Pursuing Weight Loss is NOT Always Good for Your Health
Despite what weight-loss advertisements and coaches would have you believe, dieting is not a good idea for anyone at any time.
What’s more, if you’re overweight, you do not need to pursue weight loss to improve your health.
The science is clear that your body composition, which includes your body fat percentage, factors into your health (plus a broad range of additional personal, social, economic and environmental factors).
However, what’s much more unclear is how and when to approach weight loss, if at all. For example, if you struggle with binge eating, it would be important to address that behavior instead of restricting your intake, which can trigger further binge episodes.
For many individuals, dieting (any intentional restriction of your food intake for the purpose of weight loss) can instigate disordered eating habits or exacerbate existing ones.
What does disordered eating look like?
Disordered eating habits can include:
An obsession with your weight or other body measurements (waist, hips, etc.)
Chronic dieting/yo-yo dieting
Villainizing foods (characterizing foods as “bad” or “off limits”)
Skipping meals (or similar behaviors) to restrict calories
Fears and anxieties around food
Feeling out of control around food
Emotional eating
Binge eating
Compensatory behaviors, such as “making up” for a binge by restricting, purging, or over-exercising
Orthorexia (an obsessive preoccupation with the “cleanliness”, “healthiness,” or “purity” of food)
Attempting to diet when you don’t have a solid relationship with food is like walking on coals after you’ve just bathed in gasoline—you’re asking to get burned.
Similarly, if you attempt to diet with a coach who is not equipped to help you preserve your food relationship and who does not prioritize it as such, you’re at further risk of the above disordered eating behaviors.
Not only that, there is much less of a chance that you will be successful at dieting—which includes keeping the weight off.
This is precisely why I will not help just anyone who comes to me to lose weight. If your relationship with food needs work first, that’s where we must begin.
I am not willing to sacrifice your wellness for your weight.
If your end goal is to lose weight and your health is a priority to you, it’s important that you get clear on your motivation to change.
Do you truly want to improve your health?
When you say you want to lose weight to improve your health and fitness, is it because you truly want to improve your health, or is it because you want to improve your thinness?
Because here’s the deal: You can’t accurately judge someone’s health based on how they look.
You don’t know what their labs show, or their blood pressure, cardiovascular fitness level, and so on. On top of that, you don’t know what their mental health is like.
Someone who’s at their leanest might be struggling with disordered eating, over-exercising, constantly comparing and criticizing their body, or suffering from unseen issues with their physical health.
And someone in recovery from disordered eating is likely to gain weight—but it doesn’t mean that the steps they are taking to do so are unhealthy.
If your primary goal is to improve your health, you don’t need to focus on the scale or the way your body looks, especially if you’re still currently preoccupied with them.
In fact, one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself when you have a strained relationship with food and your body is to take a step back from focusing on intentional weight loss and work on your relationship with food—as well as other health-promoting behaviors.
Health-Promoting Behaviors
Here are a few ways we encourage our Food Body Self students to focus on your health without obsessing over the scale:
Develop a Joyful Movement Mindset. Perform exercise that you enjoy for the sake of its own pleasure. Focus on what you enjoy about the movement, the benefits you will gain, and how it contributes to your sense of self.
Walk more.
Eat mindfully. Check in with your hunger signals before, during, and after your meal. Pay attention to each of your senses as you eat.
Practice enjoying fundamental foods. Most people associate “healthy” foods as bland and boring. Prepare your fundamental foods in ways you’ll enjoy and eat them in a mindset of indulgence.
Spend more time away from screens. Find ways to relax or have fun that don’t involve screens.
Get better sleep. Practice anxiety reduction and eliminate bedtime procrastination.
Learn to sit with and process your emotions.
Ditch busyness. Overwhelm is a habit that stems from your mindset about productivity—and it creates loads of undue stress.
Change your beliefs about yourself. Increasing your self-worth will increase your health-promoting behaviors in a virtuous cycle.
The good news is, working on health-promoting behaviors such as these will contribute to improving your relationship with food. And occasionally, some individuals do experience weight loss from these behaviors before embarking on intentional weight loss.
If you truly value your health, keep in mind:
It’s essential that you hold off on any weight loss attempts until you have a healthy relationship with food.
There are plenty of health-promoting behaviors you can practice in the meantime.
When you’re ready for support, choose a coach who is equipped and willing to prioritize your relationship with food both as you heal your relationship with food and as you pursue intentional weight loss.
Despite what weight loss advertisements and coaches would have you believe, it’s NOT always a good time to lose weight—especially not if you want to improve your health.
P.S. I am not a doctor, dietitian, or mental health professional and none of this is intended to be advice or to replace the services of trained medical professionals. You are advised to seek medical attention for matters relating to your health and, in particular, matters that may require diagnosis or treatment, including eating disorders. Additionally, if you are actively struggling with an eating disorder, although Food Body Self coaching can be an addition to a treatment team, it is not to be considered a substitute for clinical treatment or therapy.