Not practicing what I preach

led me into quite some trouble

I believe that patriarchy and capitalism have given women enough insecurities about their bodies. They firstly promote a certain type of body, then to enhance that promotion, they sell products, diets, and more insecurities through various media to keep us in the loop. It is a never-ending loop. So many products have come from those insecurities. Long before there were lung-crushing corsets, now we have shapewear, botox, fillers, diabetes medicine and dieting. The list is way too long.

What I want to talk about today though, is dieting.

I have had an interesting relationship with my body and food from a young age. I remember one day when I was furious at my mum for something, I decided to starve myself for 3 days. After a few days, it just got interesting. How long can I keep up? 3 days later, without telling anyone, I broke this self-inflicted fast. I always loved trying what my body can do and what it can’t. I also started fasting Ramadhan at quite a young age and loved it. I didn’t mind fasting even on other days when we did not have to fast. Somehow it was fun.

A few years ago, when me and my partner were going to India for his sister’s wedding, we decided to do a “keto diet”. It was fun experimenting with what we could and couldn’t eat. How to become creative around food and continue socializing without bending our very strict diet rules. After the initial days of keto flu, I felt quite strong and did a lot of walking, workouts, and normal daily routines. After we completed it, I started learning more about diets and realized this was a terrible thing for our bodies. Everything in moderation is key. We need the carbs, the natural sugar and of course lots of protein. And I kept at that. Spoke about it, and did that. Well, kinda ate everything even processed sugar.

After starting to teach yoga, my own practice has progressed tremendously and so I have felt stronger and better about my body. But insecurities sometimes get ahead of us. Sometimes I would look into the mirror and think if only my tummy wasn’t so big. If only I had a flatter belly.

So when my partner suggested the keto diet again, I jumped at it. With full awareness of its not-so-good parts, I decided to go ahead with it. Sometimes I feel like punishing my body for crimes it has not committed is what I am doing with my body. Anyways, as expected, the first few days were hard and it was exciting because it felt like the body is now moving into a state of ketosis. Few days later, I felt worse and it just got worse from there. I kept thinking, its only a few days more, I can do this, but I suddenly realized that in this process I was not only hurting my body, but I wasn’t productive, was in such a sulky mood, and just wasn’t myself.

This pic is taken when I was feeling my lowest. With quite a flat tummy, it was not the slimness that gave me happiness rather took it away. Doesn’t help that my partner is suddenly complimenting me a lot more! oooooff no!

Well, I know that stronger and happier is better than sexier but sulkier and weaker. So whatever body I have, I will concentrate on building strength like a good yoga teacher does and not be swayed by these fancy diets. Please do not follow in my footsteps!