I’d like to start off with saying that I don’t believe in dieting.
However, my sister persuaded me into doing some sort of cleanse/diet for the month of September. She said it was sort of way to give our bodies a break after indulging too much all summer.
She had done a certain program before and conned me into joining her for this round.
I’m always down with supporting my sister and eating healthily, so I decided to go along with it. The program is an intense 30-day dietary detox that requires you to focus on whole, minimally-processed, easy-to-digest foods.
You can’t have sugar, alcohol, grains, beans, soy, dairy, processed snack foods, or additives. At first glance, I thought, this sounds tough. And it was. But after following the rules and getting through the month, I have some thoughts.
First of all, I regret doing it. It was way too restrictive and caused me stress grocery shopping and meal planning. I had to do two versions of dinner almost every night so my kids would actually eat something.
But the biggest reason that I regret it is because my three young daughters were watching me do it. They saw me eat different things, long for other things and I was probably a little bit grumpy. My eight-year-old kept asking me why I was on a diet. I tried to be careful with my words but kids notice everything.
I grew up in a culture that told me nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. I worked at a grocery store in my early teens and read all the magazines that compared celebrity bodies and outlined cellulite and mocked women who didn’t bounce back quickly after having a baby.
Skinny was beautiful. The models in the early 2000s were rail thin. Everywhere you looked, the message was the same, you have to lose weight to be pretty.
I think society is slowly moving away from that. There are some Instagram influencers and content creators now who are body-positive.
Everybody is different and every body is beautiful. I love that my children can grow up in a world where it may more easily be accepted to have different body shapes. Of course, there will always be bullies and there will always be trends. But having to morph into a shape that you likely can’t is out. Confidence is the new current.
Even if everyone ate the exact same thing and exercised the exact same amount, everyone would still look different.
I am all for striving to be more healthy but healthy isn’t eliminating a large chunk of the food groups.
Healthy is different for everyone. Mental health is also important. So is enjoying life. Out with the old diets, and in with a new personal outlook on health and beauty.
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@MariscaDekkema
marisca.bakker@interior-news.com
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