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.
I’m not an expert and speak only from personal experience. I dropped 50 lbs over a couple of years and then gained 25 lbs back over the next three.
It was a weird experience from a self-perception standpoint; after a while at the lower weight, old photos of me at the higher weight seemed less like “me”, which was a bit disconcerting. The pros more than made up for the cons, though, because it was a lifestyle change that just physically felt really great. Running and jumping was easier, my skin was clearer, I took up cycling, I got so used to eating less that I would occasionally have to eat a bit more at the end of the day just to hit a calorie minimum(!), just good stuff all around that was absolutely worth the calorie tracking and Apple Watch ring closing.
Then COVID happened and made my schedule so unpredictable that the exercise became less constant, snacks became more available, and healthy solo meals became McDonald’s for the family. Regaining the weight has been a bit of a bummer, and I definitely perceive things that I didn’t before losing the weight: I can feel the puffiness in my face and recognize my lack of muscle definition.
I have zero regrets about going through all of it, though. It’s a really empowering feeling to take charge of your body and make it the way you want it by stubborn determination, and I know that if I really want to, I can get back to the lower weight by being extra stubborn and doing what worked before. Being at a lower weight for a while also helped me discover more things that my body feels good doing, and I’ve kept those as part of my life even after regaining half the weight I lost.
I don’t feel like a failure; I feel like I did something for myself and learned a lot.
That feels like the key for you: make sure you’re ultimately doing this for yourself. If nobody else in the world had any opinions about your weight, positive or negative, now or in the future, would you still want to change your body? If so, just go for it and deal with your concerns if and when they come up. There’s no such thing as failure here, no letting anyone else “win”, just you doing what you want to do with your body.
You’ve given me some things to think about. I like the idea of changing my body for the experience, and gaining new attributes like discipline and self determination. If I could go through life where my weight didn’t stop me from doing things(mostly weight limit things), I don’t think I’d change. That said, I’m a dancer and I recognize when my body’s in different shape, I don’t perform as well. Since failure doesn’t exist in this case, and I’m already ok with where I am, the worst that can happen is me staying the same. Best that could happen is I’m light enough to dance longer without as much fatigue.
I don’t think you have any reason to feel guilty. You have concrete reasons to lose weight, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making a decision to improve your life based on the actual circumstances you live in. I don’t know what else to say to assuade your fears, but I think if you’ve made your decision there’s no telling how you’ll feel after a few months of commitment. If as you say your weight isn’t an issue for most things outside of weight limited activities, the worst that could happen is you return to the current situation, and you aren’t any worse off for trying.
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.
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.
I yo-yo a lot, and I can’t keep weight off unless I regiment myself to only eat so many calories in a day. I have a problem with binging, and counting calories helps my moderate my eating. Even when I fail, I never regret trying. Because even when I fail I just end up where I started, so I’m not any worse for the wear. And let me tell you, no diet has kept me from eating something yummy, I just might end up saving some of it for the next day.
So I say there’s no harm in trying (in a healthy way), may as well give it a shot.
