Poison

 I have been a fan of Kelly Roberts and following her for years now. Kelly is the amazing runner girl in new york, she is the creator of the badass lady gang and promotes running for all body sizes. She also started the #sportsbrasquad to encourage women to feel comfortable running in whatever they wanted to wear that they felt comfortable in regardless of how their body looked. ie: if you’re big but you don’t want to wear a shirt because it's August and 95 degrees on your run - then take your shirt off!!! 

 

She has a podcast called “Run, Selfie, Repeat” and she talks about all kinds of running stuff and even has some episodes that are guided running intervals etc.

In November she ran an 8 week series that was about ditching diet culture during the Holidays with her friend and dietitian Kayla Reynolds. I had already been on the anti diet path so I was stoked to see her talking about the subject. She enjoyed it and had more to say so now she and Kayla are running a new series called “Poison Punch” 

 

In the show notes she says “Poison punch is toxic. It is everywhere. And it’s making us all sick. It’s the diets, the weight loss trash, the programs, workouts, and superfood powders that say they're selling health. Or the supplements, creams, prescriptions, makeups, treatments, and procedures that promise to make you look younger and yield you unconditional love. And it’s all the apps, pop- ups, fads, people, retreats, and goop that costs a fortune but guarantees a better version of you. Poison punch in the 70+ billion dollar industry that profits off you looking in the mirror and thinking “Im fat, old, and ugly”” Poison punch is everything you’re being told and sold to fix problems that (spoiler alert!) don’t actually exist. There’s no way in hell that the diet and beauty industries are going anywhere. Poison punch is here to stay. And while we might not be able to get rid of it, we can change our relationship to it.”

 

So the very first episode is on the poison punch that is WHOLE30 

 

 

 

And they begin the episode with a personal story from someone who was very similar to me in their relationship and knowledge of Whole30. 

 

This girl speaking is named KiKi and she talks about how she was trying to lose weight and that is how she stumbled on the program. She says:

 

“I got so much positive societal feedback when I lost weight and it put me in a different category of visibility which is disturbing. We should never feel less than because of the shape of our bodies! The world's response to it makes you continue the disordered eating because it’s validating that your body is better thin. 

 

Whole30 tells you it’s not a diet and it’s very scientific and claims to be about health and not weight loss - but it’s a diet and 95% of people doing whole30 are trying to lose weight. Whole30 is a scam and it’s dressed up to make you think it’s not diet culture while it’s trying to convince you that food is poison. I used to think Whole30 was amazing and sang it’s praises but I was steeped in diet culture - I was actively in the pursuit of thinness. Eventually I realized that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life striving to lose weight, I want to accept my body for what it is. The high of weight loss is intoxicating and you constantly strive to get that confidence boost from it but the reality is you can’t lose weight forever! 

Life and relationships and connections and happiness is way more important than weight loss.”

 

 

The dietician Kayla goes on to share four issues she has with the Whole30 program. 

1. The Whole30 is a laundry list of things you can’t eat! It’s a big set of rules of things you can’t have. Once you know what you can’t eat they give you a list of products you can buy to help you succeed. 

2. They constantly say it’s not about weight loss it’s about health but then they promote weight loss as a benefit of the protocol. 

3. They claim they have been changing lives since 2009 - but they claim to be steeped in science so they constantly reevaluate and update things. In January 2021 they changed their food restrictions - and now they are allowing peas. Kayla reached out to Whole30 to ask about the science backing why they added peas and they didn’t have anything to say.

4. Their language is shaming. This is diet culture by making people feel bad about themselves. If they try to make you feel shame and like you’re not good enough then that’s not empowering! 

 

The danger is that you’re always going to come back for that quick fix weight loss- you always want to go back to the no fail restrictive diet and constantly adhering to restrictive dieting leads to disordered eating.

Unfortunately in our society diets are normal. We are consistently monitoring our worth by how well we achieve the pursuit of thinness. Weight loss doesn’t lead to lasting confidence or take away our self doubt. It’s a powerful thing that keeps you feeling insecure. 

Only 4% of women consider themselves beautiful! 

 80% of women diet to control their weight- and 22% of them are always on diet! 

HALF of American girls between 1st and 3rd grade wanted to be thinner and 5% of 9 year old girls are on a diet. 

Why do we think we have to be thin to be worthy? Why are we raised to feel shame over our size? Girls are taught to adhere to the thin ideal and conform to rules and expectations of women by dieting and doing the damn #JanuaryWhole30. This rule list and conforming to diets and the “normal” behaviors women adhere to are what are making so many of us so unhappy. Change your beliefs and mindset about what you should be doing and eating and how much you should weigh or what you need to look like and just focus on being happy with who you are.