Sitting in the Suck: Breaking the Bonds of Diet Mentality
If you’ve ever gone through a grief process, you probably experienced “sitting in the suck”; this process can also be called distress tolerance. This is a normal experience for most when we are working to not fall back into maladaptive patterns and behaviors: maybe it’s resisting the urge to call an ex from a toxic relationship, or resisting the urge to walk into a bar when practicing sobriety, or leaving your wallet at home when overcoming shopping addiction. Navigating and resisting these urges evokes distressing emotions for most, and some may feel like they are in “no man’s land” not sure where to turn next. This can also be true for those stepping into Intuitive Eating and practicing the non-diet approach.
When practicing the non-diet approach, many people fear an anticipation of weight gain. How can one trust the non-diet approach if weight loss is not a guaranteed outcome? How can we even fathom apathy towards weight when the whole focus is health? Loads of research shares the positive health outcomes associated with the non-diet approach, yet we struggle to let go of the disputable assumptions that skinny = healthy and fat = unhealthy. Therein lies the tension: we’ve left the futile world of dieting behind and are inching our way forward to a healed relationship with food; listening to our bodies' innate ability to nourish. This very well may be our “no man’s land.” This tension is where we practice “sitting in the suck.”
When practicing Intuitive Eating and the non-diet approach, a Dietitian or Therapist may ask you to remove use of the scale. The scale may serve as the false sense of safety, checks and balances, or measure of “success.” But we must work to give the permission back over to the body to do what it needs to do, and re-establish a sense of body trust. Years of dieting or compensatory eating have taught your body you are not safe. When we choose to nourish consistently with a wide variety of foods (including our fun foods!) we are showing the body that we will not again intentionally place it in a state of deprivation. Your body does a lot of cool work when healing from years of dieting but it needs some room in order to do so - weight may fluctuate while your body is settling into this new and exciting normal.
Once your body is given the freedom and ability to be nourished consistently, it will be able to reach a weight where your body feels most biologically safe and comfortable - this can be referred to as set-point theory. The tension for folks is we don’t know where that weight is (again your body is leading the course) - it could be higher, lower, or the same weight. This is where we might practice “dropping the rope” over rigid weight control and surrendering to the non-diet approach, not to “give up” on ourselves, but to let go of the one process that consistently backfires: diets. One of the number one predictors of future weight gain is by attempting weight loss. Empowered with research, we can choose to break the cycle of dieting (restrictive or controlled eating) associated with rebound weight gain. This can be similar to breaking the restrict-binge cycle - choosing to break the perpetual cycle of dieting, rebound eating/weight gain, and subsequent dieting associated with a higher set-point weight.
And we practice distress tolerance by “sitting in the suck.” We don’t know how our body will respond during the healing cycle from dieting and weight loss, but we actively work to honor our body’s basic biology, genetics, and cultural/social/environmental influences. We can become more attuned to our emotions during this time and work to navigate their root causes. One may find the emotion too intense, and be able to utilize a distraction tool to cope. Or one may be able to follow the emotion to its root and work to lean into truth about our values, body, and food. Finding freedom from dieting and weight obsession is possible, and we can prepare for the emotions this may bring by “sitting in the suck.”
Sign up for our email list below to receive a free download of “4 Steps to Sitting in the Suck” when struggling with your body image.