Caroline Dooner

It’s that time of year when everyone is obsessed with not eating too much food. It’s like a cultural rite of passage: Will you complain about how much food you’re eating this holiday? Will you discuss how bad you’ve been and how you plan on repenting come January 1st?

We haven’t quite escaped the influence of the Puritans yet...We still tend to regard our bodies, our eating, our desires, and anything else of this earth as “bad,” “weak,” or “sinful.”

Do you feel like you have an addiction to food? Do you think about it all the time? Fixate on it? Crave it constantly? Feel like you have no control once you start? Do you just eat and eat and eat until you are stuffed and miserable?

I’ve heard this so many times: “Your talk of normal eating and body love is all good and fine — but I need to lose weight.” This is what I have to say to you: You don’t.

I was a binge eater for the first 24 years of my life. As far back as I can remember, I would binge on food. My mom was a health nut and very judgmental about junk, and I wanted Goldfish, goddamnit! I felt like all that almond butter was stopping me from having a full childhood. And so I did my best to get in as many Cheez-Its and Fruit Loops and Snickers when I could.

How many diets are out there? How many of them are backed by doctors and gurus who claim they know “the most natural way to eat” or “the fastest way to burn fat and never gain it back!” or “the most definite way to never be hungry again, become beautiful, have everyone love you, and have all your dreams come true!”? So many.

I never used to think my eating or weight fixation was that weird...I just thought I was a health nut.

Most women's magazines will have a meal plan for you to eat the right amount. Eat the amount that Eva Longoria eats. How to eat the amount Jennifer Hudson's trainer's friend's mom says she eats.

Have you ever noticed how cultish fad diets can be? I didn’t, because I was in the cult. And cult members never think they are part of a cult. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that today’s diets may be filling the same human societal role that religions fill, and not in a good way.

We are taught that cravings equal unhealthy and no cravings equal healthy. But guess what? I am here to tell you that you will never get rid of your cravings, and that it’s fully OK!