Caroline Dooner

These are two concepts that I think we are all a little confused about. Even writing on this topic for four years, it’s taken me time to master explaining the difference between emotional eating and bingeing. We often use those two terms as if they’re interchangeable. But they’re absolutely not the same thing!

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?

Have you ever noticed how cultish fad diets can be? I didn’t, because I was in the cult. And cult members never think they are part of a cult. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that today’s diets may be filling the same human societal role that religions fill, and not in a good way.

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.”

I'm an anti-diet teacher. I teach chronic, obsessed dieters how to eat normally, trust their bodies, and fully commit to living their lives now, not 30 pounds from now.

How many diets are out there? How many of them are backed by doctors and gurus who claim they know “the most natural way to eat” or “the fastest way to burn fat and never gain it back!” or “the most definite way to never be hungry again, become beautiful, have everyone love you, and have all your dreams come true!”? So many.

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’ve heard this so many times: “Your talk of normal eating and body love is all good and fine — but I need to lose weight.” This is what I have to say to you: You don’t.

Pretending you’re OK when you're not is lying — lying to yourself. And it will keep you not OK.

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.