The Dessert Club Manifesto

1. It’s possible to live a more juicy, satisfying, and less stressful life.
For many of us, worrying, thinking or feeling guilty about our eating or weight is getting in the way of thriving in the world. We’d like to help you develop a happier and more pleasurable relationship with food, and a more respectful and kind relationship with your body.

2. Stop worrying about what you’re eating. Consider why you’re eating.
Give yourself more credit. You’re a smart and capable person. You know that eating half a jar of Nutella isn’t the healthiest thing in the world. But you did it anyway, and you’ll probably do it again if you don’t get to the bottom of why you keep acting in this way.

3. Whenever you eat strangely, you’re likely reacting in a counter-intuitively rational way to a series of issues that you are not yet fully aware of.
The good news is you’re not crazy. The good news is a binge-loving gremlin isn’t living in your head. The bad news is that it’s time for you to do some personal exploration. Every person I’ve ever worked with — without a single exception — had more going on internally than they initially realized.

4. Given the complexity of our motivations around food, an integral approach to eating is the only thing that makes sense.
An integral approach to eating means that we consider you as a whole person, leaving nothing out. Your relationships, environment, feelings, somatic awareness, spirituality, social milieu, ambitions and dreams, and fears and anxieties all deeply impact your eating and relationship to your body. We’ll talk about all of them.

5. Most of us need a methodology for approaching our eating
Too many of us ricochet between “worrying about it” (e.g., diets, restriction, or guilt), and “not worrying about it” (eating whatever, whenever). Both approaches can have serious downsides. Instead, we need a gentle, whole-person methodology for approaching food — questions to ask, things to notice — so that we can make sure that we are eating in a way that serves us.

6. The world we live in makes this much, much harder
In a challenging and busy world, food is a relatively cheap and easily accessible pleasure button — we may not have time for a real break, but at least we can eat a vending machine muffin. Food is often offered as a drug to make us happier, more compliant, or more energized (think about the last time they served donuts at a company meeting). No wonder we often eat food that we don’t necessarily need.

7. You’re in a lifelong relationship, so you might as well make the best of it.
You’re in a lifelong relationship with your body and yourself. It might not have been a relationship that you would have chosen, but you’re stuck with it. Divorce isn’t an option. Spending a lot of time telling yourself that you’re “bad,” or trying to change something about yourself for the 10,534th time is exhausting and not that useful. It’s far more helpful to focus on making the relationship pleasant for everyone involved, for the long term.

8. Eating and weight are also social justice issues. 
You can do all the personal work that you want, but if we still live in a world which says that your body has to be a certain size to be worthy of love and respect, it will likely affect your eating and attitude towards your body, and your eating.

9. There’s no “there” there.
You’re never going to be a 100% “perfect” eater, whatever that means. You’re not going to be 100% happy, confident, or safe all the time, either. Who told you it was possible to stop being a messy, imperfect human, anyway? We think that’s good news, though — there’s no way to fail at this work, because you’re not going to get it 1,000% right, ever. So you might as well start!

You in? 

—

If you're wondering where to start, you might enjoy this free ebook (it has a quiz!), or our newsletter, which sends out helpful, kind advice every Sunday.

Our blog has a bunch of great articles.

Or if you're dubious about this whole approach ("Can it work for me? Maybe I should try Weight Watchers just one more time"), read about some real people (just like you) who had positive experiences.