Read an exclusive extract of You Are Not a Before Picture, an urgent, enlightening and empowering guide to disavowing diet culture and learning to make peace with our bodies, from body confidence and anti-diet advocate, Alex Light.
Diet starts Monday. Right?
And let me take a shot at guessing roughly how each week on a diet goes for you:
Monday: Determined. So determined.
Tuesday: I feel incredible . . . This diet is the one! It’s going to work this time, I can feel it.
Wednesday: So full of energy! Nothing can stop me!
Thursday: I think I’m still good. Determined not to break it this time, but I am excited for a cheat day – I’ve got a list of everything I want to eat.
Friday: Bingeing on everything I’ve dreamt about eating during the week.
Saturday: Same as Friday.
Sunday: Same as Friday and Saturday but with an added layer of self-loathing, shame and disgust at myself for failing – again. Form a new plan for a new diet. Next week, it’s going to be different.
And so the cycle continues. Again, and again, and again.
A poll of 2,000 adults commissioned in 2019 found that, on average, in the UK we try two fad diets a year, despite the fact that over half the respondents said they felt very confused over which diets were actually sustainable.1 In other words, we’re attempting to cut out all carbs, or sustain ourselves on cabbage soup or juice twice a year, every year, even though we don’t know if it’s going to work or not, so desperate are we to lose weight.
Of course, it never works, so we end up back on a Sunday, feeling full of that all-too-familiar shame, regret and sheer desperation. As I’m writing this, I feel as if I’m watching a slideshow of all the Sundays I have spent like this – the majority of Sundays of my life, undoubtedly. Isn’t that sad? And even though I feel worlds away from that now, the flashbacks are visceral – I can feel that pain. It’s all-consuming in its negativity and I’m suddenly reminded of how grateful I am to be free of dieting – and how important it is for you, too, to be free of dieting.
When I first started to interrogate diet culture, I became determined to understand it better – exactly what it is and where it’s come from. I read everything I could about its origins and quickly started to see why it is so pervasive in our society today. I firmly believe that in order to dismantle diet culture and escape its powerful influence over us, we first need to understand it, and the root of that understanding is in its history. This knowledge will be an important piece of the armour that will shield you from it. So, bear with me as I take you on a journey – I promise it’s fascinating.
Get your copy of You Are Not a Before Picture here.
