#disclaimer: I'm not a paragon or role model for this. I'm just someone who gets caught up in my thoughts too much.

[1-dum-bitch]

Hear me out. If you're tryna "clean up" your diet, it's the most popular belief that you need to cut out all "unhealthy" sugars and fats and replace them with homemade avocado oil and locally sourced honey. False. That's why so many people believe dieting doesn't actually work (because it doesn't that way). To lend credibility to the statement I'm about to make, I have a health sciences college degree. What's more important, more effective, and way more sustainable is to start adding more vitamins into your regular diet (ie spinach in your pasta sauce, veggie based snacks next to your oreos) before you start taking things out (ie the oreos). If you cut yourself off from the things your body is used to and replace them with things you find plain/boring/sad/whatever, you're just gonna yearn for what you just threw away, and then go buy more to feel guilty over. But if you're padding your meals w even smn as simple as veggie powder (better than nothing but fresh/dried/frozen veggies do have more benefits), your body will crave other sources for quick fixes in salts and sugars (ie chips and cookies) less and less in a more natural way. Ofc you'll still want greasy pizza and triple chocolate ice cream, and that's not bad! They still have nutrients! Your body just isn't relying on them as sources for those nutrients as heavily. Disregarding the fatphobic idea that you'll drop weight because of how healthy you are after that, your body will genuinely start working better.

Another application of this is in addiction. Quitting cold turkey may work for some, but a generally better approach is to find things to replace the addictive habit with so you still have an outlet, just less destructive.

So.

In that same vein, on your journey in self-betterment (self-confidence and leftism, for instance), there's a lot of emphasis on unlearning. And again! That's good! But that's like taking away all of a toddler's toys and telling them to just "play a different way." (From experience that usually leads to any intensity of property destruction and/or physical/mental/emotional/psychological harm.) So you really need to set up a new system before you let go of the old one. That looks like finding nice or even neutral things to say about yourself before you stop saying the demeaning things, or learning anti-racism before you "stop being racist," etc. Be objective about yourself before assigning an ideal to strive for, love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor.

Start building before you start tearing down.