Caroline Dooner

You can improve your health without losing weight!

Do you feel like you have an addiction to food? Do you think about it all the time? Fixate on it? Crave it constantly? Feel like you have no control once you start? Do you just eat and eat and eat until you are stuffed and miserable?

I am a heterosexual woman looking for a relationship with someone I am attracted to, has a sense of humor, and isn’t a serial killer or too depressive. Someone that hopefully doesn’t have children, lives within…three hours of me, doesn’t think that monogamy “just isn’t natural,” and wants to date me, maybe even forever. That’s basically all I am looking for.

I have a confession: Until recently, I didn’t even know what “patriarchal society” meant. Yeah, I’m one of those feminists who grew up believing I didn’t need feminism.

Our culture has decided that gaining weight is the worst thing ever. And we have gotten the message in a multitude of sneaky or super blatant ways.

It’s really hard to exist in this culture as a woman who does not talk about or complain about weight. Why? Because we are so conditioned and used to talking about weight that it is a big shift to leave it behind.

I teach people how to eat normally after dieting. And across the board, the people I work with all describe themselves as “type A personalities” or “perfectionists.”

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are really resistant to movements that aim to inspire people to drop the fight against weight. There are lots of fat-haters.

The truth is, your body does not want you to restrict your food, and it does not want you to lose weight, especially when it feels like food is scarce. So, your body will sabotage your efforts almost every time — while also making it harder and harder to lose weight the more 'famines' you put it through.

We are taught that cravings equal unhealthy and no cravings equal healthy. But guess what? I am here to tell you that you will never get rid of your cravings, and that it’s fully OK!