Breaking the cycle - One woman's journey through diet culture

Let me tell you a story

It’s about no one in particular and it’s about most women in 2025..all at once.

Let’s call this woman Cara.

Cara grew up in the 90’s, her Mum was always on a diet, SlimFast, low fat - you name it, her Mum was always doing aerobics and step to try to lose some of the baby weight that she had put on.

Cara went to Uni in the 2000’s where heroine chic was big, size 0 was a thing and Heat magazine was tearing down any woman bigger than a size 8.

Then she went out into the big wide world and saw that smaller women were having more success than her just because of their weight. Having struggled with her eating and size for years she then decided to do something about it.

She decided to “eat clean”, detox her body, stay no to Fat Friday’s in the office and only drink vodka tonics on a works night out.

She became obsessed with this.

However, every weekend the wheels would fall off because she had been good all week and needed a treat at the weekend.

But nothing was working to shift the weight.

So she tried Slimming World as Karen from the office raved about it and had lost 6lbs.

She went to the meetings and got weighed every Tuesday.

She didn’t eat anything apart from a smoothie on Tuesday morning because after the weight in Debbie and a few other women were going out for a chippy tea and she had now joined them.

6 months had passed and she had lost the 6lbs more than once but always put it on so she decided she needed to do some exercise.

She joined a gym.

She went on the treadmill and wouldn’t get off until she had burnt off 400 calories.

This cycle continued until Cara got pregnant.

Cara was determined not to put on too much weight during her pregnancy but she felt so guilty when all she could eat was beige food because of the sickness.

She compared herself and her bump to every other pregnant woman and when someone commented on how big she was, she felt her heart drop.

She was determined to bounce back - just like all the celebrities had done. In fact she had the diet lined up already for after she gave birth.

But it turns out that giving birth and having a child which didn’t sleep was harder than she expected and the weight didn’t just drop off.

In fact she put more weight on because she was reaching into the fridge when she could.

This cycle continued for a few years until Cara decided that she had enough time and head space to sort this out once and for all.

So she found a coach who had loads of success and the before and after photos on their social media was incredible.

So she started PT and she was put on 1200 calories a day, 100 grams of protein and she had to burn off at least 500 calories a day.

She diligently took her before photos, got the app sorted, researched high protein food and started.

But Cara was so hungry.

She was stressed because school was relentless, the house work was always piling up, she was knackered from her job and she still had to make everyone else's meals but couldn’t eat them.

So she delved back into the fridge when things got too much.

Then the wave of guilt and then she had to take her photos again every week but she couldn’t see a difference.

How could all these other women get results when she couldn't?

Maybe her calories needed to be lower.

Maybe this PT wasn’t for her.

She would have Christmas and then go again.

She might try those weight loss jabs as surely those would work for her because they didn’t rely on will power and she had none of that.

Cara could be you.

Does it sound familiar at all?

Here’s what Cara needs to do not to break the cycle she's been in since childhood.

She needs to be educated about the impact of diet culture on her, she needs to change her language around food (especially around her children to break the cycle), she needs to stop linking exercise with food and find some type of exercise that she likes doing, she needs to look at all the food rules that she's picked up along the way and turn them into healthy guidelines and most of all she needs to sort out her emotional eating, because that is what’s keeping her in the yo yo cycle.

You need to be Coached by Cara because that is what I do.

And I do it really well because I get to the heart of the issue and give you the educ

ation, tools and strategies which are sustainable and last forever.

So let’s not write another chapter - just send me a message saying “Coaching” and we can chat about what you need in 2026 and I’ll get you sorted to hit the ground running for a transformational 2026.

Listen to this weeks episode of Chatting with Cara here as I tell you this story in my best story telling vibe.