I gave up dieting like you said and now I feel huge — fuck this — I’m outta here

Jeremy and I used to be in love. He was handsome, funny and charming. But people grow apart and things change. We broke up as elegantly as we could. We weren’t good for each other so we went our separate ways. I knew that there were other women that Jeremy would be perfect for, just not me.

In the weeks that followed I grew more and more lonely. I felt like somehow it was my fault that Jeremy and I couldn’t be together — I must have been the one who was dysfunctional and broken. No one would ever love me. I was destined to be alone.

Then one night after feeling especially sad, I called Jeremy and invited him over. “Let’s just hang out as friends,” I said. “Nothing more.”

I don’t need to tell you what happened next. There was kissing, stroking, skin on skin, and orgasms that surpassed anything that had gone before. It was the best sex we had ever had.

But in the morning I realised that Jeremy still wasn’t right for me. In my heart I had known it all along. But I just had to give it one more try …

Jeremy is that diet you love … the one that always works and makes the fat just melt away. Unfortunately, although other women can diet without any side effects, when you diet you trigger your disordered relationship with food and exercise and end up in the starve/binge cycle all over again.

When you break up with your diet things feel like they are getting worse. You put on weight, you feel out of control, you despair that you’ve let yourself go. It can become unbearable. All you want to do is run back to dieting and working out because it felt better than what you are feeling now.

I know. I get it. I’ve been there and it’s no fun.

So maybe you need an old times sake fuck to finally get it out of your system. Some people do, there’s nothing wrong with that. But know that dieting will not have been transformed into the solution to your problems in the time that you’ve been away from it. It still won’t work. I promise.

So what is the alternative?

The short answer is hang in there, it will get better. In fact, if you feel like it can’t get any worse, then a breakthrough is just around the corner.

The breakthrough happens in your thoughts not in your body. You will get to a place where you no longer think you are huge and where letting go doesn’t mean being out of control but freedom.

But how do you get there?

You have to find a self-love practice that works for you. Meditation, therapy, self help books, hypnosis, mirror work, praying — the options are endless. Try one, try them all! Whatever gives you the mental and emotional shift to accepting yourself without conditions is what you need.

I’m sorry that I can’t give you a spreadsheet and a checklist that will make all of this go away. The only place to find the answers is inside you. I can’t tell you how it will be for you.

But I can tell you that it works. Once you find peace with your body, peace with your food, and peace with being broken and damaged then everything takes care of itself. It might take months and even years but it will transform your life the way dieting and exercise never will.

Don’t give up. You’re worth the effort.

I believe in you. I know you’ll make it.

(inspired by an email — you know who you are x)

→ {photo source}