"I'm eating clean and exercising - so why has my butt gone 'floppy'?"

"I'm training hard (and in a calorie deficit to 'lean out',) but my performance is declining!"

"My muscles are being replaced with cellulite... even though I've cut carbs!"

​
You may have heard that strength training is a great way to speed up your metabolism. That lifting weights is fantastic for weight loss, and specifically fat loss. Perhaps you've even started strength training, but still find yourself in one of these pickles:
​

• You've been strength training for a while, but you're still not seeing "results" 
• You've plateaued and can't lift any heavier despite continuing to train consistently... in fact your performance is starting to decline
• You've noticed your muscles have gone flat, floppy, and deflated (a phenomenon called sarcopenia), and you don't like the look of it 
• Perhaps you've even observed there's more cellulite or fat deposited on your belly or on the backs of your arms - even though you're eating "clean"
• You're lifting and you're in a perpetual calorie deficit to "lean out", but the scales aren't budging
• Despite strength training you're not building or even maintaining muscle
• You're getting injured frequently 
• You're not recovering well from your workouts. In fact, being sore and tired for days after every workout is the norm...

The problem is not that you need to train harder, restrict calories, or cut carbs even more.There is a good chance that you're not actually eating ENOUGH to build or maintain your muscle mass.
​

Instagram fitness influencers and many celebrities have a certain lean, chiselled look that we've been conditioned to associate with health. (Thanks, diet culture!)

This muscular beauty standard has certainly plagued men for a long time. Bigorexia and muscle dysmorphia are on the rise in men, and that is incredibly distressing and saddening for the men in my life whom I love.

Over the last decade the lean look has become a desired look for female bodies, too... with the caveat that women appear muscular, but not too bulky. Curvy (read: big boobs and butt), but not "too" curvy (I'm exhausted already.)

We see images of these shiny, ab-rippled, smiling people and many of us automatically think they are the epitome of health, fitness, and human optimisation. We may wonder, "Why can't I look like that?!"

Yet for so many of these folks, fitness has come at a very high price. Many of these celebrities and fitness influencers make a living from their bodies, i.e. it's their full time job.

That means these folks:

• Sometimes train up to 30-40 hours a week; Lewis Tan trained 6 hours a day, 6 days a week (with one "glorious" day off on Sunday!) for his recent role in Mortal Kombat and to look the way that he did on camera. 
• Have the luxury of making their bodies pretty much the central focus of their entire lives, and carefully control every factor (diet, sleep, coaching, family, relationships, and so on).
• Can count on the support of a full team of trainers, nutritionists, chefs, babysitters, personal assistants, health practitioners, social media managers etc.
  
• When being photographed, have an entire team of stylists and makeup artists to make them look as flattering as humanly possible, as well as
• Highly experienced photographers who create images with perfect lighting, careful angle work, and hundreds of outtakes, plus
• Professional retouching and photoshopping to make sure the pictures look "just right".
  

It's a lot, right?! 

Unfortunately for a significant proportion of these folks, the significant financial and time costs are not the only price they pay to look this way. For some, a "perfect" appearance comes at the sacrifice of their overall health.

Disordered eating, hormonal imbalances, and chronic fatigue are commonplace in the fitness and wellness industry. Especially in those who are under pressure to look a certain way in order to make a living.

I have worked alongside fitness models, bikini competitors, and even some of the strength and bodybuilding coaches who train these athletes and compete themselves. And I can tell you with 100% confidence that NONE of them are having a good time in the lead up to competition! They are starving, tired, moody, and have no sex drive. Other professionals in the industry can attest to the same observation.


The health impacts of "looking healthy"

Sometimes these athletes don't even make it to the event they've spent months (or years) training for because they have cut too hard, injured or burnt themselves out and have to pull out of the competition. I've known experienced coaches who've done this, people who you think would know better. Diet culture doesn't discriminate - all of us are privy to its unrealistic demands.

Others train and diet intensely leading up to a photoshoot, then return to normal (read: looking like the rest of us) for the rest of the year. Still, repeated cycles of dieting and overtraining can and do take their toll on our bodies in the long term.

Despite being the picture of sexual virility and desire, for many of these fitness models their libido is shot. Especially in the case of male bodybuilders who have used anabolic steroids extensively and become dependent on them for the rest of their lives. 

Although these people may be and look and more fit, the health consequences can eventually rear their ugly heads and cause adrenal fatigue, joint pain and dysfunction, terrible mood swings, severe hormonal imbalances, and mental health issues ranging from crippling anxiety to eating disorders. And there are far too many "fit" people who are needing joint replacements in their 40's. 

Hypothyroidism, digestive disorders, sub-fertility and terrible PMS are common health issues I see in women who feel the pressure to look incredibly fit and "healthy" for a living. And disordered eating is almost a given as these women have to continually, and significantly monitor their food intake in order to stay at an unnaturally low body weight.

It's not just female influencers who measure every bite: disordered eating in male fitness models and bodybuilders is almost de rigueur. Well known is the vision of the "ripped" dude at the beach unpacking plastic containers of carefully portioned boiled chicken, broccoli and brown rice. Then there's the young man who freaks out when dinner for his girlfriend’s birthday keeps him away from the gym for a night.


Some exceptions

To be fair, a minority of these influencers are naturally lean. Due to no merit or fault of their own, some people just have the genetics for pretty easily maintaining a lower body fat percentage. They may also have the genes that allow them to develop significant musculature by doing just a little bit of strength training. When these people discover they can profit off of their genetic "gifts" on social media by claiming their bodies are a result of hard work, the results for those they mislead can be tragic.

Genetics dictate that even if someone with more "thrifty" genetics - someone who naturally stores more body fat - ate and worked out exactly the same way as a genetically lean person did, they might still end up in a body that looks completely different and can never be as small or as lean as that influencer. To think otherwise is like wishing the biggest Babushka doll in a Russian doll set would just fit into the smaller bodied doll, somehow. It's illogical.

​Alternately, someone may have the genes to withstand the enormous training load required to look a certain way without much in the way of immediate health problems. We all know those people who train like animals and don't seem to slow down or get injured. These folks can be more prone to abusing their bodies and realising too late the damage that has been done. Over time, with age, things can and do change.

Finally, performance enhancing drugs such as testosterone are used commonly nowadays in people of all genders. A recent study shows that steroids have been the number 1 most commonly injected drug in Australia for the past 6 years (1). As this becomes an ingrained part of fitness culture, the "ideal body" we are presented with will only continue to become increasingly muscular and lean. It's an unrealistic and incredibly dangerous standard, given the side effects of long term testosterone use.


So what can we do?

We can stop conflating leanness and health. We can question the messages these social media influencers and fitness marketers are trying to send us, and understand that behind the facade of gleaming wellness often lie broken mental health and a physiology in disarray.

We can dismantle the beauty standards we've been handed and see diet culture what for it really is: an industry that profits by capitalising on your feelings of inadequacy about your body. We can learn to see beauty in a wide range of body shapes and sizes. Because it is absolutely there, but to see it we need to retrain our eyes and unfuck our diet culture-influenced brains!

We can nourish our bodies properly and completely, and in doing so, oppose the political sedative that is diet culture, which demands an unhealthy obedience and slavery to beauty standards above all.

We can eat to nourish, NOT to restrict. And in doing so, we build our reservoirs of physical and mental strength. We can move towards health - whatever that looks like for you.

​And on social media we can embrace body positive, weight neutral accounts that promote the truth that health comes in many different shapes, sizes, and abilities! There are many out there, waiting for you to find them.

Here's a big middle finger to diet culture! 🖕

xo
Casey



(1) Memedovic, S., & Iversen, J., Geddes, L., & Maher, L. (2017). Australian Needle and Syringe Program National Data Report 2012-2016. Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales.

"I barely eat all day, but I'm gaining weight."

"My metabolism is so slow! I hardly eat anything but whatever I do eat goes straight to my belly, or turns into cellulite."

"I've dieted my whole life, but am at my highest weight EVER."
​

Sound familiar? Then read on...

Now if you know my work, you KNOW that I am a staunchly weight neutral, HAES-aligned practitioner. You can be healthy at a wide range of different body shapes and sizes. And needless to say, you are worthy of respect and love regardless of what you look like.

This article is for those who are undernourished, underfed and under-fuelled in some form or another, but may not even realise it. It's for those who don't eat enough or are dieting and want to know why it hasn't worked, why it may have even lead to more weight gain... and what to do about it.
​

In this current uncertain climate of COVID, natural disasters and now the war in Ukraine, there is a huge tendency to want to regain a sense of control and power. There is an overwhelming urge to act on our immediate (and very natural) fears, uncertainties and anxieties. To blame some "other", a larger unseen power for what is going wrong, and try to extract some semblance of justice. To get angry. To belong to a group.

We all want to reinforce our identity and our place in the world. To feel the security of knowing and holding "the truth" in the current climate of extreme instability. Maybe, to feel special and unique in holding such secret and profound knowledge. And yes, perhaps, to feel superior and smarter than the "others", the "sheeple"... and gain a sense of positive self-regard, relief and safety from that.

​And we all want to feel safe, unique, and that we belong.

One of the easiest and most convenient ways for people to address all of these needs is to adopt any number of conspiracy theories and to get sucked down disinformation rabbit holes. This is certainly easier than spending weeks or months of one's own time developing critical thinking skills and then applying them to the current body of scientific literature.

It is much easier to dismiss the whole scientific community as just another part of the "unseen force" trying to get the better of us... and therefore not to bother with science at all (unless a study is found that reinforces a piece of misinformation, a phenomenon known as cherry picking evidence).

It seems like the conspiracy theories and medical misinformation surrounding COVID-19 are spreading faster than the virus itself. In our post-truth era of mass mistrust of the government, the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry, and mainstream media, fake news is produced and consumed at an alarming rate. It is becoming increasingly difficult to source accurate, transparent, reliable information. And people are suffering because of it.

As a holistic health practitioner my goal is to apply modern scientific understanding to the time-honoured history of traditional healing modalities. The reason I'm studying naturopathy is because I believe that acknowledging and understanding our interconnectedness with nature is crucial to our wellbeing. I want to embrace both the biomedical scientific training I've received as well as the more subtle energetic aspects of our amazing bodies that I have a felt and sensed experience of, a sense that is backed up by modalities like traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda.

I want to see the bigger picture, because at the end of the day they're all different ways of seeing and experiencing the same thing.

All that said, I support COVID vaccination. Given the mechanism behind vaccination, it seems very much aligned with naturopathic principles. Using your body’s innate ability to create lasting immunity to diseases aligns beautifully with the principles of harnessing the healing power of nature, and addressing the root cause. Vaccines also have the added public health benefit of reducing the incidence of disease.

Just to be clear, I wasn't always so sure-footed in my stance on this COVID stuff. It has taken months and months of researching and sourcing reliable experts who have done far better research than I can, and who I have come to trust. Virologists, epidemiologists, immunologists, and the like. It has been eye-opening to learn how to better critically analyse scientific research cited by some of these sources and experts, and that despite being onto my third science degree there are still SO many ways I can improve my research skills.

I was definitely in the vaccine hesitant camp when COVID began. This was not an overly desirable trait as someone working in mainstream and allied health where it was just assumed I was pro-vax. Over time my confidence in the benefits of the COVID vaccine rollout has risen, although I still have a healthy skepticism of government, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical system. This has come as a shock to some people around me who've assumed that because I'm a holistic health practitioner and yoga teacher, I must automatically be anti-vaccination or at least vaccine hesitant.

People will make their assumptions, but they can be extremely limiting and isolating. Upon making my current nuanced but definitely vaccine-supportive stance public, the rejection and vitriol I've experienced from the anti-vaccination "love and light" hippy crowd has far eclipsed any shade I got from GPs and allied health colleagues back when I was vaccine hesitant.

As a holistic health practitioner I now embrace my role to provide accurate, transparent information to help my clients make informed decisions about their health. It has taken some serious cultivation of prajna to get me here.
​

Critical thinking is one possible antidote to the relentless stream of fake news we have to navigate through. Please understand that I'm not saying critical thinking is the one and only antidote. Making one's mind up on a scientific topic is not always a simple matter of looking at the data. There are many reasons people are drawn in by conspiracy theories and the like, and not all of these folks are going to have - nor want to develop - critical thinking skills. Nor will some of them care how much high quality evidence is thrown at them.

Sometimes a person's identity becomes wrapped up in their beliefs. A strong belief - a conviction - can reflect the kind of person we want to be, and the kinds of groups we aspire to belong to. Attacks on our convictions are attacks on our self-identity, and challenging that identity feels life-threatening. I remember feeling this way when years ago I was challenged by a friend on my previous vaccine-hesitant stance. I was so threatened that I cut her out of my life. Permanently.

Research has shown that when a person's identity is at stake, evidence can be interpreted much more poorly even by people with decent statistical literacy and mathematics skills. We can't do a rational assessment of the evidence when we are so heavily invested in the outcome being a certain way.

But as someone with Buddhist and yogic leanings, I'm somewhat familiar with the concepts of self-delusion, of Moha (Buddhism) or Maya (yoga philosophy). And as someone trained in science, critical thinking has personally helped me to steer away from self-delusion. Why? Because critical analysis helps people to avoid confirmation bias.

So what’s that?

Back in my chair, in a quiet corner of my favourite cafe, I feel lighter. Having managed - this time at least - to have challenged my habitual tendencies and relax into the urge tor react, I feel a quiet but growing sense of contentment and wellbeing. This, in contrast to the annoyance I would normally feel... and the reactive, almost animalistic relief at the person leaving again!

There is such gold to be mined in moments both ordinary, and in times of global upheaval. All of us have the option to react on our fear, anxiety, rage, and cognitive biases. Or we could take the opportunity to cultivate prajna, and discover a deeper truth.

A truth that may not be as emotionally stimulating as, "that person is an asshole, they are selfish and need to move away from me." A truth that may not be as elaborate and exciting as a perfectly orchestrated mass conspiracy in which there's a clear "us" and "them". But a truth that will actually set you free and bring inner peace. This is the reward of cultivating prajna: wise discernment that cuts through self-delusion.

Oppression isn't governments and health authorities telling us to take preventative measures to stop the spread of a virus - that's a public health measure, backed by science. Oppression occurs when we lock ourselves in an echo chamber of misinformation and misdirected aggression. We feel oppressed when we self-victimise and make the "other" evil and wrong... yet still rely on the very system we oppose to feed and house us.

Freedom doesn't come from governments lifting mandates, or sneaking around lockdowns, or producing fake check ins to get access to restaurants, or disrespecting people who wear masks, or yelling at people for supporting vaccination.

For me, freedom comes from unsheathing the sword of prajna and severing the binds of self-delusion. Freedom lies in the unshackled mind, and is felt in the heart.

In previous articles (here, here and here) I’ve talked about disordered eating and poor body image in the yoga, wellness and fitness communities. But WHY are these issues so rampant in the yoga and wellness worlds? And also, WHY are they growing concerns in our society at large?
 
Well, one of the main attributing factors is diet culture. So today I’m going to talk about:

1. What the hell diet culture actually is,
2. How it turns up in yoga and wellness spaces, and
3. 3 ways you can feel a lot more confidence, freedom and peace with your food and exercise choices (without guilt or fear of weight gain).

Watch the video below, or scroll down to read the article.
​

​Diet culture is a complex sociological phenomenon rooted in race, culture, sex, identity, and capitalism. It’s been around for hundreds of years: in the Victorian era (1830s to 1900) it was corsets and swallowing tapeworm eggs in an attempt to be thin. So gross.

Nowadays it’s the Kardashians promoting purging products and appetite suppressants… and before some of you turn your noses up and think “I don’t read trashy magazines, I’m untouchable by this “diet culture”… I’d like to point out that the celery juice cleanse that Anthony William the “Medical medium” claims will heal all your ails… including aiding weight loss… ALSO constitutes diet culture.

Diet culture reveres thinness (or leanness as more people are now calling it) as the epitome of success and beauty. It disseminates the idea that a person is morally "bad" if they gain weight or live in a larger body. It makes us believe that there's a "right" and "wrong" way to eat. All of this encourages some pretty unhealthy practices around exercise and eating.

Examples of diet culture:

• fat talk
• comparing your body, diet or exercise habits with others'
• the marketing of foods as fundamentally "good" or "bad"
• the idea of food "cheat days"
• incessant gym ads around New Years
• weight loss challenges at gyms or in workplaces
• magazines and media focused on celebrities' weight gains and losses.

Fiona Sutherland, fellow non-diet dietitian, yoga teacher sums it up nicely when she says that:

I'm just gonna say it straight: Diet culture in yoga and wellness is disguised as The Wellness Diet.
 
We engage in questionably restrictive dietary behaviours at the same time we proclaim "I don't diet!". But whilst I hear plenty of people declaring that they've given up dieting in lieu of "looking after their health", a closer look at their eating habits and food beliefs says otherwise.

They may no longer be doing weekly-weigh-ins or counting calories, but the dieting thoughts and behaviours remain. “It’s not a diet!” is very often a front for eating regimes that actually meet every criteria of a diet. Many ways of eating to promote wellness fall squarely into this category. 
 
To add insult to injury, these restrictive behaviours usually do not lead to health. They are literally starving us of vitality, energy, and LIFE.

Christy Harrison sums it up perfectly when she says that:

The Wellness Diet is the most insidious form of modern day dieting we are surrounded by. What makes it so subversive is that it comes under the guise of being health-promoting.  
 
Yogis are not immune to diet culture, and in a strange way we may in fact be more susceptible to it. Valuing purity, discipline and of course, health can lead us to undertaking any number of harmfully strict diets disguised as "wellness protocols". This can and often does lead to restrictive, restrained, or disordered eating, or an eating disorder like orthorexia. Which might partly explain why there is a higher incidence of disordered eating in yoga teachers than in the general population.
 
You can read my original article about the Wellness Diet Cycle here, where I explain what it looks like, and the physical symptoms that suggest your "health protocol" might be actually be harming you.
​

So, what’s so wrong about wanting to lose weight and look “better”? Well you're not bad or stupid for desiring weight loss, that’s just a symptom of the culture we grow up in. But the harm that comes from the pursuit of weight loss is a problem because:


1. Diet culture is based on lies. Because health isn't as simple as skinny = good and fat = bad. And it simply isn’t true that if you have enough willpower, the ideal body type is easily acquired… contrary to I dunno, EVERY weight loss diet, magazine cover, and gym ad EVER.


2. Diets don't actually help you lose weight. In fact, research has shown that the majority of people who lose weight by dieting end up regaining it. Diets force you to live off fewer calories than your body needs for optimal functioning, which slows metabolism and makes you hella cranky among other things. If you do it for long enough, dieting can disconnect you from your body's innate hunger and fullness cues... and that's a bad thing.

There's only so long people can do this before they either break the diet with a blow out binge. For those few who are able to keep dieting long term, frequently the diet has turned into a more serious form of disordered eating... or an actual eating disorder.


3. Diet culture is inherently linked to fatphobia (or weight bias), which basically means negative attitudes to larger bodies and the irrational fear of being fat or being around fat people. People in larger bodies feel the effects of a fatphobic society in ways that are far more profound and damaging than smaller sized people or those with thin privilege, including myself. 

Fat people often deal with medical discrimination due to their weight. They’re less likely to be chosen for jobs or offered promotions, which is fucked up. This kind of weight stigma has been shown to be just as if not more harmful to health than poor diet or lack of exercise, due to the stress of being stigmatised and the inflammation this causes.
​

4. Diet culture further exacerbates the stigma experienced by marginalised groups. Living in a larger body is hard enough, but when you're also black, or non-binary, or have a chronic illness, diet culture comes down even harder on you. Even if you live in a smaller body, being ethnically ambiguous (speaking from personal experience here), too tall or too short, or in any way not conforming to the white, wealthy, pretty, young, thin, cis-het ideal of beauty and success undoubtedly makes your life harder in ways small and big... largely thanks to diet culture.

When you layer fatphobia onto other marginalised identities that intersect with fatness - such as not being white, being non-gender conforming, being trans, being poor or being disabled - the oppression experienced from diet culture is amplified.

​Diet culture can cripple all the ways we show up in the world.

Becoming a diet culture drop out is one of the most liberating, health-generating things you can do. It IS possible for you to actually feel GOOD about your food and exercise choices (without guilt or fear of weight gain). 

So what you CAN you do to quit diet culture? I’ve got 3 suggestions for you to kick things off, in no particular order:


1. Ask yourself “what is my motivation?”

When it comes to making choices about food or exercise, is your motive primarily to lose or control your weight, or is it aligned with your personal values? There might be other reasons layered on top, including health reasons, but when you sift through your motivations is the hope of weight loss a big part of why you’re making that choice?

Would you really do a juice cleanse if you didn’t care about your weight? If you really want to support your kidneys and liver and skin, there are SO many other ways to do that that don’t include starvation…. and actually work. For example, eating enough calories and protein are crucial. I talk all about that here.

Does your choice align with your internal values? Examples of values are self-care, health, self-compassion / kindness, freedom, success in a sport or physical endeavour, curiosity, pleasure, social connection, family.

When it comes to food, you might eat something because it's going to make you feel energised or help you focus on your work, or because it’s delicious and satisfying. You might eat at a restaurant you wouldn’t normally eat at because it's a social occasion and you want to connect with your loved ones. You might eat a Mars bar to simply fuel your body for a physical activity, like a big footy game or a hike.

When it comes to exercise you might do it to socialise, reduce stress, feel strong and capable in your body, train towards something, or to simply have fun.

Clarifying your values and motives is a nice starting point for rejecting diet culture and wellness dieting. It also helps you tap into a more self-compassionate approach to food and movement.


2. Do a social media detox. This is the only type of detox I recommend. Unfollow the Jenners, and instead follow a few non-diet dietitians (like yours truly!) and plus-sized yoga teachers and influencers. Do this and the algorithm will probably start drip-feeding you posts linked to counter-diet culture movements like the Health At Every Size (HAES), neutrality/acceptance movements, and body positivity.


3. Ditch the scales. Smash 'em, bin 'em, use 'em as a pot plant base. This is one of the simplest ways to begin focussing on health, not weight. Not having scales in the house will help you to begin practising weight-neutral self care and rejecting the part of our culture designed to make you feel like you aren't good enough as you are.

Ditching diet culture doesn't mean letting yourself go and saying "f*@k it" to eating well and exercising, but it does mean taking the focus off body weight, and instead focussing on health behaviours. Because weight isn't a behaviour... but eating regular balanced meals, for example, is.

 
I hope this helps you to identify and disrupt diet culture as it shows up in the yoga studio or the gym, or even just in your personal life, amongst your friends and family. If you’re wanting to ask me a question to answer on a Facebook Live, have a chat with me to see how a non-diet, body inclusive approach to health resonates with you, or to work with me 1 on 1, please get in touch. 
 
In diet culture drop out solidarity,
​
Casey x

In this video I’m going to give you some ideas on how to respond to “compliments” about weight loss… especially when you have a history of disordered eating and body dysmorphia, and these comments actually make you feel uncomfortable or upset.

I'm also going to discuss how to respond when yoga students or clients in your practice or gym body-shame themselves.

And if you prefer to read, scroll down for the article.
​

​This week’s topic comes from Bree, who has given me permission to use her name: She wrote:
 
Right now I’m navigating how to inform others about diet culture, fat phobia, body dysmorphia, disordered eating disguised as “wellness”, when they (unknowingly) make a comment or compliment that is tinged with or fuels one of these things.
 
For example, when someone compliments me with “you’re looking great, you’ve lost weight”. It’s extremely triggering and uncomfortable for me (and so many others) with a history of disordered eating and body dysmorphia. One comment can have such a huge backlash for me if I’m not super mindful. It’s like I have to do damage control in the days after.
 
I usually smile or laugh but I would love to feel more comfortable having a conversation around it with them, as well as with my clients when I notice the way they speak about food or their bodies.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
 
This is a tricky situation, and you’re right Bree when you say that many people feel uncomfortable when receiving these types of comments and struggle with what to say. Especially folks who might have dealt with disordered eating or body dysmorphia, and even those who have discovered intuitive eating, body kindness, fat acceptance, anti-dieting, etc., and are on the road to making peace with food and healing their body image.
 
A comment like, “you’ve lost weight, you look great!” Can really derail some of that hard work you may have put into healing.

In the yoga world we might hear variations on this, for example:

“Your body is looking amazing since you finished that juice fast!”

"Your jump throughs look so much smoother now you’re not carrying that extra weight.”

Or,

“You’re looking more pitta than kapha now! You looked a bit “juicier” the last time I saw you”

That last one was one I personally received from a yoga teacher... and I don’t even live in a larger body. I have thin privilege.
 
In the fitness world it’s:

"You look so good, you’ve leaned out!” 

“You’ve dropped fat mass, way to go!”

“Body comp (composition) is on point!”

All of these are variations on the same theme of complimenting someone for perceived weight loss – “perceived” because sometimes the person hasn’t lost any weight at all.
 
And to be clear, for some people these compliments are going to make them feel better about themselves, at least in the moment. These aren’t the people I’m speaking to right now.

I’m speaking to the folks who have to do damage control in the hours or days after receiving such a compliment because it triggers them for all the reasons I’m about to explain.
​

First thing: most of the time, people who give you weight loss compliments genuinely want to give you a compliment, and are trying to be nice.

It can be weird situation because you don’t want to be rude in your response, but you also don’t want to leave your values by the wayside.
 
The problem is, congratulating someone on weight loss isn’t always going to help that person feel better about themselves... and it reinforces harmful ideas about body size.

These comments can really galvanise weight stigma.

Weight stigma isn’t always overtly calling someone fat or body shaming someone. It can also come in the “softer” form of congratulating someone for losing weight. I call this soft weight stigma.

Praising someone for losing weight implies that their body was in some way bad, or worse, or unacceptable before. That’s a problem because it’s both weight-stigmatising, and just plain old untrue: weight loss does not make you or your body unanimously “better”.
 ​

​So, how can you respond to this kind of unwanted body commentary? This is really going to depend on a few factors:

• how much energy you’re willing to invest at the time
• how strong in your disordered eating and/or body dysmorphia recovery you’re feeling in the moment
• how much emotional labour you want to put into explaining concepts like weight stigma or fat phobia to the person
• how YOU are feeling emotionally, and
• who the person is, specifically what your relationship with them is like.

 
Say it’s someone with whom you feel comfortable sharing a little bit about your life with, you could say something like, “it’s interesting you say that, I’ve actually stopped dieting and focussing on weight loss... and I feel better for it.” This keeps it short and sweet without being too confrontational, and lets them know you no longer see weight loss as a goal.
 
If you’ve got more emotional and mental energy on board that day, and you’re closer to the person, you could divulge a bit more about why being complimented on weight loss or body size doesn’t feel great to you, given all the hard work you’ve been doing to unlearn disordered thinking around food and body weight. 

A step further would be to disclose your intentions or successes so far in healing from disordered eating and body dysmorphia, or to answer some questions they might have about diet culture, weight stigma and so on.

Again, you’ll need to gauge where you’re at in the moment and check that you feel safe enough and have enough brain bandwidth to have a conversation like this.
 
Just remember that diet culture messaging permeates our existence from the moment we are born… burning diet culture to the ground is a big job. It can feel like there’s a lot of pressure to educate others about what it is… that’s a lot of pressure on YOU! You don’t have to explain anything or educate anyone in that moment… unless you and the person are open to that. 

First and foremost, look after yourself. This is a central part of my upcoming online course: nutrition and body image training for yoga teachers.
 
If the person is more of an acquaintance or someone you don’t know well, or you just can’t be fucked engaging in that moment, a short, neutral response could suffice. Something like, “I haven’t been trying to lose weight.” Or, “Oh? I hadn’t noticed”. Then quickly change the topic. It’s ok not to dive into to full activist or educator mode.

Look after yourself first.
 
Sometimes these comments are going to trigger some pretty strong feelings in you: annoyance, anger, visceral rage. Especially if you’re a larger bodied person who has has dealt with a lot weight stigma and bullshit body commentary in your life. Sometimes expressing your anger might be exactly what you need in that moment. You don’t have to rip into them, but saying something like “can we please not talk about my weight.” Or “Having you comment about my body makes me feel uncomfortable / anxious / angry / etc”. Or, “that’s super triggering for me. How about we don’t talk about my body size.”
 
This might feel confronting, but if the person is someone you want to have an ongoing relationship with, they might need to know how these comments affect you. It could also prompt them to think more deeply about the ways they offer body commentary in the future, and they could learn from the experience.
 

​With friends, fitness clients or yoga students making body shaming comments about themselves in your class or in your clinic, you could keep it light, for example:

"Hey, that’s my friend you’re talking about right there!”

Alternatively you could go deeper… pull them aside later and say, “I heard you say xyz about your body today, and I’m wondering if you’d like someone to talk to about that? I’m here if you need me.” 

The invitation is there for them to take you up on the offer. In the right context, offering slivers of your own journey can be helpful. Or if they’re receptive to it, gently letting them know there are ways to improve body image and feel better about themselves, without having to lose weight or change their appearance.

Having anti-diet, body positive books in your yoga studio or clinic can initiate conversations, and knowing providers – body inclusive, HAES dietitians (ehh hemm, you're reading the words of one!), psychologists etc. who you can refer on to can really help.
 
You could try writing out a list of possible responses on your phone or even practise these aloud, to figure out what feels right for you in certain contexts.
 
Unhelpful body commentary, disordered eating and body image concern are HUGE issues burning through the yoga and wellness worlds, which is why in a few months I’ll be launching my online nutrition and body image training for yoga teachers and yoga practitioners. In this training I cover what we as yogis and other fitness professionals can do to get solid on our understanding of basic nutritional science, disrupt diet culture as it shows up in the yoga world, and make our classes and our community safer for everyone! 

I hope that gives you a starting point when knowing how to respond to unhelpful body commentary, either directed at you or when it's self-body shaming coming from others. If you have comments or questions please pop them in the comments box below!

In body-inclusive solidarity, 
Casey​​

​Last week I explained what disordered eating is, in a general sense. This week I've I zoomed in and discussed some of the most common ways disordered eating shows up in the yoga and wellness worlds.

Here's the video, but if you prefer to read, just scroll down.
​

In yoga, the yamas are tenets of moral conduct. There are five yama principles: the first is ahmisa.
 
Ahimsa is the practice of abstaining from being “violent” or hurtful in one’s thoughts, words, feelings, or actions. It is the foundation of the other yamas because it’s the stance of “right relationships”. In practising ahimsa, we learn to have compassion for ourselves and for others.
 
The concept of non-harming is well known and recited in yoga circles, usually to substantiate the reasoning behind practising vegetarianism or veganism.
 
However, folks with disordered eating may hide behind the ethical aspects of vegetarianism to justify and protect their eating behaviours. I see this in SO many of my clients. I personally did this, for years.

What started as a genuine concern for animal welfare quickly became hijacked by a growing eating disorder and was used to disguise and excuse my unhealthy relationship with food.
 
In no way am I saying that everyone who is v*gan has an ED. As teachers, health professionals, and concerned allies we need to respect people’s current food choices, while also inviting them to listen to and honour their body’s needs. And we need to know how to spot the red flags, which I’m about to describe to you.
 
In the yoga and wellness worlds, ahimsa is often reduced to not hurting other people and mitigating violence against animals, but sometimes there is little to no regard for the level of violence being turned inwards. 

Veg*ism without regard for the wellbeing of the self is ONE of the many ways disordered eating show up in yoga. Harm is compounded when vegetarian or vegan folks insensitively, or even aggressively espouse their dietary doctrine onto others.
​

Usually folks practising these doctrines don't realise that their eating is becoming disordered, especially because their intentions start off so positive - what could go wrong?

But these ideas and behaviours can rapidly take on a life of their own, becoming excessive, obsessive, and leading to more serious restrictive eating behaviours... or even full blown eating disorders.

Here are 10 of the most common ways I've seen disordered eating sneakily show up in the yoga and wellness worlds:
​

1. Fasting, with juice cleanses, celery juice protocols, or water fasts. With many of us already concerned with purity and discipline, yogis are easily lead to believe that we need to “detox”. It doesn’t help when a yoga studio sells copies of “The Medical Medium” espousing that the secret to healing all ills is celery juice. Or that 1, 3 and 5-day home-delivered juice cleanses are promoted by senior yoga teachers and advertised in the yoga studio foyer and marketing. 
2. Avoiding whole food groups or macronutrients, for example carbs. On that subject, it is not uncommon for live-in yoga teacher trainings to provide meals that are nutritionally inadequate. Despite huge days of physical training, the food offered to trainee teachers is often too low in calories, carbohydrates, and/or protein, depending on the dietary doctrine of the people in charge of running the training.
3. Chronically under eating or skipping meals in a misguided belief that we need to “rest” the digestive system or err on the side of yogic or Buddhist asceticism. You may also know this as intermittent fasting.
4. Adopting Ayurveda's most extreme panchakarma routines regardless of our constitution, medical history or current health status, and without proper medical supervision. I discuss this in detail with Narayana Commerford in episode 1 of my podcast Non-Diet Yogi.
5. Clean eating obsession, and eating foods we hate as a result. Diet culture tells us to stress about what foods are “good” or “bad”, “allowed” or “not allowed”, “clean” or  “toxic”. As a result we may replace commonly vilified foods with “cleaner” versions. For example, eating zucchini noodles instead of actual pasta. Or drinking a green smoothie or celery juice when we really want or need a proper meal. Additionally we may consume foods for their purported health benefits even though they taste revolting, e.g. drinking apple cider vinegar (ACV) every morning. We deprive ourselves of foods we truly love and instead consume things we despise, all in the name of “health”: a phenomenon known as The Wellness Diet.
6. Continuing to practice strict vegetarianism, veganism or raw food-ism even when our health is visibly suffering due to nutrient deficiencies inherent in some of these dietary approaches. 
7. Spending lots of money on superfoods, fancy juicers, supplements (possibly to supplement a deficient and restrictive diet) when we don’t actually have that kind of money to spend, or it would be better spent getting help for disordered eating.
8. Ingesting essential oils, often because a yoga teacher is a distributor for an essential oil MLM and wants to add students to their downline a la Elena Brower. Simply put, ingesting essential oils on a regular basis without medical supervision is dangerous. This practice ties into supplement taking, and yes - there are MLM essential oil blends marketed for fat loss and appetite suppression, a concept which is both disordered and dangerous for all the reasons I describe here.
9. Taking IgG food intolerance test results to heart and cutting out a bunch of foods we don’t actually need to eliminate. I go into depths with this topic in my elimination diet email series.
10. Combining multiple wellness diets. This all gets especially confusing when people try to combine Ayurveda with raw foodism, paleo, keto etc. as many of these philosophies completely conflict with each other and people end up eating hardly any foods at all.

​​​These are practices that on the surface may seem benign, and folks undertaking these fasts, elimination diets and so on might even be applauded for how well they are taking care of their health.

But these are all examples of disordered eating disguised as "wellness". And disordered eating is the biggest predictor of developing an eating disorder, the deadliest of all mental illnesses.
​

​Think of a spectrum of eating behaviours... from "normal" eating all the way through to eating disorders. In between these two polarities lies this grey area where eating isn’t normal but it doesn’t qualify to be a clinical eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia nervosa.
 
Many health professionals use the term “disordered eating” to include everyone along the disordered-eating spectrum: people with diagnosed eating disorders, as well as those who don’t have a diagnosis but struggle with harmful thoughts and behaviours related to food.

So disordered eating includes this grey area – and it's a far more expansive range of people than the term “eating disorders” (EDs) alone.
 
There are MANY people who don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for EDs but who still struggle with disordered thoughts and behaviours around food. Behaviours that have a negative impact on their quality of life, and often the lives those around them.

1. Obsessing about body weight: frequent weighing (e.g. every morning) and measuring, body checking in mirrors, pinching body parts, asking others if you look fat, trying to control body weight.. and of course food and eating related behaviours to control weight…
2. Overt interest in fad diets: Always wondering about or researching the latest diet fad: e.g. spending hours googling keto recipes
3. Counting things e.g. calorie or macro restriction
4. Chronic restrained eating: you might not count calories or carb grams - you might not “diet” as such -  but you’re always aiming to eat as little as possible, or putting off eating as long as possible.. consciously or otherwise. This one is SO COMMON!
5. Skipping meals: Also known as intermittent fasting
6. Detoxing: especially if this is regular practice. Common forms of these in the yoga world are juice cleanses e.g. celery juice cleanse, detox diets, and water fasting
7. Cutting out whole food groups without medical recommendation or supervision, perhaps cutting out carbs after self-diagnosing a condition like candida overgrowth or being told you have a food intolerance because an IgG antibody test told you so
8. Bingeing, which many people do as a result of dieting/restrictive eating. This can eventually push you into...
9. Engaging in the cycle of over-eating, and then restricting or dieting, which I describe as The Wellness Diet Cycle (borrowing a term from Christy Harrison) and explain in more detail here
10. Fixation on clean eating: Stressing about what foods are “good” or “bad” or “allowed” or “not allowed”? Or what foods are “clean” and which are “toxic”? Clean eating can very easily turn into disordered eating.
11. Compensatory behaviours, like eating very little all day leading up to a social dinner in order to “save calories” for it, exercising to burn off food, or vowing to restrict in the future
12. Bulimic behaviours, such as purging through vomiting, laxatives, enemas, colonics, or exercise
13. Spending money on and using supplements marketed as fat burners or weight loss supplements, including natural ones e.g. Garcinia cambogia
14. Avoiding eating out with friends or social gatherings for fear of being made to eat foods they deem too unhealthy
15. Using weird tactics to covertly eat less when you ARE forced to be in a social eating situation
16. General fear, anxiety, or feeling out of control around food.

 
As you can see, many of these are so common we’ve come to think of many of them as “normal”. After all...

Isn’t it normal to feel guilty if we don’t eat 100% clean?

Isn’t trying to burn off any transgressions at the gym or in a hot yoga class, the right thing to do?

Maybe I don’t say yes to going out to ice cream with friends for the 4th time, but that’s only because I'm trying to get healthy…. aaaand not mess up my macros?
​
​Surely it’s ok to do a seasonal 3-day juice cleanse to reboot, and a bit of weight loss wouldn’t hurt?
 
Nope, none of these thoughts and behaviours are normal, and in fact they may be red flags for disordered eating.

Additionally, here are some physiological signs and symptoms that may indicate disordered eating:

1. Period and fertility issues: Irregular periods (missing periods), amenorrhea, or fertility  problems like problems conceiving
2. Loss of sex drive: in men and women
3. Digestive disturbances e.g constipation, IBS, food intolerances which ironically are often caused in the first place by food restriction
4. Fatigue, poor sleep, and mood issues
5. Loss of muscle mass, a phenomenon known as sarcopenia or where muscle mass shrinks and/or becomes "saggy"
6. Hair falling out or becoming brittle
7. Skin and nails become less lustrous and weaker, and may grow more slowly
8. Poor immunity, i.e. getting sick more often than usual
9. Poor sports performance or higher incidence of injuries and having to opt out of meets and comps because of it.

 
As you might be realising, these signs of disordered eating are often used as reasons to go harder or stricter with the food restriction or diet, rather than warning signs that the disordered eating has gone too far.

Hopefully this gives you a starting point when screening your clients, yoga students or yourself for disordered eating.

Does this resonate for you? To begin the deep dive into this work, you can get my FREE e-book, A Modern Yogi's BS-free Guide to Wellbeing by clicking on the ebook below.

I just sent out my newsletter ​for the first time in nearly a year. In it, and with a still somewhat curious sadness yet acceptance in my heart, I replaced the photo from my last campaign - a photo of Andreas and I - with the above solo one of me.

That's because we separated very early this year. Our divorce is just around the corner. 

What followed has been the hardest year of my life. Separation. Preparing for divorce. Property settlement. Shared child care arrangements. Massive financial stress. Not knowing where the kids and I would be living in a year. Planning for a completely different future I had envisioned for myself and my kids.

I think I've spent long periods of time thinking that if I have done enough yoga, meditated enough, attended enough couples counselling sessions, read all the parenting books, done the conscious marriage courses, that things will be perfect... or something near it.

But that's the thing about seeking security, or perfection, or "balance". Life has a way of going, "yeah, nah... not so fast." And throwing a bucket of paint all over you when you're donned in your finery. Or landing you with three bills over $2000 in one week (that happened to me last week).

Equanimity, this sentiment of "the only constant is change, accept it", is easy to swallow on paper. I have buddhist leanings, so am familiar with the concepts of suffering and pain as inevitable parts of life.

Being equanimous doesn't mean this shit doesn't hurt, though. You can accept things change and end. And it can also still hurt like hell.

But perhaps, it hurts a little less if I accept it, than if I resist and fight and wish it was all different (which I definitely do at times).

So what has it been like? Well, primarily... it's been a rollercoaster of emotions. 

Grief, so much grief.

Guilt, that I couldn't make things work between us... and for not always being able to navigate my way through it with grace and dignity. Anger, at all the unresolved issues between us. Disappointment that the two kids, happy marriage and white picket fence ideal that seemed finally within my grasp, disintegrated in my hands.

To make ends meet I went back to working as a veterinarian, my original qualification. I needed stability and security, something that working for myself couldn't provide at that point in time. It wasn't my heart's work but I found satisfaction in it and the people I worked with were amazing. Thank you Maleny Veterinary Services!

The thing is, working as a vet and reconfiguring my long term goals to build my skills in that area, left little space for anything else that gave me joy. 

I stopped teaching all of my classes, except for a loyal group of women I was running privates for... and even that had to be put on hold after a while.

I drastically reduced my nutrition client work. My work with eating disorder clients, women trying to balance their hormones or have babies. Deeply rewarding work I just didn't have the brain space for with my other vet work going on at the same time... and more accurately, with the inner turmoil I was experiencing.

I referred on all health professionals seeking mentorship because I didn't have the energy to give them my 100%.

But it hasn't all been doom and gloom! I've also experienced intense joy and peace. Joy, at reconnecting with certain parts of myself I'd lost for some time. Peace, because I no longer need to suppress parts of myself that I had to keep contained in my marriage in order for it to "work". 

I've found wells of inner strength and resourcefulness I didn't realise I had. I remember now that I can do really hard things when I have to. 

The things that kept me going were:

• friends, first and foremost. You know who you are. I love you.
• journalling
• seeing my psychologist
• pranayama, in bed at night before falling asleep. Except when I'm exhausted, which happens more often than not now that I'm a single mum. 
• time in nature
• yoga asana and strength training, while not always consistent, definitely helped me keep my sanity.

It's funny how tough circumstances can make you dig more deeply into whatever tools and support you have... and make you realise that you do indeed have them. 

You have these too. And if you don't, look up nadi shodhana pranayama and start with that. It helps.

It has taken me this long to publicly talk about this, because I've been processing. Numbing out at times, out of necessity when I just didn't have energy or heart to "work on it" anymore. But processing, too.

In short, it has been a f*cking hard year. But I am finally starting to come out the other side. 

Just a few weeks ago, I quit my job at the vet. I miss my calling, my work in yoga and nutrition. I'm grateful for the experience, and I know that I need to do what I love to be truly happy... even if it doesn't come with a regular wage, automatic superannuation and benefits!

Despite all the shit I'm smiling in the photo above. I've managed to look for and be grateful for all the beautiful things in my life right now, of which there are MANY!

So if you, too, have had a hard year, I'm with you. Believe me when I say, it will get better. Remember, you have tools, and resources. I'd love to hear from you about any tools and resources (inner or external) that have worked for you when times have been tough.

​I'm still going through it, still learning, still grieving. AND. I'm so grateful for all this practice has taught me, and I can't wait to share it again with people again.

And if, for you, it continues to be a dark tunnel for now, know that you can get through it, you can do hard things, too.