Kefir Kommunity

For any woman on a diet (which, sadly, is most women), holidays like the Fourth of July can get tricky. Everyone’s celebrating with food and drink, but it’s difficult to enjoy a red, white and blue sprinkle-dipped cupcake when there’s a mean, nagging voice in the back of your mind yelling, “You’re fat! Don’t eat that! You already look disgusting in your bathing suit!”

That’s why we were psyched to learn about the Declaration of Independence From Dieting, modeled after the original Declaration and co-authored by mindful eating expert Marsha Hudnall, MS, RD. 

“I found it interesting that so much of the original text was appropriate for explaining why women everywhere should break their ties with dieting,” Hudnall writes on her blog, A Weight Lifted. For example, back in 1776, the original authors penned, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And yet, how many women do you know who constantly judge themselves for what they eat, how they look or how much or little they exercise, refusing to believe that they are just as beautiful and strong and equal as the woman next to them? How many of us deny ourselves the freedom to just eat without feeling guilty? We’re thwarting our own sense of liberty and roadblocking our pursuit of happiness.

Check out some highlights from the revamped Declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women are unique, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, women have previously attempted diets with hopes of yielding such results. However, whenever any Form of dieting becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new way of feeding one’s self, laying its foundation on such principles as mindful eating, permission, flexibility, intuition, and the wisdom of the body and choosing foods in a way that to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness…But when a long train of abuses and fruitless diet attempts, pursuing invariably the same Object of a smaller body, yields the same results of frustration, demoralization, feelings of failure, guilt, and in many cases weight gain, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such restrictions, and to consider a new approach for their future health and happiness. Such has been the patient sufferance of these women who have tried diet after diet; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former relationship with food. Our history of dieting is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations of the joy and pleasure that food can provide, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over so many women. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

At Lifeway Foods, we’re anti-diet and pro-healthy eating. We’re anti-guilt and pro-joy. There’s room for everything, from a Low Fat Cherry  Kefirparfait to an Organic Whole Milk Strawberries n Cream Kefir milkshake. Quit living your life based on thoughts like “If I spend 45 minutes on the Stairmaster, then I can eat this slice of pizza” or “I should never have inhaled that cupcake – I’m so weak” and start cutting yourself slack and treating yourself with a little compassion. This Fourth of July, we hope you get to see some spectacular fireworks, let watermelon juice dribble down your chin, and just feel free and happy,