Journaling 📝 is not the same as dieting

This is a copy of the second installment of a monthly email for mental health providers. If you'd like to join the listserv, please email me at laura@silverstreetnutrition.com and I'd be happy to add you! ‍Here’s a link to the first installment in case you missed it.

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Hello and Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is able to take a little time this month to slow down, spend time with the people they love, and care for themselves too.

My husband and I have been wrestling with trying to start a better morning routine recently to fight our snooze button habit. He read a self-help book that suggested we get up without snoozing (what a concept!) and then immediately drink a glass of water, meditate, say affirmations, and journal — all within the span of about 30 minutes. I’ve heard similar advice about a million times before, and usually roll my eyes while thinking, I’m sure that’d be lovely but who really does that?

‍Well, I guess now I do… or did for 2 weeks. I was actually a bit surprised by how simultaneously relaxing and energizing it felt to wake up a little earlier and turn inwards rather than race to my desk.

• The glass of water helped me feel a bit more awake.
• Meditating reminded me to slow down and be in the present moment.
• Affirmations reminded me to be more grateful and optimistic.
• Journaling helped me identify my anxieties about the upcoming day and reframe them proactively, rather than ignore them for as long as possible.

All this self-reflection created a mindset to enjoy the rest of the morning: taking out the dog, showering, and making/eating breakfast before finally walking to my office.

‍If these mornings were so damn wonderful, why did I stop after two weeks? I stopped for the same kinds of reasons most people don’t maintain new lifestyle habits:

• I was too reliant on my husband for motivation, so when he stopped, I stopped (I think he was also relying on me for motivation).
• Sleeping in feels really good, and it’s easy to convince myself in my half-asleep state that the benefits of sleeping in outweigh the benefits of my morning routine.
• It’s difficult to maintain habits that only have intrinsic benefits (e.g. an increased sense of ease, relaxation, and presence) without any clear extrinsic benefits (e.g. greater productivity, social praise).

It feels natural to compare my struggle to maintain a morning routine with the struggle to stick to a new diet or exercise regimen, given they are both types of lifestyle habits. If I were that kind of compare-er, I would now go on to explain a few simple life hacks or mindset tips that would give me the willpower to stick to my morning routine, and give your client the willpower for their new diet.

‍But there’s a major difference between trying to wake up early, and trying to restrict food intake or workout more — the difference is diet culture and the body’s innate mechanisms for survival.‍

There’s no deeply rooted historical or present acceptance of shaming people for hitting snooze and not journaling. Whereas size discrimination has been and continues to show up daily in media, conversation and more. If I don’t continue with my morning routine, there will be no social or systemic consequences. When a person in a larger body doesn’t lose weight on a diet, they continue to experience size discrimination and are more likely to feel internal shame as a result of learned diet culture. The stakes of trying to lose are higher than for many other kinds of lifestyle goals, and the so-called solution (dieting) doesn’t work for over 95% of people.

What’s more is the body fights against food restriction from dieting with the same intensity it fights against starvation. Restriction cues the body to make you feel hungrier and less full, think more about food, and slow down its metabolic rate. The body is not setting a series of survival mechanisms into place to fight against meditating or journaling. It is simply more difficult and more harmful to restrict food intake than it is to journal.

Lastly - dieting is the most important predictor of new eating disorders and disordered eating. A population-based cohort study examining adolescents over three years found that female participants who dieted at a severe level were 18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who did not, and female participants who dieted at a moderate level were five times more likely to develop an eating disorder. Morning routines don’t predict mental health disorders.

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Now back to me and my snooze problem. It’s been 10 days since I quit the new morning routine. Today, I woke up late, forgot about the glass of water, and chose to skip the affirmations and journaling — but I did meditate for 5 minutes and I’m grateful for that. After considering my barriers to behavior change more deeply (thanks to writing this email), I have a few ideas for how to help myself build a more sustainable routine. Those ideas might be for a different email! But I know better than to assume those same ideas will apply to dieting as well.

‍I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic, please feel free to write back to start a conversation!
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Thanks for reading,

Laura Silver, MS, RD, CDN

P.S. My team and I have a couple of openings right now for new nutrition counseling clients. If your clients are looking for more support with their relationship to food, body image, and more - we'd love to support them.