Mr. Wonderful and Luck

Every kid’s soccer game has that sideline parent. My favorite at my son’s games is a dad I like to call Mr. Wonderful. He got that name because every time the boys score a goal or have a great play on the field, he shouts, “that was wonderful, WONDERFUL!” Don’t get me wrong, I like this guy. Who doesn’t like a parent who adds positivity to the game and cheers for your kid with loud wonderfuls?

This past weekend I happened to be next to be near Mr. Wonderful. I learned that not only does he have a phrase for the great plays, he also has one for the not so great plays. 

Ball gets passed to the other team by one of our players? “Unlucky!” shouts Mr. Wonderful. 

Ball brushes one of our player’s arms and a hand ball is called? “Unlucky” cries Mr. Wonderful. 

Shot on goal and the ball goes off the post. “Unlucky” sighs Mr. Wonderful. 

At first, I thought, what a nice way to reframe a “bad” play. But time after time, play after bad play, “unlucky” started to feel a little “off” because the reality was, it wasn’t always about luck. Sometimes it was simply a bad pass, a mistake, or bad judgement because one of our players wasn’t paying attention. 

This made me think about all the times I went back to dieting in the name of “health”. I was like Mr. Wonderful thinking that I was just unlucky that a particular food regime or plan didn’t work for me. 

If I was feeling lousy and hungry all the time, I’d think to myself, of course I’m the unlucky one who didn’t have success and then search for the next expert's latest and greatest formula in order to become healthier (aka thinner). 

I didn’t really become truly healthier until years later when I did a lot of unlearning about food, bodies and diets and learned that 95- 98% of diets don’t work. Dieting, or the endless loop, has nothing to do with luck and most people who engage in dieting are going to feel “unlucky” because of the extremely high failure rate. 

Diet culture teaches us that we’re the failure and not the diet through the popular lie that with enough willpower, we can be any size we want! It’s one of the most harmful messages out there that we’ve internalized from a young age. 

What if you were to believe instead that you aren’t one of the unlucky ones if a particular diet you try doesn’t work. You’re normal. You actually don’t need more willpower for the next diet, you need more willpower to stop dieting. That initial dopamine hit early dieters get isn’t worth diet’s long term physical, psychological and emotional stress.  There’s no magic bullet out there. There’s no lucky dice to roll. 

Maybe I’ve convinced you to stop rolling the diet dice, but you’re still sitting with a body that you want to change. I don’t expect you to pretend that you’re suddenly perfect and love yourself. Remember, you’re normal and just like everyone else, you have good days and bad body image days and you’re perfectly imperfect.

When you have bad body image days, try flipping your narrative. If you've felt unlucky about your body, write down all the non body size related reasons you do feel lucky like my lungs constantly bring in fresh air for me to breath and my heart pumps blood without me actively making this happen. Measure your luck in your relationships and your accomplishments, too. 

And if luck brings you to a soccer field in the Northeast on a Sunday morning, you can bet that Mr. Wonderful and I would find something about you that was worthy of shouting, “You’re wonderful, WONDERFUL!”  

xoxo,