When doubt drops by.
I’d like to talk about what to do when the weight loss urge strikes a perfectly sane person. And it does strike occasionally, because we are human people not living in a cultural vacuum, and we’re vulnerable to the same biases as everyone else.
To give a personal example: my husband and I were separated for a year. My living conditions changed, and I found myself walking for transportation and eating what I called “the poverty diet.” It was the best, nutritionally, I could work out on slender finances in a postage-stamp-sized kitchen. So, I lost a bit of weight (though not the dramatic amount you’d be given to expect from diet-pushers, and given that I was living an ascetic lifestyle very closely resembling a diet. My intentions, however, are what made it emphatically not a diet.)
With my husband back home now, my time and financial constraints have loosened up. I walk slightly less than before. My husband cooks more varied and nutritionally dense meals. And we do more snacking. More hanging out at home. More chips and ice cream and fun, celebratory foods that you enjoy eating with someone while watching a movie. In short, more of the cozy habits that come with cohabitation.
Not surprisingly then, we both gained a bit of weight. Our clothes are tighter, bellies are noticeably more sticky-outie.
(Philosophical aside: I don’t believe implicitly in the calories in = calories out model [technically "the energy balance model"] of weight regulation, as there are too many intervening biological variables for it to work out that straight-forwardly for everyone. But because I see theories useful distortions of complex realities, I do recognize that for many people, myself included, it kind of does work that way. And yet, because I make a conscious effort to divorce eating, exercise, and weight from morality, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating more, or exercising less, and the weight changes that may result.)
We both laughed at the weight gain, but we both felt discomfort about it, too. Because we both live in this culture. And we felt discomfort on top of that discomfort, since we both also believe in fat acceptance.
This is a scenario I have experienced several times since I stopped dieting eight years ago. What I’ve learned to do is admit my feelings of discomfort, my tendency to buy subconsciously into the cultural spiel of “fat is bad, weight loss is good,” and to be aware of it. To monitor it, without judging myself as some kind of fat acceptance failure, but most importantly, without turning it into an impulsive, potentially destructive course of action. Like dieting.
After a while, a few days or weeks, the panicked, surprised, dismayed feeling of having gained weight settles down. I can consider the idea rationally, and make a renewed, conscious choice to practice self-acceptance. This works as a system of gut-checks, to ensure that I still believe what I opted into so long ago — and that I’m not blindly pursuing something only because it has become integral to my reputation. To do this, I ask myself a series of questions.
Q: If I pursue weight loss, what is the most likely outcome, given past experience?
A: It would make me crazy, trigger disordered eating, and I’d eventually gain it back anyway.
Q: Am I more interested in being smaller, or feeling physically comfortable and better about myself?
A: The latter two. (Weight loss, in our culture, has become undeniably conflated with the pursuit of health and self-esteem, even though it is actually in diametric opposition to those things. That’s why it’s so insidious, and can be so seductive, even to people who have rejected it for years. Because who doesn’t want to feel good about their body? And who isn’t surrounded by the message that dieting will get them there?) When I actually was smaller and dieting, I got physically ill, and felt worse about myself. That’s what impelled me to find an alternative.
Q: So is there something I can do that will help me achieve those things, without the craziness and health risks of weight loss?
A: Yes. I can recommit to what I have learned about feeding myself well, and I can find enjoyable ways to move, visit a health professional to address any issues, and buy myself some new damn clothes.
Essentially, I can be nicer to myself, and turn up the self-care a notch. I can recommit to Health at Every Size.
Going through this process repeatedly, and allowing myself to question my assumptions about both weight loss and fat acceptance, keeps me feeling sane, helps me deal with rough times, and ensures that I don’t escalate my commitment to a losing course of action.
If I’m suddenly feeling worse about my body, it’s generally because I am not taking good care of myself — physically and mentally. Not because I just need to lose the damn weight already. That’s Jenny Craig talking. That’s trolls who taunt fat people talking. That’s well-intentioned but misguided relatives talking. That’s faux-HAES advertisements talking. That’s ignorance and bigotry talking.
And while I can’t stop those things from ever dropping by, when they do, I can make damn sure to show them the door.
Filed under: fat acceptance, fatosphere, health at every size | 1 Comment
Tags: fatosphere
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