When Skinny Isn’t Healthy: The Cost of Chasing Your Smallest Body
As women who grew up in the 90’s and early 2000’s, we’ve been taught to celebrate weight loss without asking what it costs to get there. We see someone get smaller and (as a result of our conditioning) we automatically assume they’re healthier, happier, more in control and more disciplined.
But weight loss alone doesn’t tell you any of that.
It tells you one thing: your body got lighter.
It doesn’t tell you what it cost to get there, or what you lost along the way.
When I was deep in diet culture restriction, I followed all the rules diet culture had handed me:
Eat less.
Exercise more.
Be disciplined.
Ignore hunger.
Keep going.
Annnd, I lost weight.
I also lost my period, my hair, my ability to think about anything except food, my bone density, and my health.
I was the thinnest I had ever been (successful, according to diet culture’s standards),
and I was the least healthy I had ever been.
Diet culture does a great job of teaching us that energy (calories) are bad and should be limited, while failing to acknowledge that our bodies require energy to keep our hearts beating, our hormones regulated, our bones and immune systems supported, our tissues repaired, and to KEEP US ALIVE.
So when you chronically under-eat (perhaps while simultaneously increasing your exercise demand), something has to give.
And that’s (one of) the problem(s) with glorifying thinness without context.
We can look at a shrinking body and call it success while completely missing what’s happening under the surface.
A missing period isn’t a fitness achievement.
Hair loss isn’t proof your diet is “working.”
Constant hunger isn’t evidence that you’re disciplined.
And getting weaker while getting smaller isn’t an upgrade.
^^ these are signs your body sends to say that the cost of what you’re doing is too high a price to pay.
I firmly believe that women are allowed to want to change their bodies AND I think we need to get much clearer about the difference between pursuing thinness and pursuing health-promoting fat loss.
Because they’re not the same thing.
Health-promoting fat loss has guardrails and asks:
Can I preserve muscle and maintain my strength?
Can I eat enough to support my body?
Can I keep my menstrual cycle?
Can I manage hunger without white-knuckling every day?
Can I maintain a flexible relationship with food?
Can I live like an actual person while doing this?
Can I continue most of these habits after the fat-loss ends?
That kind of fat loss is a very different goal than simply wanting the scale to go as low as possible.
A lower number on the scale doesn’t automatically mean a better outcome, better health, or a happier life.
Because you can lose body fat.
But if you don’t do it safely and sustainably, you can also lose muscle, strength, energy, bone density, your period, flexibility around food, the joy of social experiences; and a huge portion of your life while technically “succeeding” at weight loss.
^^ that doesn’t mean intentional fat loss is bad.
It means the method matters.
Healthy, sustainable fat loss should include things like:
A manageable calorie deficit (not the lowest intake you can survive on)
Enough protein, carbs, fats, and fiber to support your body
Strength training to help preserve muscle
Attention to energy, recovery, and performance
Menstrual health
Hunger that feels manageable (not relentless)
Flexibility around food
Habits you can realistically continue
A life that you can participate in
You’re allowed to want fat loss.
You’re allowed to care about how your body looks.
You’re allowed to have aesthetic goals.
But you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your health to prove that you can make yourself smaller.
Because becoming smaller while becoming weaker, chronically hungry, and more obsessed with food isn’t an upgrade.
The goal isn’t weight loss at all costs. The goal is to lose body fat in a way that leaves you stronger, healthier, more confident, and capable of maintaining your results.
If you want help figuring out what that looks like for you, that’s exactly what I do inside my 1:1 coaching program.
We identify the old diet-culture rules that are still influencing your choices (maybe even subconsciously), build an evidence-based approach around your actual life, and create fat loss without bringing back the restriction, obsession, and B.S. you already know doesn’t work.
If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, fill out a coaching application.
I’m here to help you lose body fat without losing yourself - or your health - in the process.
