Saving money and stress: avoid the pre-wedding diet craze

The admonitions to slim backs, legs, arms, waists, and what-have-you saturate popular wedding sites, often in the form of Health/Fitness blogs, messageboards, and articles.

As Dr. House said on last week's episode, 'Not many women have the courage to admit that they'd rather be pretty than healthy' (I'm paraphrasing).

The truth is, most of these health/fitness sections have a lot less to do with actual health and actual fitness. They're more about feeding into the anxiety, paranoia, and obsession most brides in America have with weight loss before their wedding. If you don't believe me, check out some of the articles - they're mostly about "targeting" certain body parts for shrinkage, and "looking your best" in various kinds of dresses, and so forth. A quick perusal of the messageboards of these sites shows many disordered eating habits, crash diets, and expensive personal trainers being employed to whittle a body down to fit into too-small dress.

So save your money and save yourself stress:

1. Don't buy into the obsession with losing X lbs before the big day. If you're concerned for your health in general, embark on a long-term regime, and don't beat yourself up if you don't lose a significant amount of weight. Health and weight are only tenuously correlated: and one often can become healthier through exercise and moderate nutritional modifications not lose a significant amount of weight.
2. Don't buy into the idea that a thin bride is the only bride that can be pretty. Find the right kind of dress for your unique body type, find a dress that fits at your current weight, and rock it! There are many benefits to this approach: you'll save expensive alterations, the stress of dieting at the same time you're planning a wedding, and possible health issues during the wedding ceremony (many women crash their way into a too-small dress by fasting the day before and day of their wedding. This can lead to fainting spells, irritability, fogginess, etc).
3. Don't be afraid of being yourself in your wedding photos. Do you really want to look back twenty years later at a person who only somewhat resembled your true body, and beat yourself up that you can't any longer fit into a wedding dress that you barely fit into the day of your wedding?
   

So save yourself stress and money: avoid the pre-wedding diet craze. Your body, and your wallet, will thank you for it.