Monday's musings - Why I'll never diet again

Ever since I was a little girl I've felt too big for the space I inhabit. Being tall and big-boned has meant that even when I wasn't overweight, I felt like I was.

I was about six years' old when I overheard someone at school saying I had fat cheeks. I was so embarrassed, I started sucking my cheeks in like a goldfish. Looking back at photos, I didn't have fat cheeks. Just a square-shaped jaw, that no amount of sucking in was going to change.

You can imagine the insecurities my size caused me during my hormonal teenage years. I didn't feel graceful or feminine - just big.

When I was 18 a friend of mine joined Weight Watchers and quickly lost heaps of weight. This was the solution I had been looking for (or so I thought). I got myself a Weight Watchers Points Guide and started scrupulously recording everything I ate. I was horrified to discover I was often 10 points over what I "should" have been eating, so I started cutting out things. The first to go was butter. No longer did I spread my morning toast with butter and Marmite. Now it was just Marmite. Avocado was also a no-no - just too Points heavy.

I also started drinking diet lemonade and chewing sugar-free gum to try and satisfy my sweet tooth. I cringe now to think of all that aspartame going into my system. It sort of worked. I lost some weight, but I never felt completely happy with how I looked.

And then a boy took my fancy. A boy who was reputed to like petite girls. And so I began doing Weight Watchers full force. For three months I cut out most of the fat and all of the sugar from my diet. My Points tally had never looked so good. The weight was dropping off me and I felt like I finally had some control over how I looked.

But then I started fainting. One minute I would be walking around, and the next I would be passed out on the ground. My body literally could not support itself on a low-fat diet. Although I didn't connect the dots back then.

The boy I liked started dating someone else, and so my biggest motivation for (what I now consider) starving myself was gone. I went back to eating what I wanted and the weight crept back on.

I thought I was a failure.

Over the following ten years I dabbled in various prescriptive and restrictive diets. Weight Watchers again. Sure Slim. Jenny Craig. Every day I spent on these diets I felt like I was running a marathon. Just trying to get through to the end of the day without cracking. After dinner, when all my food allocation had been used up, I would try to distract myself or go to bed early so I wouldn't accidentally eat something and ruin my diet.

These diets all worked for a little while, but eventually my control would slip and I would put any weight I had lost back on, plus more. My metabolism was well and truly out of whack by now.

When I wasn't on a diet, I would binge eat chocolate, and then try to make up for it by eating other low-fat products and drinking water. This way of eating wasn't good for me either, as my ever expanding waist-line has testified.

So you see, when I read In Defense of Food and Nourishing Traditions and realised that I had been totally hoodwinked about what a healthy diet actually is, I wasn't upset; I was relieved.

Finally I had found (in a totally obscure place that hardly anyone I know has heard of) a real life solution to the 'what should I eat?' question that has plagued me all of my adult life. Real fat is good. Real foods are good. Refined sugar and flour are not so good. Chemical food-like substances are definitely bad.

I've learned that hunger is a valuable tool, telling me, "Hey, you haven't feed me what I need yet." Tricking my body with empty foods so I get the satisfaction of eating without the calories doesn't work. It will never work.

Where does that leave me now?

Well, I'm the biggest I've ever been, apart from when I was pregnant. But I have a true, bubbling-up-inside-of-me joy at the prospect of learning about and eating real food. Food that is nutrient-dense and satisfying because it has been prepared in a way that my body can absorb its goodness, eg. sourdough bread.

I'm excited about what the future of food holds for me. I've been freed from that guilty, ever-present feeling that "I should go on a diet". In fact, I think dieting has done me terrible harm over the years and I refuse to ever go on one again. I think it would be better to stay the weight I am than to lose weight and then put it back on again.

I do hope that through my focus on eating real, whole foods, I will ever so slowly lose weight. But that is not the goal. Health and life are my goals. (These goals are made easier by the fact I'm married to a man who loves me just as I am, whatever size that may be.)

I hope you'll journey with me as I discover what good food really is.