CW: Weight Loss, Diet Talk, Exercise Talk
Since last June. I’ve been swimming two or three times a week, having been fortunate enough to have found a community pool and then a rec center that are welcoming of people of all sizes, shapes, ages, and abilities. I’ve also made an effort to bring some more awareness to what I eat and how I eat it: whether I’m eating out of boredom or some other emotional reason and whether I’m eating what my body wants me to eat or just putting anything in that will serve for the next meal. I’ve done both these things because I didn’t feel good in my body, being largely sedentary and eating whatever, and I haven’t followed either an exercise program or a diet with any militancy. Still, find that I’ve lost about twenty pounds and I’m in a smaller pair of jeans.
I’m deeply conflicted about these things, especially the food part, and I was before I started doing it.
I feel better. Days when I swim, I notice some elevation of my mood, although not a lot, and it may be due to the simple fact that I’ve gotten out of the house and done something rather than sitting on my ass bored and alone all day instead of any release of endorphins. I’m glad I’m back in my smaller pair of jeans, because I missed wearing them and they fit better than any other jeans I’ve had, and the manufacturer doesn’t make that style any more.
Still, I’m deeply conflicted about what I’m doing and why.
At our last session when I brought this up, my therapist asked me, “If you feel better in your body, what’s the problem?” I told her I felt like I’d betrayed my principles, and worse, betrayed my friends, some of whom are fat activists.
Maybe I’ve done what I needed to do for myself. But the truth is, I don’t believe in weight loss. I don’t believe there are right and wrong ways to eat or good and bad foods, or any of that. And I see myself falling onto the trap of feeling virtuous when I motivate myself to make a vegetable stir fry instead of sticking a frozen pot pie in the oven because it would be easier. Sure, my body often enjoys eating the stir fry and responds with a cry of “Yay, vegetables!” But maybe it would enjoy the pot pie just as much for other reasons. I like being able to wear the smaller jeans again, but isn’t the discontinuation of that style another sign of fat oppression? I don’t like to ignore that, but at the same time, I want clothes that fit and wearing ill-fitting jeans makes me upset and depressed. And I supposed to endure that for the sake of fighting oppression?
I also feel virtuous when I go to the rec center and swim. As I said, I don’t get a lot out of the activity for its own sake, and often the feeling that I really should go is all that gets me out the door and on the road. (It was easier during the summer, when the pool was outside and there was lot of sun, and it was hot out.)
I ask myself a lot, “Why am I doing these things if they go against what I really feel and believe in?” And those feelings of virtue have a lot to do with it, which I hate. They’re the antithesis of being fat positive, which I strive to be–and fail at miserably, it seems.
Maybe these questions wouldn’t trouble me so much if I weren’t so depressed just in general. I know they didn’t bother me much in the summer, when my mood was better. But with the seasonal shift, I’ve become more and more listless and uncaring. I have no internal motivation to do anything. Nothing feels good for its own sake; nothing interests me. When I do go to the pool, it’s not because I look forward to swimming. It’s because I feel I should go, or at best because I recognize that I’ll feel marginally better going than I would if I don’t, because sitting at home with no interests and nothing to draw my attention is bad for me. And with every “should,” there’s a corresponding “Why?” Going to the pool presents its own obstacles: It’s far away, and it’s cold, and I don’t actively enjoy it–in fact, I find swimming rather pointless and boring. So why do it? Eating better is hard when I don’t feel like cooking. Even making the weekly grocery list and doing the shopping can be torturous. I’d rather do things that are easy, most days. So why pursue a healthier diet? especially when I recognize that “Health” is relative and there’s no obligation to be “healthy” anyway, or to attempt to manipulate my body either for health or size reasons? Why do anything at all, except to be “good?” Which I’ve already said is something I don’t believe in as far as food control or exercise.
My therapist suggested I write this blog post. I was initially loath to do it, because I know the subject matter can be triggering to those around me. But I decided to go ahead and do it, because the topic preys on my mind and because–again–it’s better than sitting around doing nothing. I don’t feel I’ve expressed myself very well, and I have no answers to the questions that keep bothering me. Maybe other people do.
The Shadow Sanctuary 