Why Diet Rules Backfire (and How to Quiet Your Inner Rebel)

The rebellious teen is a cookie cutter stereotype if there ever was one, partly because it's based in reality. You know those in-between years when we battle between lingering immaturity and the desire to come into our own destiny. It's a time when sometimes rules are broken just because they are rules, even if they were meant only to serve us.

Most of us have matured beyond the flagrant defiance of our teenage years (well, hopefully), but most of us still have a little of that rebel left inside us, ready to strike out when rules become too rigid or when life separates us too much from who we want to be.

And when we diet. Always when we diet.

The story goes something like this: XYZ diet is the best diet for me because I should [lose weight, get healthy, detox my liver, purify my soul, etc.]. Therefore, X foods are good for me and I should eat a lot of those. And Y foods are okay for me but should mostly be avoided. And Z foods, well, they are just straight up poison and I should never touch them again. 

The problem? Every "should" you just told yourself is nudging your inner rebel out of hibernation. At first, the inner rebel doesn't say much. It's being squelched by the rush of adrenaline and excitement that comes with starting the XYZ diet. This rush overpowers any rebelliousness (and possibly even common sense) for a few days or weeks.

Then comes the moment you swore would never come again. The moment where the low-carber inhales an entire loaf of fresh-baked bread. Or the low-fat dieter devours ten rice cakes slathered with peanut butter. Or the sugar-buster swallows massive spoonfuls of rocky road ice cream right out of the container.

How did we get here? We knew better. We knew all the rules, about the X foods and the Y foods and the Z foods. How did we know so much and then go running in the opposite direction?

Are the rules just flat out wrong? Sometimes, but not always. Occasionally they are even based on sound science. It's not really the rules themselves that are so wrong, but what you tell yourself about them.

You don't rebel against the rules and suggestions. You do rebel against the idea that you should, you must, you have to follow them.


How to Quiet Your Inner Rebel

To quiet the inner rebel, you first have to know what it wants:

• Your inner rebel wants you to be safe and accepted. Sometimes your inner rebel exists to defend you. It rears its ugly head when you get the idea that somehow you aren't acceptable or worthy as a human being when you don't follow the XYZ rules. And this is a hidden agenda of many diets, to make you feel morally superior if you follow the rules, and horribly inferior if you don't. Well, I don't have to tell you that no one wants to feel like a worthless sack of manure. It's only natural to want to rebel against this feeling (and then eat a whole pan of brownies to prove it wrong).

• Your inner rebel want you to be heard and recognized. Diets tell you one thing very clearly: you are unreliable and even dangerous. Listening to yourself is crazy. You are so messed up that the only way you can live a decent life is to ignore your own instincts completely and give yourself over to the XYZ diet rules. Your inner rebel hates this feeling, because it believes you are an intelligent, capable person who can make sound decisions (at least most of the time) with the right information and perspective.

When you look at it this way, you realize your inner rebel isn't really trying to hurt you. It's actually coming to your defense (though not always in productive ways). Its intentions are ultimately positive, though its execution often does more harm than good.

The key to erraticating patterns of rebellious behavior is not to suppress, coerce or threaten your inner rebel (that didn't work on you when you were a teenager, did it?). Instead, work to understand the underlying causes of your rebellion and then eliminate those. Here are some ways you can do this:

• Accept yourself. It sounds trite and cliche, but don't underestimate it. Being okay with who you are is a vital part living a full life. It's okay to strive for improvement in your life, but in order to make truly positive and lasting changes, you have to accept yourself as you are right now. You can't hate yourself into having a good life.

• Learn to listen to your body. Don't let anyone tell you that if you listen to your body, gluttony and degradation is the only possible outcome.Your body doesn't want to live on carrot sticks and rice cakes--but it also doesn't have any desire to be stuffed with cheesecake until it can't even walk. There is a healthy balance that can be found through learning what your body wants, needs, and thrives on.

• Apply your knowledge about nutrition without setting up rigid rules and requirements. I'm a geek who thoroughly enjoys learning about nutrition and biology, but I've also learned that strict eating regimens always backfire. Make what you learn work for you, instead of becoming a slave to your knowledge.

The inner rebel does not want to take over your whole life--it doesn't really have the energy or capacity for that. Instead, it wants your life to come back into a beautiful balance where its presence becomes unnecessary. Rebellion becomes superfluous and simply disappears.

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Book Review: Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon

There are a couple of things I really like about Linda Bacon. First of all, her name is Bacon. Somehow that is just cool. Secondly, she doesn't just think outside the box. She questions the entire box and all its assorted contents. In her book, Health at Every Size, Bacon turns current theories on obesity, health and weight loss upside down (or should I say right side up?).

It's the kind of book that gets folks in tizzy. People don't like it when their basic assumptions are questioned. But I say it's good for the soul. That's why I write posts like There is No Obesity Epidemic and Does Obesity Really Kill?. It's not because I like to stir up trouble. It's because we have to question our ideas from time to time. Otherwise ideas become dogma. And that's never a good thing.

So I guess Linda Bacon likes to question ideas and assumptions, too. In fact, that's exactly what Health at Every Size is all about. One of the key points Bacon makes in her book is that weight does not determine our health in the way most of us believe. She argues that focusing on weight may actually be drawing attention to the wrong issue:

"Body weight might be a marker for an imprudent lifestyle in some people, but its role in determining health, particularly when compared to regular activity, is grossly exaggerated."

She goes on to say:

"It is well established that the relationship between activity and longevity is stronger than the relationship between weight and longevity."

It's simple: being sedentary is more harmful to your health than being overweight. (And remember that movement trumps exercise as well.)

Bacon also reminds us that weight is a multi-faceted issue not soley based on our current diet and exercise regimen. In fact, your weight may be influenced by how your mom ate while you were still in utero:

"You are not only what you eat, you may also be what your mother ate. Several studies find that if your mother dieted during her pregnancy, you're more likely to be heavier as an adult."

Makes me glad I didn't fall prey to worrying about my weight during pregnancy (though I dieted like a madwoman while nursing--I wonder if that has a similar effect?).


Diets Simply Don't Work

One concept that Bacon tears to pieces in Health at Every Size is the idea that we can diet all of our weight problems into oblivion. She points out that the facts simply don't point that way:

"It may be hard to believe that there just isn't any scientific evidence to support any theory of how to lose weight and keep it off. No matter how many times or how authoritatively the message is repeated that diet, exercise and discipline can get you what you want, it doesn't change the fact that it has not proven true for any but a tiny minority of people."

Stop. Go back. Read that again.

Hope it sunk in that time.

"Losing weight is not about finding the perfect proportions of carbohydrates, protein and fat or tricking yourself into feeling satisfied. Rather, maintaining the right weight for you is about respecting your hunger and trusting your body to guide you in doing what's best."

Skip the Section on Nutrition

To be honest, I can't call Bacon's nutrition advice (found in chapter 11, Change Your Tastes) terrible. Overall, she disagrees with bashing food groups and macronutrients. I can appreciate that.

But at the same time her recommendations lean too much toward the same old USDA food pyramid baloney you hear everywhere else. Don't get me wrong: Bacon includes some decent information about how certain foods create biochemical responses in the body and offers general recommendations that can be helpful. It just smacks of conventional diet advice a little too much for my taste.

My suggestion? Read the chapter and take it with a grain of salt. Or skip it altogether and just dig in to the juicier parts of the book.


Why So Many Weight Myths? Follow the Money...

So why are we barraged with these myths about weight and health? Well, according to Bacon, some of it is simply misinterpreted science... and some may be the result of far more sinister motives:

"Fearmongering about weight is worth billions to the health care system, government agencies, scientists and the media. And it ties in seamlessly with cultural values. The result is that weight myths have become unquestioned assumptions, so strongly a part of our cultural landscape that we regard them as self-evident."

Question Your Assumptions About Weight and Dieting

It's not the facts that get us into trouble: it's the "unquestioned assumptions" that do us in. We have to be willing to question our current theories on health and wellness if we want to move forward. The answers aren't half as important as being willing to look for them in the first place.

I'll sum this review up with one more quote from Health at Every Size:

"The only way to solve the weight problem is to stop making weight a problem--to stop judging ourselves and others by our size. Weight is not an effective measure of attractiveness, moral character or health. The real enemy is weight stigma, for it is the stigmatization and fear of fat that causes the damage and deflects attention from the true threats to our health and well-being."

Question about the book? Have some thoughts on all of this? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below!

Buy Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon here.


Want more book reviews? Check out my other reviews below:

• Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel
• Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver
• Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
• The Magnesium Miracle by Carolyn Dean
• The Detox Book by Bruce Fife
• The Gabriel Method by Jon Gabriel
• Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
• Adrenal Fatigue by James Wilson
• The Schwarzbein Principle (the entire series) by Diana Schwarzbein
• The Mood Cure by Julia Ross
• Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

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Making Peace With Food

Most of us are at war with food. This is because we have made food out to be the enemy. We may single out specific foods (like bread) or aim for a broader approach by engaging in battle with entire macronutrients (like carbs). And a large majority of people, in one form or another, have openly declared war on one innocent little energy unit: the calorie.

Our war appears to be founded on principle. After all, we must redeem our health (or at least our waistlines). But as part of the bigger picture, this approach of demonizing and moralizing food only leads one thing: a severely impaired relationship with food and with our bodies.

Funny thing is that the moment we start this war against food, we are setting ourselves up to fail. We are biologically and psychologically driven to failure in this regard. The book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch discusses this in depth:

"When you rigidly limit the amount of food you are allowed to eat, it usually sets you up to crave larger quantities of that very food."

"[F]ood deprivation sets off a biological drive. Psychological forces wreak havoc with your peace of mind, triggering cravings, obsessive thoughts, and even compulsive behaviors. If you are someone who has also experienced deprivation in areas outside of food, such as love, attention, material wants, etc., the deprivation connected to dieting may be felt even more intensely for you."

"The mere perception that food might become banned can trigger overeating. Just thinking about going on a diet can create a sense of panic and send you on a trail of eating every food you think won't be allowed."

"The threat of deprivation becomes so powerful that all reason is lost and you find yourself eating whatever is to be forbidden, even if you are not hungry."

How many of you indulged more during the holidays knowing that your New Year's resolution diet was just around the corner? Did you eat more of that pumpkin pie knowing you'd be cutting out carbs come the first of January?

The solution to this war is to make peace with food. But what does this mean?

"Making peace with food means allowing all foods into your eating world, so that a choice for chocolate becomes emotionally equal to the choice for a peach."

When we subscribe to nutritional dogma, we assign emotional and moral values to our food. This makes it impossible to make choices about the food we eat without triggering an emotional roller coaster.

How many times have you said (or heard someone say) these words: "I can't eat that. I'm on a diet and I'm trying to be good." Did you hear that? We actually label ourselves as good or bad based on what we eat! Talk about making food an emotionally charged issue.

Eating is not a matter of good versus evil. It is simply listening to our bodies, identifying a need and then filling that need as best we can. This is the foundation of intuitive eating. It's simple, but it's not always easy. After all, most of us are coming to the table with a lot of hang ups about food.

I cannot stress enough that your relationship with food is a process. You truly can (and should) take this one step at a time. You have to practice intuitive eating. You don't just wake up one morning, start eating intuitively and suddenly have a balanced relationship with food. Just take baby steps. Start with one meal, or even just one food.

• Simply acknowledging that you assign too much emotional value to your eating habits might be the first step in repairing your relationship with food.

It doesn't come easy and it certainly doesn't happen overnight. But in the long run, it makes all the difference. To quote again from Intuitive Eating:

"Ironically, the process of giving yourself permission to eat is actually the stepping-stone to rebuilding your trust with food and with yourself. In the beginning, each positive food experience is like a tiny thread. They may be few and far between, and seem insignificant, but eventually the threads form a strand. The strands multiply into strong ropes and finally the ropes become the bridge to a foundation of trust in food and in yourself."

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday.

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