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How I Stopped Believing in Diets — in 8 Uneven Steps
Eight phases, countless diets, and one quiet truth: it was never just about food
There was a diet for every phase of my life.
Diets I started in notebooks, in apps, in the guilt after a peach, and in hope over a perfectly balanced plate. Not a single one taught me how to stay with myself when I fail. And that’s when I needed myself the most.
Phase One — Peaches and Notebooks
I went on my first diet when I was sixteen. In the mirror, I saw a body that didn’t match the image I had in my head. An image I had borrowed from magazines, the sideways glances of girls in class, or the way a boutique saleswoman hesitated between a size 36 and the width of my hips. They’d look at me with a smirking half-smile, like they saw killer whales wash up at their doorstep daily, asking to be dressed like sardines.
And I would wait in silent dread for the sentence: “Unfortunately, we don’t carry this model in larger sizes.”
The problem was my hips and thighs. The ones that whispered with every step and never looked “tight” or “toned,” not even in my thoughts, let alone in P.E. shorts. P.E. class was a stage for discomfort — everyone in motion, everyone exposed, and me trying not to be seen, already knowing I was.
It wasn’t the mirror that hurt — it was the tightness of jeans across my thighs. It was knowing I’d always measure myself before sitting down, standing up, walking between chairs, leaving or entering the frame.
So one day, the sentence came: “I need to lose weight.” And I acted fast.
There were no apps then. Not even a computer in our house. Just a good old booklet of calorie charts and lined notebooks where I logged everything I ate. I counted calories by the light of a desk lamp — next to margarine, a spoonful of jam, half a banana.
No labels on food. Yogurt was just yogurt. Bread was just bread. The world was divided into allowed and forbidden.
I drew charts in a floral notebook. And one morning, the scale showed less. First half a kilo. Then another. Then two. Jeans that once pinched now fit. My mom said my face looked slimmer. My aunt said everything looked good on me.
And I did feel better. Lighter. Like I no longer had to apologize for existing. In class, on the street, among people — suddenly I had the feeling that I’d passed inspection.
But most of that success wasn’t from willpower. It came from distance. That summer I spent abroad — far from home, far from mom’s meals, family rituals, questions like “are you sure that’s enough?” At home, care often wore the shape of food, concern sounded like portion checks and love came as second helpings. And in that ever-present kitchen warmth, every emotion could be reheated.
There, away from all that, I ate differently — not just less, but quieter. I wasn’t being watched, weighed, or fed out of love or worry. For the first time, food was only food.
Then I came back. And the same day, after talking with my parents post-airport, I ate peaches. Not one. A kilo.
Those blushing, fragrant peaches, still warm from the sun, with tiny red pits and soft, overripe flesh that dripped down my fingers, along my arm, staining my shirt. Summer in my mouth.
My mom had bought them — as she did every summer — from the blue-eyed man at the market with a straw hat. He chose them carefully, turning them in his hand, checking for ripeness. He always added one more, “for you.”
That one — that extra peach — was the first crack in my dieting wall.
I didn’t think it was the end. I didn’t know that endings don’t arrive like a crash, but like a soft loosening. Like “just today.” Like peaches. Because in those peaches was everything I knew I missed but wasn’t allowed to want. There was my mom’s care, and home, and a summer that smelled like sun and basil, like afternoon naps and dinners served, not measured.
Those peaches held my childhood. Safety. Familiarity.
And with those peaches came pleasure — not the fragile kind of pleasure approved by diets and filtered through control, but real, full-bodied pleasure: the kind that runs down your fingers, lives in your mouth, and asks for nothing but to be felt, guilt-free.
The calorie notebook stayed closed — first for a day, then two, and then it simply remained that way. I didn’t log the toast I had the next morning, or the pancakes I made that night, or the slice of pie I reached for the day after.
Phase Two — Calories & Control
At thirty, I tried again. This time, it was science. Tables, calculators, apps, a scale — everything timed like an atomic clock. I learned about calorie deficits, what 100 grams of rice looks like, 3 dried figs for the nutritious snack, and that one cookie can contain more energy than an entire day of desk work without a free breath.
I stayed on that diet for five or six years. I lost weight, maintained it, measured and tracked. I always knew how much more I could “afford” to eat in a day. I was proud of myself — until I realized I was translating every feeling into a number.
Angry — 220 calories. Sad — 400. Jealous — three chocolate squares, but only after a 3K run. Fatigue didn’t count.
I added exercise — daily. At least half an hour, no matter what. I was obsessed, but also happy. Long walks. Strength trainings. And even better — I kept that habit to this day.
Sunny days on a bike with low-cal snacks packed in my basket. Joy. I was surrounded by people with the same obsessions. It was a beautiful time. Except it was also the time of some of my greatest personal struggles and turning points. But that’s another story.
I was the slimmest I’d ever been, maybe even the prettiest by others’ standards. But I wasn’t free. Food wasn’t food. It was a result, a threat, a number. And I — the good student who wasn’t allowed to fail.
Phase Three — The Nutritionist and the Hungry Child
This was the serious phase. I went to a nutritionist. For the first time, someone looked at my body professionally — without judgment, but also without romanticizing. She gave me a high-protein meal plan, meals measured in grams, and weekly check-ins that felt somewhere between a test and therapy.
And it worked. The weight dropped, the centimeters disappeared, and week after week, I felt something that diets rarely bring — hope. I was committed. I cooked, I planned, I packed my food for trips, and turned down cake at family celebrations with the smile of a woman who knows what she’s doing.
But I was also a little afraid of those check-ins. Sometimes I’d “slip” on the first or second day, eat something off-plan, then scramble back into the routine so that the scale and the tape measure would still show progress. After each meeting, I’d get a printed sheet: –1.2 kg, –2 cm around the waist, –1 cm in the upper arms… Numbers that looked like motivation. Until the next dinner: 150 grams of grilled chicken and boiled green beans. I’d go to bed hungry, convinced that one night of hunger would visibly shrink my hips.
I didn’t think about how my inner child felt. The one that just wanted a hug — and maybe a cookie, not out of weakness but out of kindness. And I was leaving that child to fall asleep hungry, thinking I was doing something good.
That’s why I didn’t eat the birthday cake at my first daughter’s first birthday. I stood next to it, quiet and stiff — as if, along with sugar, I had cut out the warmth of the moment.
Phase Four — The Collapse
The diet didn’t stop right away. I kept following the plan, weighing myself, staying disciplined — until I got pregnant with my second daughter. Then, almost automatically, I paused. Just temporarily, of course. I planned to return to it all as soon as the baby was born, as soon as things settled down.
But nothing settled.
When she was born, everything started unraveling. Exhaustion from motherhood. Health problems my child had in her early years. Breastfeeding that never went smoothly. Days closed inside four walls, with two small children, chaos, sleep deprivation, and a silence no one could see. Every meal was rushed. Every moment belonged to someone else.
I often ate late at night, quietly, standing in the kitchen. I told myself it was dinner. That I was feeding my body. But it wasn’t hunger. It was escape. From the crushing fatigue waiting to knock me down. From bedtime battles with two kids two years apart. From one child waking at 2 a.m. to “play” with mama. So convenient. And the other waking at 4:30 with a scream and the need to nurse.
I wasn’t hungry for food. I was hungry for silence. For rest. For shelter.
That’s how it started. Not as a fall — but as surrender. As if my body said: Enough.
The weight came back. Some quickly, some slowly — but all of it, inevitably. No drama, no control, no goal. Just quiet accumulation. I didn’t even look in the mirror, until one day, my reflection caught me off guard — larger, tired, unrecognizable. And I didn’t care, as long as I didn’t have to look.
Ten years have passed since. Every so often, I try to “return” — to the meal plan, to the regime, to that former weight. As if somewhere in the past, a slimmer version of me still waits, and I keep promising her: This time, I’ll do it right.
Phase Six — Trying With Understanding
Another try. This time, it seemed perfect: a nutritionist who also offered psychological support. I thought, Finally. Someone who understands it’s not about calories — it’s about the minds that count them.
Because I’d known for a long time: my problem wasn’t that I didn’t know a tablespoon of oil had 120 calories, or that salad dressing could eat up a quarter of my daily intake. I still know that stuff by heart — like a lesson learnt a long time ago. My problem was this: how do I not fall apart when everything else goes wrong — and the fridge is the only thing that doesn’t ask questions?
But it turned out my nutritionist’s version of “psychological support” meant listening, nodding, being kind — and adjusting the meal plan based on what I described as obstacles. Polite, empathetic, but still a system.
The rebel in me was getting louder. The part of me that wanted more than buckwheat with chia for breakfast. Not more calories — just more meaning.
I ended three months of dieting with three kilos lost. Should I say what happened next?
Phase Seven — The Basement and the Child Who Waited
When my mother’s health took a turn for the worse, life tightened around me like a drawstring. Everything intensified. There was always something urgent, always something leaking, something broken to patch. I became a one-woman emergency response team.
Even then, I didn’t give up on homemade meals. Cooking was the last stronghold of structure. But the nights — the nights were defenseless. The binges became regular. Not meals. Longings. Quiet panic. Powerlessness flavored like sugar, salt, crunch — anything immediate and mine alone.
At the same time, I began Gestalt therapy. For the first time, I wasn’t trying to fix myself — but to find myself. Not to become someone better, but to be all that I already was. Soft parts and shadows.
I realized that the dark corners of myself I had shoved into the basement of my mind for years weren’t bad. They weren’t broken. They just hadn’t been welcomed when I needed them most. They didn’t fit the version of me that was required. So they stayed hidden — unseen, but very much present. And powerful.
Down there was also the child. My inner child. She didn’t cry. She didn’t ask. She just sat in silence, certain she was wrong, unworthy, sentenced to isolation.
When I realized that, I cried for her. Not because she was weak. But because she had been forgotten. And because I love her.
Phase Eight — Drowned, Then Clear
The crisis came without a bang and lasted like a tide that wouldn’t recede. Nearly three years I lived in the sandwich: children growing, needing, demanding; my mother’s illness deepening like a tunnel ride on a roller coaster; my father trying to help but needing help himself; relentless daily obligations; work that piled on expectations like I had no other life outside of spreadsheets.
And me — I wasn’t there. Not the daughter, not the adult, wife, woman, mother, recognized academic. No one. Just a resource.
I stopped even feeling guilty for bingeing. I ate mechanically, numbly, just to get through the day. Until high blood pressure appeared. Then menopause crept in. And finally, after a string of diagnoses, came diabetes.
At first, diabetes came with a new chorus of musts: must eat on time, must exercise, must measure, must lose weight. And inside me — my inner rebellion is on alert. Another system? Another fix? Another box of numbers and rules? No way!
I saw hope in Saxenda, a medication designed to help manage weight. But that’s another story — and I’ll tell it here, one day, when I’m ready. It worked — I lost 13 kilos. Until it stopped working. I gained back 10. Maybe more, if I hadn’t stumbled on an ad for a gastric balloon.
I went for a consultation. They said I wasn’t a candidate for the balloon — but for stomach surgery. As if they offered to remove a wart. It sounded like freedom — until I imagined the recovery, the restrictions, the lifelong dietary changes. And I knew: that wasn’t my way.
Meanwhile, I continued therapy. A different kind. I learned tools to recognize anger. The difference between anger and rage. We talked a lot about food. And feelings.
Eventually, I contacted yet another nutritionist. This time, online. And — finally — someone understood. Understood my evening carbs cravings, my need for a daily sweet, and how protein, carbs, fat, and fiber should actually live together.
It worked like clockwork. For six weeks, we experimented. Listened to my body. Adjusted gently. And it worked. Until I told her about a nighttime binge triggered by emotional overload. And she quietly said, This is beyond my scope. This goes beyond food now.
And in that moment, I knew.
If I want to stop bingeing, I can’t fight it. I have to face it.
The first step wasn’t control. The first step was — acceptance.
Final Note
I don’t believe in diets anymore. I understand something deeper than any diet or number could ever offer: that if I truly wanted to stop the cycle of bingeing — not just for a week or a season, but for good — I couldn’t keep fighting it like it was an enemy, nor trying to outsmart it with strategies or self-blame.
I had to turn toward it, face it fully, be with it, even when it felt overwhelming, and meet it with curiosity rather than punishment. The very first step on this long, complicated journey wasn’t about control — it was, and always had to be, acceptance. Because maybe it’s not my body that needs to shrink. Maybe it’s just the expectation that I should always be light, always good, always enough.
