Self-acceptance
Apr 11th, 2008 by heidi
I post every so often about the issue of size acceptance and my own struggle to be positive about who I am and what I look like.
It’s no secret that I stopped dieting five years ago and have never gone back. I haven’t owned a scale in five years, haven’t posted about going on a (nonexistent) diet in five years, haven’t leaped on the free weight-loss surgery that I would easily qualify for on the NHS…nada.
It’s hard for me to read about other people’s weight loss. I don’t usually comment on these posts, ever. Not because I’m jealous (God only knows, I do NOT want to diet ever again – that journey is NOT for me!) but because it feels like the story essentially always goes something like this…
OMG, AM FAT! AM HORRIBLE! AM UGLY!
OMG, AM CHANGING MY LIFE! WHEN AM THIN, WILL BE COMPLETELY HAPPY, SUCCESSFUL PERSON!
OMG, AM LOSING WEIGHT! WOOT!
OMG, AM SOOO CLOSE TO GOAL! DOUBLE WOOT!
OMG, FEEL SO GOOD ABOUT MYSELF!
…
And much later…
OMG, WEIGH 20 POUNDS MORE THAN MY HEAVIEST WEIGHT BEFORE! NEED TO DIET!
I’ve been on that track. In fact, I’ve made it around and around that track more times than I can count without thinking very hard (and even then I’ll have forgotten a few of the laps). I’ve made it to whatever weight I am now and to a size 24/26/28 (depending on whether you live in the US or UK!) by hanging out on that track. While I absolutely understand and sympathise with that desire to get fit and eat in a healthier way, what bothers me is the need to attach a goal weight on the end. Most of the time people don’t know/don’t remember what being that goal weight was like, or they were at that goal weight last twenty years ago, sometimes as teenagers, and while that weight might have been SUPER for you at fifteen, is it really so super at 30, 35, or 40?
Does feeling healthy have to be about the scale? Once you reach that weight, if that is your goal, what keeps you motivated to stay fit? There are many reasons that it’s easier to be doing weight-loss than maintenance, and one of those is that if your end goal is about your weight rather than the way you feel, you will find yourself partway through a lifelong journey when you reach that goal…and not know where to go next or how to get there.
Scales are such arbitrary things. When I weighed 180ish after coming back from a semester in France at age 17, I wore a size 14/16 and was fit enough to hike up a massive hill every morning to high school without it bothering me. These days I weigh significantly more (unless my larger clothes size lies!) and am incredibly OUT of shape. Do I miss wearing a 14/16? Yes. BUT, what I miss more is feeling like I can walk to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral without stopping more than a couple of times. I wish I were fit enough to really keep up with my 22-month-old son. I wish that I could do more than a lap of the pool in our local leisure centre without feeling out of breath.
I wish that my friends who were exercising and dieting to “get more healthy” wouldn’t tack a weight onto what “being healthy” is because as long as the scale even figures in your mindset, I suspect that you’ll end up just gaining it back. As long as the scale is the final arbiter of whether or not you are a good person, you never will be. I hope that doesn’t sound too negative. It’s just that I’ve been there too many times to have much faith in the efficacy of “trying to take off” 20, 50, 100 pounds to actually believe it can happen for anyone and in most cases I do firmly believe, based on being a part of so many weight loss communities I can’t count them all, that it will end in a heavier weight in the long run.
It’s only by losing that attachment to the scale, that attachment to size that we find true mental and physical health.
It is only by working through the emotional and mental baggage that brought us to the size we’re currently at that we are able to find happiness. Not through exercise, not through weight loss, but through being fundamentally loving of ourselves regardless of how we look, how successful we are in life, and how little we weigh. I wish I could say I’d found that pure inner self-belief but I haven’t. I don’t think it lies in weight loss, though, or I’d have found it years and years ago.
I hope those of you tracking your weight and dieting right now prove me wrong!
FWIW – I have zero intention of dieting. I might loosely decide to make healthier choices along the way, but I am not going on a diet. I’ve already changed my baseline way of eating gradually over the course of the past 10 years and I know that for the most part, it’s not my diet that’s the problem, barring my 6 month detour into Quarter Pounder with Cheese Land in 2006.
I am deciding to put exercise back into my life after losing the built-in exercise of walking everywhere (work, daycare, shopping) that I had in California.
I feel like a slug and I hate that feeling and that has as much to do with just feeling unhealthy than it does with numbers or actual size.
I actually have only the vaguest idea of what I really weigh because I don’t own a scale. I just know it’s upwards of 280lbs because that’s what I weighed at one point when visiting the doctor’s office. I found the use of the number 130 useful for quantifying the fact that yes, I’m carrying around the equivalent of /my mother/ on a day to day basis and if I think about carting Mom around all day long, well y’know, duh, of course my freaking knees hurt.
So this is more about relieving my knees and getting to a point where charging up and down those stairs at BWI or 30th Street isn’t a big deal anymore. I usually opt to take the stairs in general for the very reason that it’s a tiny bit of real exercise. But since we moved it’s been getting harder and harder to tackle stairs and I /hate/ huffing and puffing.
This is not about fitting back into a bikini or hitting some magical number that will make everything all better. This is about relieving the pain that my body is in, in the only way that will actually relieve that specfic pain. I am overstraining my knees and my back daily from carrying around too much weight. I don’t need to measure the actual number of pounds lost to know when I’m feeling better. If I exercise gently but consistently.
Also I would argue that if one /enjoys/ exercise, and I do very much enjoy walking and biking, then those are in fact paths to helping with mental well-being. There’s also a huge boost from the accomplishment of reaching a goal that helps with self-confidence, be it a weight-loss goal or a health-reaching goal or some other kind of goal. To say that reaching goals and being successful at them (and I means specific small successes here) can’t make a person happy is I think, a little short-sighted. Doesn’t it feel good when you finish that cross-stitch, or do something well at work? It’s the little successes in life that help with feeling happy and boosting overall self-confidence. Every little success brings a smile and helps bolster the confidence to try for something else next time.
Some of my friends have recently taken up running and their goals have to do with running longer or covering more ground in a shorter period of time. They talk about miles and minutes and tackling marathons. I’m very happy for them that they’re doing so well and enjoying the running, but I know that that’s not for me. Still it’s really cool hearing that sense of accomplishment from them, they’re happy and having fun hitting these goals and their bodies are becoming fitter as a result.
Me? I’d like to dance again. Be able to do a plie without my knees buckling. I’d like to be able to do a pirouette without fearing for my delicate ankles. And I do now, because when I try, I can feel it: my ankles don’t want to turn, partly out of rustiness, partly because there’s just too much to shift around. I’m afraid to run in general because my balance is all messed up, partly due to having two babies so my hips are off-kilter, but also because I’m so front-loaded and I feel like I’m teetering around on teeny tiny feet even though I have clod-hopper size 10s.
My immediate goal is to buff my walking time back up so that I can do a mile in less than 15 minutes. My long term goal is to be able to go take a relatively high intensity dance class without breaking something. And a little more long term than that, I’d like to be able to kick ass. I want to be strong and flexible and be able to take an opponent out with a well-placed roundhouse kick a la Xena.
But that’s what it boils down to. I want to be able to kick ass a little.
I agree that hitting goals can make people happier…I disagree that, fundamentally, my cross-stitch project makes me a happier person if I haven’t looked at the underlying depression that makes me unhappy in the first place.
Yes, I always felt good when I lost weight…but I felt about ten times WORSE when I gained two pounds as I felt when I lost those two pounds and that re-gaining added to my overall self-hatred in pretty significant ways.
I didn’t target this at you, specifically, if that makes any difference – lately my parenting boards and friends’ blogs seem full of diet-speak, perhaps because it’s spring and we ALL feel a bit sluggish coming out of what has, for most of us, been a very long and difficult winter.
I would like to be more fit. I don’t deny that. What I do want to make pretty clear is that in seeking that fitness I have no intention of ever again putting myself on a scale unless I’m taking a medication for which knowing my weight is absolutely necessary to give me the correct dosage. There are a lot of things I’m not happy about at this weight…but until I fix the reasons why I *am* overweight, whatever progress I make in fitness and/or eating in healthier ways won’t stick.
I guess that’s the point I was trying to make. Of course losing weight makes most people more cheerful…it’s just not a happiness that lasts long term unless the underlying reasons for the overeating are worked through and for most people I know, the risk of putting even a pound back on and seeing those numbers inch back up on the scale causes such extreme stress that I simply don’t see the benefits of weighing in the first place.
If that makes sense!
I agree with a lot of what you say. I, myself, have started to embark on the lose weight, gain it back (plus some), lose weight track. It’s not something I’m particularly thrilled about, but each time I do this I have every intention of “doing” better. (Perhaps much like a smoker, the more times you try to change, the greater your chance of success?)
I am on the journey now. I do have a target weight I’d like to get to (which is NOT the weight the “great” chart at the doctors says I should be). But my goal is much more than losing weight. I want to live. I want to see my children live. I want to see my grandchildren live. If I don’t take care of myself, I will miss all of this.
I want to be fit. I want to be physically healthy so that I can run and play with my kids. So I can go on hikes enjoying the world around me without wanting to puke. I want to play a pick up game of soccer without worrying that I’m too out of shape.
How am I going to do all of this? I’m changing my diet. I am not dieting; I am changing how I view food (or, rather, I’m working to do this). I’m making better choices to help my body survive and thrive. I’m not depriving myself of sweets, but I am limiting them. I’m working out 4-6 times a week. (Though I would like to get this to be only 3 times a week.) AND, I’m working on my mental health. I am fully aware that my mental well-being is directly linked to my physical well-being. I know if I’m not successful in changing my self-image (physical and emotional image of myself), I will not be able to continue/maintain my holistic health.
Do I know if all these things will work and last? No. But, I do know for now, at this very moment, my body is healthier than it was 3 weeks ago. And I hope that I will be able to continue taking care of my body and my mind, so they are both in sync and healthy. I want to make a lifestyle change, not just a weight change.
I do agree that people put a lot of weight (no pun intended) on “that” number. And it is, after all, just a number which doesn’t say much. A number that changes depending on the scale you’re on, the time of day you stand on it, what you’re wearing. So, it really is not a great measure. People should rely more on how they are feeling, and strive for a holistic view on health.
(Thanks for the thought provoking post, Heidi. It was really quite timely for me, and made me really think about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and how I want to set my life up to try to continue doing it!)
OMG, I just wrote a book and lost it all…. I don’t know if I have the heart to type it all over again. (sob)
Ok, I’m going to try again….. (sigh)
I wanted to say that what you wrote was very interesting since I’ve been thinking a lot about the same kinds of things in the last few days, more specifically about why I’ve been sabotaging myself with my bad diet and lack of exercise over the last few months. I know it’s something mental or emotional, but I really can’t put my finger on it. The thing is that I’m not feeling as good physically as I did when I was following my insulin-resistant diet and exercising. I’m not talking about feeling good about how I LOOKED or the numbers on the scale, but how I had so much more energy, I felt so much more contol of my body and it’s movements and simply felt good mentally and emotionally.
I want to feel that way again.
I want to really enjoy and taste my food like I did when I was more incontrol of what I was eating and not ALWAYS eating, so when I did eat I was really hungry and it tasted that much better. I want to get back to where eating a piece of chocolate (or two) was a treat and tasted SO GOOD. Lately I’ve been wolfing down chocolate or some baked goods and while it’s good, it doesn’t taste as sumptuous as it did as when I saving those things as special treats. All food tasted so much better, even the things that taste bland to me now. Also, when my diet was balanced better between carbs and protein my craving for sweets all but disappeared. I have to say that eating was much more enjoyable when I was actually more in control about what I WAS eating. (Which is why I think the insulin-resistant diet <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Insulin-Resistance-Diet-Bodys-Fat-Making-Machine/dp/0809224275/ref=pd_sim_b_img_1″ Insulin-Resistance Diet is so perfect for me. It doesn’t restrict what you eat, but just that you try to balance your carbs and protein at a given meal.)
And I miss feeling so much stronger physically. I’ll see someone jogging in our neighborhood and I’ll remember how great it felt to be able to run for 45 minutes. I miss feeling the muscles in my legs get strong. I miss feeling like I have complete control over all the muscles in my body. I miss feeling almost “graceful”. I miss feeling good about my body and what it can do.
It’s for these reasons I’m determined to get back on track, not the numbers on the scale, though I won’t lie to you, I loved seeing the numbers go down, but I liked feeling stronger and more energized even more. I have no intention to EVER even TRYING to get to my high school weight or my lowest weight ever (103). My whole focus is just to be able to run a 5K in less than 35 minutes and have more energy. I’d LIKE to be in the “healthy” range for the BMI index. It felt SO good when I no longer was in the “obese” range. I was so excited to know I was *only* “overweight”. 🙂
Actually something I DON’T like about losing weight IS all attention I get about it. I know people are just trying to be nice when they say “Wow, you look great. How much weight have you lost?” But to me it’s like they are saying “Wow, you look great. You used to look like such a fat cow.” I just wish people wouldn’t say anything at all. To me it’s like they are drawing attention to how I used to look rather than just accepting me for who I was then and am now. I don’t think a lot of people understand that. I actually enjoy coming into a new group where people haven’t know me before and just know me as I am now, minus a lot of weight, that way I don’t get all the “compliments”.
So that is my personal thoughts on all this. I understand where you are coming from and felt the same way you did for a long time. I was happy with where I was and who I was and tried really hard not to let my weight and people’s comments about it bother me. I was actually doing pretty well with that. I just started getting tired of being tired all the time. That’s when I started to do research on eating a healthier diet for PCOS patients. I read a lot and came across information about Dr. Cheryle R. Hart who has done a lot of research about women’s hormones and weight issues and is a PCOS specialist.
She’s the one who wrote the Insulin-Resistance Diet book and I think she really “knows her stuff” and understands women and what we go through with weight issues. I encourage you just to read the comments about the book on Amazon (make sure to look at the comments on the older version, not the newly revised version because it just came out and doesn’t have many comments yet). If for no other reason than to just feel better physically. I swear it’s not hard to do once you start, it’s the getting back on track that I’m struggling with again.
Anyway, those my my experiences and issues. While my main focus is not the scale, I admit it is nice to see the numbers go down, but the real motivator is how I feel when I do what I know is good and right for my body.
I agree that hitting goals can make people happier…I disagree that, fundamentally, my cross-stitch project makes me a happier person if I haven’t looked at the underlying depression that makes me unhappy in the first place.
And I would argue back that all the small accomplishments help to improve overall mood so that it gets easier to climb out of a depression. There doesn’t have to be some big reason for being depressed. Sometimes, people just get that way and adding little brightnesses into the day is what helps to get around it.