Content Warning: This post talks about diets, diet culture, and includes numbers associated with weight.
One of the worst diets (not the worst—that one is coming next week) I have ever been on was a diet that came to me from approximately 5,000 miles away. I remembered being on this diet when I completed the “Dieting History Worksheet” from The Intuitive Eating Workbook, as discussed in last week’s post.
I was in high school when my mom came in with a printed piece of paper. She was excited to tell me that someone from Albania had told her about a new diet that guaranteed weight loss of up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds) in 24 days. Being fully immersed in diet culture, I was so excited at the prospect of losing that much weight in such a short amount of time.
I read the piece of paper and thought the diet was strange, but hey, at that point I was ready to try anything. Then, dieting and losing weight was what made me think would make me worthy—because that is what diet culture and society wants us to think.
The diet focused on not combining foods. Meaning, that with some exceptions, each day I would eat only one category of food. For example, on day one, I could only eat pasta, with minimal oil. During lunch, I could add a little bit of feta cheese to the pasta. On day two, I could only eat rice with minimal oil, with a little bit of feta cheese at lunch. Then, days three through five, I could only eat Albanian style meatballs (with minimal fat) and for lunch I would get rewarded with a small portion of a simple garden salad. The diet was broken up in two to three day intervals, allowing me to eat only steak for three days, chicken for three days, potatoes for two days, etc. Toward the end, I was only allowed to eat fruits for two days, followed by two days where I was only allowed to eat salad with a little bit of oil. Then, the last day, I could eat whatever I wanted in “celebration.”
Being forced to just eat the same food every day, for two to three days in a row, became very tiring. I would not eat much during the day because the food started to seem gross (maybe that was the point of this craziness). I followed it for just under three weeks before I became sick and could not physically stomach any of the foods.
Looking back now, I am saddened that I thought following this diet was a great idea and that I put myself through that. I am saddened that I was so entrenched in diet culture, where something so ridiculous sounded so appealing because of the promised weight loss. I did lose some weight, although I truly do not remember how much. However, within less time than I was on this diet, I gained back all the weight I lost, plus some more.
I am more saddened, however that losing those pounds came at the expense of me getting sick. As much as diet culture preaches that weight loss equals health—there was NOTHING healthy about that diet, NOTHING healthy about that weight loss, and NOTHING healthy about how I felt.
What’s the craziest diet you tried that you can’t believe you tried? Thoughts on equating weight loss to health? More of that in the coming weeks.
I actually think my mom and sister have tried a version of this diet too! So crazy! I was never good with sticking to set diets because I used to be (and still kinda am) picky eater. But this method of limiting the variety of food I am eating is very similar to me… I created my own diet when I would eat 8-10 of little sweet rolls a day and nothing else. It was easier for me to control what I was eating when I had a set amount and not much to choose from. It is so stupid because after a while I would start craving other things and was more likely to binge…
That’s exactly the problem I have had with restricting foods too–it makes it so tempting. Now that I am not restricting and am allowing myself to eat what my body needs/what I want, I am finding that I can have a little bit of something and put it down when I am satisfied because I know I can have it later if I want. Before, I would want to finish it all because I thought I could never have it again.