The Fat Egg Fights Back, or, My Recent Brush With Diet Culture

This post talks about weight, weight loss, calories and dieting. I have avoided using actual numbers where possible, but if you think this post might be triggering for you, please don't read it.

I've been putting off writing this post for a little while. It's been hard to get my thoughts in order about this sensitive topic, and it also means admitting to a bunch of thoughts and feelings I rather wish I didn't have. But since this whole blog has kind of been an exercise in doing exactly that, I guess I'll just go for it.

So, earlier this year I went on a diet. If you know me in real life, you know this is a Big Thing for me, and also massively hypocritical, as I am usually quick to point out to friends that calorie counting is unsustainable and doesn't work, and that the assorted diets peddled via glossy cookbooks and 'wellness plans' amount to starvation. Why I came around to thinking that my diet was going to magically be the exception I don't know. With a history of disordered eating, I really ought to have known better.

But an old schoolfriend had been posting a lot online about her new, healthy diet and intensive exercise regime, and how much better she felt now she had lost all her baby weight. Conversely I have the kind of body shape that means after family functions my mum gets phone calls from various aunts asking when my baby is due. I'm aware of this, and my feelings about it range from not giving a flying fuck to crossing my arms over my belly when I sit down to hide my spare tyre, depending on the vagaries of my mood.

It's also true to say that at my final wedding dress fittings, there were some concerns about the tightness of the bodice. It was getting to be a bit of a struggle. My takeaway habit was showing. 

So I decided that I was going to have to do something about this issue. But, knowing my propensity for problem behaviours with food, I knew I was going to have to tread carefully. I downloaded the NHS Better Health app, thinking that the health authority of my country would be the safest and most appropriate guide. I bought a scale, because my general policy is not to have one, and entered my height and weight on the app. It told me I was slightly overweight, set me a target of how much weight I should lose, and a plan for how to do so in twelve weeks.

What I didn't like very much was the calorie goal the app set for me. 1400 calories. I knew that this was far too low for a moderately active adult human, so I changed the settings to 1800. This is still low, by the way. Food, health and nutrition experts have criticised the NHS's recommended calorie guidelines for normal eating as well as for weight loss. Consider that the calorie allowance for the famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment was 1600 calories a day, which was considered a semi-starvation diet. Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of food studies and nutrition at NYU, describes the modern 2000-cal recommended daily intake as "only enough to sustain children". (For more on this, read The Fuck-It Diet by Caroline Dooner.)

Two days in, I was hungry, dizzy, and miserable, and I face-planted into a takeaway pizza feeling like a failure.

The next morning I decided to try again. This time I turned the calorie counter off and tried to focus on smaller portions and more plants. The app doesn't like this very much, and kept prompting me to turn the calorie counter back on. This raised a few red flags for me - I didn't like to be pushed towards obsessive counting and monitoring. Maybe for many people these are 'normal' aspects of a weight loss diet, but I find it hard to see the differences between fixating on your food in this socially approved manner, and disordered eating. I'm not sure where the line is drawn.

Anyway, over the next couple of weeks I managed to lose almost half of the recommended weight. I wasn't hungry all the time, and I discovered that I quite enjoyed exercising. The only downside was that the weekly weigh-in made me really anxious, which, again, reminded me of having an eating disorder. 

Eventually the weight loss plateaued. And then, despite the fact I was still eating smaller portions, still exercising, it began to creep back on. I got stressed about this. I came, I would say, the closest I have come to relapse since my early twenties. I am still a bit cross about all of this. I knew, going in, that this industry is built on smoke and mirrors, that its game is fuckery. I've spent years trying to inoculate myself against its poison. And yet I still fell for it.

The week before my wedding, I was the same weight at which I started, albeit a bit stronger and a bit more flexible from all the movement I'd been doing. But I've still got a round soft tummy and a round soft bottom. What I learned is that unless you're willing to devote your whole life to the misery of monitoring and restricting your eating, which I am not, diets still don't work. Your body defends itself. Your metabolic rate adjusts.

I'm a bit annoyed that I now have a set of scales I don't want and that I put my hard-won mental equilibrium at risk when I could have just been kind. I'm disappointed that I felt badly enough about the way I look to have started this game yet again. Especially when I can see that the women around me are beautiful at all different sizes. Why don't I think that that applies to myself? Why do I think that other people are gorgeous when they are soft and curvy, but think of myself as looking like a fat egg?

So, I'm going to go and re-read The Fuck-It Diet and Beyond Beautiful. I found several fitness instructors on YouTube offering body positive workouts, which I'd highly recommend - it's nice to move my body just to feel good, not to punish or force change. I have deleted the Better Health app. I will be wearing crop tops and bikinis this summer, and unfollowing anyone who conflates self-love with having a specific body type.

Notes:

As well as the above-mentioned books, I would recommend reading up on the work and findings of the Health at Every Size movement (particularly when the NHS has apparently not caught up, oh dear).

The Body is Not An Apology 

 I will be away next week; normal service will resume the week after.

Toxic Femininity

Not long ago I met up with my bridesmaids - six of my dearest friends - for morning coffee. Socialising with other women post-lockdown has been a bit of an eye-opener for me - embarrassingly, I had kind of forgotten that not everyone has been in the same echo chamber as me, worrying about climate change and learning how to cut down their consumption. Actually, I kind of completely forgot that lots of people aren't generally thinking about their consumption as problematic (whether it is or isn't, which of course is not for me to decide, although I would suggest that all of us in the global North perhaps need to think twice about our normalised habits) or obsessing over ethical fashion and cosmetics, and had to work at not pulling a disapproving-grandma face any time anyone mentioned PrettyLittleThing or L'Oreal.

What I have been working on, however, is being more open and honest about stuff (hopefully in a gentle way), so at one point I did find myself saying to two of my particularly glamorous friends - one of whom I haven't seen without make-up and impeccably coiffed hair since we were in primary school, and one of whom I have never seen without the whole arsenal of femininity in play - that I'm amazed by how they do it with two children apiece when I find it a challenge to shave my legs with any kind of regularity, let alone find the time for flicky eyeliner, and I wished I could ever manage to be as groomed.

Once they'd finished laughing at me, they told me two things: firstly, that skinny jeans can be hiding all sorts of things, so even the most fabulously turned out woman might possibly have not got around to shaving for three months, and apparently this is pretty normal. 

Secondly - and here one of my very oldest friends flicked her elegantly curled, highlighted hair, looked me dead in the eye, and said, "Well, I wish I didn't feel like I have to bother with all this -" she waved a hand to indicate her make-up and curls "- just to feel like I can leave the house. I wish I could be more carefree. I feel like other girls who don't wear make-up all the time are way more comfortable in their skin than I am. This is what I have to do just to feel acceptable, and I love it when I can get home and take my make-up off so I can rub my eyes without smooshing my mascara all over the place."

Okay. So that was me told. I was kind of stunned, to be honest. How had I managed to angst about my girl envy all this time without ever considering things from the other side of the fence?

Another thing we talked about a little bit - perhaps inevitably - was weight. I guess out of the seven of us, probably three or four are on a diet at any given time. Even I bought a scale this year, but I'm going to talk about that whole mess in another post. Suffice to say for now that eventually I had to sit down and re-read Just Eat It, and that while I was doing so I suddenly realised that the way a lot of women feel about their weight and looks - not good enough, must constantly improve - is also how I very often feel about the way I dress and the things I own.

What diet culture and consumer culture have in common is simply this: it's about control. When you fall too far into these twin traps, your thoughts are forever rattling around the same hamster wheel: what should you eat, how do you look, what should you wear, what should you buy. When you walk into a room, or down the high street, you automatically and semi-consciously rank yourself against other women - who's the thinnest, prettiest, best-dressed? 

More and more of us now are becoming aware of the toxic and damaging messages of diet culture, but I haven't often seen it linked to the parallel trap of overconsumption. Yet to my mind the insidious connections are obvious - people with low self-esteem are far more likely to spend more, not just on gyms, diet foods, supplements and all the other accoutrements peddled by the nutribollocks industry and its influencer poster children, but also on clothes (to conceal, to sculpt, to flatter, to commiserate, to aspire to), cosmetics, treatments and surgeries. Treat yo'self - self-love can be yours, right now, for this one-off bargain price of the cost of bath bombs, crystals, candles, lingerie, gym gear, hair dye, new nails, fake tan, gym membership, microblading, laser hair removal and a plant-based wellness spa retreat in the heart of the Cotswolds. 

I feel like this weird self-hating soup of diet culture, overconsumption and influencer culture is to women and femme-presenting people as toxic masculinity is to men. Things we might otherwise enjoy for their own sake (clothes, fashion, beauty, movement, food) become tainted by this bizarre set of rules for how we are 'supposed' to look (exist).

Stay in your box. Keep your attention fixed on the way you look. Build your brand. Get thin. Get thicc. Get strong. Get noticed. Be different, but also accessible. Be relatable, but also better. Have the right kind of eyebrows. Suck your stomach in. A little bit of FaceTune never hurt anyone. So authentic (#ad). It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change.  Don't rest on your laurels. Don't rest, period. Don't consider being content - there's always something else you can tone, sculpt, tweak, improve, buy, buy, buy. 

It's all the same trap.

Imagine: if being a woman wasn't a secret competition to be the best woman.

Imagine: feeling content. With what you have. With who you are.

Imagine: if you took the time you put into beauty routines and wardrobe overhauls and decluttering and shopping and diets and faux wellness and used it instead to rest and recharge. 

If you could walk into a room without a) picturing how you looked walking into the room and b) immediately ranking yourself against everyone there.

What your social life would look like if no one was worried about their body, their skin, their clothes, their hair. 

If we re-framed self-esteem as something you build, not something you buy, and made it contingent on something other than looks or wealth.

If we stopped buying - literally - into the bullshit.

Beauty Care for Wild Women

A change I made around the beginning of this year was that I started carving out a little more time to take care of myself. Beauty and I have had a fairly chequered history - I've swung from surface glamour - elaborate hair and make-up routines, but at bedtime taking a halfhearted swipe at my eyeliner with a bit of damp loo roll and sleeping with my foundation on - to letting nature take its course in the - apparently mistaken - belief that if I followed the same skincare routine as my other half, my skin might end up as clear as his.

Paradoxically, I am quite self-absorbed yet pretty bad at the basics of looking after myself, which is why I have plantar fasciitis (bad shoes) and sensitive teeth (turns out you shouldn't drink multiple cartons of juice a day for several years if you don't want to tear up every time you eat something with sugar in it). I have been a person who buys new outfits on a daily basis, but once left a bout of tonsilitis untreated for so long that it spread to my stomach glands. I was basically unable to eat from the pain and felt so run down and ill that I fell asleep in public places on my lunch break, but I assumed it was some weird new psychosomatic manifestation of my eating disorder and didn't bother to see a doctor for a rather long time. I honestly didn't know that tonsilitis of the stomach was a thing that could happen.

I was surprised to find that I had a bit of resistance to reinstating any kind of grooming routine beyond soap, water, lip balm and a dab of botanical perfume. I felt as if I were, in some way, betraying my 'natural self'. Is my muslin face cloth a tool of the patriarchy? I still don't really have a clear answer on that one. I suspect it's somewhat akin to 'shopping ethically' under capitalism, and we can all only do our best.

Anyway, much like rebuilding my wardrobe after giving birth, I decided I wanted to feel good in my body again, and as well as doing my yoga and going for walks, for me this meant I had to give it a little TLC. I kind of feel like I shouldn't have to - surely my body will look after itself best if I just leave it alone? - but after a week of dry body brushing in the morning and applying lotion in the evening, my skin was so improbably soft that I had to concede that perhaps I could do with a little bit of looking after, after all.

I remind myself that women throughout history have cared for their skin and hair using nature's bounty - which, yes, has included lead and nightingale poo at various times, but given that many beauty products currently contain the likes of petrol, carcinogens and formaldehyde, perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to judge - and what I am doing is therefore no different. I make my own products where I can, but when the ingredients cost as much as ready-made products, I buy carefully chosen natural products from a small handful of retailers. 

Recently, I had a fitting for my wedding dress, and under the bright lighting I winced to see how unkempt I was next to my (admittedly exceptionally beautiful) bridesmaid, who is always very well-groomed. We got to talking about wedding make-up - when we first planned the wedding, a make-up artist and professional photographer were booked, but having rearranged four times due to COVID, they were no longer available (or affordable). I didn't mind doing my own make-up, but in that moment it dawned on me that my two-years-out-of-date Lush slapstick probably wasn't going to cut it. 

When I started looking into what was available, I learned that since I started my shopping ban, the world of beauty had kind of moved on without me. I didn't actually know that primer was a thing. At first I panicked, and begged my gorgeous bridesmaid Bel to take me make-up shopping, envisaging a sprawling department store where some glossy professional could teach me how the hell one fills in their brows without looking as though they have a couple of weevils crawling across their forehead. (That said, the last department store makeover I had, circa 2016, was appalling - I had to sneak into work to wash off the Batman-villain eyebrows whilst my glamorous co-worker laughed herself hoarse.)

The night after the fitting, I decided I wasn't ready to compromise my 'crunchy' standards (side note: I recently learned the term 'granola girl', and although I'm not really the right age group for TikTok trends, please know that this is me. Granola mumma?). I went online and ordered some samples from zero waste, organic, natural and vegan make-up brands - all through Peace with the Wild, link below - and yes, I found a primer. The foundation, concealer and powder all had four ingredients - all of which I could recognise and pronounce. I felt better knowing I could look my best for my handfasting without compromising on ethics, or putting toxic goop on my face.

I do love to try new products, but I'm extremely cautious and generally don't put anything on my body that I wouldn't eat (the exception is nail varnish - I haven't bought any new since the end of 2020, but I have a few bottles that I have been given by friends). I also don't hoard products and only buy new to replace what has been used up. Dai has more bathroom products than I do.

What I am trying not to do is focus on concealment, improvement or perfection, but instead think about nourishment and care. 

For the curious, I shop from:

Peace With The Wild

Lush (although I'm choosy about which products; some contain talc or parabens which I prefer not to use)

The Really Wild Soap Company

Bain + Savon

I also use flower essences to gently help me stay in balance, my essentials are both from Saskia's Flower Essences - I use Breathe Deep, Seek Peace and My Personal Space.

For further reading, I highly recommend:

Wild Beauty by Jana Blankenship

No More Dirty Looks by Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt

Freedom Face: A Beauty Guide Free From Toxic Ingredients, Expensive Gloop and Self-Hating Bullshit by Lucy AitkenRead

(I did not realise until typing this list how many of these names and titles contain the word 'wild'!)

Just Eat It: Intuitive Eating and the Ghosts of Diets Past

I've been reading a book recently called Just Eat It: how intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food, by Laura Thomas PhD. A few pages in, I wanted to recommend it to pretty much every woman I know. Occasionally by slapping them upside the head with it until they read it, though I'm told that's frowned upon.

I can't call this a book review, because a book review needs to be fairly analytic and I struggled to evaluate this book logically beyond AAAAARGH MY MIND IS BLOWN EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS. Let's call this a book discussion, instead, because boy, did some weird shit come up for me while I read this.

Firstly, I hadn't really realised that diet culture is insidious as fuck. Take a second look at the TV viewing you grew up with, after reading this book. Here's a snapshot from my developing years: Friends. Buffy. 90210. The OC. Ally McBeal. Farscape. Other than showing my age, I suddenly realised that according to these (admittedly enjoyable) shows, there's pretty much only one way to have a female body, unless you are an actual alien. Cast members from several of these shows admitted to suffering from eating disorders whilst filming. This was such a lightbulb moment for me - until fairly recently, the vast and incredible diversity of human bodies was literally nowhere in the media. (I'm also white, cis, straight-sized and able-bodied, so compared to a lot of folks I'm well-represented in mainstream media.) There is one single main body type held up as 'standard' or 'normal' for women - thus all other bodies are implied to be aberrational (see: the running joke in Friends about how Monica used to be fat).

This obviously struck several chords for me, as I had a bizarre, somewhat melancholy dream about being a crew member on the set of a TV show whose entire job consisted of lovingly framing the actresses' hipbones and making them look as thin as possible. Doy....

I also found myself remembering the ghosts of diets past with a weird nostalgic fondness. That buzz that comes from the hope that this time, the stars will align and you'll magically transform into the thin toned babe in the lycra booty shorts, swishing your hair on Miami Beach. Or something. The excitement, the anticipation of a new "wellness plan". That one diet book I followed (with the hideous subtitle of 'get skinnier than all your friends') where you consume nothing but black coffee till lunchtime, blow up balloons every day, and take an ice-cold bath every morning (I'm not kidding, I did this). 

The chapters on clean eating and concepts around 'processed' foods were fascinating to me as well. I almost... didn't want to accept the facts being presented to me. Part of me wanted to continue to believe that the right combination of chia seeds, spirulina, coconut water and kale would make me pure and clean and lovely and forever unhungry. How can so many Instagrammers be wrong?!

The reason I chose to buy this book at this time was that I have a bit of a pot belly going on at the moment. This was brought to my attention by several friends and family members getting excited about my 'good news' and asking when I was due.

At first I laughed this off - I'd spent a good portion of our holiday on a cider farm... maybe I was becoming one with the apples? - but after a while it started to get to me and I started considering a diet. I'm not really sure why. If diets worked, there wouldn't need to be a multibillion pound industry built around the concept. Also, been there, done that, hated it, would put the whole concept in a dustbin and set fire to it if I could. I own a t-shirt that says 'screw diet culture', for goodness' sake. But in a moment of self-consciousness and weakness, the urge was there.

Happily for me I bought this book instead.

Why does this relate to my blog about consumerism? Well. Sit ye down and I'll tell you a story about the hundreds and thousands of pounds I would not have spent if I hadn't believed for a decade and more that the way I naturally look is actually a problem. A problem that it is presented as being my duty, nay, my life's work to solve.

Times that amount of money by the number of women in my friendship group caught in the same trap. Times that amount of money by the number of people in the world caught in the same trap. How many years of your life have you spent fighting your own body? How many products have you bought to hide, flatter, disguise, slim, tone, lift, sculpt? How many uncomfortable garments have you tolerated because you believed in some dark recess of your mind that your body, not the badly made clothing, was the problem?

Diet culture is fucking poison. Don't swallow it.

I thought I knew my onions (sorry) about food and nutrition, but this book was a revelation. I've remembered how to listen to my body instead of the clock. I laugh in the face of food guilt. I take great pleasure in reminding myself 'nutrition is cumulative!' when that stupid little voice in the back of my head starts chuntering away about my food.

If you've ever felt guilty about eating a doughnut, seriously, read this book.