a single goal: your desire to lose weight and therefore feel better.

When you’re dieting, life starts to feel easier because diet culture puts life into two boxes: the “good” box and the “bad” box. Beliefs about what foods are “good” and “bad” become engrained. The number on the scale becomes “good” or “bad,” and even you become “good” or “bad” based on the food and exercises choices you make. Life can now be black-and-white, fitting into these two clearly defined boxes.

But here’s the problem: life isn’t black-and-white. And the quest to stay in the “good” box often becomes a never-ending, exhausting pursuit. Stepping on the scale and seeing a number you have labeled as “bad” can quickly plummet your mood and derail your focus for the day. A number can become the only thing that matters: the number on the scale, the number on a pair of pants, the number of calories.

And, insidiously over time, that number—even if it’s the weight loss number you have been chasing—may not feel like it’s good enough. This is because the number could always change, the weight you lost could always come back. The thing you thought was going to bring happiness—the diet and ensuing weight loss—doesn’t; instead, it brings stress and anxiety about “failing” and gaining the weight back.

And you feel worse.

Why is this?

This is because the diet culture mindset is built on a false premise. The premise states, “Once you get here (to your weight loss goal), you will feel good.” But here is not a fixed state because our bodies are meant to change in size and shape over time, and feeling good is not a guarantee that is tied to the size of one’s body.

We may lose the weight, never cheat on the diet, but even then, we may feel so much worse about ourselves because of the errors in this premise. We feel worse because of what can happen to our mindset when we’re on a prolonged diet.

Perhaps we have been putting aside social engagements because of the fear of being tempted by “bad” food. Or maybe we have put aside other hobbies because of the rules of how much we must exercise every day to help speed up our weight loss efforts. Important aspects of our lives can become secondary to the dieting pursuit, and once that pursuit is over, we may feel empty and fearful to return to a life without the false sense of emotional comfort dieting provides. And the saddest part is we so often blame ourselves for our resulting low mood and reduced self-confidence rather than blame the diet.

So, what if, instead of attaching the promise of feeling good to a diet, we just focus on ways we can feel better in our lives?  This means finding ways to increase satisfaction and well-being that are in no way dependent on the size of one’s body.

How do we do this?

We need to change our criteria for feeling good. Rather than a number on the scale dictating our emotional well-being, we want to identify and be honest about what we are searching for in our lives. Success, well-being and personal satisfaction can now be tied to criteria outside of a number. We want to learn coping skills to process events that arise without turning to dieting to avoid these emotional experiences. And, by learning to identify what we can control in our lives—outside of what we are eating—we can begin to learn acceptance for situations outside of our control. This is a gradual process, and it’s one that is far more rewarding and satisfying than compulsive dieting.

If you’re a former athlete, it is also normal to struggle with a changing body size after leaving your sport. Many athletes tie their sense of success to a number—the weight they competed at, or what they believed was a “good” size. Learning to get comfortable with identifying alternative criteria for success and developing a new relationship with exercise—one that focuses on celebrating your body and enjoying movement for the good feelings it provides—is an important and rewarding part of the healing process.

Shifting away from the dieting mindset is a process. It can feel enticing and easy to slip back into a diet when life starts to feel overwhelming, during transition periods and around the start of the new year. It can feel enticing when others are glorifying changing your body size as a path to gain self-confidence, peace and never-ending happiness. But the reality is, personal satisfaction, self-confidence and emotional well-being are never dependent on the size of your body. Those things will never be found in a number. They are within you.

The content on this blog is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy. The content does not replace a therapeutic relationship with a licensed mental health professional.