What if the weight was never the wound?

As a registered dietitian, I’ve worked with people in almost every stage of their relationship with food and their bodies.

I’ve worked in bariatric surgery.
I’ve worked with people pursuing weight loss.
I’ve worked with people living in larger bodies.
I’ve worked with people taking GLP-1 medications.
I’ve worked with people recovering from eating disorders.
I’ve worked with people who desperately wanted to lose weight and people who were desperately trying to stop caring about weight altogether.

On the surface, these groups may seem incredibly different.

Different goals.
Different bodies.
Different medical histories.
Different experiences.

But over the years, I’ve realized they all have one thing in common — and it isn’t weight, food, or body image.

It’s grief.

That realization has fundamentally changed the way I think about health and it’s also changed the way I care for my clients.

We don’t talk enough about grief.

When most people hear the word grief, they think about death.

But grief is much bigger than that. Grief is mourning something that mattered.

A dream.
An identity.
A relationship.
An expectation.
A future you imagined.
Years you can’t get back.

When it comes to our bodies, grief often sounds like this:

“I thought I’d be happier by now.”

“I thought losing weight would fix this.”

“I’ve spent my whole life trying to become someone else.”

Those aren’t food or nutrition problems.

They’re human experiences.

I saw it first in bariatric surgery.

One of my first jobs as a dietitian was in a bariatric surgery clinic.

Many of the patients I worked with had spent years, sometimes decades, waiting for surgery.

For many, surgery represented hope — maybe a fresh start, a second chance, a life they have been waiting to start living.

They would say things like:

“When I lose the weight, I’ll finally feel confident.”

“When I lose the weight, I’ll finally start dating.”

“When I lose the weight, I’ll finally wear the clothes I want.”

“When I lose the weight, I’ll finally stop worrying about what everyone thinks.”

And I deeply understood those hopes.

They’re completely valid in a culture that constantly tells us smaller bodies are healthier, more worthy, more attractive, more disciplined, and more acceptable.

Many people experienced meaningful improvements after surgery. Some gained mobility, reduced pain, improved health markers, or found activities they hadn’t been able to do before.

But, here’s the critical part I need you to hear: something else often remained.

The self-criticism.
The fear.
The shame.
The body image struggles.
The anxiety about weight regain.

That’s when I began asking myself a different question.

What if people weren’t actually pursuing weight loss?

What if they were pursuing relief?
Relief from shame.
Relief from judgment.
Relief from feeling like they have never been enough.

Those are VERY different things.

The grief of a life spent waiting

One of the most heartbreaking conversations I have with clients has nothing to do with food.

It’s about waiting.

Waiting to wear the swimsuit.
Waiting to book the vacation.
Waiting to date.
Waiting to take family pictures.
Waiting to apply for the promotion.
Waiting to feel confident.
Waiting to finally start living.

The underlying message is this:

“My life can begin once my body changes.”

But life doesn’t pause while we’re waiting.

Birthdays happen. Vacations happen. Relationships happen. Children grow up. Friends get older. Photos are taken. Memories are made.

Many of the people I work with start to realize they’ve spent years watching life happen from the sidelines because they believed they needed a different body before they deserved to fully participate.

That realization carries profound grief.

Not because they failed. Because time passed — & that is time you will never get back.

The grief of never arriving

Diet culture is brilliant at selling a finish line.

Just five more pounds. One more program. One more medication. One more challenge. One more “before and after.”

The promise is always the same: Then you’ll finally feel okay.

But for many people, the finish line keeps moving.

You lose ten pounds. Now you want twenty.
You reach your goal weight. Now you’re terrified of regaining it.
You finally feel successful. Now you’re afraid of losing your success.

Instead of finding freedom, you inherit another responsibility — to protect the body you’ve worked so hard to create.

The destination never truly arrives.

And eventually many people are left asking:

How much of my life have I spent chasing something that was always moving further away?

The hidden grief beneath weight regain

One of the hardest conversations I have with clients is around weight regain.

Not because bodies changing is inherently a problem, but because our culture has taught us to interpret weight regain as failure.

People rarely tell me: “My body changed.”
Instead they say: “I failed.” “I lost control.” “I’m back where I started.” “I’ll never figure this out.”

The grief isn’t always about the weight itself.

Often it’s about losing the story they believed.

The story that said:
“I finally escaped.”
“I finally did it”
“I finally fixed myself.”

That’s an incredibly painful loss & you deserve to have the space to talk about it.

This isn’t just about dieting.

I see this same grief in eating disorder recovery.

I see it in people navigating GLP-1 medications.

I see it in people trying to improve their health.

I see it in people who have spent decades believing their body is the reason they aren’t happy.

The circumstances change. The grief remains. Because underneath so many conversations about food is a much deeper question:

Will I finally be okay if my body changes?

The weight was never the wound.

This may be the most important thing I’ve learned in my career.

The weight was never the wound. The weight became the place where the wound lived.

Many of us learned, directly or indirectly, that our value depended on our appearance.
Maybe we were bullied.
Maybe we were praised when we got smaller.
Maybe we watched the adults around us criticize their own bodies.
Maybe we learned that love felt conditional.

Those experiences shape the stories we tell ourselves and eventually all of that pain gets projected onto the body.

Because if the body is framed as “the problem”, then we’re taught that means it can '“be fixed”.

But emotional wounds cannot be healed through physical change alone.

The question I wish more people would ask

Most people are saying: “I need to lose weight.”

The question I wish more people asked is:

“What do I believe weight loss will give me?”

Confidence? Acceptance? Belonging? Safety? Freedom? Worthiness? Maybe all of the above?

These are real desires.

But they aren’t achieved through weight goals.

They’re human needs. Truly, basic human needs that deserved to be met now — not when your body changes.

And if we’re trying to meet emotional needs exclusively through body change, we’ll likely continue feeling disappointed and continue feeling not good enough — even if our body changes.

What healing has to actually look like

One of the biggest misconceptions about my work is that people think healing means loving your body every moment of every day.

That’s not what I mean. Healing looks much quieter than that.

It looks like:

• Going on the vacation instead of waiting.

• Letting someone take your picture.

• Wearing shorts because it’s hot outside, not because you’ve “earned” them.

• Eating lunch without spending the rest of the afternoon feeling guilty.

• Having a difficult body image day without punishing yourself.

• Trusting yourself around food.

• Allowing your worth to remain, even when your body changes.

Those moments rarely make dramatic before-and-after photos.

But they change lives.

What if the thing you’re looking for is available right now?

I want to leave you with one question —

If you woke up tomorrow in the exact body you’ve been chasing...

What would be different? Would you be healthier? Would you feel more confident? More accepted? More worthy? More free?

Now ask yourself this: What if these things are available now & not dependent on your body shape and size?

Not because your health doesn’t matter.
Not because you’re wrong for wanting weight loss.
But because your life is too important to postpone.

You do not have to wait for your body to change before you deserve joy.

You do not have to wait for your body to change before you deserve connection.

You do not have to wait for your body to change before you deserve compassion.

And you do not have to wait for your body to change before you begin living.

Maybe healing doesn’t begin when you lose the weight.

Maybe healing begins when you stop asking weight loss to carry the responsibility of making you feel whole — that responsibility never belonged to your body in the first place.

Ready to keep exploring?

If this resonated with you, here are three ways we can continue the conversation:

📖 Download my free guide: 5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss — a practical starting point for building health without making the scale the center of your life.

🤍 Work with me 1:1: Together we’ll explore the deeper beliefs, emotions, and patterns that shape your relationship with food, your body, and your health.

🎙️ Make Sure You’re Following Chats with Mack: Every month, I share conversations about food, body image, health, grief, and healing — through a compassionate, weight-inclusive lens.

“I know what to do. I just can’t seem to do it.”

And every time I hear it, my heart breaks a little.

Because most people genuinely believe they have a knowledge problem.

They think they need another meal plan.
Another strategy.
Another accountability program.
Another set of rules.

But here’s the truth:

Most people are not lacking information.

They’re lacking safety.

Safety in their body.
Safety in their emotions.
Safety in their relationship with food.

You can know exactly what to eat and still emotionally struggle.

You can know exactly how many vegetables you should consume and still binge at night.

You can know how to lose weight and still feel miserable.

Knowledge isn’t the missing piece.

Connection is.

The ability to understand what’s happening inside of you without immediately judging it.

The ability to recognize stress before it sends you searching for comfort.

The ability to meet your needs instead of constantly overriding or suppressing them.

Most health advice focuses on behavior.

When my clients work with me, we focus on the person underneath the behavior.

Because that’s where lasting change happens.

Not through forcing or control.

Not through willpower.

Not through another plan.

Through understanding.

And when you understand yourself better, you stop feeling like your body is constantly working against you.

Your habits + behaviors become value-aligned so they truly meet your unique, individual needs.

That’s the difference.

If you’re tired of starting over or constantly looking for the approach that’s “finally going to work”, maybe it’s time to stop looking for another plan and start looking inward.

Ready for more support beyond this email?

Check out the links below for 3 ways you can get more support from me!

→ Click HERE to learn more about working with me 1:1, so you can learn how to build health without making weight the center of your life.

→ Click HERE to download my free guide: “5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss.”

→ Click HERE to follow Chats with Mack for deeper conversations about food, body image, health, and healing.

Thank YOU for being here. 💖

xoxo

Mack

& by “better” you usually mean:

Eat less.
Be more disciplined.
Cut back on snacks.
Drink more water.
Stay busy.

And for a little while it works.

Until suddenly you’re standing in the pantry.

Thinking about food again.

Wondering why you can’t just stop.

Wondering why food seems so easy for everyone else.

Wondering what’s wrong with you.

Here’s what I want you to know:

The problem is not that you’re thinking about food.

The problem is that you’ve been taught to fear what those thoughts mean.

Food thoughts are rarely ever the problem.

They’re information.

Your body asking for energy.
Your body asking for satisfaction.
Your body asking for nourishment.
Your body responding to restriction.

Most people respond by trying harder.

More control.
More rules.
More discipline.

We do these things because that’s what we’ve been taught, but it usually creates more food noise, not less.

Because your brain is designed to protect you.

The more scarcity it senses, the louder it gets.

That’s why so many people feel trapped.

They’re trying to solve food obsession with the very thing that’s creating it.

The answer isn’t more control.

The answer is understanding.

Understanding your hunger.
Understanding your emotions.
Understanding your relationship with food.
Understanding what your body has been trying to tell you all along.

When you stop fighting your body, you can finally start listening to it & trusting it.

And that’s when food begins taking up less space in your life.

Not because you became more disciplined.

But because you became more connected.

Ready for more support beyond this email?

Check out the links below for 3 ways you can get more support from me!

→ Click HERE to learn more about working with me 1:1, so you can learn how to build health without making weight the center of your life.

→ Click HERE to download my free guide: “5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss.”

→ Click HERE to follow Chats with Mack for deeper conversations about food, body image, health, and healing.

Thank YOU for being here. 💖

xoxo

Mack

Most people don’t actually want weight loss.

They want what they believe weight loss will give them.

Confidence.
Peace.
Freedom.
Acceptance.
Relief.

They want to stop feeling self-conscious in photos.

They want to stop thinking about food all day.

They want to walk into a room and not immediately wonder how they’re being perceived.

They want to stop feeling like their body is the thing standing between them and the life they want.

So they spend years chasing weight loss.

Trying harder.
Starting over.
Getting back on track.
Being “good.”
Being “bad.”
Promising themselves this will be the last time.

And sometimes it even works.

The weight comes off.

But then something unexpected happens.

The anxiety is still there.

The perfectionism is still there.

The self-criticism is still there.

The fear of gaining weight becomes even louder because now there’s something to lose.

Because weight loss was never the thing carrying all of that pain.

You were asking weight loss to do a job it was never designed to do.

This is why I created Finding Health Without Weight Loss.

Not because weight loss is bad.

Not because you’re wrong for wanting it.

But, because when you learn how to care for yourself, trust yourself, nourish yourself, and regulate difficult emotions...

You no longer need weight loss to be your only pathway to feeling okay.

And that’s where freedom + peace starts.

Looking for more support beyond this post?

Check out the links below for 3 ways you can get more support from me!

→ Click HERE to learn more about working with me 1:1, so you can learn how to build health without making weight the center of your life.

→ Click HERE to download my free guide: “5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss.”

→ Click HERE to follow Chats with Mack for deeper conversations about food, body image, health, and healing.

Your life deserves to be bigger than counting calories, shrinking your body, and starting over every Monday.

xoxo

Mack

“Okay… THIS is the last time I’m starting over.”

And then somehow found yourself a few weeks later:

• Googling “how to lose weight fast”

• Saving a TikTok about “3 foods that melt belly fat”

• Downloading another meal plan

• Telling yourself this one is going to be different

And honestly?

For a moment, it does feel different.

It feels hopeful.

It feels like relief.

It feels like maybe your life is about to finally get easier.

Until it doesn’t. 😅

Because eventually...

• your hunger + cravings get louder

• you start thinking about food constantly

• you beat yourself up after eating something “bad”

• you swear you’ll “be better” tomorrow

...and suddenly you’re right back in the shame spiral wondering:

“Why can’t I just be more disciplined?”

Here’s the truth most weight loss companies will never tell you:

Your struggle isn’t caused by a lack of discipline.

It’s often the predictable result of restriction.

When your body feels deprived, physically or mentally, it responds exactly how it was designed to:

• By increasing hunger

• Making food feel more urgent

• Intensifying cravings

• And pushing back against deprivation

Your body is not trying to sabotage you.

It’s trying to protect you in the only way it knows how.

But diet culture has done an incredible job convincing you that these very normal biological responses are personal failures.

And that’s why so many people stay stuck in the cycle:

restrict → crave → binge/overeat → feel guilty → start over

And repeat. 🔄

But here’s the bigger question:

• What if working on your health was never supposed to feel this miserable?

• What if being healthy didn’t require obsessing over calories, shrinking your body, or constantly feeling like you’re failing?

• What if you could pursue health in a way that actually feels sustainable—and doesn’t require hating yourself in the process?

• What if health didn’t lead to you fearing that you could lose the ‘results’ at any given moment?

That’s exactly why I created my free guide:

5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss

Inside, I’ll walk you through:

✨ How to redefine health beyond the scale
✨ What actually supports long-term wellbeing
✨ How to stop chasing extremes
✨ Ways to build habits rooted in self-respect—not punishment

DOWNLOAD YOUR GUIDE HERE!

Because your life deserves to be bigger than counting calories, shrinking your body, and starting over every Monday.

xoxo

Mack

In the 2000s, it was celebrity diets, detoxes, and ‘clean eating’.

Today, it’s GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound.

The names change. The marketing changes. The science evolves.

But, the underlying message remains remarkably consistent: your body is a problem and shrinking it is the solution.

I think this is super important and worth talking about.

Because, while much of the conversation surrounding GLP-1s focuses on the medication itself, I don’t think the popularity of these drugs can be understood without looking at the larger cultural forces that made them so appealing in the first place.

Weight Loss Booms Don’t Happen In Isolation

Many people talk about the rise of GLP-1s as though it appeared out of nowhere.

It didn’t.

Historically, major weight loss booms tend to emerge during periods where society becomes increasingly focused on self-improvement, optimization, productivity, appearance, and control.

The last major prescription weight loss drug boom was Fen-Phen in the 1990s.

At the exact same time, the beauty industry was glorifying the ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic: extremely thin bodies, visible bones, and a look that communicated fragility and restraint.

Thinness wasn’t simply attractive. It became symbolic of discipline, success, and social status.

The same thing happened in the early 2000s.

Celebrity tabloids publicly scrutinized women’s bodies. Low-rise jeans dominated fashion. Magazine covers counted calories for readers and taught women how to suppress hunger.

Then, wellness culture arrived and rebranded dieting as ‘health’.

Instead of ‘lose weight’, the messaging became:

• Optimize your health

• Balance your hormones

• Heal your gut

• Clean up your eating

• Biohack your body

The language changed. The goal didn’t.

The Business of Body Dissatisfaction

When discussing weight loss culture, we also need to discuss money.

The global beauty industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The weight loss industry is worth hundred of billions of dollars.

The pharmaceutical industry stands to generate billions from GLP-1 medications alone.

I want to be clear:

• This doesn’t mean beauty products are bad.

• It doesn’t mean weight loss medications are bad.

• It doesn’t mean individual healthcare providers or patients have bad intentions.

But, it DOES mean that there are powerful financial incentives tied to keeping people dissatisfied with themselves.

Because dissatisfaction sells. Fear sells. Insecurity sells.

When people believe they are one transformation away from finally feeling confident, accepted, lovable, or successful, they become consumers.

Our culture is incredibly effective at selling that promise.

Why I Don’t Think This Is Really About Health

This is arguably the most important part of the conversation.

I don’t believe society’s obsession with weight loss is fundamentally about health.

If it were, we would spend far more time, money, and resources talking about:

• access to healthcare

• mental health support

• chronic stress

• burnout

• poverty

• food insecurity

• trauma

• loneliness

• community connection

• sleep

• work-life balance

Instead? We spend time focusing overwhelmingly on body size.

That should make us pause.

Health conversations often become morality conversations.

Thinness gets associated with discipline, success, intelligence, self-control, worthiness.

Meanwhile, larger bodies are often unfairly associated with laziness, failure, poor choices, lack of motivation.

These stereotypes are deeply ingrained in our culture and they influence how people see themselves.

Which is why I rarely think the desire for weight loss is actually about weight.

More often, when people say ‘I want to lose weight’, they are saying:

• I want to feel accepted.

• I want people to stop judging me.

• I want to feel confident.

• I want to feel worthy.

• I want to belong.

And, truthfully? It makes complete sense. Because, we live in a world that constantly tells people that smaller bodies are better, healthier, more valuable.

The Questions We Should Be Asking

Instead of asking, ‘How do we help people lose weight?”

We need to be asking:

• Why are so many people suffering in their bodies?

• Why is body dissatisfaction considered normal?

• Why do so many people believe they must shrink themselves to deserve love, respect, or belonging?

• Why are eating disorder behaviors often praised when they result in weight loss?

• Why do we treat thinness as evidence of health, character, or worth?

• Who benefits when people spend their entire lives trying to become smaller versions of themselves?

I think these are the conversations underneath all of this.

It’s not simply how to suppress appetite more effectively or how to help people lose weight & then keep it off.

What If Health Was Bigger Than Weight?

One of the most heartbreaking things I see in my work is how many people put their lives on hold while waiting for their bodies to change.

They postpone joy. They postpone confidence. They postpone self-acceptance. They postpone living.

All because they believe health, happiness, and worthiness exist on the other side of weight loss.

But, what if health was bigger than the number on the scale?

• What if you could pursue meaningful health behaviors right now?

• What if your body didn’t have to become your life’s greatest project?

• What if your worth was never dependent on your weight in the first place?

Those are the questions I want more people asking.

Your life IS happening right now.

Not 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds from now. Not after the next diet. Not after your finally achieve the ‘perfect’ body.

Your life is happening now.

Ready to Find Health Without Weight Loss?

The goal isn’t that you no longer desire weight loss or want your body to change. We get to hold space for that AND work on getting curious about where that desire comes from so that you can truly live your biggest, most beautiful, healthiest life right now.

If you’re tired of chasing weight loss and wondering if there’s another way, I’ve created a free guide: 5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss.

Inside, you’ll learn practical ways to improve your health, relationship with food, and relationship with your body without making weight loss the center of everything.

👉 Download your free guide HERE!

And if you’re ready for deeper support, my coaching program, Finding Health Without Weight Loss, is for you.

Inside my coaching program, I help you step out of the dieting cycle, improve body image, reduce food obsession + food noise, and build a definition of health that actually supports your unique needs, values, and life.

👉 Learn more about working with me HERE!

Health is so much more than your weight.

You deserve a life that isn’t dependent on your body shape and size changing first.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for being YOU.

xoxo

Mack

“Okay… THIS is the last time I’m starting over.”

And then somehow found yourself a few weeks later:

• Googling “how to lose weight fast”

• Saving a TikTok about “3 foods that melt belly fat”

• Downloading another meal plan

• Telling yourself this one is going to be different

And honestly?

For a moment, it does feel different.

It feels hopeful.
It feels like relief.
It feels like maybe your life is about to finally get easier.

Until it doesn’t. 😅

Because eventually...

• your hunger + cravings get louder

• you start thinking about food constantly

• you beat yourself up after eating something “bad”

• you swear you’ll “be better” tomorrow

...and suddenly you’re right back in the shame spiral wondering:

“Why can’t I just be more disciplined?”

Here’s the truth most weight loss companies will never tell you:
Your struggle isn’t caused by a lack of discipline.

It’s often the predictable result of restriction.

When your body feels deprived, physically or mentally, it responds exactly how it was designed to:

• By increasing hunger

• Making food feel more urgent

• Intensifying cravings

• And pushing back against deprivation

Your body is not trying to sabotage you.

It’s trying to protect you in the only way it knows how.

But diet culture has done an incredible job convincing you that these very normal biological responses are personal failures.

And that’s why so many people stay stuck in the cycle:

restrict → crave → binge/overeat → feel guilty → start over

And repeat. 🔄

But here’s the bigger question:

• What if working on your health was never supposed to feel this miserable?

• What if being healthy didn’t require obsessing over calories, shrinking your body, or constantly feeling like you’re failing?

• What if you could pursue health in a way that actually feels sustainable—and doesn’t require hating yourself in the process?

• What if health didn’t lead to you fearing that you could lose the ‘results’ at any given moment?

That’s exactly why I created my free guide:

5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss

Inside this guide, I’ll walk you through:

✨ How to redefine health outside of the scale
✨ What actually supports long-term wellbeing
✨ How to stop chasing extremes
✨ Ways to build habits rooted in self-respect—not punishment

DOWNLOAD YOUR GUIDE HERE!

Because your life deserves to be bigger than counting calories, shrinking your body, and starting over every Monday. 💖

xoxo
Mack

Because, right now, the conversation around weight loss, especially in this GLP-1 era, is dominated by before and afters, transformations, and the promise of finally feeling ‘in control’.

But, very few people are asking a much harder question: what happens if your body changes again?

What happens if the weight comes back?

And before we go any further, I want to be clear: this is not anti-medication, anti-weight loss or anti-health.

Body autonomy matters.

For some people, these medications have genuinely improved their quality of life. They’ve helped regulate blood sugar, reduce binge eating behaviors, decrease inflammation, and create a sense of relief around food that many people have been chasing for years.

That matters, too.

But, so does this conversation.

Because if we only talk about the highs, and never prepare people for the full picture, we’re not actually supporting people and helping them heal.

We’re selling them certainty in a body that was never meant to stay the same.

The Promise of Finally Feeling “In Control”

One of the reasons weight loss interventions, whether that’s dieting or medications can feel so powerful is because of what they offer emotionally: relief.

Relief from food noise. Relief from constant hunger. Relief from feeling ‘out of control’. Relief from years of blame and shame.

For many people, that relief feels life-changing.

Maybe for the first time, food feels quiet.
Maybe for the first time, eating feels ‘normal’.
Maybe for the first time, your body feels predictable.

And, of course, that’s going to feel good.

But, here’s the question we don’t ask enough: was food actually the problem in the first place?

Or…

Were years of restriction, dieting, and trying to control your body creating the very chaos you were trying to escape?

Because if the underlying relationship with food and your body hasn’t been addressed…

then what you may be experiencing isn’t true healing —
it’s outsourced control.

And, outsourced control can feel incredibly fragile when it’s tied to something that may not be permanent.

What We Know About Weight Loss + Regain

Let’s ground this in reality for a second.

Research on GLP-1 medications shows that many individuals regain some, or sometimes much, of the weight after discontinuing the medication.

From a physiological perspective, this actually makes sense.

These medications impact appetite signaling, satiety hormones, digestion, and blood sugar regulation.

When those mechanisms are removed, your body often attempts to return to its baseline.

Not because you failed or did something wrong.
But because your body is adaptive.

If we zoom out even further, this isn’t unique to medications.

Decades of research on dieting have show us the same thing:
Long-term weight loss is incredibly difficult for most people.

Bodies are not static. They respond to stress, hormones, aging, trauma, life transitions, illness, sleep, access to food, and so much more.

The idea that your body should stay in one controlled state forever? That was never realistic. In fact, this will never be realistic.

But, it is something our diet obsessed culture keeps telling + selling us.

“It worked, Until It Didn’t”

This is where grief comes in.

For many people, the intervention did work. Until it didn’t.

Until hunger came back.
Until cravings came back.
Until the scale stopped moving.
Until side effects became too much.
Until insurance stopped covering it.
Until they realized they still didn’t feel at peace in their body.

This experience can absolutely feel devastating.

Because what’s often underneath that grief isn’t just weight regain — it’s the loss of hope.

The hope that this would finally be the things that fixed everything.
The hope that a smaller body would make life easier.
The hope that this time would be different.

That grief is real. It deserves to be acknowledged, not dismissed, suppressed, or rushed past.

The Real Fear of Weight Regain

Here’s the part we need to be honest about: most people are not actually afraid of weight regain itself.

They’re afraid of what weight regain means in a weight-stigmatizing, anti-fat culture.

They’re afraid of:

• Being judged

• Being treated differently by doctors

• Losing social approval

• Losing desirability

• Being seen as lazy or undisciplined

• Feeling like they failed

• Having to exist in a body that feels less socially accepted

That’s what is underneath the fear.

In a world that equates thinness with worth, health, success — body changes don’t just feel physical.

They feel social. They feel emotional. They feel like a shift in how safe it is to exist in your body.

That’s not an individual problem.
That’s a cultural one.

So, What Do You Do If Your Body Changes…Again?

This is the part that matters most. Your body will change over your lifetime. That’s not dysfunction. That’s being human.

So, the goal can’t be to find the one thing that keeps your body frozen in one size forever.

The goal has to be building a relationship with your body that can withstand change.

That looks like:

• Grieving the fantasy that thinness guarantees safety, happiness, or worth

• Getting curious about where your beliefs about weight, health, and value came from

• Separating your identity from your body shape and size

• Investing in health behaviors that support your quality of life regardless of weight:

  • Nourishment

  • Movement

  • Sleep

  • Stress support

  • Connection

  • Joy

  • Boundaries

  • Medical advocacy

And, maybe most importantly…

Learning how to tolerate body change without abandoning yourself.
Your worth was never supposed to depend on your weight.

A Question to Sit With:

If your body changed tomorrow…

• Would you still know how to care for yourself?

• Would you still believe you deserve respect?

• Would you still feel worthy of taking up space?

Health was never meant to be a lifelong performance of control.

Your body was never meant to be something you had to earn your way into liking.

If You’re Ready for a Different Approach

If this brought something up for you — you’re not alone.

This is exactly the kind of work we do inside my coaching program:

Finding Health Without Weight Loss

A 12-week program designed to help you:

• Heal your relationship with food

• Rebuild body trust

• Unlearn internalized weight stigma

• Redefine health on your own terms

No diets. Definitely no weigh-ins. & absolutely no guilt or shame.

Just a radically different way of understanding your body and caring for yourself in it.

You can learn more + apply for a discovery call HERE!

If you take nothing else from this post, take this:

Your body changing is not a failure.

But, abandoning, shaming, hating yourself because of it?
That’s what you have to unlearn.

But, I think for many people, it’s not nearly that simple.

Because, most of the time, the desire to lose weight is not just about the weight.

It’s about what weight loss has come to represent.

It’s about what we believe it will give us.

More confidence. More acceptance. More ease in our own skin. More respect from others. More control. More health. A better life.

Sometimes, it’s about wanting relief from body shame, self-criticism, feeling hyperaware of your body every time you enter a room.

Sometimes it’s about wanting to move through the world without scrutiny and judgment.

Sometimes it’s about wanting to feel enough.

And in a culture that constantly ranks bodies, rewards thinness, and pathologizes fatness, those desires make sense.

They are not bad or wrong. They are human responses to the world we live in.

Weight Loss Is Often A Symbol

Weight loss gets framed as a physical change, but emotionally and culturally, it often functions as a symbol.

A symbol of discipline, success, attractiveness, of being someone who “has it together”.

We’re taught that certain bodies belong to certain kinds of people — sometimes subtly, but also sometimes aggressively.

We’re taught that smaller bodies belong to people who are responsible, healthy, worth, desirable, successful.

And if we can just get the body ‘right’, maybe we’ll become the person we think comes with it.

That’s a powerful promise. It’s also why the desire to lose weight can feel SO emotionally charged. Because it’s rarely about the number on the scale going down. It’s about trying to gain something else.

The Fantasy of the “After” Life

Diet culture thrives on a before-and-after narrative.

Before: insecure, uncomfortable, unhealthy, stuck.

After: confident, healthy, happy, free.

The “after” life is sold as the reward for changing your body.

Once you get there, you’ll finally feel good enough. You’ll stop obsessing. You’ll feel attractive. You’ll be more loved. Everything will click into place.

The fantasy feels ‘sexy’ because it offers a clean, clear solution to a complicated pain.

If your body is the problem, then changing your body feels like the answer.

But, what if your body was never the problem to begin with?

The Hard Truth No One Talks About

Shrinking your body does not dismantle the systems that taught you to hate it in the first place.

It does not erase anti-fat bias. It does not undo beauty standards. It does not automatically create self-worth. It does not guarantee peace. It does not guarantee health.

Sometimes it changes how you are treated. Sometimes it changes how visible or acceptable you become within an unfair, f*cked up system.

But, it does not fix the system itself.

And when self-worth becomes tied to body size, it often stays fragile, conditional, and something that can be taken away at any given moment.

Because IF confidence only exists when your body looks a certain way, what happens when your body changes again?

What happens when the standards shift?

Will the goalpost ever stop moving? Or does it just get further and further away?

You Don’t Need to Earn Dignity + Respect

This part matters!

You do not deserve respect because you are a certain weight. You do not become worthy because your body got smaller. You do not need to prove discipline, health, or desirability in order to be treated like a human being.

You deserve that now.

Not later. Not after weight loss. Not after transformation.

Simply now, because you are a human.

This Isn’t Anti Health

Whenever conversations like this happen, people often assume the message is anti-health.

It’s not.

But it is a challenge to the narrow, appearance-based version of health many of us have been sold.

Health is not a single look. It’s not one body size. It’s not a morality badge. It is not something you can assess by appearance.

And when health becomes something performative, something you constantly have to prove through restriction, shrinking, or rigid habits — it often stops feeling like care and starts feeling like punishment.

Real health is more nuanced than that.

It should support your life, not consume it. It should not feel like something you can ‘fail’ at.

The Problem With “Should”

A lot of body-related and health-related behaviors are driven by one word: should.

I should lose weight. I should eat better. I should be more disciplined. I should want to exercise.

But, “should” often reflects external pressure, not internal alignment.

When your choices are driven by shame, fear, comparison, or the desire to be acceptable, they rarely feel satisfying for long.

Because no matter how much you do, it doesn’t feel like enough.

That’s not because you’re failing.

It’s because you’re trying to meet a target that keeps moving.

A Different Question to Ask

Instead of immediately asking: “how do I lose weight?”

Try asking: what am I hoping weight loss will give me?

• Safety?

• Belonging?

• Confidence?

• Relief?

• Health?

• More ease?

• Less judgment?

Then ask: is weight loss the only path to those things?

• Or, is it just the path I know and the path I’ve been taught to prioritize?

That question can open doors.

Because while body change may be a route some people pursue, it is not the only route to confidence, care, connection, self-respect, and health.

You’re Allowed to Look Deeper

This is not about telling you what you should want or that what you want is bad/wrong.

It’s about inviting curiosity.

The desire to lose weight did not come from nowhere. It was shaped by the world around you.

And you’re allowed to examine that desire without shame.

You’re allowed to ask whether the thing you’ve been chasing is actually the thing you need.

You’re allowed to want comfort, health, confidence, and freedom.

But, do you not have to shrink yourself to deserve them.

Ready to Build a Different Relationship With Your Body?

If you’re tired of chasing the moving goalpost, feeling stuck in ‘should’, or trying to earn health + worth through body change, I invite you to join me in my coaching program.

Inside Finding Health Without Weight Loss, we work on creating a more peaceful, sustainable relationship with food, movement, your body, and your health — without diet culture rules, shame, or obsession.

This is for you if you’re ready to stop chasing the fantasy of the “after” and start building a life that feels good now.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE + APPLY TODAY!

Host Mack, a weight-inclusive dietician and body image coach, introduces an episode of Chats with Mac focused on “food noise” and what it means when medications like GLP-1s reduce hunger and thoughts about food. Mac explains that food noise can include constant meal planning, cravings, obsessing, restricting, and background preoccupation, and that these experiences can come from different sources—biological factors like appetite regulation and psychological, learned, protective patterns. The episode explores how food may function as emotional regulation, structure, soothing anxiety, pleasure, or a sense of safety, and how quieting this tool can feel peaceful for some but destabilizing or exposing for others. Mac emphasizes a non–pro/anti-medication perspective, urging listeners to ask what food noise was doing and what remains when it quiets, to build understanding, compassion, and more options than control.

WORK WITH ME!

Subscribe now

IG: @intuitive_dietitian_mack

Email: mackenzie@mackenziewoolwich.com

----

00:00 Podcast Welcome

00:31 What If Hunger Isn’t

01:19 Defining Food Noise

02:27 Food As Coping Tool

03:31 When The Tool Quietens

05:01 Zoomed Out On GLP Ones

05:31 Find The Real Source

07:01 Questions To Reflect On

07:24 Wrap Up And Connect

WORK WITH ME!

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Just a simple cereal, right? But for me… it was a big deal.

There was a time when I wouldn’t let that kind of food anywhere near my kitchen.

Too high in carbs. Too much sugar. Not enough protein.

Cereal, in general, was a “bad food” in my diet culture rulebook.

I told myself I was being “healthy” by avoiding it — but the truth?
I was stuck in a cycle of fear, shame, and overthinking every bite I ate.

Here are just a few of the thoughts that used to run through my head:

“This has too much sugar — I’ll crave more all day.”
“I should’ve had something more ‘balanced.’”
“Is this going to make me gain weight?”
“This is why I can’t be trusted with food…”

And honestly? That kind of food noise is exhausting.

What changed everything for me was learning to challenge the narrative —

- to unlearn the rules diet culture taught me,
- to redefine what health really means for me,
- and to build a relationship with food + my body that’s based on trust, not control.

Now? I eat the damn cereal.
Not because I earned it. Not because I’m “being good.”

But because it tastes good.
It satisfies me. It makes me happy.
And that’s enough.

This is what food freedom looks like:
✨ Less overthinking, less spiraling
✨ More trust
✨ Real satisfaction — without the shame

And this is exactly what I help you build inside my group coaching program,

Finding Health Without Weight Loss 🌿.

If you're tired of second-guessing every bite, feeling guilt around food, or chasing a version of health that never actually feels good… this is for you.

💌 The waitlist for the fall group is officially OPEN — and you can get on it using the link below:

👉 CLICK HERE TO GET ON THE WAITLIST!

Let’s reclaim food.
Let’s rewrite your health story.
Let’s do it together.

Seriously—nothing happened.
I overate, felt super full, and… the world kept spinning 🌍. I didn’t “ruin my progress.” I didn’t need to punish myself ❌. My body did what it knows how to do: digest, recover, and move on 🌀.

But let’s break this down a little more—because I know this sounds a lot easier said than done - especially when food guilt is present.

So here’s what actually went down—and what I learned 💡:

1️⃣ You’re going to overeat sometimes. You’re human.

Trying to avoid overeating for the rest of your life? That’s not realistic—and that’s okay 🤷‍♀️. There will be moments when you eat past fullness, whether it’s because the food is delicious 🤤, the environment is celebratory 🥳, or you just needed comfort in the moment 💛. It’s part of being human, not a sign that you’ve failed. It’s time to change your belief system about this.

2️⃣ Overeating can feel uncomfortable—but it’s not a catastrophe.

I went to Maine and had what felt like endless lobster rolls 🦞. One afternoon, I got so full after lunch that I had to take a Gas-X and lay down for the rest of the day 😵‍💫. Yep—very full, definitely uncomfortable. But I was fine. I trusted my body knew how to take care of me. This is something I had to learn how to do.

3️⃣ Fullness always passes. Your body knows what to do.

That “I need to unbutton my pants right now” feeling? It goes away ⏳. Your body is built to process food, adjust, and bring you back to balance ⚖️.

But your brain might tell a different story:
“You messed up.”
“You’re going to gain weight.”
“You can’t be trusted around food.”
Let me be clear: That story is B.S. 🚫💭
You can unlearn it. And it starts with giving yourself permission to trust your body again 🤝.

4️⃣ Sometimes you’ll overeat because the food is just that good—and you don’t need to justify it.

I cleaned my plate every single time I had a lobster roll 🍽️ because they were so good. And honestly? I don’t know when I’ll be back in Maine again 🧳. I enjoyed every bite—with zero guilt—because I allowed myself to eat with unconditional permission 🙌.

When you let go of the “good” vs. “bad” food labels and stop moralizing your choices, eating becomes way less complicated—and way more peaceful AND enjoyable 💫.

5️⃣ Restricting to avoid overeating backfires 99.9% of the time.

The harder you try to control, restrict, or “be good,” the more likely it is that overeating will happen anyway 🔁. That’s because restriction sets up a binge-restrict cycle. When you remove that pressure and allow all foods 🍕🥗🍪, your body (and brain) can relax—and you can start trusting your body to tell you when, what, and how much to eat 🧠💆‍♀️.

✅ The Bottom Line?

Overeating is not a crime 🚔.
You’re not bad ❌.
You didn’t mess up 🫶.
You don’t need to earn your food—or punish yourself for enjoying it ❤️.
You need to begin trusting that your body is on your side - not constantly working against you ✨.

📝 Journal Prompt:
What is the hardest part about giving yourself unconditional permission to eat?
Sit with it. Write it out. Get curious—not critical 🖊️💭.

And remember: your worth isn’t measured by how perfectly you eat.
You deserve peace with food, and it starts with compassion 🤍.

➡️ Want more support with redefining health and healing your relationship with food and body image?

Check out my upcoming group program & apply today for more info: Finding Health Without Weight Loss

I don’t take for granted one sec that you’re sharing this space with me.

So, I wanted to take some time to say “hey”! 👋

I’m not just dietitian + coach landing in your inbox with big promises. I wanted to take a minute to say hey and introduce myself. It never feels “not awkward” introducing myself, but here we go! 👇

I’m Mack

Here are some quick facts - speed-dating-style!

I am an intuitive eating dietitian and body image coach. 💅🏼

I am closing in on my last month in my 20's. 😝

I own way too many black clothing items. 😂🖤

I am originally from the suburbs of Chicago, but currently live in Des Moines, Iowa. 🌽

My boyfriend, Anthony, and I live in our first home together with our 2 dogs, Arthur and Taz (who is our foster fail addition to our family). 🐶

I have the humor of a 12-year old boy and fart/poop jokes make me laugh (no shame)! 💩

I use the word f*ck way too often and in many different ways. Sorry, not sorry!! 👑

I have a horse named, Zurich, and he is truly making all of my childhood dreams come true. I clearly never grew out of my ✨horse girl era✨.

A large McDonald's diet coke with light ice is the key to my heart. IYKYK🥤

Being in the sunshine heals my soul. ☀️

And most importantly, I’ll never back down from my 8pm bedtime routine. 👵🏼

I love what I do!

My passion + mission an as weight inclusive dietitian and body image coach is to teach ALL humans how to find TRUE health detached from diets, diet culture, and the constant pursuit of weight loss. I find that people have not even given themselves a chance to explore what health looks like beyond BMI and detached from body shape and size. & if you didn't know already, BMI is bullsh*t.

I believe deep down a key part of my own success and the success of my clients is shifting their mindset away from the need to lose weight to be or feel healthy. It is so important that the things you are doing in the name of health feels realistic + aligned to your own core values. (because we intuitive girlies can spot the second the vibes are off).

→ I’m excited for you to check out my free pre-recorded video masterclass on Shifting Your Desire for Weight Loss and walk away with your “A-ha!” moment and confidence in working on your health in a new, refreshing way.

I’d love to know if we have anything in common! Come say hey on Instagram, and let me know if diet coke, animals, fart jokes, or early bedtimes make your heart happy, too.

PS: If you sign up for my masterclass training, stay tuned for an amazing BONUS FREE GIFT dropping into your inbox in a couple days! This extra special freebie is about to teaching you how to work on your health in non-diet way. In the most unbiased way, this freebie is truly transformational. 🎁

See you soon!

Xo,

Mack

But, here are some hard truths that you probably need to hear - 

• Intentional weight loss is not a long-term solution to your health. You've been gaslit. You have been told that weight loss will make you healthy. And that's bullsh*t. 

• You are not defined by a number on the scale. & if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, delete them from your life. ✌🏻

• Your health doesn't depend on the BMI chart. Fuck the BMI. Its use was never intended for determining someone's health status. 

• You don't have to listen to your doctor when they tell you to lose weight. You are the expert of your body. No one knows what's best for you, except you. 

• You deserve to take up space in the body you have right here + right now. You don't need to "eat less and move more" to be a healthy or worthy human being in this society. 

• You have permission to be kind to your body, even if you hate it. You are more than a body. 

F*ck diet culture. F*ck the weight loss industry. If weight loss was going to work, it would have worked by now. Let's start doing something different. Let's rewrite your story. It all starts with shifting your desire for weight loss. 

If you are: 

🫠 STUCK between wanting to throw your scale in the trash but are terrified that if you do then you are damning yourself to poor health

😤 TIRED of going to the doctor and getting a lecture on BMI + your need for weight loss

😣 CONFUSED about being in the intuitive eating world and being told, “but you don’t need to lose weight for health”.

💭 thinking that everything about intuitive eating + making peace with food and your body resonates with you, BUT it sounds too good to be true. 

Then I invite you to join me in my upcoming pre-recorded video training, Shifting the Desire for Weight Loss. 

Here’s what you’ll learn ⬇️

1️⃣ AWARENESS: we will explore WHERE your desire for weight loss comes from & fact check if this is true or not. 

2️⃣ PERMISSION: we will work in giving yourself non-judgmental permission to explore your thoughts + fears surrounding health and body size. 

3️⃣ EXPLORATION: we will begin imaging what a life detached from diet culture + the constant pursuit of weight loss looks like for you. You will have hope that it IS possible to live without food + body obsession while STILL living a healthy life. 

We will do all of this in a 30-minute pre-recorded video training PLUS MORE. You will get journal prompts + a workbook to reflect on and help you continue digging into this narrative of feeling like you have to lose weight to be healthy. 

👩‍💻You will also have an opportunity to get on a Zoom call with me for hot seat coaching on your main questions, concerns, and/or challenges when it comes to weight + health. 

If this feels aligned to you, I invite you to JOIN US. 
After all, it’s free - what you do have to lose? 😮‍💨

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

I believe that you are worth more than a number on the scale and it's time that you start believing it, too. 

I hope to see you inside the training! 

xo

Mack

I have been hearing a lot of "I should" statements lately. Especially statements like "I wonder if I should be taking the shot" OR "I should lose weight for my health". 

But, here's the thing...

Making statements like these only leaves us feeling like a failure when we can't achieve the "expected" outcome, which then attaches morality to the pursuit of health.

Health is not a moral obligation. 

You don't owe anyone the pursuit of health. 

You have permission to not be working on your health. 

Too much of the wellness world is caught up in healthism. We are made to feel like our worth depends on how much we are working on health goals. 

The truth: your value as a person and as a member of society does not lie in whether or not you value your health. 

I'm not sure who needs to hear this, but ⬇️

You have PERMISSION to: 

• not pursue weight loss if it is no longer a viable option for you

• not start another diet in the pursuit of health 

• not take a weight loss medication EVEN if your doctor says you should for your "health"

• work on your health without the undo pressure of weight loss 

• not pursue health 

You DESERVE to: 

• experience JOY in your current body

• book the trip even if you need to book 2 seats

• be a part of the memories and not care what your body looks like in the moment 

• go on hot dates! 

• eat delicious food

• move your body in a way that feels good and not as punishment for your body size

• have the right to pursue HEALTH without requiring yourself to lose weight to do so

You may see your body as the hurdle keeping you from these things. 

But, it's not. 

It's your BRAIN. It's the years of conditioning from diet culture. And all of the noise around health + weight loss may be clouding your thoughts at this moment. 

If you are struggling with executing any of these permissions OR believing that you deserve to experience the things above

If you are looking to work on health promoting behaviors without the expectation of weight loss

If you are in need of someone in your corner - grab an intensive with me. 

Click here for the details + to grab your spot.  

PS: Not sure which offer is right for you? Reply to this post and I'll personally respond! 💞

—

Rooting for you!

xo,

Mack

My client was having a similar experience with chips. Whenever she was around chips, of any kind, she would start by having just a couple, which then turned into a few more, and before she knew it the entire bag was gone.

The problem: she wasn’t fully allowing herself to eat the chips. So, this is what I told her (& it’s probably not what you think).

I told her to go out and buy as many bags of chips as she wanted and eat as much of them as she wanted to.

➡️ And guess what happened?

She ate the whole bag of chips she bought in one sitting, which, to be frank, is completely NORMAL!

But, that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that she wasn’t trusting herself of giving herself full UNCONDITIONAL permission to eat the chips.

Which was creating mental restriction. You can learn more about mental restriction here.

So, here’s what we did to work through this:

First, she had to continue to expose herself to the food and continue to allow herself to eat as much of it as she wanted to.

Second, we had to lean into the emotions that were coming up after the fact of eating as much of the chips as she wanted. We did this with kindness + compassion while trying to remove the negative self-talk. We had to do this in order to understand the story and explore the fears that were coming up.

Then, after understanding the story that was coming up and any fears that were underlying, we had to work on the reframe of the beliefs and self-talk that was not proving to be helpful.

For this client, the story that was coming up for her was that she felt like a failure and she was telling herself: “I am a failure for eating all of those chips, why did I do that? Now I'm going to gain weight”.

So, instead of letting that unhelpful and unkind self-talk persist, we came up with 2 reframes. The goal of these reframes was to help minimize the distress that came with allowing herself to eat these previously forbidden foods.

1. “I can trust my body that it knows how to process and what to do with these chips”.

2. “This feels uncomfortable, but it is temporary and it doesn’t have anything to do with my worthiness or goodness as a person”.

This is exactly what the process of working towards real, true permission with food looks like. It’s not easy, but finding true food freedom will truly give you your life back!

Share a comment below if this was helpful! Then, share this blog to help someone else! ⬇️

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4 Reasons Why Diets Don’t Work:

1. They create an unhealthy relationship with food and your body.

2. They can cause weight cycling, which can wreck havoc on your metabolism.

3. They’re designed to fail so that you keeping spending $$$.

4. They’re “one size fits all” and don’t take your unique needs + values into consideration.

   ---

Real talk: if dieting really worked, then the entire dieting industry would tank overnight.

& wouldn’t that be amazing !!!!!

Diet culture makes you believe that it’s your lack of willpower that causes you to not be able to eat “correctly” or “lose weight”.

It places the blame on you, saying that if only you had the self-control or discipline to “eat right”, then you’d be able to reach your goals.

This idea couldn’t be further from the truth.

But, unfortunately, the dieting industry wants you to believe this because it keeps you coming back to dieting, which means more money out of your pocket and into theirs.

So, what should you do instead of dieting?

• First, you need to consider what your relationship with dieting has been like.

  • Do diets cause you to “do really well for X amount of time” and then something happens that spirals you off of it?

  • Have diets really helped you in the past? If so, at what cost and for how long?

• Second, you need to think about what your relationship with food is like.

  • Do you label foods as “good/bad” “healthy/unhealthy”? Do you have an “all-or-nothing” mindset when it comes to food - meaning when you eat something that has been labeled as “bad/unhealthy/off limits” it results in you bingeing, feeling out of control, and feeling like you failed?

• Third, you need to explore what health means to you.

  • Do you define health based on the shape, size, and weight of your body? If so, is defining health in that way truly helping you or harming you?

  • Does your definition of health need to be redefined so that it aligns with a life that is truly meaningful and fulfilling to you?

If you’re looking for a place to start that will help you exit diet culture and come into a place of freedom with food + your body where you can live a fulfilled life aligned with your true values, then you’re in the right spot.

My free guide, 5 Ways to Find Health Without Weight Loss can help get you started on this new path. 🫶🏻

Click here to download your free guide today!

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Diet culture is everywhere, selling you the false idea that eating a certain way will solve all of your problems and lead to infinite health and happiness. 

If you've thought about giving up dieting for good, but haven't taken the plunge, I'm going to share with you a few things that happened to me when I stopped dieting. There are SO many benefits to a diet-free lifestyle that you may have yet to consider. 

Here are 3 things that happened to me when I stopped dieting: 

1. My strong + intense food cravings went away. I stopped feeling out of control around food. It sounds counter-intuitive, but giving yourself permission to eat actually results in you thinking about food less. The dark cloud of obsessive food thoughts + the constant burden of food guilt and shame finally went away. 
    

2. I stopped freaking out + panicking about food when going out to eat, going on vacation, going out with friends, or even going to the grocery store. Sometimes when people think of food freedom, they think they'll just eat everything in sight. Yes, this might happen, but it does not stick around forever. 
    

3. I began to feel more present, instead of always living in the future. I was able to start investing more time + energy in to relationships and activities that truly mattered to me. Life is short, and if you're waiting to start yours until things are "perfect" or until you "lose the weight", you'll miss out on a lot. 

I think the big takeaway here is that letting go of dieting can feel so scary, but it also frees up so much space for more important things in your life. Ditching the diet mentality takes time + the process is going to look different for everyone. 

I will leave you here with a few reminders + things to consider: 

• You don’t have to be stuck here. You don't have to keep living life on this hamster wheel. There is a way off the ride – this is not your only path. 

• All of the things you are afraid of may come true. People may judge you, you might lose compliments and your “health” may change. And you still DESERVE a non-judgmental, unafraid, free + fun relationship with your food. 

• Your life can be so beautiful and full when you aren’t feeling the burden of body + food shame. 

If you are ready to highlight YOUR why outside of diets + diet culture and are looking for a place to start, I encourage you to download my free guide, 5 Steps to Finding Health Without Weight Loss. You can download your free guide by clicking here.

Supporting you!

xo,

Mack
 

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Mackenzie Woolwich, RD LD 

Intuitive Eating Dietitian & Body Image Coach

Owner, MW Coaching, LLC

Founder, The MACKSIMIZE Intuitive Eating Method

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