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Weigh it in your mind...
I've decided I'm going to discuss weight.
TRIGGERY ISSUES AHOY! It's all going behind a cut. Do NOT read if you're triggered by talk about food, diet, weight loss/gain issues, eating disorders, body image issues, or anything remotely linked to that.
There's an argument I've been having with myself for years, and that's that I shouldn't feel bad about my weight or how I look, and that if I want to eat healthy and exercise and all that jazz, it should be because it makes me feel good and is good for me and for no other reason. I have had this argument with myself since I was a teenager, and it still hasn't been settled in my head.
It's not news to anyone (except maybe those of you who have never seen me in person) that I am fat. I tend to use the word "overweight" in conversation because it's less offensive, more medical-sounding, and has fewer connotations of shame and moral decay. But the word most people who don't know me think of when they see me is fat, there's really no getting around that.
It's certainly not news to me. I own multiple mirrors, I see this every day. I see it in my own mirrors, I see it reflected back at me in shop windows and clothing store mirrors and restaurant bathroom mirrors. I see it in rearview mirrors in cars and in ripple effects when I stare down into muddy puddles in the street. I am not unaware, is what I'm driving at. It's always there, lurking at the back of my mind.
I could write a whole long thing about what it is to be a fat person in today's society. The fat-shaming, the derailing when I try to express what I'm feeling ("Oh, I'm super skinny, so I get judged all the time too! I totally know how you feel, but it's even worse for thin people!"), the well-meaning but toxic "encouragement" I get from people, often total strangers, who feel it's their God-given duty to lecture me about the contents of my grocery cart, or to stop me on the street to tell me I should exercise more/eat less/whatever.
That's not what this post is about, though. What I originally wanted to write about was my own personal war with the scale. See, the scale and I have a really, really unhealthy relationship. The scale makes me think about numbers, and when I think about numbers, I become fixated. The scale gives me the illusion that my self-loathing can somehow be quantified, and therefore controlled or even eliminated.
See, I've pretty much hated how I look since I was twelve years old. If you're reading this, for the love of God PLEASE don't comment to tell me I'm wrong, that I'm pretty or attractive or whatever the fuck. This is not me begging for compliments. I like compliments, yes, but most of the time when people tell me that sort of thing I smile and thank them graciously (so as not to invalidate their opinion) while secretly wondering what kind of crack they've been smoking, and why can't I have some? So, let's not do that.
Back to my point. Somewhere in my childhood I learned that being fat was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. I think I picked it up from my mother, who's always been very self-conscious about her weight, in spite of being petite all of her adult life (she was obese as a teenager, and that and other life stuff likely triggered her own weight and body image issues). My father, bless him, was always kind of judgey about my weight, mostly because he was concerned I would never have any friends and be lonely all my life. IDK, it made sense to him.
In elementary school I was bullied, so I stopped going out at recess, then stopped going out at all, and my parents always used food as a source of comfort, which made for the perfect storm in terms of gaining weight. All rich food, no exercise. Then the kids at school bullied me for being fat, which made things even worse.
When I was thirteen my biology teacher called me a fat, lazy cow in front of my entire class (I was getting straight As, I'm not sure where he got the "lazy" part, except for the societal narrative that all fat people must be lazy), and that sealed my fate. From then on, that was who I was: a fat, lazy cow. I've never quite been able to extract that particular narrative about myself from my own head.
Coming back to the present day, the "fat, lazy cow" mantra is still going strong. It's so strong, in fact, that I have a hard time divorcing anything that has to do with eating and exercise from it. The BMI charts all tell me the magic number I should aim for, and somewhere in my head I am convinced that if I hit that magic number, then all those years of hating myself will be erased, and I will begin a new era of sublime bliss in which I will never have an issue with myself ever again.
See the problem with that?
For one thing, the magic number according to the BMI charts is not especially realistic for me. I think I could probably manage it if I did nothing with my days except work out and watch every calorie I ate like a hawk. It would probably take about two years to achieve if I did nothing but that.
Since I have a job and a commute and a family, that's not going to happen. I also am quite sure that, were I to hit the magic number, it wouldn't actually solve my problems of hating myself and my appearance. I'd probably still look in the mirror and wish I was better-looking, that I looked like someone else. I do realise that some people find me pretty, and that's awesome. I wish I felt the same way.
Anyway, right before Christmas I decided to give myself a kick in the ass and start eating better again after several months of eating junk, and exercising more, and writing down what I ate in order not to exceed the recommended calorie count for the day so that I would be able to start losing weight again. Who wouldn't want to be at an optimal weight for their age and height and enjoy all the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, am I right?
Yeah. So the magic number is making faces at me from the scale, and it's been making me kind of miserable. Because even when I'm "good" (and I use the word loosely), I either stay the same or even gain weight. Awesome, right? So it's been sending me into spirals of mental self-flagellation about how I can never do anything right, not even a simple thing like not being a fat loser with no control over herself.
Isn't that a great, constructive way of thinking? Yeah, that's what I thought too.
So I've decided that, at least until I see a doctor at the end of February, I can't let myself obsess about numbers anymore. I can't let myself obsess about food. I can't let myself end the day feeling like I'm starving because I reached my maximum calorie count at 17:00 and now it's 21:30 and I'm hungry and miserable and telling myself that, sure, having three glasses of water will fill me up and I don't really want food.
Conclusion? I'm done with numbers. I will not be stepping on the scale, and I will not be counting calories. I am going to try to pay more attention to my body, so that I don't get to the point when I'm so hungry I eat more than I really need. I'm going to try to pause before reaching for food that I know isn't good for me, but if I decide I really want it I'm going to make a big effort not to second-guess my decision and beat myself up about it afterward. I'm going to try to get outside more, because I enjoy exercise that takes me outdoors and hate being on a treadmill/exercise machine of any kind. If I do go to the gym I will lift weights, because I love lifting weights. It gives me a huge thrill and sense of accomplishment to be able to lift/move increasingly heavy loads. Watching numbers go up is fun, obsessing about numbers going down makes me go crazy.
TRIGGERY ISSUES AHOY! It's all going behind a cut. Do NOT read if you're triggered by talk about food, diet, weight loss/gain issues, eating disorders, body image issues, or anything remotely linked to that.
There's an argument I've been having with myself for years, and that's that I shouldn't feel bad about my weight or how I look, and that if I want to eat healthy and exercise and all that jazz, it should be because it makes me feel good and is good for me and for no other reason. I have had this argument with myself since I was a teenager, and it still hasn't been settled in my head.
It's not news to anyone (except maybe those of you who have never seen me in person) that I am fat. I tend to use the word "overweight" in conversation because it's less offensive, more medical-sounding, and has fewer connotations of shame and moral decay. But the word most people who don't know me think of when they see me is fat, there's really no getting around that.
It's certainly not news to me. I own multiple mirrors, I see this every day. I see it in my own mirrors, I see it reflected back at me in shop windows and clothing store mirrors and restaurant bathroom mirrors. I see it in rearview mirrors in cars and in ripple effects when I stare down into muddy puddles in the street. I am not unaware, is what I'm driving at. It's always there, lurking at the back of my mind.
I could write a whole long thing about what it is to be a fat person in today's society. The fat-shaming, the derailing when I try to express what I'm feeling ("Oh, I'm super skinny, so I get judged all the time too! I totally know how you feel, but it's even worse for thin people!"), the well-meaning but toxic "encouragement" I get from people, often total strangers, who feel it's their God-given duty to lecture me about the contents of my grocery cart, or to stop me on the street to tell me I should exercise more/eat less/whatever.
That's not what this post is about, though. What I originally wanted to write about was my own personal war with the scale. See, the scale and I have a really, really unhealthy relationship. The scale makes me think about numbers, and when I think about numbers, I become fixated. The scale gives me the illusion that my self-loathing can somehow be quantified, and therefore controlled or even eliminated.
See, I've pretty much hated how I look since I was twelve years old. If you're reading this, for the love of God PLEASE don't comment to tell me I'm wrong, that I'm pretty or attractive or whatever the fuck. This is not me begging for compliments. I like compliments, yes, but most of the time when people tell me that sort of thing I smile and thank them graciously (so as not to invalidate their opinion) while secretly wondering what kind of crack they've been smoking, and why can't I have some? So, let's not do that.
Back to my point. Somewhere in my childhood I learned that being fat was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. I think I picked it up from my mother, who's always been very self-conscious about her weight, in spite of being petite all of her adult life (she was obese as a teenager, and that and other life stuff likely triggered her own weight and body image issues). My father, bless him, was always kind of judgey about my weight, mostly because he was concerned I would never have any friends and be lonely all my life. IDK, it made sense to him.
In elementary school I was bullied, so I stopped going out at recess, then stopped going out at all, and my parents always used food as a source of comfort, which made for the perfect storm in terms of gaining weight. All rich food, no exercise. Then the kids at school bullied me for being fat, which made things even worse.
When I was thirteen my biology teacher called me a fat, lazy cow in front of my entire class (I was getting straight As, I'm not sure where he got the "lazy" part, except for the societal narrative that all fat people must be lazy), and that sealed my fate. From then on, that was who I was: a fat, lazy cow. I've never quite been able to extract that particular narrative about myself from my own head.
Coming back to the present day, the "fat, lazy cow" mantra is still going strong. It's so strong, in fact, that I have a hard time divorcing anything that has to do with eating and exercise from it. The BMI charts all tell me the magic number I should aim for, and somewhere in my head I am convinced that if I hit that magic number, then all those years of hating myself will be erased, and I will begin a new era of sublime bliss in which I will never have an issue with myself ever again.
See the problem with that?
For one thing, the magic number according to the BMI charts is not especially realistic for me. I think I could probably manage it if I did nothing with my days except work out and watch every calorie I ate like a hawk. It would probably take about two years to achieve if I did nothing but that.
Since I have a job and a commute and a family, that's not going to happen. I also am quite sure that, were I to hit the magic number, it wouldn't actually solve my problems of hating myself and my appearance. I'd probably still look in the mirror and wish I was better-looking, that I looked like someone else. I do realise that some people find me pretty, and that's awesome. I wish I felt the same way.
Anyway, right before Christmas I decided to give myself a kick in the ass and start eating better again after several months of eating junk, and exercising more, and writing down what I ate in order not to exceed the recommended calorie count for the day so that I would be able to start losing weight again. Who wouldn't want to be at an optimal weight for their age and height and enjoy all the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, am I right?
Yeah. So the magic number is making faces at me from the scale, and it's been making me kind of miserable. Because even when I'm "good" (and I use the word loosely), I either stay the same or even gain weight. Awesome, right? So it's been sending me into spirals of mental self-flagellation about how I can never do anything right, not even a simple thing like not being a fat loser with no control over herself.
Isn't that a great, constructive way of thinking? Yeah, that's what I thought too.
So I've decided that, at least until I see a doctor at the end of February, I can't let myself obsess about numbers anymore. I can't let myself obsess about food. I can't let myself end the day feeling like I'm starving because I reached my maximum calorie count at 17:00 and now it's 21:30 and I'm hungry and miserable and telling myself that, sure, having three glasses of water will fill me up and I don't really want food.
Conclusion? I'm done with numbers. I will not be stepping on the scale, and I will not be counting calories. I am going to try to pay more attention to my body, so that I don't get to the point when I'm so hungry I eat more than I really need. I'm going to try to pause before reaching for food that I know isn't good for me, but if I decide I really want it I'm going to make a big effort not to second-guess my decision and beat myself up about it afterward. I'm going to try to get outside more, because I enjoy exercise that takes me outdoors and hate being on a treadmill/exercise machine of any kind. If I do go to the gym I will lift weights, because I love lifting weights. It gives me a huge thrill and sense of accomplishment to be able to lift/move increasingly heavy loads. Watching numbers go up is fun, obsessing about numbers going down makes me go crazy.
no subject
Also, if you've never read any Geneen Roth, you might check her out -- she's all about listening to one's body and ditchng the scale.
no subject
I read "When Food Is Love" when I was 20. I seem to recall it making a lot of sense.
no subject
As far as the magic number goes, I refuse to let myself truly care about that. I fully expect to be overweight for the rest of my life, but I would like to be less so because at this point my size restricts me in ways. I'm also eating better in the hopes of feeling better, regardless of weight loss. I need to clean out the little room where I have my weights so that I can get back to them.
Good luck with what you're doing
no subject
I hate weight. I hate thinking about it, I hate that it's a part of our effin' culture. I remember being first aware of it at six years old. My ma and I were at Sears Department store and she was buying jeans for me. The saleswoman looked down at me and said "Oh, you'll be needing a Husky, then." And I remember the bottom dropping out of my stomach. I wanted to hide in the nearest rack of clothes.
I'm short (5'2") and my weight has been from chubby to ninety pounds. I went through a period when my father was dying of cancer that could be classified as seriously disordered eating. And like you, I experienced that when I tried hard to watch my 'diet', I would obsess on the numbers and never be happy with the results, one way or the other. I found that my weight (and self-esteem) stabilized a lot when I shifted focus to non-weight things, like art and writing and family, and simply got outside periodically for walks and Frisbee golf, that kind of low-pressure, unquantifiable exercise. For the fresh air and a change of scenery.
You're doing such a good thing by figuring out what you LIKE. Fuck the scale. Listen to your body. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and you will likely find yourself shifting those 'ways' because we are not machines; we are constantly fluctuating creatures. Changing your mindset from deprivation to "What do I really need to fuel my body and soul right now?" has got be be incredibly positive, yeah?
I'm rootin' for you.
no subject
Right there with you on all of this, and could write steadily for a whole year about my unhealthy relationship with food and weight. And good on you for taking control. I'm working on it, but not quite there yet.
Thanks for posting this. :)
no subject
"the magic number according to the BMI charts is not especially realistic for me."
The magic number according to the BMI charts is not especially realistic for anyone. It is in fact a very poor indicator, so I thoroughly encourage your decision to ignore it.
no subject