The "Diet Culture Deadline"

You have a trip coming up or maybe some special event and immediately, your brain is like "time to get yourself ready!!" (aka shrink...)

Maybe you believe it and you find some fad diet, you restrict, you prep hard or maybe you don't, yet you still spend the whole time in your head once you're there. 

What if shrinking yourself was never the point? 

In this episode we are going to chat about three things that keep us mentally absent from the moments that actually matter: the diet culture deadline, the outside pressure that convinced us we need to fix ourselves before we're allowed to enjoy something, and the habit of self-objectification that has us operating as bodies first, humans second...even when we're supposed to be relaxing on a beach.

This one's for every woman who has ever sucked in her stomach getting out of the pool, waited for the "right moment" to get in the water, or spent the whole vacation wishing she'd started that program six weeks ago.

It is time to get out of your head and into your life. 

Life After a Tummy Tuck - Part 1 

(It is a 5 part blog series but, as promised, here is the link to part 1)

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hey, welcome back to Open Book with Ash. I'm your host, Ashley Molitor, and today we are just diving into this second episode with something that is near and dear to my heart. It keeps coming up with my clients. I just recently had this conversation with multiple friends, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that it didn't happen to me recently as well. Not before one vacation, but two. So since we're in summer and vacation season, I think this topic is super important, especially for us millennials who grew up in like diet culture era. Like it was all around us. Our moms were dieting, there were magazines, commercials, all of the things, right? I mean, it still is, and that's part of what we're gonna talk about. But sometimes we don't realize how much it's deeply ingrained in us. Uh, and it's kind of like we learned it through osmosis. Like we're like, uh-huh, where'd that come from? It just kind of like snuck in when you weren't looking. All right. So we're gonna talk about three things, okay? And I've got notes so I can keep myself online and in order. Otherwise, if you know me personally, you know I will go off on a tangent. We'll be here all day. So the first thing, I don't have all day, and I don't think you do either, okay? The first thing that I'm gonna talk about is the diet culture deadline. And that is when your brain goes into I gotta fix myself before some sort of occasion, right? It could be a trip, it could be a wedding, it could just be summer coming up, and you know that you're gonna have to put on a swimsuit, okay? And then the second thing is outside pressure, outside voices, outside noise. I'm gonna use those words interchangeably. Um, and I'm definitely gonna dive into all of that on another podcast episode because it's so important to kind of learn how pressures from outside of us impact how we show up and dictate certain decisions that we make in our lives. But, anyways, that's not the point here. For this one, think about well, it is, but in specific terms to diet culture, right? Think about this one as societal norms that are pushed on us as women through diet culture, or things you see on social media, or maybe it's comments from parents or grandparents or a teacher or a coach when you were growing up. And then the last thing we'll talk about is this habit that we have as women to constantly be monitoring our bodies. So those three things combined lead to a brain that is too busy monitoring itself to actually even be anywhere. So whether it's before the occasion, you're busy getting ready, right? Or it's during the occasion and you're in your head thinking about how you look while you're there, it doesn't matter. It just leads to a distracted brain. And my brain tried to distract me before I think it was our spring, yeah, it was our spring break trip. And my husband and I went on an anniversary trip shortly after, and both times before, like fucking clockwork. I'm not even kidding you guys. It's like comical at this point because I just know what's gonna happen. My brain was like, hey, Ash, it's me. I'm here to remind you that you have a trip coming up, and um, you should probably get your shit together before you go on vacation, okay? Because like people are gonna see you in a swimsuit, you have dresses you're gonna be wearing, then you're gonna be taking pictures, and everybody on the internet's gonna see your pictures. So, really, like, make sure you dial it in, okay, hon. And this is not new. Like I said, it's happened before, and there are many times before that I believed it, but now I am on to the bullshit, okay? And maybe you've noticed this for yourself before a season where you know more of you is going to be seen, or before a trip or an event, whatever it is, but we live in a world that focuses heavily on how women should look. And so those thoughts or they're gonna pop in, they're never gonna just disappear, but it's what we learn to do with them that matters. When I hear those thoughts creeping in for myself, I just remind myself at this point, right? Like, this is the part, Ashley, this is the part where your brain tries to convince you that vacation is more about how you look than all the experiences and memories you're about to create, right? Like, just because you're thinking it doesn't make it true. So, ladies, if you get this way before some sort of vacation, it's not your fault. It's years of being told that your appearance is the most important thing about you. It's years of being sold this idea that you have to get yourself ready for something, whether it's, you know, summer, vacation, a wedding. But this is what I want to remind you. And if you don't quite believe it yourself, that's fine. You can always feel free to borrow any belief that I have and just try it on and be like, well, Ashley believes it for me. Okay. Permission granted. There is no version of your body that isn't worthy as it is. I'm gonna repeat that one more time. There is no version of your body that isn't worthy as it is. Okay. So hold on to that. You can just be like, Ashley tells me that there's no, there's no version of my body that isn't worthy as it is. Yes, I approve. You're probably still going, great, Ashley. That's cool. But those thoughts are still gonna show up. Like they've been showing up for years. I now that you're pointing it out to me, I totally know what you're talking about. I recognize it, and it happens to me. So what do you do when it does? Well, one, there's a difference between thinking a thought and believing it, like you don't have to own it. Okay. So when you have whatever your flavor of thought is before a trip, like, oh, I need to get my shit together, oh, I need to drop a couple pounds. Stop and ask yourself, where did that come from? I remember doing this for my own wedding, you guys. I don't know. I had some story in my head that women lose weight before a wedding. And I'm sure some of you are like nodding your heads right now because I feel like we've all done this. I hired the personal trainer, I did the diet that I was gagging down. There was lots of tilapia and brown rice and broccoli. Thinking about it actually makes me kind of sick to my stomach. No, I mean, you could say I dieted so hard that my seamstress told me, like, you have to stop losing weight, or we're not gonna be able to take your dress in anymore. But here's the thing, you guys. I wasn't born with that story. Neither were you. Like, it wasn't something that was like implanted into our brain upon birth, right? We weren't born thinking we would need to lose weight for our wedding someday. It's something that we were quietly, and yes, I said quietly, and no, this is not AI, this is my fucking voice. So calm down.

unknown 6:45

Sorry.

Speaker 6:46

I'm seeing so many people talk about the word quietly. I had to. Okay. It's something that was literally, quietly, subconsciously, whatever, however you want to say it, pushed to us through diet culture, through outside noise. This idea that your body's gonna be on display. It's gonna be in a dress. Do you want to look your best? You're gonna have all these pictures, you're gonna have this album for life, you're spending so much money on a photographer. And then the days leading up to that moment and the moment itself almost become more about how you look, how you fit into your dress than the wedding itself, which is crazy to think about because in the end, for me personally, I know none of the work I did, anything I put in, it didn't even stick. So think about it. Another thing to just sit on and question when was the last time you spent weeks leading up to something in your head, counting, weighing, whatever you do, and it didn't actually backfire on you? Like, was there a time you didn't gain the weight back? And did you actually end up on the trip or at the event or whatever it was, 100% carefree about your body? Living your best life. And even if you did lose the weight, these are other things to consider. What did you think you were going to get from it? Most women would tell me more confidence, right? I want more confidence to go on vacation. But here's what I see with the women I work with, with my friends too, and myself, like past versions of myself. We hit this ideal goal, right? We get there, we're still not happy. The target just keeps moving. And I also know women who are maybe in the boat where they fit whatever society has currently decided is the quote unquote ideal body, right? And they're still unhappy. Which is exactly why I tell people it is never about the external fix. Make if you want to set a goal, make it something like I just want to be able to run easier on the beach with my kids. Or this mom's he'll relate to this. I just want to be able to carry the 5 million freaking sand toys down to the beach while my kids are probably whining at my side. It's hot as hell outside. And I just don't want to feel like I'm gonna pass out doing all that, right? I want to have the endurance to do those things. Not some never-ending goal that's always out of reach. And I want to also just throw this in here. None of this is meant for you to use against yourself. None of this is judgment for me about what you choose. It's just to create some awareness so you can see where this I need to fix myself mentality comes from. Okay. And I'll definitely be doing another episode on diets and the impacts of diets. So if that's your thing, come take what you need, leave the rest, or don't listen to it at all. You always get to pick and choose around here. Okay. Choose your own adventure. Anyways, again, told you I have my notes here, so I don't get off track. I totally just got off track. So, what do you do when it shows up? Just gonna remind you one more time. Ask yourself, where did this story come from? That's all you have to do to just create some awareness, create some space from this idea that you have something coming up and you need to fix yourself. Put some space between you and that thought by asking yourself where it comes from, okay? And that's gonna lead us perfectly into the second topic, which is the pressure and where it's coming from. Because I promise you, it's not coming from you. First and foremost, it's coming from diet culture, okay? This is a $135 billion industry. If you don't know, now you do, that loves to sell us fixes for problems that they've already convinced us that we should totally be insecure about, right? There used to be ads for the Thighmaster telling us that our thighs would be a problem, that we should be insecure about our thighs. Yes, I just brought up the Thighmaster. I don't even know what your is that the 80s? I have no idea, you guys. But think about how they specifically find something that we should be insecure about and then tell us that they have a fix for it. Okay. So that is one of the ways that you have this outside noise, this pressure, and you have all of this messaging all around you, right? It's still in magazines, it's on social media, which is at your fingertips in seconds, right? You just open up your phone and there it is in front of you, telling you that you need to do something to change something about your body. And then there's this outside noise piece that is also things like a comment from a family member. And maybe they mean well, but their message actually tells you that something about you isn't right and it needs to be fixed, or you're sitting around with your girlfriends and the conversation all of a sudden becomes, oh my gosh, I have a trip coming up, I have to lose a couple pounds before I have to put on my swimsuit, right? Like we sit around and we have those conversations. Sex in the city, you guys. Like they would just sit around and literally harp about their body and all the things they hated about their body. Like I remember noticing that because I actually just watched this um right before the new year. Like it was the first time I'd ever watched the entire series. And I was like, oh my gosh. And like they're all sitting around the table talking about, oddly enough, I think one of them was talking about how they don't like their thighs. I wonder if they got the thigh master. I kid, I kid. Okay, this idea that we have to fix ourselves before we're allowed to go enjoy something, before we can just exist, has been sold to us. We're not born, and I said this before, but I'm gonna say it again. We are not born into this world with some prefixed part in our brain that's like, okay, well, once we hit, I don't know, insert whatever age your first diet was. You guys, for me, I know it was in high school. Once we hit age 15, that's when we're gonna start thinking about our bodies nonstop. Like you weren't you weren't born with that, but then it happens, okay, and we experience it, we we diet, and then it gets reinforced without anyone even meaning to do it. But you lose the weight and then you get compliments, people comment, people notice. But when you gain weight, have you ever noticed that nobody says anything to you? At least not to your face, right? So without even intentionally doing so, the people around us are just confirming the message that a smaller body is somehow a better body through those compliments, which is why, if you know me, don't compliment on women's body shapes or sizes. I'll tell you I love the outfit you're in, I'll tell you that your hair looks great today, or that I love your laugh, or that you have the best sense of style and you pull things off that I could never pull off. Like I'll tell you like those things, but I'm not going to talk to you about your body shape or size anymore. I used to, but I don't anymore. Again, that wasn't part of this, but I told you tangents are my thing. We live in a world that will always have an opinion about our bodies, right? Diet culture is always going to exist. Like it is an industry that is not going anywhere, it is actually growing. Social media isn't going anywhere right now. And remember, I'm just gonna say this in parentheses you get to curate that shit. Make sure that what you're following makes you feel good and not like you are a constant freaking project, okay? Social media, comments from people in your lives, right? It's all going to be there. And when it is constantly around you, yeah, you're gonna feel like those thoughts are your own. And you're gonna think that something's wrong with you because you're having those thoughts, but there isn't. So what matters really is what you do when they show up. And like I said before, like that's a skill that you can learn, just creating that awareness, creating that pause and reminding yourself, oh, that's not my voice. That actually isn't something I decided for myself. It's something I learned from outside of me. And do I want to still keep it? Do I still want to hang on to that? Because you can choose not to act on it. That's actually an option. I know you probably think I'm crazy right now, but it totally is. Here's the thing I want you to realize with this. No matter which path you choose to take, one, this awareness is going to help you choose that path intentionally. You get to decide what's best for you. Okay. You, I'm not here to tell you what's right or wrong for your body. I'm just here to help you create awareness about where these decisions are coming from. So no matter which path you take, like you can prep for weeks, you can work out harder, you can watch what you eat, you can do everything right leading up to the trip. Or you just live life as is. You can choose one of those paths, right? But maybe you get there and then you're still in your head once you're there. Because this happens too. This is that third piece, right? The the real issue is not always about getting our body to someplace where we think it finally deserves to be seen, where we think we'll be more confident. It's about not letting the outside noise tell us that your body doesn't deserve to be seen. And it's about knowing that you aren't just a body, you're a human, you're living your life. It's about just self-acceptance for who you are in this moment so that you can be out of your head and in whatever it is you're doing. And this is that monitoring piece, right? This is this is when we're in it and we've become so used to self-objectifying, which if you don't know what that is, it's basically when you start to see and treat your body the way an outside observer would. You're judging it, you're evaluating it, you're monitoring it instead of experiencing it from the inside through what it does, feels, and lets you do. Okay. So imagine you are an outside observer of your body. That's what this is about. So somewhere along the way, as women, we have become so used to self-objectification that we've now become bodies first and humans second. And we worry more about how we're going to be perceived than just about being a human on vacation or at a wedding, living our fucking life. So think about it. Like you could be someone who's like, okay, I did the work and I was still in my head. I went on the trip, I was still in my head, or you're someone who's like, there's so much pressure around me to look a certain way that when I get to an event where I know that like I just want to be me and I just want to do my thing without being in my head, but I can't figure out how to do that because the outside noise, the pressure is all around you, you have to be able to turn that off and just be a human on vacation at the event. I think about this too for me personally, because the other day I was at the pool by myself, which I feel like always just kind of makes you a little more aware of you and the people around you. And I stood up and got in the water and can't believe I'm gonna share this, but I am. Um, like I don't like my belly button. So sometimes when I'm in my swimsuit, I get in my head about it. And of course, like this isn't in my notes to share with you guys, so I'm getting off topic and on a tangent. I have a whole blog series on this, but I did have a surgery. It was either 2021 or 2022. I'm forgetting right now. I'll link the series in the show notes. Um, and I'll definitely be doing a whole podcast episode about this, but that's neither here nor there. I didn't necessarily love my belly button post-surger, but then sorry, mom, I'm gonna call you out. My mom made a comment about it, and now it has stuck with me ever since that like other people are looking at it, and other people think the same thing. And so I'm kind of self-conscious about it. And so it's like I get up from my pool chair, and sometimes I'm like, oh, I wonder what people think about my belly button. And I hate belly buttons to begin with, you guys. Like, they're not even something that I don't even like saying the word belly button. It kind of like makes me want to gag a little bit. So, like when you get up from your chair at the pool, what are you thinking? I mean, you're probably not like me and wondering, oh my gosh, I wonder if somebody's looking at my belly button. But are you thinking, like, God, I cannot wait to dip my toes in the water? The water looks beautiful, it's so hot out and it's gonna feel so good. Or are you all up in your head thinking about what someone else might be thinking about you or your body? Or are you just doing what I'm doing and you're self-objectifying? We do those things, right? We may not be worrying what someone else is thinking about our body, but we're thinking about something about the outside of our body instead of just like walking and getting in the water. So if you find yourself all up in your head in these moments where you just want to be present, you just want to enjoy yourself, bring yourself back. Like I'm at the pool for the pool. I'm not here for what anybody thinks about me or my body, or I'm on vacation to enjoy my family or my kids in the ocean. What my body looks like in this moment is the least important thing that's going on. Because you guys, when we're 80, like, do we want to remember all the times we sat on the beach looking around at everybody else having fun, but we're covered up, not participating? Or do we want to remember all the stress leading up to the event, like being up all up in our heads, like, I've got to get ready, gotta get my shit together before vacation. Or do you want to remember the moments, like the people that you spent time with? Because to me, that's the shit that fucking matters, right? I'm gonna get off my soapbox after I say this. I read something in a book recently, and I don't remember the exact quote right now, but it was something about like, you're not going to leave behind a legacy of a smaller body, or the legacy you leave behind won't be having a smaller body. And I haven't really been able to unhear it, although I can't quote it word for word. I haven't been able to unhear it because I don't want that for me. I don't want that for my daughter, and I don't want that for you. So until next time, ladies, get out of your head and get into your life, and I'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.