The Endless Loop

I sat restlessly on the living room floor getting increasingly annoyed. Impatient and frustrated, my hands were sweating as I rolled the dice. I knew I was going to lose. My sons were about to win the game, Sum Swamp.

If you’ve ever played this board game, you know that each player has to enter an area called the endless loop. Once you’re in the loop, you have to roll the EXACT number on the dice that matches the number of squares that will land you on the exit square. If you don’t roll the magic number, you keep going around and around and around the loop.

It’s maddening.

Like many games, there's no skill involved. You just need luck.  

Playing this game made me think of all the time that I wasted on the diet/binge endless loop.

Once you enter the dieting loop, it's VERY hard to exit and you need an enormous amount of skill to continually override your body's hunger. 

Here's how your body becomes a player in the diet/binge game. There’s the promise of the win (weight loss and health) if you follow the rules. The rules come decorated in many forms (Paleo! Vegan! Low carb! No fat! High fat! Gluten free! Sugar free!). The so-called rules work initially and you feel lucky, but at some point, your diet “skills“ stop working. Your dieter’s high has worn off (maybe you've regained some weight along with 95% of dieters) and everyday revolves around tedious calculations as you desperately grasp for control. 

The diet/binge game soon leaves you feeling out of control. You have to continue restricting, denying and disconnecting from yourself. Sooner or later, you binge. You think the binge must be your fault (the diet can't possibly be broken) so you search for and start a new plan. You double down and commit to having more willpower.  You tell yourself, *this* is the one that really works! It’s the last diet I'll ever need! You're back to dieting day 1 and stuck in the ENDLESS LOOP. 

The loop is real. The diet industry rakes in 72 billion dollars a year as people keep going around and around. Virtually no diet works in the long run (95-98% of dieters fail), so the industry knows you have to keep dieting. Cha-Ching. What a great business model. Promise a solution, you fail, you think it's your fault and then you're promised a new solution. 

There are no easy solutions when we live in a fatphobic world. Who doesn’t want what thin privilege has to offer? Better health care, more job opportunities, the ability to shop for clothing in stores, shame and stigma-free interactions with family and doctors, and the (false) promise of love and self worth. So we roll the dice again and again.

The more you roll the diet dice, the poorer your health can become. There’s evidence that dieting is physically (especially yo-yo dieters) and emotionally harmful and evidence that weight related shame and stigma lead to stress related diseases like heart disease.

You can absolutely start another diet or cleanse or “lifestyle change”, but make that choice knowing you’ll end up on that maddening endless loop of restricting your intake, followed by binge eating. 

Start the game knowing you’ll eventually lose.

Don't be tricked into) thinking that if you follow the rules of the game, you’ll win at dieting (and life). Even the 2% of "successful" dieters show signs of physical and emotional duress similar to those with active eating disorders. 

No, you didn't misread the directions. No, there’s not a better diet out there.  

Even though our world favors a thin body. How much of your life are you willing to waste on a system that not only doesn’t work, but also ignores the fact that health is completely possible in a larger body. Real health has nothing to do with a number on the scale or your clothing size.

There’s not any type of diet that’s worth your time, sanity, health, money or energy.

Get off the endless loop of dieting and get back to the real game of life*.  You’ll be able to enjoy the game so much more when you come home to the real you. The you that doesn’t have to diet to win. The you that goes about your days not obsessing about food or your body. The you that can make real and deep connections with people who matter in your life.