Fire the 'experts'

This is one of the best interviews I've read on the rottenness of the whole dieting canard and how you can try and recover from having been slapped around by it. In short, fire the experts, thank you Monica. As Monica, a former tennis player, wisely realised, the best thing to do with them, is to jettison the useless parasites. Thanks to wellroundedtype2 for linking to it on FJ's excellent thread.

What one of the more admirable players to ever walk on the tennis court in modern times realised is that they are always 'well-meaning' even though they failed and got paid for it, is that their useless advice fuelled the cause, not the solution to her eating problems.

I remember that awful incident when she got stabbed, it wasn't just the obvious pain, it was the shock of going in an instant from safety to having that bubble burst. I wasn't surprised that it seemed to precipitate weight gain at all, especially given the way that tennis players seem to be capable of being and staying plumper than a lot of athletes in other sports.

A lot of them don't look any different from folks you see walking about the place.

The puncturing of her body seemed an apt metaphor for what precipitates similar fall out from shock or traumas for so many, the imperceptible, usually, puncturing of a balloon of reassurance.The point is reached, without any warning, you may have gone through hell intact and then pouf! Something changes, after the fact.

It's often a shock, something that changes the way your body functions ever so slightly and often changes you as a person. We know the latter happens, that people can change palpably after certain experiences or a set of experiences. We often forget the same can happen to the body, in fact who knows, maybe the body follows through and changes the mind, as much as the other way around.

The loss of a loved one and grief too is so often the precipitator of eating problems the loss of her beloved father, who was her inspiration to her in general and set her off on her career, follows so many people who's body tries to find some stability through making changes here. To attack this attempt to bring internal stability seems an uninspired way to go and its all people seem to be able to really think about.

What I love about this interview is that her recovery started when she got to fire them, they were unnecessary as her career waned. That's when she realised they had nothing and she would have to take care of her own business.

She said that at one point she played tennis five hours a day retaining the weight she'd gained.

That's a similar awakening for a lot of us, we've fired the smeckperts too and let go of the 'rules' the obsessed always dream up. I honestly think they live vicariously by telling others what to eat and fixating on it. She speaks of how her cravings went away and she lost weight. Something that is not necessarily the case for others, but the general rule of allowing forbidden foods, and not trying to stop yourself eating things, when your appetite is raging out of control and you end up either eating them anyway or eating more of something else, or both.

Is worth hearing even for those who do not have an eating disorder.