It's not as simple as "eating less"

Might have to eat less. But that’s not all. Image: Spotprent op Willem V die een Gelderse boer zijn eten wil afnemen, 1786, Johannes Jelgerhuis, 1786, Rijksmuseum. Used with permission.

As usual this week, I got many insightful emails from current BoK Week members (always a high point of the workweek). One of them remarked, on the topic of weight loss: "I know it is as simple as eating less."

And ... she's right! It is ... almost that simple.

But not quite. It's about eating less and continuing to eat less.

(By which we do not mean "eating less and less and less and less." Which sometimes people try to do, with terrible results.)

I just mean eating less than what's become normal. Letting LESS become the new normal. AKA eating less and being consistent about it. 

NOT: eating less, then eating more, then eating less, then more and continuing on in that way, never establishing new habits, never settling into a groove, never letting it just be easy, never really getting anywhere, and always feeling frustrated about the number on the scale.

And lookit! I mention the number on the scale because as a person who's kept off 50+ lbs for a bunch of years now, I know two things deep in my bones:

1. It's way better to be sane about food and eating than it is to be skinny. Like, no comparison.

2. It's pretty hard to connect with that basic truth when much of the world likes you better skinny and disordered.

So I get it about weight loss being important. I know that it is personally really, deeply important to a lot of you. So I will keep trying to find ways to talk about weight loss that support ourdignity and sanity and goodness and value as female human beings.