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:
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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.
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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.
Sure! A nice low-oil, high-heat stir fry can be loaded with veggies and taste amazing. You can do it Cantonese style and just do a small set of veggies at a time so they get a nice wear before cooling down the pan/wok. Peppers, onion, green onion, mushrooms, corn, peas (I’m just listing things easy to find in the US). If you patiently fry tofu in a small amount of oil (5 kin per side or so at medium) it can be added at the end as well, very high in protein vs. calorie ratio and tastes great.
Using spices and herbs and simple sauces can also help out by pumping up the flavor for 0 calories. A classic spice mix for this would be a little salt, a very small amount of sugar, a medium amount of white pepper, and small to medium amount of MSG according to your tastes. For a sauce, you can do very well with just some soy sauce added to a hot part of the pan. If you want to be a little fancier, combine with some water, cooking wine, oyster/mushroom sauce, and a little starch so it ends up sticky. This kind of sauce tastes better if you go light on it, which is also more healthy.
Nice thing about a stir fry is that it’s a one-pan meal, you can use whatever veggies look good or are on sale, and after a little practice you’ll be done within 10 minutes. Have a little parboiled rice or whole grain on the side and you have a complete meal. It’s also easy to modify for macros, like adding that tofu. There are also a wide variety of dishes that are stir fried and can use a ton of vegetables, so it won’t get boring if you mix it up a bit.
Other dishes that are good with lots of veggies:
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A nice salad with rinsed cooked beans (like chickpeas) on it. Add a nice dressing and mixed fresh vegetables and it’s very tasty. With the beans it can be a complete meal and not feel like it’s “just” salad.
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Dishes that are literally just veggies. Chinese broccoli with oyster/mushroom sauce. Roasted broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. Poached broccoli blended up makes a surprisingly delicious soup, literally only needs salt and a dash of pepper. Lots of soups are basically just veggies and beans, like a Greek chickpea soup with lemon. Pakoras are a way to use up random mixed veggies, basically just a spiced-up chickpea flour batter with random veggies. If you want to make lower-calorie, bake instead of deep fry. Personally, I just use very little batter and deep fry, which ends up not very oily because the oil only saturatrs batter, not veggies. Dishes like sag paneer/tofu. Japanese-style spinach, which is basically poached spinach in a sesame sauce.
Also you can straight-up have some veggies as a snack, they’re delightful. Baby carrots, broccoli, celery. Cut them up and put in the fridge in water for a few hours and they’ll be extra crispy.
Some dishes that have a decent amount of veggies:
- Some nice tostadas. You can pile up the onion, lettuce, and tomato on top of refried beans. Add a little cabbage if you want.
- A bastardized burrito bowl. Beans, rice/whole grain, dry (no oil) fried corn, a facsimile of chimichurri, fajitas, tajin, etc. Lots of ways for vary it and add more veggies.
- (low oil) fried rice with a ton of leftover veggies. Same spices as I mentioned for the stir fry.
- Fried noodles, basically the same deal as the veggie stir fry but it has noodles in it.
- A nice Thai curry loaded up with peppers, onion, broccoli, maybe potato, carrot.
