{"id":121834,"date":"2019-04-11T15:14:54","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T19:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/?p=121834\/"},"modified":"2019-04-18T14:14:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T18:14:49","slug":"sarah-sapora-wellness-body-inclusivity-v-diet-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/pt-pt\/journal\/sarah-sapora-wellness-body-inclusivity-v-diet-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellness has a Dieting Problem. Let\u2019s Do Something About It"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the time I was 37 years old, I woke up in pain and I went to bed in pain every day. At that time I was very heavy (I weighed about 360 lbs), but I don\u2019t just mean physical pain. On the inside, emotionally, I was miserable. I hadn\u2019t developed a health-full relationship with myself\u2014body or mind\u2014and the days passed in a blur of hurt. In fact, I\u2019d be hard-pressed to admit which was more painful: My lower back and my knees; or the slow-dripping feeling that I might be watching my life pass before my eyes in the fast lane.<\/p>\n

Most of us have, at some point, taken an inventory of life and wondered, \u201cIs this all there is for me?\u201d We contemplate our physical limitations or the dull reality that there are things we haven\u2019t experienced; we ruminate over boxes we haven\u2019t checked off. Fear like this doesn\u2019t come pre-packaged in a dress size: It can hit us at any time, any age, and at any weight.<\/p>\n

And yet, if you would have asked a random person off the street what was \u201cwrong\u201d with me then, they would probably have remarked that I was fat and needed to go on a diet. In fact, that tends to be the first thing people say to ANY person who appears to be heavier than \u201cnormal\u201d that expresses unhappiness. Go on a diet. Lose weight. It will make everything better… Right? Wrong.<\/p>\n

The Truth About Diets<\/h3>\n

Over 90 percent of American women have been on a diet before. I have been one of them\u2014many times. But each endeavor left me with one glaring truth: My diet didn\u2019t \u201cfix\u201d anything. It was never a magical wand that made my problems disappear. We also know that diets fail because such a large portion of people who engage in traditional diet (including myself) gain weight back.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line I realized it wasn\u2019t about losing weight<\/a>. It wasn\u2019t about dieting. It was about addressing the fact that both my body and my emotional wellbeing were starting to crumble. It wasn\u2019t the \u201ccounting macros\u201d that helped me create real change in my life, but instead, for me, it took seeing how deeply entangled emotional trauma was in the daily dysfunction of my life. The act of removing dating apps from my phone and not engaging in reactive casual sex was the first step toward making the positive shift in my life.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, \u201cdiet culture\u201d and the \u201cwellness industry\u201d became synonymous. But they\u2019re two totally different things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s to say: Addressing (and closing off) the self-initiated vacuum of relationship nothingness is what led me to realize just how heavily I relied on coping mechanisms like sex and shopping and, oh yes, food, to anesthetize the pain of living with years and years of repressed anger. It wasn\u2019t counting calories. It hasn\u2019t been the use of My Fitness Pal (which I happen to love) that has kept me returning to the long-term commitment to serving my body inside and out, even after life\u2019s normal (but sometimes painful) twists and turns.<\/p>\n

The realization of my coping mechanism, nurtured by intense spiritual growth and proactive emotional work, has allowed me to get to grow to where I am today. This is a whole lot deeper than anything a \u201cdiet\u201d could unearth.\u00a0Diets don\u2019t teach people how to feel whole. They teach people how to (usually temporarily) lower numbers on a scale. But the wholeness part? That\u2019s where Wellness should come in.<\/p>\n

Should being the operative word.<\/p>\n

\"women
Photo of Sarah’s Body Love Workshop. Photo by Nichole Alex<\/div><\/div>\n

What Wellness Is (and What It Isn\u2019t)<\/h3>\n

Wellness should be a place where people come to heal and learn how to live a greater life, however that looks for them. It should be about offering people tools to cultivate wholeness in all the different pillars of life\u2014emotionally, physically, spiritually, sexually, financially, occupationally, and more.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken a long time, but the medical community has finally started to explore the reasons<\/a> why diets don’t traditionally work<\/a>. Additionally, we finally have some people in the general public starting to speak out about the toxicity of \u201cdiet culture\u201d and its inability to facilitate the healing that real-life transformation from the inside-out requires.<\/p>\n

Sadly, it is the wellness community that appears to be the most tone deaf. The very people who purport to encourage holistic health are some of the biggest perpetrators of disordered living. I\u2019m looking at you, Wellness Brand \/ Influencer \/ Festival. I\u2019m talking to you Cleanse Tea and Yoga Brand That Only Makes Pants Up To A Size 10. I\u2019m talking to you Wellness-Related Studio That Doesn\u2019t Have a Single Class for Marginalized Bodies.<\/p>\n

The (not-so) secret elephant in the wellness community is that the culture places more value and emphasis on things that many of us refer to as \u201cdiet culture\u201d and less on offering people holistic tools to heal and create change from the inside out. I challenge you to read a wellness magazine, go to an event or class, or follow a \u201cwellness influencer\u201d on social media and NOT come into contact with the following words, phrases, or ideas:<\/p>\n