Weight Concerns

Our team at Dietwise understand the immense pressure to live in a smaller body, fueled by diet culture and weight stigma that surrounds us, often going unnoticed or even normalised. Years of dieting can make you feel stuck in a vicious cycle of restricted or restrained eating, psychological deprivation, sugar cravings, loss of control of eating followed by guilt, shame and self-hatred. We know from research studies that dieting is challenging to sustain and often results in overwhelming and unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviours about food eating and body. Some of these are listed below:

Common unhelpful thoughts and feelings about food, eating and body

• you think you do not deserve to nourish your current body
• your day is consumed with thoughts about food, eating, weight, shape, and exercise
• you believe you won’t be happy until you lose weight
• increased feelings of body hatred
• you think that losing weight is the only way to manage your medical conditions
• you feel you cannot trust your body and dieting makes you feel safe and in control
• you feel frustrated after following a diet to only regain weight or gain even more weight
• you feel overwhelmed and desperate from trying many different diets
• you feel like a failure because you don’t have enough motivation to start a diet or lack the willpower or self-control to stick to a diet
• you are scared that if you eat when hungry you will lose control and not be able to stop
• you feel upset, guilty, or ashamed of your food choices and behaviours
• you feel guilt, shame, and failure after eating, affecting your mood and interactions with people around you
• you feel envious of people who can eat more than you and live in a body you want
• you feel uncomfortable or dissatisfied with your body even when you weighed less
• you feel overwhelmed by the never-ending diets, weight loss products and body transformation programs advertised
• you feel anxious to socialise or decline invitations in fear of ‘breaking’ your diet
• you feel more confused than ever about what, when and how much you should be eating
• you feel torn between wanting to enjoy your favourite foods and not wanting to ‘break’ your diet

Common unhelpful behaviours related to food, eating, body and exercise

• cycling between controlling intake on weekdays to ‘taking your foot off the break’ on weekends
• ignoring hunger signals, both physical and mental
• following set rules regarding food and eating e.g. type, timing, amount, combination
• constantly searching for the next diet to follow e.g. keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, low carb high protein
• restricting your diet further and further- low sugar, no bread, rice or pasta, dairy-free, gluten-free
• dieting has limited what you ‘allow’ yourself to eat and impacts food pleasure and enjoyment
• you are constantly comparing your body and eating to others
• tracking calories and/or macros and steps, or calories burned
• you give yourself permission to eat as a transaction- food must be earned or burned
• avoiding buying certain foods out of fear that you may not be able to stop eating them
• frequently weighing or measuring food or your body using scales or a tape measure or body check e.g. pinching
• your conversations are dominated by diet, weight, exercise, and body talk
• avoiding socialising out of fear of judgement of what you eat and what you look like
• checking food labels to see if they are ‘safe’ to eat
• talking about food or eating behaviour as ‘good’ vs ‘bad’, or ‘on a diet’ vs ‘off a diet’ or clean eating

How our dietitians can help with weight concerns:

• educating you on diet culture weight stigma, weight bias, and the ‘thin ideal’
• understanding the fallout/risks of dieting- physical, nutritional, psychological, social, and emotional
• reframing eating as an act of compassionate self-care and self-kindness rather than a place of deprivation and rigid rules
• discovering how to feed yourself in a way that feels good- physically and mentally
• helping you navigate the mountain of misinformation about nutrition and how your body and metabolism work
• understanding health-promoting behaviours that support health and wellbeing
• re-establishing a normal pattern of eating that honours your unique requirements
• teaching you practical and flexible nutrition strategies to optimise your overall health and well-being
• helping you make connections between what you eat and how you feel- energy levels, mood, concentration, appetite, hunger, fullness, ease of bowel movements, pleasure, satisfaction, and cultural connection
• helping you rediscover the joy of eating and feel good about food again
• exploring deeper complexities around food, eating, weight and body
• building body trust and body acceptance
• learning mindful eating and intuitive eating principles
• screening for disordered eating or an eating disorder if relevant
• helping you understand and advocate for non-diet, weight-neutral approaches to medical care for yourself e.g. diabetes, fertility

Feeding yourself does not have to be stressful. We would love to share your journey to making peace with food and empowering you to nourish your body with confidence.