Anne Lamott on Dieting
Bay Area author Anne Lamott posts a version of this on Facebook every year. One of my cousins posted it, and I liked what she has to say about radical self care and not dieting, and I thought I would share it with you. That’s it for me, the rest of this post is her words.
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Here is a version of the anti-diet piece I publish every year just before New Year’s Day:
We need to have the same little talk we have every year at this time: You want to feel healthier and that is an excellent goal, but I know many of you are secretly planning to start a New Year’s diet. I don’t want to be a buzzkill but this newest one won’t work, either. I used to start diets, too. I hated to mention this to my then-therapist. She would say cheerfully, “Oh, that’s great, honey. How much weight are you hoping to gain?”
I got rid of her. No one talks to me that way.
Well, okay, maybe it was 10 years later, after she had helped lead me back home, to myself, to radical self-care, to friendship with my own heart and body, to a glade that had always existed deep inside me, to (mostly) healthy eating, but that I’d avoided all those years by over-achieving, dieting, binging, people-pleasing and so on.
Now when I decide to go on a diet, I say it to myself: “Great, honey. How much weight are you hoping to gain?” Here is what’s true: Diets make you gain weight, 95 percent of the time. We gain it back, plus five pounds. We lose it, it finds us again and brings a few friends.
I may have mentioned several hundred times that I have had the tiniest, tiniest struggle with food and body image for the last – well, lifetime. Hardly worth mentioning. It is a long story, having to do with childhood injuries to my sense of self, terrible anxiety, and my parents weirdness around food and weight. So starving, or counting carbs, and chastising myself for slipping up and eating a banana, probably cannot heal this.
I hate to say it, but only profound self-love will work, union with that scared breath-holding self, and not a diet that forbids apples or avocado. Horribly, but as usual, only kindness and grace, which is spiritual WD-40, can save us.
Can you put away your tight pants, the ones with the punishing waistband? Wear forgiving pants! The world is too hard as it is, without letting your pants have an opinion on how you are doing. I struggle with enough esteem issues without letting my jeans get in on the act with random thoughts about my butt.
By the same token, it feels great to be healthy. Some of you need to be under a doctor’s care. None of you need to join Jenny Craig. It won’t work. You will lose tons of weight quickly, and gain it all back, plus five, at best.
By the same token, I have a serious love for and lifelong problem with sugar: If I start eating it, I sometimes can’t stop. I don’t have an off switch, any more than I do with alcohol. Given a choice, I will eat Raisinets until the cows come home, and then those cows will be tense, and bitter, because I will have gotten lipstick on the straps of their feed bags.
But you crave what you eat and I was in craving sweets all the time, so I stopped eating sugar a few years ago. It’s been relatively easy. I eat a lot of fruit most days and don’t at all miss hiding in my room or car with one pound bags of so-called Fun Sized candy bars, or, in one case, an entire carrot cake.
It’s really okay, though, to have (or pray for) an awakening around your body. It’s okay to stop hitting the snooze button, and to pay attention to what makes you feel great about yourself, one meal and walk (or too) at a time. Unfortunately, it’s another inside job. If you are not okay with yourself at 185 pounds, you will not be okay at 150, or even 135, although America’s $72 billion diet industry promises otherwise. The self-respect and peace of mind you long for is not out there. It’s within. I hate that. I resent that more than I can say. But it’s true.
There are ways to improve your health that do not harm your soul. Eat as healthfully as you can, and maybe exercise a bit more, and make sure to wear pants that do not hurt our thighs or your feelings. Doing a three-minute meditation every day won’t hurt, if, like me, your mind can be like a monkey on acid, at a mall. Naps are nice.
I’ll leave you with this: I’ve helped some of the sturdier women at my church get healthy, by suggesting they prepare each meal as if they had asked our beloved pastor to lunch or dinner. They wouldn’t say, “Here Pastor, let’s eat standing up in the kitchen. This tube of barbecue Pringles is all for you. I have my own,” and then stand there gobbling from their own tubular container. No, they’d get out pretty dishes, and arrange wonderful foods on the plates, and set plates at the table, plates filled with love, pride and connection. That’s what we have longed for, our whole lives, and get to create. Wow.
Yes to health and radical self-care. Boo to the lying scum diet industry. Love and Cheers!
28 Comments
AC
That’s good, but we keep trying. And now I am hungry. lol
J
Indeed…finding a way without messing ourselves up and setting ourselves up for failure, that’s the trick, right?
Lisa's Yarns
The senior pastor at my church sent out an email on NYD about how, rather than focusing on what we want to change about our bodies, we focus on gratutide and recognizing that we are enough exactly as we are. This is something I am working on but have a ways to go. Much of 30s was a time of great self-acceptance. But this past year has really really hard because of the prednisone-related weight gain. 🙁 So I do hope to lose some/most of that weight in 2025 so I can feel good in my body again. 🙁
But one thing I will never do is comment about my body/others’ bodies in front of my boys. I was around so much diet culture as a child, to the extent that I thought I needed to go on a diet in 3rd grade which is just so messed up.
J
I love that message. What if we are enough as we are? What if we don’t need to improve ourselves? What if we love and cherish ourselves? Easier said than done, as you say. And weight gain is hard. Menopause and aging has changed my metabolism and I really dislike it. I read someone who said it made her metabolism ‘more efficient’, which is a really nice way of putting it.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Thank you for sharing that. It is a powerful message.
I think a lot of of truth is in the eating from nice plates, sitting at a table and not in front of a tv.
J
Thanks Tobia, yes, I agree. We need to practice self care.
Alexandra
Yep, as someone who has been there and done it all. Dieting does not work. We have to radically rethink our self care and how we go about creating new eating habits. For me, eating is not quantoty anymore so much as quality in the form of flavour. I want to have food that tastes great.
J
Me too! I want food to taste good. And I need to not eat if something doesn’t taste good. Sometimes I eat anyway.
Alexndra
Oh, agreed. Who wants to eat bland boring food. Add some flavour please. If not, spice or herbs. Thank you! ?
Elisabeth
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and YES.
I can relate to so much of this and am thrilled to finally be at a much better place in terms of feeding my body and soul. It is so hard to not cave to the wellness pressure, mostly because there are so many good aspects to the movement that it feels like it MUST be positive, right? But it’s those subtle things that end up being daggers into the heart and soul of women.
Thanks for posting this and for being a role model to others. I know that eating challenges and body dysmorphia hit very close to home for many of us – yourself included – and so shining a light and normalizing the battle while also highlighting the gift that is our bodies…AS IS…is just wonderful.
Thank you <3
J
Thank you Elisabeth. You’re right, there are so many good messages in the wellness movement, right? But they can so easily feed into the unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. It’s a balancing act for sure.
Daria
What a gem!!!! Thanks for sharing. I laughed as I was reading it in jiu jitsu with R. A great article and Anne is just great overall.
J
I’m glad you enjoyed it, I did too!
Margaret
I’ve been telling myself for years that I would like to lose 10-20 pounds, but I never do it. So it must not be that important to me?
J
I would argue that it can be VERY important to you, but that it’s complicated and difficult. At least you haven’t lost 10 and gained 15, lost 15 and gained 20, etc. Dieting is a trap. That’s not to say that you can’t lose weight in a healthy way, but dieting isn’t it.
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Michelle G.
This is so true, and I’m so glad that you posted it! Diets simply don’t work, and they can destroy a person’s relationship with food. I’m in the process of repairing mine, and it’s such a relief. Wishing you a wonderful new year!
J
Happy New Year to you too, Michelle. I like how you worded that, that dieting can destroy a person’s relationship with food. So true!
Nicole MacPherson
It’s taken me a long time to get to a good place with food and my body, and then – poof – perimenopause changed my body! Well, it is a journey, that’s for sure.
J
Yes, perimenopause (and now full on for me) has been humbling for sure!
Maya
I always love this Anne Lamott piece when I see it… so much sense and goodness…
For most of my life I was blissfully unaware that I should be thinking about diets (Indian aunties were always telling me I’d be beautiful if I put on just a little bit more weight…).
But (early) menopause changed my body.
I’ve learned to be grateful for all my body has done for me and others and all it still does rather than what it can’t do though…
J
That’s a great mentality, right? To be thankful for what our body can do, rather than stress about what it cannot.
Jacquie
This is so timely! As I started reading Anne’s essay, my daughter sent me a text saying “I wanna start eating healthy” the usual post-Christmas lament. So, I forwarded it to her.
Great piece. Helps to keep things in perspective
Thanks for posting!
J
I hope your daughter got some good insight. When I was young I don’t think I believed that diets don’t work, because they worked for me. As my metabolism got more efficient, and probably as I gained and lost too many times, they pretty much stopped working. Bah.
Noemi
Thanks for sharing this. Sadly, is a message I can never hear enough times.
J
Sadly, me too.
Ernie
This was a good read. I especially like the pastor coming for dinner idea. What a great mindset. The lipstick on the feed bag made me chuckle. Since I am the only GF person in the house, the GF desserts produced more leftovers than the reg desserts. I have been feeling a little lousy about eating my GF desserts and not sharing, but hey- it happens once a year. 😉
J
Ted bought me a nice tart for my birthday, but we were too full and didn’t eat any, and now it’s sitting there. I had one piece, it was delicious, but I really don’t want to eat the entire thing. Also I don’t want to throw it away. Can I give it to neighbors when it was bought on Monday and now it’s Saturday?