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Some people assume that The F*ck It Diet is unnecessarily extreme.

They assume it’s a steady diet of donuts, McDonald’s, and fried ice cream for the rest of our short little lives. That we’re a group of lazy anarchists who are reveling in our newfound food-related health problems, and not taking any personal responsibility for our health, and who refuse to make any attempts at self-improvement.

Or they think: Why can’t we just be balanced? Why can’t we just enjoy cake every so often but mostly try to eat a healthy, moderate diet?

The answer is because: we’ve tried that.

Also, chronic dieting is somewhere on the eating disorder spectrum, so for people who’ve become obsessed with dieting, trying “to be balanced” doesn’t work. It doesn’t heal us. And ironically, it perpetuates feeling totally out of control with food.

There is nothing wrong with true balance, but for many people, “just trying to be balanced” becomes the new diet. Not to mention that after years of restriction and dieting, balance is eating a hell of a lot, for a good chunk of time.

The beautiful thing I found, once I truly allowed myself to eat with total abandon, is that my body actually spoke up. After years of bingeing and restricting and bingeing again, once I stopped judging myself for eating and stopped trying to micromanage my weight, my body actually finally felt fed, and my lifelong food obsession melted away.

Note: I never thought that could happen. I thought I was born a food addict, and would die a food addict.

The F*ck It Diet is the (seemingly) counter-intuitive way to stop feeling insane around food. Allowance paves way for easier, nourishing health choices, and getting in tune with what your body wants and needs. It’s a way to get to a place where you can easily feed yourself a varied diet, without too much overthinking, and get on with your life.

However, I know it feels more complicated for some people. I understand why people still fear certain foods, especially if they don’t feel well, or if certain foods make them feel sick. And some foods really do make people feel sick. I understand this first hand: wanting to heal your obsession with food and dieting, but wondering if you’re actually causing your own pain and misery, and fearing that you need to be avoiding certain foods.

And so here are a couple things I want to remind you about food, weight, dieting, and health that may calm you down.

The biggest issue with dieting is assuming that weight is the cause of our health problems. That’s like blaming coughing for causing your cold. Weight can be symptom of underlying health problems, (and it can also just be… your body). But either way, focusing on weight loss is not your best bet to improve health, not matter what.

Stress from weight stigma has also been shown to cause the health problems that are blamed on the weight itself – including increased mortality.

The other issue with dieting is assuming that you can’t trust your hunger and your appetite, and that the less you eat the better. No. That makes no sense. That is not good for you. That is not supportive of health or a good relationship with food. It’s not supportive of a strong metabolism, or good digestion, or good sleep, or anything really.

The Fuck It Diet is calorie positive. Calories aren’t a problem or the problem. Same with carbs, sugar, fat, and protein. Food is good for us.

So… once you can step out of both of those ways of thinking (demonizing weight and demonizing hunger/food) you can eat however makes you feel good. For people who have food sensitivities or who feel better eating a certain way, you can do whatever feels good and right, as long as you have healed your relationship to food and weight. Does that make sense?

And once you have healed your relationship to food, if a certain food makes you feel terrible, you can re-evaluate your relationship to it. Do you want to eat it if it makes you feel bad? Sometimes that may be yes, and often that may be no.

Health is so much more nuanced than we hope. Really it’s a complicated combination of genetics, immunity, environmental factors (chemicals, pollutants, heavy metals, etc), socio-economic factors, and stress. Motherf*cking stress.

Stress is a major determinant of health. Stress stress stress stress. Stress from your high powered job, but even more: Stress from being or feeling marginalized. Stress from not having enough money and constantly being in survival mode. Stress from being treated poorly. Stress from lingering effects of trauma.

Stress affects your gut, and your immunity, and your overall health.

Now… don’t stress over stress. And don’t blame yourself for stress. A lot of stress is not that easy to just breathe away (even though I do believe in breathing). But understand that it’s all complicated, it’s not your fault, and food is often the least offensive part of our lifestyles.

Under-eating actually causes health problems too: gut problems, hormonal problems, nutrient deficiencies, inflammation, anxiety, etc.

There is also something called a nocebo affect, where your fear over a certain food can actually give you negative symptoms when you eat it.

If health is your goal, healing your relationship to food is still an imperative step towards well-rounded health.

That being said, not all food is great for everyone. And not all food is great. (I don’t actually believe ‘all food is equal’. For instance, for instance… food with pesticides in it aren’t great for us, and worse for some depending on how efficient their body is at processing them out. But… at this point, you can’t avoid pesticides unless you live in an actual bubble. And even attempts at avoiding them requires lots of money to spend on organic food.) All food doesn’t need to be equal in order for you to be allowed to eat what you crave.

It is insane and crazy-making to always try to eat perfect food.

You can eat anything, even if it doesn’t fit into anyone’s definition of healthy. You can just eat and calm down about it. It’s more important to feed yourself than to constantly stress out over if your your food is healthy enough. The body wants to thrive. It wants to be resilient. As I’ve said above… stress over your eating actually perpetuates some of the health problems you may be experiencing, too.

Healing your dysfunctional  relationship with food and weight, will help you eat in a way that supports your health, whatever that looks like.