What’s up, ladies? And the occasional gentleman. I wanna be vulnerable here for a second. So let me. Over the holidays, I began to notice how my body has changed over the past year or so. It honestly upset me a lot to notice the shifts in my body and appearance that come with continuing to eat and exercise intuitively. And I’m not writing about this because of any want or need for sympathy, but to express that almost every single woman deals with bad body image and low self-esteem when it comes to appearance, weight, and all other similar things. Also, I want to express that although intuitive eating saved my life in many ways, it’s still a journey with lots of ups and downs. I often have to remind myself that it’s not a tool for weight loss, it’s a tool for health. And sometimes the healthy thing for our bodies to do is to gain weight.
For me, I had amenorrhea for 5 and a half years, I was anemic, and had incredibly low blood pressure because my heart was starting to slow down because I wasn’t giving my body the energy it needed for my internal fucking organs to function properly. I remember a time when my resting heart rate got to 40 bpm, and I was elated. Turns out that just meant I was lowkey dying. So when I say intuitive eating saved my life in a lot of ways—I’m only being slightly dramatic. But not super dramatic. My life was at such a rock bottom place that my only option was to quit dieting. I simply could not do this shit anymore. I was constantly binging and purging, and I was anxious, moody, and depressed. I hated my goddamn life and felt imprisoned by food and my thoughts around it.
And while I’ve been dealing with struggles surrounding body image, I’ll always know dieting is not the answer. I can’t go back because I remember how awful my life was because of it. So much worse than I feel on days when negative thoughts about my body seem to play on repeat. Those years of dieting were actually a living fucking hell. And like I said—I am not doing that shit again. And to serve as a reminder to both myself and everyone else that diets do damage, I want to share some powerful lessons that I’ve since learned after deciding to quit diets for good.
You feel way less stressed about social situations and eating out
Back in college— (my peak dieting days), holidays, game days, going out, getting a meal with a friend, and anything similar had me fucking stressed. Almost paralyzed. I was googling menus and the calories in those foods. I was so fearful of the idea that I’d say fuck it and eat everything in sight (which I did many times). Holidays were a free pass to binge for me. And I know now that this was simply because of the deprivation. I haven’t binged in probably 2 years. But back then, this was a real struggle.
I was horrified by all the what-ifs that came with social eating and fun outings, and events. Trying to calculate the calories in my mixed drinks, shots, and food out with friends had me feeling like a goddamn mathematician. I failed Calc II—but I sure as hell could count all those fucking calories in my head. But back to the point, I was sometimes turning down invites because I didn’t have enough calories left in my day for going out or getting dinner. And looking back, I fucking despise myself for that, but I know now it was my fault. I didn’t know any better. I just wanted to be skinny. And can you fucking blame me? I was called fat about every goddamn day of my life growing up. I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to like myself, but more importantly, I wanted other people to like me. And I thought being thin was how I made that happen. The sick joke, though—it didn’t work. Yeah, no one called me fat anymore, but if anything, I lost friends. I didn’t gain a single solid relationship because of my 80-pound weight loss. And let me fucking emphasize that!
You gain more headspace
When you quit dieting, you gain a lot of things back. One of those being headspace. You have the space in your mind to focus your energy elsewhere. You don’t have to count calories, plan out meals way in advance, or worry about adding everything into some stupid fucking app. You gain mental space and energy to put into the things that actually matter. Like your passions, work, relationships, hobbies, love, school, and literally anything else but the calories in your lunch. And it’s freeing. It’s so goddamn freeing.
You don’t have to do as much math (that’s a good thing)
Similar to the point above, you’re not doing as much mental gymnastics in your head. The calculations still follow you around for a bit after you ditch dieting. You can’t really make yourself forget how many calories are in certain foods and portions that you’ve memorized. But soon you stop purposefully adding. Or when your mind does go there, it carries less weight. You don’t feel the need to count calories all the time, at each meal. It’s no longer a ritual. You can’t sit down and simply eat without taking out your phone to track everything. It’s a weight off your shoulders. And for me personally, I was about fucking sick of that shit. I don’t fucking like math. I was done being a human calculator. Miss me with that.
Diets backfire
Once I stopped dieting, I learned that diets are actually set up to fail, and women just end up blaming themselves for something that goes against the innate physiology and biology of the way a human body functions. Food obsession and binging is a common road most dieters come across. And if it’s so fucking common, maybe, just maybe, it’s a sign that dieting is not good for our bodies. But let me tell you why this is exactly. Why diets backfire and lead to these obsessive thoughts around food and insufferable desires to binge on everything in sight.
People become obsessed with food and start bingeing after dieting because restriction triggers powerful biological and psychological survival responses. When the body doesn’t get enough energy or when certain foods are repeatedly off-limits, the brain interprets this as a threat. Hunger hormones increase, fullness signals weaken, and the brain becomes hyper-focused on food as a way to ensure survival. At the same time, labeling foods as “forbidden” makes them more mentally compelling, so thoughts about eating intensify. When a diet rule is eventually broken, the brain often responds with urgency—pushing the person to eat as much as possible before restriction returns.
Dieting also disrupts a person’s natural ability to sense hunger and fullness. Over time, eating becomes driven by external rules rather than internal cues, which can make food feel chaotic once those rules collapse. The emotional side of dieting adds another layer: restriction often creates stress, anxiety, and shame, and bingeing temporarily soothes those feelings. Unfortunately, the guilt that follows a binge frequently leads to renewed restriction, reinforcing the cycle. From a physiological standpoint, bingeing is often the body’s attempt to restore energy and protect against future deprivation, not a lack of control. In this way, food obsession and bingeing are not failures of willpower but predictable responses to dieting itself.
I was made for more
When I was dieting, restricting, and obsessively counting every calorie, my goal was to be as small as possible. That’s all I thought about, that’s all I cared about. Most of my energy went into planning my meals, working out, planning my workouts, weighing myself, measuring myself, and worrying about my body. It was more important than school. It was more important than my relationships. It was more important than everything. Being skinny. And writing this out is exceptionally vulnerable, because trust me—I can hear now how fucking pathetic that is. And not everyone will get it or understand it, but I know so many others who have or still do struggle with these obsessions. The culture we were raised in and still live in praises and rewards beauty, thinness, and upholds certain bodies as being ideal. Pretty privilege is certainly a thing. But since I quit dieting, while I still have moments, days, or even weeks that I don’t like the way I look, I know and understand the purpose of my life isn’t to be gorgeous and aesthetically pleasing. And it’s incredibly defeating and infuriating that diet culture ensures women waste so many years of their lives believing this. Women are so much more. Our purpose goes beyond our bodies and our looks. We have hearts, minds, aspirations, passions, and goals, just as any man in this world would. Women have so much more value to their lives than looking a certain way. And so, our lives should be dedicated to much more than just the pursuit of thinness. Block out the bullshit, the outside noise, and go do and eat whatever the fuck you want. We have bigger and more meaningful shit to think about.
Being thin didn’t cause me to love myself any more or less, and I didn’t feel more confident or worthy of love in a thinner body
This one was a tough pill to swallow. And it was incredibly defeating once I came to this realization. Because what do you mean I just wasted 4 years of my life trying to shrink myself in pursuit of love and approval just to come out on the other side and find—there wasn’t any. Not from myself, at least. And as far as approval from others—I got so many comments about “being skinny now” and “looking great” and all that bullshit. But honestly, a compliment or two from family, friends, or strangers doesn’t mean shit when you’re actively depressed, and your life is a living fucking hell controlled by food.
And for me, I could never be thin enough. Once I hit a certain goal weight, I just wanted to lose more and more and more. And when I couldn’t lose any more weight, I blamed myself. Even at my skinniest, most sickly looking self, all I saw in the mirror was a fat, stupid bitch. Yes, that is so harsh. I hate that I even said that, but that’s the way a sick mind works. I wasn’t healthy. Despite all the congratulatory comments about “looking so healthy”, I was as far from that shit as you could get. I wasn’t more confident; I didn’t feel worthy of love or self-respect, which I thought being thin would finally allow me to do. But I learned that you cannot hate yourself into a body you love. If you don’t feel confident or okay with yourself now, unfortunately, a thinner body may not be the solution. It only took me 4 fucking years to realize that.
Dieting came at a cost- financially, mentally, emotionally, and physically
Once I finally quit dieting, I was able to realize how much it truly cost me. I was starting to acknowledge all the ways my life was starting to be different. I didn’t have to purchase all these ridiculous (and definitely not FDA-approved) diet pills or multivitamins. No more weight loss shakes or nasty ass protein desserts from Quest. The mental turmoil slowly started to dissipate. I was beginning to feel things as a normal human being. I stopped using food as a band-aid and faced my problems head-on. I was beginning to get my energy back. I didn’t make myself work out twice a day and wake up at 5 am to run. And slowly but surely, I’m beginning to feel like a normal fucking human being again. For example, I’ve always been really fucking funny—but I was definitely less funny during my dieting years. Comedy takes wit and intellect after all. And my brain was preserving energy. Diet Coke, grilled chicken, and Quest Bars aren’t enough to support our best lives or our best traits. So keep that in mind. We can only be our best selves when we eat enough to support our bodies’ energy needs. And the human brain alone uses about 300–500 calories per day. And of course, our other organs, muscles, tissues, and everything else use so much more. So please eat.
I actually can eat and do whatever the fuck I want
Once you realize this, life feels lighter. It feels better. There’s no judgment around food. While it took me years to get to this place, I can now say with confidence that I do not attach morality to food. No certain kind of food is any better than the other. I don’t see broccoli as being a better choice to eat than a piece of red velvet cake. In my mind, the only right choice is whatever I’m craving. Whatever the fuck I want to eat, whatever I feel my body needs at any given moment—that’s the best thing to eat. Calories don’t matter. Micronutrients—who gives a fuck. It’s about me. And this translates over to life in general. Just as I can eat whatever the hell I want, I can do whatever the hell I want. No roadblocks, no bullshit, no misguidance. Ultimately, no one else’s opinion really matters because you’re the only one living in your shoes. So trust your gut.
Health isn’t visible
I saw a clip of a Billie Eilish interview the other day. She was talking about her own health journey and how there was a period of time where she lost a lot of weight due to following a strict nutrition and exercise routine/program. She mentions that she felt good physically, that she felt strong. And of course, she looked good. She talked about how when she got back from tour, she got so many compliments-just over and over, such as “you’re glowing, Billie”, “you look so happy, you look so good”, “Billie, you look great, you must be so happy.” She talks about the irony of the situation because she loved the compliments, but was the unhappiest and most depressed she’s ever felt. She said, “I was not at all happy, but I was definitely skinny”. And let me tell you, I felt that shit in my core.
In Billie Eilish’s song SKINNY, she writes:
“People say I look happy
Just because I got skinny
But the old me is still me and maybe the real me
And I think she’s pretty”.
These lyrics make me so emotional that I could throw up. But moving on.
After deciding to never diet again, I came to learn that health isn’t something you can see or decide about a person just by looking at them. While people thought I was “so healthy” because I was only eating salad and fruit and looked only like a shell of my old self, I was the furthest thing you could imagine from healthy. I was incredibly unwell both emotionally and mentally, of course, but even physically. My vitamin D levels were low, my iron was low, like I mentioned, I had amenorrhea for over 5 years, and I was constantly light-headed, agitated, cold, and dizzy. I binged and purged all the time. Does anything about this sound healthy to you?
Your body finds its set point
My biggest fear in deciding to give up the dieting bullshit was that I’d become the fat girl again. I just didn’t want that to happen. And understandably, I was never treated the best in a bigger body, so I know the pain that comes with that. But I’ve come to learn, when you listen to your body in regards to movement, rest, and food, your body just finds a weight it’s comfortable at and doesn’t really stray too far from that without any drastic changes. People who diet frequently are used to their weight cycling. When we gain and lose the same 20, 50, or 100 pounds over and over again, this is not good for our bodies. And this is what dieting does to our bodies. Yo-yo diets cause yo-yo weight fluctuations. Periods of severe restriction, and then our bodies try to play catch-up, and overcompensate by overeating.
When you stop dieting, your body is finally able to return to its natural regulatory state instead of operating in survival mode. Dieting signals scarcity to the body, which triggers powerful biological defenses such as increased hunger, reduced metabolism, heightened food focus, and a greater drive to store fat for protection. These responses are not failures of willpower but normal survival mechanisms. Once the restriction ends and food becomes consistently available, the body no longer needs to defend itself. Hormones that regulate hunger, fullness, and energy balance begin to normalize, metabolism stabilizes, and stress levels decrease. During this recovery period, weight may change as the body repairs itself and replenishes depleted energy stores, but this phase is temporary. The body does not seek endless weight gain; it seeks safety, efficiency, and balance. Over time, as trust in regular nourishment is restored, appetite becomes more predictable, cravings lessen, and eating self-regulates without conscious control. Weight naturally settles into a stable range—known as a set point—where physical health, energy, and mental well-being are optimized. Without the cycle of restriction and compensation, there is no trigger for rebound eating or renewed dieting, which is why true weight stability can only occur when dieting stops entirely.
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Thanks to everyone who bothered to read this. I hope you learned something valuable or, at the very least, enjoyed hearing my thoughts. Also, if you’re interested in more wellness or nutrition-related posts, check out my posts “What are the Dimensions of Wellness” and “Fuel Your Body Right: The Ultimate Guide to Nutrition“.