There’s a purpose you may really feel such as you’re continually failing at this complete “well being and health” factor. And no, it’s not since you lack willpower, self-discipline, or information. It’s not since you’re “doing it flawed” or since you haven’t discovered the proper exercise, meal plan, or complement stack.
It’s as a result of the system is designed so that you can fail. And preserve failing.
Food regimen tradition, a software of the patriarchy, was by no means constructed to make you wholesome, robust, or thriving. It was designed to maintain you exhausted, hating your physique, and endlessly distracted from what truly works.
Why? As a result of the more severe your physique picture, the extra possible you might be to spend cash on the hundreds of thousands of “options” the wellness business has to promote you.
In brief, the wellness business’s objective is to make you a client for all times, at all times chasing the pot of gold on the finish of the rainbow as an alternative of doing the issues that really work however don’t make them shit a great deal of cash.
What’s Food regimen Tradition, Actually?
Food regimen tradition is a system of beliefs that worships thinness, equates it with well being, and locations morality on meals and physique measurement. It thrives on the false promise that in the event you simply eat much less, train extra, and chase the ever-elusive “best physique,” you’ll lastly be pleased, worthy, and accepted.
However right here’s what food regimen tradition doesn’t need you to know:
- Skinny just isn’t the identical as well being.
- Shedding pounds received’t essentially make you happier.
- The “well being” business is a multi-billion greenback machine profiting off your insecurities.
Food regimen tradition has roots deep in racism, patriarchy, and capitalism. It was constructed on the concept self-denial is virtuous, that bigger our bodies are inferior, and that ladies ought to stay small—bodily, mentally, and emotionally. And now, in its trendy kind, it morphs into new disguises: wellness developments, biohacking fads, “clear consuming” obsessions, and fat-burning exercises that go away you depleted moderately than empowered.
The Price of Believing the Lie
Let’s discuss what occurs while you purchase into food regimen tradition’s guidelines:
- You waste cash on issues that don’t work. Yearly, individuals spend 1000’s of {dollars} on inexperienced powders, dietary supplements, meal plans, weight-loss packages, and boutique health memberships that promise transformation however go away them burnt out and empty-handed.
- You spend time obsessing over issues that don’t actually transfer the needle. Making an attempt to get rid of all “chemical substances” and “toxins” out of your food regimen, doing “drawback space” workouts to “snatch your waist” and “tone your thighs,” and following some influencer’s “hormone-balancing” protocol—in the meantime, you’re nonetheless exhausted, hungry, and questioning why nothing’s working.
- You lose connection along with your physique. Food regimen tradition teaches you to disregard starvation cues, skip meals, focus purely on calorie burn, and override what your physique truly wants. It tells us to mindlessly observe strict guidelines and relentlessly pursue “optimization” to the purpose the place there’s no pleasure or spontaneity in life.
- You get caught within the burnout cycle. Excessive exercises, meals restriction, and the relentless pursuit of weight reduction create a vicious cycle of exhaustion and self-blame. White-knuckling your strategy to well being received’t work. When you can’t preserve doing it, it may’t provide help to within the long-term.
And the worst half? None of this crap makes you stronger, extra resilient, or extra succesful. In actual fact, most of it is going to solely lead you additional from bodily and psychological well being.
The Different: Work Smarter, Not More durable
If you need actual well being, actual energy, and actual vitality, you must reject food regimen tradition’s bullshit and deal with what truly works:
- Practice for energy and sturdiness. Cease chasing calorie burn and begin lifting, sprinting, hopping, and transferring in ways in which make you extra resilient.
- Eat for vitality and efficiency. Ditch the obsession with slashing energy, chopping carbs, demonizing meals you get pleasure from, and “clear consuming” and as an alternative deal with fueling your physique correctly.
- Prioritize restoration and sleep. Probably the most ignored, best instruments for actual well being. When you’re not getting sufficient relaxation, a chilly plunge or inexperienced powder isn’t going to make a distinction in your life.
- Play the lengthy sport. Actual outcomes don’t come from fast fixes. They arrive from constant, clever, REPEATABLE effort over time.
The Forecast: We’re in a New Period of Ladies’s Well being
For many years, ladies have been bought the identical recycled food regimen tradition rubbish—simply wrapped in new, extra palatable packaging. Nevertheless it’s clear we’ve entered a brand new period.
Extra ladies are rejecting food regimen tradition and demanding higher. They need energy, endurance, and vitality. They need coaching that builds them up as an alternative of breaking them down. They need diet that helps their vitality as an alternative of depleting it.
And it’s time we demand the wellness business change by rejecting their body-shaming, “get skinny at any value” strategy to advertising and the event of “options” that aren’t more likely to make any distinction in our lives—besides maybe lightening our wallets.
Your Selection: Hold Taking part in the Sport or Decide Out
So right here’s the true query: Are you able to cease enjoying the sport that was designed so that you can lose? Are you able to shift your focus to the issues that really matter—your energy, your vitality, your resilience?
When you’re nodding alongside, if that is hitting residence, then welcome. You’re precisely the place you want to be.
And are available take a look at our 1:1 and group teaching packages at Miles To Go Athletics the place the rules outlined on this piece are our core tenets and are built-in into each side of our teaching and our neighborhood.
As a result of we don’t must do food regimen tradition. We will do robust, succesful, and unshakeable.
The selection is yours. Are you in? —Alison
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Alison Heilig is the Editor-in-Chief at FBG and Head Hypewoman at Miles To Go Athletics. She divides her time between working, lifting, climbing along with her canine, snuggling along with her canine, and supporting robust ladies on this planet (and training up those that aspire to be). You’ll find and join along with her on IG @itsalisonheilig.
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