If you’re not living under a rock you’ve heard of homeschooling. And if you’re raising kids yourself and looking into your options, you may have heard of unschooling.
Unschooling is based on the idea that children are naturally curious, and if we don’t impose a structured curriculum they will seek out things that interest them. With support from their parents, they will learn everything that formal school is supposed to teach, but it will be because they wanted to learn it.
I was ready to hear it
I first read about unschooling while I was trying to decide how I should be eating. I knew that I was overweight, but not so much that I wouldn’t be seen in a swimsuit. Assuming I could find one that fit … Hmm, maybe that was a bit of a problem after all.
What really got to me was when my older daughter fell asleep watching TV and I had to carry her upstairs. I realize she’s getting bigger, but one flight of stairs carrying a 10-year-old shouldn’t leave me that winded. I want to be able to do things with the girls when they’re teenagers, and that wasn’t going to happen the way things were going.
Along comes unschooling
I read about unschooling and realized that it’s supposed to solve the same problems people have with the way most people eat:
- There’s a set of “conventional wisdom” that we all think we’re supposed to follow.
- It’s designed for everyone — which means it’s designed for no one in particular.
- And it doesn’t work all that well.
Don’t get me wrong, lots of kids go to school and get a decent education. The same way people go to residential weight-loss clinics — like on the TV show The Biggest Loser[1] — and they lose weight. It’s pretty easy to make some kind of progress when you’re stuck there with nothing to do but what you’re told.
But what happens back in the “real world”? The kids look forward to time off so they can stop learning — because learning is a chore — and the dieters go right back to the way of eating that put them in the clinics to begin with.
What unschooling aims to do is make learning a natural, enjoyable part of normal life. It’s not something you do because you have to, you do it because you want to. You enjoy the learning process itself, and you want things that you can only have by going through the process.
That’s exactly what undieting is.
Eating shouldn’t be a chore
When you’re “on a diet” you’re doing something unnatural. You’re eating food you don’t like, or not eating food you do like. You tell yourself it’s only for a while, just until you get down to your target weight. It’s work.
It’s no wonder diets don’t work. And they don’t. You wouldn’t believe how badly they don’t work. (How does 99% failure rate grab you?)
Maybe the biggest problem with dieting is how it makes you look at yourself. When you are always “on a diet”, you think of yourself as someone who always “needs to lose weight”.[2] It’s not something you’re doing, it’s who you are.
Is that you? Be honest with yourself.
Loading ...Don’t diet … eat
In three years of writing about food, I’ve come across plenty of people who eat well, clearly like food, aren’t constantly hungry, and are in much better shape than the average person. So I looked at how they eat and why, and figured out what all of them have in common. I put all that together and tried it myself and it works.
That’s how I started Undieting. And now that I believe in it, it’s time to start telling other people about it.
Keep reading
You’ll need to sign up for a free guest membership to read the rest of the series as they come out.
- Part 2: You are not me
- Part 3: How to lie with science
- Part 4: Are you steam powered?
- Part 5: Eating is not a sport
- Part 6: You are NOT what you eat
- Part 7: Eat consciously — except when you don’t
- Part 8: Diets don’t burn fat, they burn money
1) Obviously I am not being paid by The Biggest Loser for mentioning them.
2) Quote stolen from a comment on Diet Book Junkie
you got my number. always on a diet, always guilty, only successful with weight loss intermittently. i like the way you think and i want help.
this couldnt come at a better time. My brother and I were in debate over how he could lose a little bit of weight and we went to visit him for a weekend and while we ate nice food, he had to make separate stuff and was in a crabby mood all weekend! Will share this with him!
Alex, you’d think that family should be most receptive to what you’re saying, wouldn’t you? Not true. My father has type 2 diabetes. I’ve been trying to get my parents to try low carb for over a year. After twenty years of getting the same advice and not seeing any improvement, I think they may be just about ready to hear it, but not yet. (If you’re reading this, Mom … try it for a month, see what happens.)
I asked Darya Pino the same question. She said her relatives are no more interested in what she has to say than the average population.
We try to explain how good our family feels since we cut back on white sugar and white flour. We also avoid filler ingredients like hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. We only eat carbs that we REALLY want to eat, and skip the rest of the cheap filler carbs. We eat better than ever, never say “I can’t, I am on a diet,” and we are still losing weight! Reducing carbs, choosing better quality ingredients and watching portion sizes work for us. We do not count calories; we ballpark portions; and still make at least one really, over-the-top dessert a week.
You hit on one of the things I really feel strongly about. When you view sugar and refined carbs as an occasional treat, you only want the really good ones. When you only plan on having one dessert per week you’re not going to waste it on a Twinkie.
I quit dieting a long time ago, when it was making me sick and crazy. I dumped everything that adversely affected my health…ex-husband, boozing friends, processed foods, going to church, staying up all night…and things started to change for me, in a good way. I had to unschool myself on so many levels!
Since commencing on my rebellious, heathen-like, unschooled ways, I’ve found joy, lost weight, made cool new supportive friends, sifted out relationships to find the really cool supportive old friends, and found my life’s work in writing and other creative interests.
So I’ll keep coming back to support you Drew. I support sanity!
those are choices we’ve made too. dump the toxic husband. move. bask in the peace that is my life now. i may not be skinny but my blood pressure is down and i feel GREAT.
Georgia, that’s a great story. How long did it take you to dump all of that?
One of the biggest problems I have with “dieting” is the ideology that goes with it – that you must attain a certain body type to be healthy and attractive. I am overweight and do need to lose a few pounds, no arguments there, but I have low blood pressure, excellent lab work-ups including low “bad”/ high “good” cholesterol, and eat a varied diet from which I need to cut some sugar. I need to lose or re-apportion weight to improve my stamina and help my joints. I loved the “bad boyfriend” idea of dieting, and I really wish people would pay less attention to how they look and how “bad” they are, to how healthy they feel and what great things they can do and enjoy – no matter what their weight! Add to that a bit more empathy to those who aren’t healthy to begin?
I just found this site, as I cannot find dates on the posts but the copyright is for 2011 I’m assuming it is current, and I’ll check back often!
Yup, updating regularly. I just started this site about two months ago and I’m going strong on it.
Glad you liked the “bad boyfriend” comparison. Anything that makes you feel bad about yourself all the time can’t be good for you.
Hey, cool to see the comparison of unschooling and undieting. Our family unschooled for many years, and it worked great. Our young adult kids are now happy, grounded, creative, curious, smart people doing great in college and high school (our youngest decided to do jr. and sr. years in public high school, which is working out wonderfully for him, and I’m sure his unschooled foundation is a big reason why).
So it’s easy to get me on board with “un-” doing many parts of life. Undieting makes perfect sense. Wish you all the best with this site.
When do you start eating carbs again?
I start eating carbs every Friday night, and pretty much keep it up right through Saturday night. Every week. That’s why my daily weigh-in chart looks like a sawtooth.
One of the biggest problems I have with “dieting” is the ideology that goes with it – that you must attain a certain body type to be healthy and attractive. I am overweight and do need to lose a few pounds, no arguments there, but I have low blood pressure, excellent lab work-ups including low “bad”/ high “good” cholesterol, and eat a varied diet from which I need to cut some sugar. I need to lose or re-apportion weight to improve my stamina and help my joints. I loved the “bad boyfriend” idea of dieting, and I really wish people would pay less attention to how they look and how “bad” they are, to how healthy they feel and what great things they can do and enjoy – no matter what their weight! Add to that a bit more empathy to those who aren’t healthy to begin?
+1
Valencia, negative reinforcement may work sometimes, as long as you don’t mind that it makes you feel bad at the same time.
Just found this site ,think I’ll probably like it, I’ve done the Adkins diet and it worked but thinking about what you put in your mouth every minute doesn’t work I need to just not eat the bread,potatoes,rice,and pasta. Trying to find my correct weight maybe you can help me .