Hallie Abrams grew up watching her father cycle through fad diets, then at 40 tried paleo on his suggestion. The diet backfired, making her obsess over forbidden foods and become dangerously thin. She learned that restriction, even well-intentioned, can damage your relationship with eating.
Growing up, my dad was obese. So he was always on a rollercoaster of a fad diet and then come off of it and gain the weight and a fad diet and gain it. Always, like our whole life. When I was 12, he went to Pritikin and really like overhauled and learned how to eat healthfully for him. My mom never wanted us to have food noise because it was such a problem for him. So we were very protected from it. I ate whatever I wanted. I didn't worry about it. It was just not an issue for me. Even like after having kids, I would gain a lot of weight when I was pregnant, Like 70-ish pounds when I was pregnant, lose it afterwards, thankfully. Like, it just wasn't my issue. When I was 40, my dad convinced me to go on paleo. He was a paleo pusher, and it very, very much messed up my relationship with food. For the first time, I was like, oh wait, I can't have this? Wait, I can't have it? And then that's all I would think about. That's what I wanted because I couldn't have it. So I got super skinny, but I didn't love what it did with me and food. So So I sort of wanted to fix that. And in doing that, nothing is off the table. And I think that's why I was fighting going gluten-free. Yeah, because it seems like it's down that same slope until you realize like, oh, I really need this for health reasons. Yes. Yes.
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