Why Body Acceptance Isn't "Giving Up"
Have you ever felt that if you stopped trying to manage your weight you'd essentially be "giving up" on yourself?
I think the image that comes to mind for most people when they contemplate no longer caring about their weight, is of someone who eats copious amounts of "junk food", never works out, has low energy and no passion for life.
What an extreme image! But there's a reason for that.
When we're on a diet, we're all-in. We're either "on" by following the meal and exercise plan to a T, and any derivation from that means we're "off" in some way (unless of course it’s a sanctioned “cheat day”).
This isn't a natural way to live. It leaves little room for the spontaneity that life brings. When we're "on" plan, we can't just eat whatever looks good to us on a menu, we must find something that works within our plan (often ticking off the server along the way with the many alternations we ask for!)
When we're "on" plan, we can't rest our bodies when they feel tired, we can do so only on the designated "rest day" the exercise program allows for.
Trying to manage our weight leads us towards an extreme way of living.
Yet we crave balance, and the only way to balance something at one extreme, is to go to the other extreme. Hence the "giving up" that is on the other end of dieting. It really can turn into the image we have in our mind.
No wonder we think we're "giving up" if we choose to stop managing our weight - we only know two ways of being - "on" or "off".
Trying. Or giving up.
When we stop managing our weight, we will have to go to whatever opposite point on the spectrum that matches where we started from. The stricter the diet and exercise, the more open and loose we'll have to be.
For a while. But not forever.
Imagine a pendulum - if you pull it really far to one side, it will swing all the way to the other side. But if you let it keep swinging, eventually it will settle in the center.
This is what happens when we follow the path of body acceptance - we find the center.
Initially when we stop trying to control, we will likely swing wildly in our eating and exercise. But if we keep on going by giving ourselves full permission to eat, and letting go of requirements to move our body, we will start to tune in to what actually feels better for our mind and body.
We don't like living at the extremes, we yearn to find balance.
When we re-learn to tune into our bodies and mental state (a skill we are born with but is conditioned out of us thanks to diet culture), we will notice what foods feel better to eat, and what feels best for our body in terms of movement.
We could actually say we are "giving up" on ourselves when we follow external diet and exercise plans, because we delegate our power and trust to an external authority - someone outside of us telling us what to do.
If it wasn't for the (faulty) BMI dictating what our weight "should" be, we would gracefully allow our weight to sit where it does, naturally, and in alignment with whatever stage or circumstance of life we find ourselves in.
Body acceptance not only brings us peace by ending the constant struggle to manage our weight, but it enables us to re-connect to ourselves, living life in alignment and on-purpose.
And I don't know about you, but that sounds like anything but "giving up" to me.