Resolutions, Diet Culture, and Capitalism

For the last 20 years, I’ve spent every December 31st thinking about how I can become the healthiest, best version of myself. Realistically, I’ve probably been doing this for longer than 20 years, but I think that the last 20 are the years that stand out the most. January 1st is a false promise of a new beginning, a new you, especially for women. Many of us buy new journals, new planners, and a new set of pens to chart out exactly how we are going to become that perfect version of ourselves. Feeling called out? Trust me, you’re not alone. I’ve already penned in most of January in my new planner, but in doing so, I have realized a lot about the things that I learned in 2020 — especially those things involving how I spend money, food that I eat, and who is telling me to do so.

2020 has taught me many things; it taught me a lot about my body, a lot about how I spend money, and a lot about how I spend money to “perfect” my body. These revelations have given me pause and given me a lot to consider as I take inventory of the things that I learned this year and what I want to carry with me into the next year. In 12 months, I have gone from being my smallest to my heaviest to my smallest, and then landing back here, somewhere in the middle. Somewhere between my smallest and my heaviest (AKA two arbitrary numbers that mean absolutely nothing to anyone but me) lies a place where I am eating healthy, not restricting, being kind to myself, and most importantly, am FREE. Or so I thought. Then I realized that those things are available to me anywhere, I just have to let go of the idea that it only exists at a “happy weight”. My happiness is not attached to a number on the scale. The issue with looking for happiness in a jean size or scale number is that I’m attached to an outcome that tells me that happiness is attainable if I do (or buy!) x,y, and z.

The bright side of having the illusory veil of capitalism lifted his year is that I can now see very clearly how these lies are linked to my addiction to dieting, shopping, and always thinking that happiness is one smaller dress size or credit card swipe away. Social media ads have only made this involuntary compulsory power stronger. After quitting Facebook this year, I tried to give up Instagram as well. I failed and only stayed away for six weeks. The day I signed back up, I sent a text to a friend saying that I was working on a handstand. Next thing I know, I’m being sold every product under the sun that promises that I’m only one click away from having my dreams come true. I am an easy target — a woman with a love of self-improvement, a basement full of space to make my fitness dreams come true, AND credit cards. But…what if? What if what makes me stronger is not giving up my power or my credit card number?

Thanks to 2020, I am already feeling stronger in the face of social media consumerism and less inclined to click “buy” or swipe. I’ve made changes this year and been a lot more mindful about the way that I spend money but unpacking my desire to diet or “fix” myself is a new frontier. For the last five years, I’ve loved spending every January (and some other months) doing the Whole30. This is an ultra-popular, very restrictive, life-changing diet. Creators Melissa Hartwig Urban and Dallas Hartwig claim that it is not a diet, but instead a lifestyle change. By now, either you’ve done it yourself or someone in your circle has. For the last five years, the Whole30 has been my favorite way to kick off the new year or get a reset after being “bad” for a few weeks. The Whole30 promises that you will conquer your sugar cravings with a few simple lifestyle changes. Slaying the sugar dragon has been a great metaphor for conquering all of my inner demons and emerging from 30 days as the best version of myself. While it is true that this lifestyle has had huge impacts on my life like no longer needing anything in my coffee (saving myself upwards of 300 calories a day!!), teaching me that I love cooking, and has provided substantial weight loss, glowing skin, stronger nails, etc. The other truth is that restrictive diets cause me to catapult in the opposite direction within six weeks, thus creating the ever-popular effect known as yo-yo dieting or weight loss. Although I continue to cook mostly Whole30 compliant meals at home, I no longer subscribe to this lifestyle as the healthiest, rather choosing to lie somewhere between flexitarianism and intuitive eating, but I was still looking forward to doing a Whole30 this January.

And then it occurred to me that if I do a Whole30, am I not buying into the same diet culture/consumerism pattern that I am trying to break? Food for thought. HA. Pun intended. Speaking of food, one of the things that have absolutely been illuminated to me as this year has progressed is my privilege and what it means to have and have not.

As mentioned, since my first Whole30, I have fallen in love with cooking. This means I love to grocery shop. Enter Covid-19. Now I love to grocery shop from the comfort of my couch. I love having a fridge full of groceries and not having to go to the store to buy anything. It feels frivolous to do this, but I am an essential worker, so I can justify that it is in the best interest of others for me to stay home and let someone else shop for me. This makes shopping for fridge and pantry items very compulsive, expensive, and unnecessary. I’m bored! Let’s grocery shop! Because I travel for work, I have a habit of not using everything that I buy and I have been known to waste a lot of food. A few years ago, we got a Food Saver, which has been a game-changer for my food prep game. I save a lot of food, or rather, my freezer hangs on to it until I decide that it’s not edible and then I throw it away. So I’m not only wasting food, I’m using plastic as well. My fridge and freezer will be completely full and I will still find the need to grocery shop. Is this a byproduct of capitalism or addiction? Does this happen to other people? Or is it a compulsion that lies somewhere within my obsessive, addicted brain that tells me that what I have is not enough?

Last night I took inventory of my freezer and sat down to map out a chart of what it would look like to begin 2021 in a new direction. As much as my body is craving the reset of a Whole30 and in need of slaying my sugar dragon, there is a larger beast in the picture, and that is the dinosaur of capitalistic diet culture. What if I don’t buy anything? What if I eat all the food in my kitchen before I buy more? It’s going to be a challenge, but I thought it would be an excellent challenge for me and also maybe something to write about.

I have learned so much this year. Haven’t you? While it is true that we have been fed many lies this year, we are exiting 2020 armed with a hierarchy of knowledge that I believe is the precipice of revolutionary change.

If people weren’t spending all of their energy and money changing how they look, what else could they do?