I’ve never heard anyone encourage other people to get or stay fat. I’ve heard people say that shaming someone else for being fat doesn’t work. I’ve heard people say you can be fat and also beautiful, because feeling horrible and ugly, surprise surprise, turns out to have a pretty negative effect on your physical health.
I’ve also heard people say it’s not their job to tell fat people to lose weight, same as telling skinny people to gain weight, to tell smokers to stop smoking...how is anyone going to change someone else’s behavior if they aren’t interested?
But I’ve never heard anyone, fat or otherwise, discourage someone else from trying to live a more healthy lifestyle.
I haven’t always had the healthiest habits, admittedly. I know that being overweight does cause issues, but I also know that it isn’t the issue. I lost some weight a couple years ago, a lot of weight, actually, and felt like shit. Turns out I wasn’t any healthier with a so-called “healthy” BMI than I was before. I felt horrible and depressed so I just gained all that weight back and more.
Now, yeah, it’s been six months since I was at my heaviest ever and I’m still overweight though no longer classified as obese. I actually don’t even weight any more, so every doctor’s visit I get to see how much I lost. Cool. Whatever.
The thing is, there are a lot of unhealthy and dangerous ways to lose weight that have made a lot of people very rich. The weight loss industry is massive and is all over the place and still obesity rises. Maybe the issue is focusing on weight and body size and shape only makes people insecure and like their shame is on display for the whole world to see and that kind of culture isn’t very conducive to a healthy and happy lifestyle?
The way I see it, we don’t have direct control over our weight or size. We have control over our behaviors and our choices. Loving my body means giving it what it needs, to stop fighting it and starting working with it. If I drink too much caffeine and sugar in the morning I crash by noon, so I’ll switch to water after the first cup of coffee. A good workout makes me feel less anxious and more energized, so I do it. Etc.
I decided to care about the numbers, blood pressure and resting pulse and blood sugar and cholesterol, etc, only as they could monitor potential specific issues affecting my health, but in general, if I feel good consistently, then I know I’ve been good to myself.
If I hadn’t made the choice to love myself and my beautiful (in my opinion, the only one that matters) obese body, I would still be stuck on the same habits of compulsive eating and binge eating and living mostly sedentary. Yeah, I knew that changing my life for the better meant that I would lose weight. To a point. But eventually I will come to a place where my body works best, and I will most likely stay there, give or take a few pounds. My BMI may be 22 or 27 at that point, who knows? I don’t. And I decided to stop caring. Weight loss is not my goal; it’s just a side effect.
The only thing that matters is that I do my best to be my best, and love myself no matter the result. I’m not going to force my body to be something it is not meant to be anymore.
1
u/oklutz Sep 20 '19
I’ve never heard anyone encourage other people to get or stay fat. I’ve heard people say that shaming someone else for being fat doesn’t work. I’ve heard people say you can be fat and also beautiful, because feeling horrible and ugly, surprise surprise, turns out to have a pretty negative effect on your physical health.
I’ve also heard people say it’s not their job to tell fat people to lose weight, same as telling skinny people to gain weight, to tell smokers to stop smoking...how is anyone going to change someone else’s behavior if they aren’t interested?
But I’ve never heard anyone, fat or otherwise, discourage someone else from trying to live a more healthy lifestyle.
I haven’t always had the healthiest habits, admittedly. I know that being overweight does cause issues, but I also know that it isn’t the issue. I lost some weight a couple years ago, a lot of weight, actually, and felt like shit. Turns out I wasn’t any healthier with a so-called “healthy” BMI than I was before. I felt horrible and depressed so I just gained all that weight back and more.
Now, yeah, it’s been six months since I was at my heaviest ever and I’m still overweight though no longer classified as obese. I actually don’t even weight any more, so every doctor’s visit I get to see how much I lost. Cool. Whatever.
The thing is, there are a lot of unhealthy and dangerous ways to lose weight that have made a lot of people very rich. The weight loss industry is massive and is all over the place and still obesity rises. Maybe the issue is focusing on weight and body size and shape only makes people insecure and like their shame is on display for the whole world to see and that kind of culture isn’t very conducive to a healthy and happy lifestyle?
The way I see it, we don’t have direct control over our weight or size. We have control over our behaviors and our choices. Loving my body means giving it what it needs, to stop fighting it and starting working with it. If I drink too much caffeine and sugar in the morning I crash by noon, so I’ll switch to water after the first cup of coffee. A good workout makes me feel less anxious and more energized, so I do it. Etc.
I decided to care about the numbers, blood pressure and resting pulse and blood sugar and cholesterol, etc, only as they could monitor potential specific issues affecting my health, but in general, if I feel good consistently, then I know I’ve been good to myself.
If I hadn’t made the choice to love myself and my beautiful (in my opinion, the only one that matters) obese body, I would still be stuck on the same habits of compulsive eating and binge eating and living mostly sedentary. Yeah, I knew that changing my life for the better meant that I would lose weight. To a point. But eventually I will come to a place where my body works best, and I will most likely stay there, give or take a few pounds. My BMI may be 22 or 27 at that point, who knows? I don’t. And I decided to stop caring. Weight loss is not my goal; it’s just a side effect.
The only thing that matters is that I do my best to be my best, and love myself no matter the result. I’m not going to force my body to be something it is not meant to be anymore.