Screw the scale—this is a non-diet victory

A story about second breakfasts, honoring hunger, and letting yourself be seen.

Hey friends! A quick note this week—I’m catching up after having family in town (which always brings a few extra layers of food feelings, ya know?).

I’ve also had language around diet culture on the brain after a great convo last week with voice coach Jessica Neighbor. We’ll be collaborating soon, so stay tuned!

And last but not least, I’m thinking about starting a weekly discussion focused on non-diet victories—a space to celebrate the little wins that have nothing to do with weight loss, weighing ourselves, or taking up less space. If you’re in, drop a note in the comments and let me know!

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If you’ve spent a lot of time around diet culture, you’ve probably heard the term non-scale victory. It refers to a “win” that happens while you’re dieting or following a “health” program that isn’t actually about weight loss. Maybe you’re sleeping better. Maybe the jeans fit. I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard the term until I watched the New York Times documentary “Weight of the World,” which followed three people using GLP-1s for weight loss.

I’m not dieting anymore, but I remember that moment—around week three or four—when the water weight is gone, you're starving, the scale stops moving, and you’re desperate for a reason to keep going. That’s where the non-scale victory comes in.

Like much of the language around diet culture, it’s … confusing. Is the non-scale victory a way to move away from weight loss or simply a rebranding of the same old obsession just dressed up in wellness speak? Let me know what you think.

The phrase was originally coined by Whole30 co-founder Melissa Urban as a way to shift focus away from the scale while doing … no, no, not a diet, we don’t call it that … a clean eating program. She positioned it as a way to celebrate improvements in mood, energy, digestion, and food behaviors while, you know, eliminating grains, dairy, sugar, alcohol, legumes, baked goods, and also not weighing or measuring yourself for 30 days. I’m sure she didn’t intend it to be co-opted by diet culture even though by most measures the Whole 30 is totally a part of diet culture. (And yes, there are folks who must avoid certain foods due to allergies or health conditions—I fully respect that. This isn’t about that.)

Side note: I did many Whole30s during my Paleo/CrossFit days, usually as a reset whenever I’d gained weight. I did so many, in fact, that I started making up my own Whole30 rules to replace the ones I didn’t like. (It’s fine—even Urban offers a list of exceptions on her website.) Like, I decided it was okay if my uncured bacon had added sugar since it was almost impossible to find without it (and no one doing CrossFit would dream of giving up bacon). And I must have really been over it by the last one, because I decided to allow cheese. Yes. Cheese.

But I’m getting off track here.

Last week, I did something brave, something I never would have done during my dieting, or rather my food-elimination-“health”-program-that-wasn’t-called-a-diet days.

I ate pasta for breakfast. Even worse, it was actually my second breakfast.*

Now that I’m not dieting, this isn’t that big of a big deal. The usual diet thoughts creep in, but I’ve got another voice there now that says, let’s not beat ourselves up over here and instead figure out why we’re hungry now and better yet how we can satisfy ourselves. With this new voice I’ve learned that when I occasionally get hungry at 10:30 a.m., it usually means I didn’t eat enough fat or protein or just not enough breakfast period. On this day, I’m pretty sure it was a combination of not enough and not enough fat.

I say that because when I peeked into the fridge, what caught my eye was last night’s pasta Alfredo. It wasn’t even good the first time around, and I didn’t expect it to be better this time around, but it felt right. So I slopped some into a bowl, poured in a generous heaping of shaved parmesan, and popped it in the microwave for 60 seconds. When I finished the first bowl, I was still hungry, so I went for seconds.

It wouldn’t have been a big deal if no one else had been around. But my mom and sister were both in the kitchen, and insecurity crept in. This time, my old inner monologue was taking the lead.

What will they think of me eating pasta (carbs! fat!) for breakfast? She’s having seconds of a second breakfast?

I debated waiting another 45 minutes, when it would be an acceptable time to eat lunch.

They didn’t say anything, but I wouldn’t have expected them to. They’re regular readers here, and they know I write about quitting diets and unlearning diet culture.

But what I really worried about was the fear of them judging me, even silently. If I weren’t fat or if we as a society didn’t judge fatness, it would’ve just been another one of my weird quirks. (By the way, I’m using fat here as a neutral descriptor of my body, not just a feeling.)

And I’m not going to minimize my thoughts on this. These feelings? They matter.

Most of us carry body image baggage from childhood, often passed down from our moms, who got it from theirs. These patterns are so ingrained, we often don’t realize we’re passing them on too, even with the best intentions. That morning, I was breaking all kinds of rules, with alarm bells blaring in my head.

Here’s why I pushed through the fear: because there was someone else listening—my 10-year-old niece. She’s lived in a “larger body” right from birth, which should be a clear sign that it’s just the way her body is. But she’s already gotten the message that she should be watching what and how much she eats.

She’s super active, competing in swimming and taekwondo (she’s just shy of her black belt!) and nearing puberty, a time when girls need to gain fat to support healthy development and menstruation. Sadly, this is when girls often begin their first diets.

She and I had already been talking about listening to our bodies (she mentioned it to me the day before, so someone’s clearly talking to her about it). I told her girls need fat. That sometimes our bodies rapidly gain weight ahead of puberty, and that it’s not only ok but necessary. That hunger isn’t something to fight off or be ashamed of. And that people are “normal” in all shapes and sizes.

Now it was time for me to model that message, so I did, despite the fear.

Sometimes our power doesn’t come from within. Sometimes we speak up and let ourselves be seen—not for ourselves, but for someone else. There’s a different kind of strength that shows up when you’re trying to rewrite the story for someone you love.

That morning in the kitchen, I wasn’t just feeding myself. I was planting a seed, one that says: your hunger isn’t a problem, your body isn’t wrong, and you don’t have to earn your right to eat.

As I replayed what had happened that week, I realized something: I was proud of myself.

And then it hit me: this was a non-scale victory. Even better: a non-diet victory. It deserves to be celebrated. So I’m sharing it here.

*I’ve since renamed it lunch since I didn’t have another meal until dinner.

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🌱 What’s your non-diet victory this week?

I’d love to hear from you. Have you ever had a moment where you chose to listen to your body over the rules you were taught? What did it feel like?

Can you think of a recent "non-diet victory," a moment where you’ve honored your needs or your body in a way that felt radical or brave? Maybe you’ve had a moment where you’ve loved (or even just liked) yourself in a way that had nothing to do with body or appearance at all, and that is the real victory. And if you can’t think of anything, know that’s okay too. Just being here and reflecting is enough.