CW: talk about weight, mention of ED

I’ll preface with: I’ll be blunt from here on out, as I can’t get better without truth. I know I’m overweight, and I’ve always known/always have been.

My mom spent a good amount of her life obsessing over weight (no thanks to my dad). She isn’t at the level to have ED or anything but would find new fad diets to start (but not finish), have motivational food posters around, comments on how bad she or anyone else is eating and how it’s a bad thing, things like that. My dad was never shy to tell me how fat I was and how fat I was getting. Said the same to my mom as well. My mom would comfort me during those outbursts, but still put me on similar fad diets or weight loss programs. None of them stuck.

What triggered the current push to lose weight were 2 things:

  1. There’s a traveling adult bouncy house that’s coming to my area, but there is a weight limit. My friends seemed excited to go, but I’ll feel so much shame to say I can’t because I’m too big. I also don’t want my weight to get in the way of doing other fun things down the line.

  2. I plan to travel for my 30th birthday and the country is pretty fatphobic, I don’t think I’ll be able to (mentally) handle it and feel it’ll be better to lose weight than draw unnecessary attention to myself. I visited a parent’s home country a few years ago, it’s been a long time since going, and my grandma couldn’t say anything else to me than how big I was. I couldn’t say anything back but take it, knowing the people around me were hearing it too. Some people would say something too like “She’s just thick nothing wrong with that”, but I just felt more shame that I couldn’t say anything back, and deep down I agreed with her. It was embarrassing, and I felt embarrassed to look that way. I don’t want to experience that again.

I don’t even know if these are good enough reason to lose weight or if it just a self-esteem thing or both. I also can’t tell if this is actual motivation or my own internalized fatphobia. Deep down, I like to imagine myself as thinner, only because it’ll be more convenient to move through life that way. I’m otherwise happy.

Last year I lost a bit of weight, one of my friends complimented me on the loss, and it freaked me out. I felt perceived and observed, it opened up my mind to the fear that people were thinking negative things about my weight the whole time and only felt comfortable enough to talk about it because it was going down. The panic slowed down my progress and I gained the weight back.

I’ll feel guilty abandoning the HAES cause and the fat community. Like I was only following it because I’m bigger and needed to cope. And when I get thinner, I won’t need them anymore for comfort. I also feel shame losing weight because it admits that there was a “problem” and I didn’t do anything about it until now. It also proved all the terrible, maybe well-meaning, people from my life right. All their comments were correct, and I was too prideful to admit it. That opens me up to being treated differently if I do lose the weight, and it makes me angry. Like my friends and family would be impressed but think “what took you so long?”. Then, will I be respected more? Will more people be attracted to me now? I’ll forever feel like people are only interested in being close to me because I’m thinner, just like how some people want nothing to do with me because I’m bigger.

I never really felt like my weight was an issue, it only stopped me from doing activities with a weight limit. I still exercise and whatnot without issue. But, since a young age, I was always told it was an issue, so it sits in the back of my mind constantly.

Fears:

  • I’m scared that I won’t succeed
  • I’m scared that I will but will forever have to obsess over my weight and eating habits like my mom
  • I’m scared it’ll yo-yo back and forth, or I’ll just gain it all again (so why even start)
  • I’m scared my personality will change, and I’ll get cocky like the other fit people who lost a lot of weight and get to brag about it
  • I’m scared of how I will be perceived during or even after the journey, comments like “homhom lost so much weight it looks good” make me feel like people will be relying on me to keep the weight off, opening up the possibility of being a failure
  • I’m scared I won’t be able to eat yummy food again so I can maintain the new body
  • I’m scared more people will be attracted to me <- I don’t get this one, I think it’s also about perception

S/N: my current Doctor has a side practice that specializes in weight loss. She never made me feel bad for being overweight, and never pushed the practice on me. All of my yearly physicals are perfect, too, minus a few vitamin deficiencies. I’ve also been in therapy for a while, but never felt comfortable enough to discuss weight, I don’t discuss with many friends either.

  • RION [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Ditto on the lifestyle change framing that’s already been stated.

    I’ll feel guilty abandoning the HAES cause and the fat community.

    I don’t think “abandoning” is super accurate here. Losing weight doesn’t mean you have to stop being an advocate, after all. The decision to do so (or not!) is your business and your business alone. Put yourself first, you’re worth it.

  • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    I’m scared I won’t be able to eat yummy food again so I can maintain the new body

    Comrade I eat so much junk food it isn’t even funny. Losing or maintaining your preferred weight isn’t really about what food you eat, it’s just about knowing how many calories are in that food and not eating too much.

  • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    It’s your body, you can change it how you can and should feel good about that so long as it isn’t causing you greater harm (the latter would be how I’d categorize an ED, for example). Same goes for someone that wants to gain weight or muscle or change body “types”, like going from big a muscular to smaller or vice versa, etc. Society itself is toxic about our bodies and I’m sorry it (and your father) impacted you negatively.

    I’ll touch on your fears:

    • You might not succeed but that’s okay. It’s not easy to change our bodies! They’re resistant to change. Also things can happen that prevent whatever strategy a person wants to take. Maybe you decide to do a particular exercise bc every day but then get injured, for example. This is all okay. It’s okay to qualify your goal, to work towards it but be okay if everything doesn’t go according to plan on your ideal timeline.

    • People have different metabolisms so it’s hard to generalize about what maintaining a body situation looks like, but generally speaking if your methodology is a concrete and healthy lifestyle change then maintenance is just continuing to do the same thing. I’ll give a simple example: eating more veggies (not extreme, just more!) is a surefire way to cut calories in a healthy way and over time your body will start to crave them and your mind will start to expect more of them in your meals. This is a sustainable habit and you eventually won’t have to think about it deliberately, let alone worry.

    • It’s okay to yo-yo, our bodies do this with the seasons and as we live life. Maybe you get an injury and have to be sedentary for a few months and gain a few pounds. No biggie. Maybe some initial weight loss was water weight and a few salty meals make you “gain” it back. Maybe you have a tough few weeks and breaking your diet helped you cope. None of these things are abnormal or unacceptable. The important thing is to forgive yourself (there’s nothing to forgive!) and feel okay to resume the new habits if you want to. Most people have to make repeat attempts at changing a habit.

    • You won’t lose your empathy or knowledge and suddenly become body-shaming, no need to worry about this. If your changes are healthy (better food and exercise) you’ll probably just have more energy and feel a bit better overall (at least from endorphins from exercising).

    • Yeah other people complimenting your “new looks” is gonna happen and be both annoying and affirming. There’s definitely an emotional contradiction there! I don’t really have advice for that, it’s gonna be confusing.

    • You can definitely still eat tasty food. This will happen in two ways: (1) you should adopt a diet that isn’t about cutting out all of the food you like. If the food is caloric, just have less of it and have a lighter (veggie heavy) meal later to offset. (2) As you find new meals as part of your diet, you’ll start to crave those instead. Some of your previous favorites might even start to feel unappealing as your tastes habituate.

    • More people being attracted to you might happen. Being perceived can suck or at least bring up conflicting feelings.

  • Deadend [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    A few people I know who have lost weight and stayed cool did it because they made it NOT about the weight loss.

    The whole “lifestyle” thing essentially.

    Basically making the losing the weight into a side-effect of something else.

    Like having goal of being able to run a marathon and taking actions for THAT instead. I think that is the only sane way to lose weight is having it be an effect of something else.