Dear Diet, We Need To Talk.

Dear Diet,

We need to talk.

I know we have been like chalk and cheese since the teenage times, but it is high time I open up about my true feelings that I have for you. You know how bottled up I can be of my feelings and how difficult is it for me to talk about it, but would want to let it out all today.

The age where I believed I could eat whatever I choose to, you made quite an entrance in my life through various mediums. Who knew what you were to bring on the plate. At home, everytime I took a second helping of rice, my mother started to glare at me as if I have committed a sin. She said, consider dieting a game where you only win when you lose. Until then I never gave a thought about it, but now, she planted an idea in my head. Why mom !!??

So I decided to talk to my friends about it. Did not realize that they were on the same team as my mother. So not eat sugar, do not eat carbs, you should try green tea, there is something new called keto which you should google about and what not! It made me think, do I really need this kind of negativity in my life? While watching titanic, binge eating on a tub of Belgian Dark Chocolate ice cream, I came across a scene where a lot of women said ‘no, thank you’ to dessert that night, and for what ?

I went on a date once, and ordered chili garlic noodles which happens to be my favorite. The guy did not like Chinese much so he kind of took a tiny helping, while I wiped the bowl clean. I mean, why waste good food? But he was so shocked. He could not believe a woman could have an appetite. You all guessed it right, the second date did not happen. Anyways, judgmental men were never my type.

I realized, every blame was put on the food. Food that I really love and cherish the most. Here I am thinking to visit the new fancy Italian place in town and there comes somebody with a reason to part me away with food. Is eating salads and starving the key to be accepted in the society? I understand the difference between adopting a healthy lifestyle and forcing my body to suffocate. Now here you come and tell me, “Dieting, or die eating.” I feel diet food is for the lazy people, people who cannot whip up some amazing pancakes in their kitchen.

So it's our discomfort - and even disgust - with the joy of eating that frightens us. And that's because of a culture that tells us, in a thousand ways, from the time we first start solid foods, that this comfort cannot be trusted. That we cannot be trusted to know what and how much to eat. We must outsource this judgment to experts who know better - first to our parents, then to teachers; then to food gurus and big brands, who sell us on diets, cleanses, food dogmas, and "lifestyle changes." We cede our knowledge, our own personal relationship with food, to an entire world built on the premise that we don't know how to feed ourselves.

Dear Diet, I know what to eat and live my life and I’d rather manage my health by adopting better ways that does not include sacrificing my food. Its time you change your game for good.