On Monday 16th January the Chocolate Fairies will be joining what we hope is a massive group of protestors outside parliament to let the dieting industry know just what we think of them.
Weight Watchers will be giving evidence to the Parliamentary Body Image enquiry and we think it is crucial to counter their claims with the truth about what really happens to people when they diet.
This protest is not just a 'cause' for me, something to get hot under the collar about because it is in line with my principles and my beliefs. It isn't a PR exercise either, a chance to tag the Beyond Chocolate name onto an event which will get noticed.
No, this one is personal.
This one is for all those years of despair and self hatred as I failed one diet plan after the other and believed I was to blame for being weak and greedy.
This one is for the endlessly hungry days I endured in a futile effort to shed some weight and the endless binges that I went on as a result of all that deprivation.
This one is for the colossal amount of money that I have squandered on diets and maintenance plans that never delivered.
This one is for all those evenings I stayed in because I hadn't reached my 'target weight' and felt too fat to go out.
This one is for the humiliation of being weighed in front of a roomful of people.
This one is for all the sweat and misery I put up with at the gym.
This one is for all those awful, tasteless, low calorie meals I wasted my money and my health on.
This one is for all those shorts and skirts and bikinis I bought a size too small with hope in my heart and which I never wore.
This one is for all the guilt and shame I felt every time I ate.
This one is for every ruined party because I wasn't the thinnest woman in the room.
This one is for every dusty, gloomy church hall I've had to sit in and listen to some poor woman, as desperate as me, peddling lies about weight loss.
This one is for all those empty and meaningless conversations I've ever had about calories and points with intelligent women who would have taught me something useful.
This one is for every time I stuck two fingers down my throat and threw up in an effort to purge and 'undo' my lunch.
This one is for those same 2 stone that I lost and put back repeatedly over the years.
This one is for my mother and my sister, my aunts, my cousins, my friends...and all the women out there who have been manipulated, bullied and shamed into dieting...and overeating...and dieting in an endless vicious circle which it is time to put a STOP to once and for all.
We'd love you to join us. Visit the DitchingDieting Facebook page to find out more about the protest and if you can't make it in person then use your mouse to speak out by liking, sharing and speaking out on your Facebook pages, blogs, web sites and emails.
Weight Watchers and their friends are powerful and rich but we can make a difference if we speak up and tell it like it is. We can make a difference by refusing to collude with the diet myth and by not letting them get away with it.
This is how change happens. One step at a time. One protest at a time.
