18 Anti-Diet Quotes You Need This Year

A few days ago, I found myself lying on top of my bed, fully dressed, scrolling through Instagram in the dark. It was just one of those days. Nothing was really that wrong. I was just anxious and filled with that inexplicable dread that creeps up so easily when it’s cold and windy and the sun seems to set at, like, 11 a.m. So I picked up my phone and started looking for some #inspiration. Instead, I got this baloney:

“He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.” — Chinese Proverb

A quick Google search revealed that this quote was more than likely not a Chinese proverb (I could find no source for it except diet articles and websites from the Geocities era). Furthermore, it’s often written as, “He who takes medicine and neglects diet…” without that sneaky little “to” thrown in before “diet” — giving it a very different connotation.

To be fair, when you turn to social media to bolster your emotional health, you get what you deserve. Still, it struck me again that the internet is flooded with this kind of nonsense, peddled as truth (ancient wisdom, even). It’s easy enough to bypass the BS when it’s buried in a junky website or someone’s old LiveJournal. But when it’s presented in a tidy font on a pretty background, well, it’s hard not to look. And like it or not, when something catches our eye, our brain takes note. How often do we scroll past that dressed-up garbage, inadvertently adding to the rubbish heap in our minds?

Instead of wasting time on that depressing query, I’ve decided to offer an alternative. Today I present you with 17 quotes for 2017 (plus one to grow on) from some of the most genuinely inspirational people I’ve encountered since launching The Anti-Diet Project in 2013. While the internet is flooded with garbage, the world is full of incredible voices addressing things like diet culture, disordered eating, intuitive eating, body positivity, rational fitness, personal growth, and so much more. These are words we all need to hear, and people we all should know. These messages are meant to be shared, so share them. We’ve put them here in tidy font, on pretty backgrounds, so you can spread the word, too. If we can’t get rid of all the shaming, ugly, erroneous messages out there, then we can at least drown them out with something true — and truly nourishing.

It is all too easy to feel alone and inept, especially when you’re lying on your bed in the dark, fumbling for a lifeline on your phone. I hope you find one here, and if so, I hope you pull yourself up and then toss it back out there for someone else to grab a hold of.