Hello, and welcome to 2022!
(...or just another day, since time is a construct...)
The start of a new year is often when we're bombarded with a bunch of diet-y marketing, telling us that the rules of the socially constructed calendar say that "the new year is the start of a new you."
So, I wanted my first blog post of 2022 to serve as a reminder that if we're going to give up anything for the new year, let it be: restrictions, calorie-counting, weigh-ins, before-and-after pictures, meal replacement shakes, and any capitalist marketing designed to take your money but not actually improve your health.
Sound like a plan?
Great!
So let's talk about some of this stuff, and why it doesn't actually serve your needs or nourish your body. (Warning: this is a lengthy one, so feel free to take your time with it!)
First: Dieting.
To me, diet culture encompasses most of what I described above. When we restrict, count calories, and focus on the number of pounds our bodies hold, we are completely disconnected from the bodies we're trying so desperately to nourish.
There is a more intuitive, individualized way to embody health, and I'm telling you, it doesn't involve dieting or anything under that umbrella.
Right now, there is an onslaught of things like "accountability groups" where people report what they eat in a day, post pictures of their bodies, and do weigh-ins.
Honestly, this makes my heart so, so sad.
From my own lengthy experience of doing shit like this in the past, I deeply feel the anxiety and fear involved in these sorts of things that are posed as "health and wellness." The fatphobia, food fears, and stress involved in reporting on every minute detail....it's not wellness, y'all. Not at all.
And it's not going to lead to health. Not in the short-term or in the long-term.
Does it matter what we put into our bodies? Of course. And you know what else can greatly impact the health of our bodies? Stress. Dieting is fucking stressful, and it also doesn't allow us the gift of connecting with our foods and our bodies in deeply meaningful ways.
There are other ways. There are other paths that aren't dieting, paths that are much more nourishing and healthful.
Second: Superfoods.
You've probably heard the term thrown around a lot, especially in the last 10-20 years. Green tea, acai, goji berries, maca, moringa, quinoa, cacao, various brands of green powders...the list goes on, and the food in focus changes so often it might feel hard to keep it all straight.
I'm here to tell you that "superfood" is a marketing term.
That's it.
It's a way to convince us that this one product will fix us, or that we'll die an earlier death without it. And, often, it involves the capitalist, extractive exploitation of foods that are sacred and essential to harvests of certain populations, making prices go up and those Indigenous populations suddenly having less access to their own vital foods.
If you've wondered how important these "superfoods" are, remember that all foods from the earth have value, and it's really about the diversity of plant life, in their most natural forms as possible, that we give to our bodies that matters.
The ways in which citrus, berries, greens, grains, beans, root vegetables, and more all offer different things, and often work in tandem to ensure proper absorption of those things, is really the most super that foods can be, in my opinion. And while these foods aren't accessible for everyone (hello to the harmful colonialist food systems, we see you and we reject you), they do tend to be more accessible than some of the wellness-trends-of-the-week.
So, don't worry too much about shelling out your next paycheck for a bag of acai powder. Just focus on the basics, listen to your body, and enjoy diversity in your foods (as much as what is possible and practical for you).
One thing to note about these so-called superfoods: My dislike of fancy "wellness" trends doesn't mean there aren't some really great things about these foods. Personally, I enjoy goji berries almost every day, because they're one of the few plant foods that really richly nourishes blood (beets also do, but I'm not a huge fan). And I enjoy a daily cup of cacao, because it's super rich in a ton of things that my body needs, including magnesium, iron, protein, fiber. And I love adding various mushroom powders to my morning smoothies! But would I fall apart without them? Probably not. Does my particular makeup benefit from these foods? Yup, and I can definitely feel it.
I can also feel it when I've gone a couple days without greens, or when I've had too many days in a row of the exact same foods.
Marketing is great at telling us we need this one thing to survive, but the reality is way more nuanced than that.
So enjoy some of the wellness trends if you want, and also don't stress if they're not accessible or interesting to you. (And always check the sourcing of the ingredients to make sure they were fairly harvested.)
Third: Meal Replacement Shakes
This has honestly become one of my biggest pet peeves recently.
And I know this is technically a part of diet culture, but it's popped up enough recently that I felt it warranted its own section.
Now, I grew up in the Slim-Fast era. I get the pull, I get the confusion, I get the marketing.
But I'm here to tell you that meal replacement shakes are not healthy, even when they're marketed as "healthy."
Most of these powders and supplements are not actual food, which is what our bodies really need. And a lot of the ingredients contained in these shakes aren't really great to be putting into our bodies on a regular basis.
And I get pretty fired up seeing people slap "wellness" and "nutritious" and "healthy" on things that are steeped in diet culture focused on weight loss at the cost of embodied health.
(I mean, it literally says in the name that its purpose is to replace a meal—why are we replacing meals with a powder and calling it nourishing??)
These shakes and supplements are marketed as another quick fix that ultimately will still leave you undernourished and disconnected from your body (and with an emptier bank account).
So, if one of these shakes just plain ol' sounds good and you want to have one, go for it! But if it feels like it's the thing to finally have you feeling healthier, go ahead and pass it on by.
Something that a lot of these things we're hearing about so much lately have in common is that they claim to have the "answer."
Just do this diet. Just take this supplement. Just add this food.
But "health" is such a complex, individualized, system-based thing that it's impossible to prescribe the same thing to every person. And especially when it's just a single thing that brands want us to think will "fix" us.
(Even as your coach, I could never claim to have the "answer" or recommend the same thing to every client. You are a beautifully complex beam of magic, and I'm not the expert of you! I'm a guide, not an authority.)
This year, instead of restriction, let's embrace expansion. Instead of cringe-worthy marketing that says we're all the same, let's celebrate nuance. Let's welcome in reconnecting with our bodies, listening to the messages they send to us, and refuse to consent to anything that hinders the sacred relationship we get to have with these earth bodies we reside in.
And if you're ready to quiet all the noise out there, get really clued into what your body is communicating with you, and go on an exploratory journey of nourishing yourself in the ways you truly need...let's chat. I'd love to be your partner in that work.