First, let’s unpack the term “anti-diet”. Christy Harrison, an anti-diet RDN, assures us on her blog that “Anti-diet does NOT mean anti-healthy... [it] means anti-diet culture.” Or, in other words, Western society’s obsession with “thinness...in all its sneaky, shape-shifting forms.” Here at Kodiak, we celebrate all shapes and sizes while inspiring healthier eating and active living.

Page Smathers, RDN and owner of Positive Nutrition, also weighed in on the dieting subject. “Dieting is not health promoting at best and can be really harmful at worst. Long term, the outcomes of dieting are weight gain, binge eating, and eating disorders.”

So how do we eat healthier and live fuller lives without the negative loop cycle of dieting? A great start is through a concept called Intuitive Eating.

Have Your Cake & Eat It Too

One reason why diets are harmful is the extreme restrictions that are hard to sustain long term. With intuitive eating, it’s all about the balance. So instead of cutting out sugar from your diet and perhaps eating an entire cake a few weeks later, try consciously adding more quality nutrients into your daily food intake and treating yourself to a slice of cake when you’re craving it for dessert — without all the guilt.

Food is Energy

Whether you’re wrangling your kids at the playground, mustering up enthusiasm to crush a presentation, or backpacking through the mountains, you need the right fuel...ahem, food...to get you through it. As we adopt this mindset that food is fuel, our focus shifts to, “I want to fit more veggies and whole grains into each meal because it makes me feel better and helps me achieve my goals.”

Incorporating nutrient-dense foods like whole grains, fruits, and veggies is healthy when practicing intuitive eating. Take whole grains for instance. When compared to enriched white flour (gross!), whole grain flour packs in more protein and fiber with fewer calories. Plus, whole grains give you the whole package, including the vitamins and minerals that are typically stripped from a grain during the refining process for an enriched grain.