52: Why Diets Fail: The Problem with Diet Culture and Diet Beliefs with Dr. Shawn Hondorp

Are your beliefs about dieting holding you back?

If you’ve ever struggled with counting calories, monitoring everything you eat, and working so hard to lose weight… only to end up frustrated and mad at yourself when you’re still unhappy with your body?

Don’t worry my friend, you’re not alone.

That’s why I asked Dr. Shawn Hondrop to come on the show this week to talk about unhelpful diet beliefs, and how we can shift our mindset to feel more confident and in control when it comes to food.

Dr. Shawn is a board-certified clinical health psychologist, and host of the Motivation Made Easy: Body Respect, True Health podcast. She got her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Drexel University in Philadelphia, and she lives with her family in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her expertise is helping women master their relationship with food and focus on their most important dreams and goals.

Why Shawn’s Body Image Struggles Got Her Interested in This Work

“I’ve always been interested in everything eating, health, and nutrition” Shawn explained. And in university she immediately got involved in the mix of her main interests:

nutrition,
health, and
psychology, and
how they all made sense together.

Looking back, Shawn credits her interested in this field to her own experiences with the shame that surrounds eating and weight struggles.

“It’s incredibly common, and I found that to be incredibly unhelpful”.

So she decided her main goal was to improve the relationship that people have with food.

She works with people across all weight spectrums, but she has expertise working with folks in larger bodies and folks that are interested in weight loss.

Want to find solutions to dieting that are actually sustainable so you can stay in control of your habits? Shawn’s your gal.

Dieting Culture Promotes Shame-Based Motivation – And That’s A Problem

There are a million unhelpful beliefs when it comes to dieting according to Shawn.

And the most unhelpful belief? – The idea that dieting works or weight loss works long term.

Shawn explains how dieting and weight loss can work in the short term, but we tend to overestimate our ability to change behaviour and underestimate the impact of biology.

Diet mentality is often fueled by what’s called extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is

should-based motivation,
shame-based motivation, and
an all-or-nothing way of thinking

And this can impair our ability to make autonomous, lasting change (change that best fits you, making a change because you like it, or because it feels right for you).

Problem = It’s All About Weight & Size

I used to love the show The Biggest Loser. Who doesn’t love a good transformation story?

But shows like The Biggest Loser are totally focused on weight and size. That success is determined by the numbers on the scale.

Shawn explained that messages you get in the media work to sensationalize weight loss and prize it as the ‘best thing ever’.

But this focus can be harmful to your psychological wellbeing, your health, and your weight cycling.

In fact, those same contestants on the Biggest Loser were found to have regained the weight they had previously lost on the show.

Not because they lacked willpower, but because of their biology.

Willpower Isn’t The Problem

“We set people up to fixate on the number on the scale … and makes them feel increasingly like an incompetent human being” Shawn states.

Societal pressures can make you believe it’s your fault when diet plans don’t work.

And this leads to guilt and shame when you don’t get the results you’re looking for.

“Diet mentality is almost always an external motivation”, Shawn explains, like a string that holds you down.

What Is Disordered Eating?

Shawn shared how at times she could have met criteria for binge eating disorder…

… but many other times she wouldn’t have.

But she still felt GUILTY after eating, even if she wasn’t eating that much.

“Now I’m at peace with food”, Shawn says and instead of stressing about what she’s eating, she listens to her body.

The problem? The world has made you believe you can’t pursue your best life until you’ve lost the weight.

Stressing About What Others Think

“Our worth is so tied up with our weight” according to Shawn.

You’ve probably seen jokes about the “COVID 15”, or 20… or 50. Lots of folks have been gaining weight this year with all the extra stress, staying home all the time, and having less options for healthy activity.

What’s the first thing we do when we notice weight gain? Well, I guess it’s time to go on a diet. I can’t eat this, I can’t eat that.

But Shawn says, “that’s quite a restrictive mindset, and it 100% back fires for most us”.

Instead of saying “I need to go on a diet” - think of little changes to your routine that will make you feel your best.

Like drinking a little more water or going to bed a little earlier.

The things you need to do to feel as good in your body as possible, as soon as possible!

Shifting Your Thoughts Away From “Should”

Get this! Dr. Shawn explains how our thoughts about what we “should” be doing aren’t actually coming from us - they’re coming from societal rules that we’ve internalized.

Steps to stop the dieting “shoulds”

Acknowledge that you have convinced yourself of these absurd societal rules.
Find habits that make you feel good about yourself. “How do I want to feel at the end of that day?” is a question that Dr. Shawn encourages us to ask ourselves when thinking about our eating habits.
Be respectful to your body! You only get one.
Avoid that avoidance! Dr. Shawn explained how it’s not as important to be perfect, but rather shifting your goal from I ‘should’ do it to wanting to eat and move in a way that will make you feel energized and happy.

Wanting vs. Choosing

You have a lot of decisions to make when it comes to exercise and food. The key? Balance!

Shawn explains how fighting tooth and nail to try to make every healthy eating choice will actually work against you.

It’s easy to be in awe of those people who look like they have it all together and their willpower seems indestructible, but. Shawn highlights how those people simply are making the choices that are consistent with their identity or that make them feel better (not because they feel they “should”).

When it comes to brain resources, if you use all of your resources making decisions about food and exercise, what mental energy will you have left for the fun stuff?

Uncoupling From Diet Mentality

Strange but true - In the 1990’s the sugar industry took advantage of the anti-fat movement and started pumping our foods with sugar instead of fat.

To this day I still have friends and family that avoid eating any fat (even the healthy stuff).

That’s the power that media messages have on our ways of thinking about healthy eating!

Shawn describes that the weight loss industry is infested with confusing and forceful information about nutrition that makes us think we need them to reach our weight loss goals.

Shawn’s advice?

Acknowledge the power of diet mentality,
control your inputs of social media,
consider who you’re around and what they’re talking about, and
be mindful of how you, yourself, talk and think about food.

I had a friend who came back from a weekend family trip feeling very anxious about food, which she had never experienced before, and it was because all the conversations over the weekend were about food.

We’re social creatures, and we are heavily influenced by the conversations that go on around us.

So who decides what’s healthy and what’s not?

Take a cupcake for example. Shawn explains that for some people: