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:
-
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.
-
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.
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.
I like this. I’ll think of physical goals I want to achieve, beyond the bouncy house.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for all of this. Do you know any good mostly veg recipes or meals? I love to cook, I love most veggies(just eat a lot of other stuff too), and I’m looking to get into beans and lentils this year.
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:
-
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.
-
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.
Something I noticed reading through your post is how much your weight anxiety stems from external sources: my dad made me feel bad, my grandma made me feel bad, I worry what my friends are thinking about my weight now or will think about it in the future. I’m not seeing much in terms of you wanting to lose weight to make yourself happy. You even said, you didn’t see an issue with your weight outside of activities with weight limits.
If your weight loss motivation is just about appeasing others, then it’s not going to be successful. Appeasing others like that is a losing formula because you’ll always have the voice in the back of your head saying “but what if I’m really not satisfying them?” That’s why your mom kept starting and not finishing fad diets, it wasn’t about her it was about your dad. And let me tell you a secret about judgy people: no matter what you do, no matter how much you improve, they’ll find something to judge you over. If you have people that are toxic in your life like that, the solution isn’t appeasing them, it’s cutting toxic people out of your life.
As far as your particular fear about getting to eat yummy food: I know someone who’s been skinny their entire life. Their key is, on weekdays they eat light for breakfast and lunch, dinner is something along the lines of plain baked boneless skinless chicken breast, steamed veggies, whole grain rice, in small portions. Weekends though, they eat whatever they want. The key isn’t going cold turkey on everything richer than leek soup, it’s quantity and portion control.
Needing internal motivation is SO true too. My vice was smoking cigarettes. For years I never even attempted to quit, or would cut back or whatever just to start again, because people around me wanted me to quit but honestly I LOVED smoking. Honestly I still do. But when I started HRT I understood that smoking could affect the effectiveness of hormones and cause possible health complications, I went cold turkey and it’s been sticking. I absolutely positively couldn’t have done this without internal motivation.
