The experiment is going pretty well. The first week I gained a pound and a half, the second week I stayed the same, and the third week I lost two pounds. More importantly, I'm entirely angst free. It's really nice not to be even a tiny bit stressed about my food choices. I would bet that I'm eating pretty close to the same stuff in the same amounts as I was when I was tracking. Go figure.
Saturday I'm going to visit friends and family in California. Most of them I haven't seen in over a year, which means they haven't seen me in over a year. As it is commonly spoken and written, most people would be really excited and happy anticipating the unveiling of a body 73 pounds thinner. I hear I am supposed to relish the compliments and attention and be proud of what I've achieved and whatnot. I'm actually pretty anxious about it. I haven't told anyone I'm losing weight. It's not a secret, exactly, but I feel weird about it. I have such conflicted feelings about the concept of dieting and about involving myself in the diet industry, so I don't love talking about that. I also hate how the whole world seems to be having a constant conversation about having lost weight, wanting to lose weight, regretting cookies, wanting donuts, wishing they had time to exercise, hating exercise, being virtuous for eating salad and bad for skipping the gym. I don't want to engage in that conversation and I don't know how to casually tell my father or my childhood friends that I've been losing weight for the last 13 months and that they should expect me to look pretty different. So then when they see me they'll be shocked, which just draws more attention that I don't want. I don't want to talk to everyone I see about how I lost weight or even to accept compliments if they're giving them. Each of them will only have that conversation once, but I'm having it all the time with strangers as well as friends. It makes me tired.
A few weeks ago I had lunch with an old, dear friend who is local, but whom I don't see often. I'm sure she noticed that I've lost weight -- I am aware that I look pretty wildly different, though it makes me uncomfortable -- but she managed to show no sign of it. She treated me exactly as she always has. We ate together, we took a walk, we had a conversation about our gym memberships and she just treated me like me. It was deeply comforting. That's what I want from everyone, really. I don't think my weight loss should be interesting to anyone but me. I care about losing weight. I think about what I'm eating. I want to be thinner, to look better, to buy cuter clothes. All of that is a big deal to me, but I don't want it to be a big deal to anyone else. I just want them to be with me exactly as they've always been. I wish I could send a memo ahead of me explaining that...
Showing posts with label other people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other people. Show all posts
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
My mother's idea of a compliment
I'm actually having my first really good day in weeks, and I promise to write positive, cheerful things here in the near future, but I'm just stopping by to record this:
I had breakfast with my mother this morning after not seeing her for several months (she's visiting from far away) and she attempted to compliment me by telling me I look like a normal person now.
Seriously. I couldn't make this shit up.
I had breakfast with my mother this morning after not seeing her for several months (she's visiting from far away) and she attempted to compliment me by telling me I look like a normal person now.
Seriously. I couldn't make this shit up.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
f&*%ing people
I hate people sometimes.
I went to work today and there were lovely baked goods in honor of one of my lovely co-workers. I should mention that we're in the middle of a weird and stressful transition in my workplace and as a result, I am working with many people who I had never worked with before last week. Many of them I still haven't met. I picked up a scone from the box of lovely baked goods and one of the above-mentioned new co-workers -- a woman in her 70s with whom I have never spoken before -- pointed to the scone I was holding and said, "That's fattening."
May I ask, in what universe could that possibly be an appropriate thing to say?
Let's first discuss the word fattening*. All by itself it is one of my biggest pet peeves. Only as I wrote that, I realized there's nothing petty about my peevishness. It's a word that's wrong on so many levels and I take that seriously. It implies that the only thing that matters about a food's nutritional value is whether or not it will make you fat. And even by that definition, it means nothing. Any food will make you fat if you eat too much of it and no food will make you fat if you don't eat too much of it. There are no fattening foods.
But let's move on from semantics. What could she have possibly meant by saying that to me? Is she warning me not to eat it? Does she not recognize that I'm an adult and a total stranger and that what I eat is none of her business? Is she saying it because I'm fat and she thinks she's being helpful? Would she have said it if I weren't fat? Would she have said it if I were a man? Is there anyone on earth who really thinks that would be helpful rather than horribly, offensively rude? And remember: total stranger. Is she just making conversation in that way that people do about food? Even though I recognize that this is a cultural norm -- talking about what we should and shouldn't eat and how bad we're being when we eat junk -- usually that kind of statement refers to the speaker's food choices, not the food choices of the total stranger who she is addressing.
Would an appropriate response have been: "I work out six times a week and have lost seventy pounds in the last year, so thank you, but I believe I can make my own food choices?" I just went with, "Excuse me?" She repeated herself, pointing again, as if I hadn't understood which food she was referring to, as if it had been an appropriate thing to say in the first place. I walked away.
Now I am left hating a perfect stranger, which is a pretty icky feeling. The anger, combined with stress about lots of other things going on this month drove me to eat three of those big delicious scones over the course of the day. So now I feel physically icky, too.
* (an aside regarding my hatred of that word) When I was growing up, this was the only thing my mother ever said about food. Something was "fattening," and thus to be avoided or eaten in small quantities or it was "not fattening" and could be eaten freely. I never learned a damn thing about nutrition, never had a conversation about how my body needed certain types of food for nourishment and that other foods and chemicals found in junk food were bad for my body. The only bad thing food could do to me was make me fat. The only good thing it could do was not make me fat.
I went to work today and there were lovely baked goods in honor of one of my lovely co-workers. I should mention that we're in the middle of a weird and stressful transition in my workplace and as a result, I am working with many people who I had never worked with before last week. Many of them I still haven't met. I picked up a scone from the box of lovely baked goods and one of the above-mentioned new co-workers -- a woman in her 70s with whom I have never spoken before -- pointed to the scone I was holding and said, "That's fattening."
May I ask, in what universe could that possibly be an appropriate thing to say?
Let's first discuss the word fattening*. All by itself it is one of my biggest pet peeves. Only as I wrote that, I realized there's nothing petty about my peevishness. It's a word that's wrong on so many levels and I take that seriously. It implies that the only thing that matters about a food's nutritional value is whether or not it will make you fat. And even by that definition, it means nothing. Any food will make you fat if you eat too much of it and no food will make you fat if you don't eat too much of it. There are no fattening foods.
But let's move on from semantics. What could she have possibly meant by saying that to me? Is she warning me not to eat it? Does she not recognize that I'm an adult and a total stranger and that what I eat is none of her business? Is she saying it because I'm fat and she thinks she's being helpful? Would she have said it if I weren't fat? Would she have said it if I were a man? Is there anyone on earth who really thinks that would be helpful rather than horribly, offensively rude? And remember: total stranger. Is she just making conversation in that way that people do about food? Even though I recognize that this is a cultural norm -- talking about what we should and shouldn't eat and how bad we're being when we eat junk -- usually that kind of statement refers to the speaker's food choices, not the food choices of the total stranger who she is addressing.
Would an appropriate response have been: "I work out six times a week and have lost seventy pounds in the last year, so thank you, but I believe I can make my own food choices?" I just went with, "Excuse me?" She repeated herself, pointing again, as if I hadn't understood which food she was referring to, as if it had been an appropriate thing to say in the first place. I walked away.
Now I am left hating a perfect stranger, which is a pretty icky feeling. The anger, combined with stress about lots of other things going on this month drove me to eat three of those big delicious scones over the course of the day. So now I feel physically icky, too.
* (an aside regarding my hatred of that word) When I was growing up, this was the only thing my mother ever said about food. Something was "fattening," and thus to be avoided or eaten in small quantities or it was "not fattening" and could be eaten freely. I never learned a damn thing about nutrition, never had a conversation about how my body needed certain types of food for nourishment and that other foods and chemicals found in junk food were bad for my body. The only bad thing food could do to me was make me fat. The only good thing it could do was not make me fat.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
My trainer is a flake
I think I'm in a fight with my trainer. This isn't a real problem, but it's a small annoyance in the middle of a month that is turning out to be full of small annoyances, so I'm going to go ahead and bitch about it. I've said before that I adore him. I do. He's very good at his job -- clearly knowledgeable, creative, kind. It's obvious he's thinking about me and my progress and my limitations, rather than just throwing the same stuff at me he throws at every client. Also he's good company and if he's had enough coffee, he gossips about the other trainers, which is endlessly entertaining.
But he is a flake. He is late about half the time. The other half, he texts me right before we're supposed to meet and asks to reschedule. If I get that text the day before, I'm really impressed by how organized he is that week. That's how low my standards have gotten. To his credit, he always remembers to reschedule and always says if he knows he'll be late. He usually apologizes. I know he takes his job really seriously, but I don't think he gets how irresponsible it is to be so unreliable.
The last two weeks went like this: Last Tuesday he asked me (the day before -- woohoo!) to meet at 6:00 instead of 6:30. For me that means getting up at 5:20 so I can get to the gym 10-15 minutes early to warm up. I said yes without complaint, and even though I woke up Tuesday morning with both a cold and cramps, I showed up at 5:45. He arrived at 6:10. Yesterday I left for the gym at 6:05, checking my phone for messages before heading out. I warmed up, I stretched, I waited. At 6:45 I assumed he wasn't coming and worked out on my own, listening to the horribly annoying gym music because I'd come without my ipod, expecting to be following orders. Got home to a text he'd sent at 6:10 saying he'd been out sick all week and could I do Wednesday morning instead. I'm not unsympathetic to his need to stay home sick, but 6:10? Really? I texted back that I wanted to go to my yoga class Wednesday and asked if he could try to cancel earlier in the future since by 6:10 I'm out of the house without my phone or my ipod. I don't think 30 minutes notice is too much to ask. I really don't. It's Wednesday evening now and he still hasn't responded. No offer of another day to reschedule, no apology, no argument. It's extremely uncharacteristic of him not to communicate, so I can only assume that he is either annoyed or guilty. Either way, kind of childish.
Like I said, not a big problem. In the grand scheme of things, it's not disrupting anything except the inside of my head, but I'm kind of sick of it.
But he is a flake. He is late about half the time. The other half, he texts me right before we're supposed to meet and asks to reschedule. If I get that text the day before, I'm really impressed by how organized he is that week. That's how low my standards have gotten. To his credit, he always remembers to reschedule and always says if he knows he'll be late. He usually apologizes. I know he takes his job really seriously, but I don't think he gets how irresponsible it is to be so unreliable.
The last two weeks went like this: Last Tuesday he asked me (the day before -- woohoo!) to meet at 6:00 instead of 6:30. For me that means getting up at 5:20 so I can get to the gym 10-15 minutes early to warm up. I said yes without complaint, and even though I woke up Tuesday morning with both a cold and cramps, I showed up at 5:45. He arrived at 6:10. Yesterday I left for the gym at 6:05, checking my phone for messages before heading out. I warmed up, I stretched, I waited. At 6:45 I assumed he wasn't coming and worked out on my own, listening to the horribly annoying gym music because I'd come without my ipod, expecting to be following orders. Got home to a text he'd sent at 6:10 saying he'd been out sick all week and could I do Wednesday morning instead. I'm not unsympathetic to his need to stay home sick, but 6:10? Really? I texted back that I wanted to go to my yoga class Wednesday and asked if he could try to cancel earlier in the future since by 6:10 I'm out of the house without my phone or my ipod. I don't think 30 minutes notice is too much to ask. I really don't. It's Wednesday evening now and he still hasn't responded. No offer of another day to reschedule, no apology, no argument. It's extremely uncharacteristic of him not to communicate, so I can only assume that he is either annoyed or guilty. Either way, kind of childish.
Like I said, not a big problem. In the grand scheme of things, it's not disrupting anything except the inside of my head, but I'm kind of sick of it.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Do I really have to talk about this?
I'm afraid I do.
I don't usually get into other pieces of my life here, but it's all twisted up in body stuff, so I will. I'm single and heterosexual. I do the online dating thing. I don't particularly like it, but I don't really have other places to meet men, so it's what I do. One of the horrifying things about online dating is that you can see right there in black and white that many, many men are very specific about what you need to look like to date them. Mostly, they don't want you to be fat. Some of them want to date someone between 5" and 6" but not over 130 pounds. Do they know what 130 pounds would look like on a 6" woman. Well, obviously not, since she'd be dead. Anyway, they're not all like that and while it does hurt my feelings sometimes, I am also aware that (at every size I've been) I am like most people in the world: some people will find me attractive and some people won't. Frankly, I have no interest in dating someone who doesn't find me attractive.
Only this weird things is happening where my body is changing and I look different and I had this online profile with a picture of me (a picture I like -- wind is blowing my hair in my face and I am laughing at something my little sister is telling me and I look like myself) and it no longer represents what I look like. So I changed the picture. I posted the one I mentioned awhile back. It's a nice picture. I am laughing at my nephew. I look like myself. And I suppose I look more accurately like myself now.
A few days ago, someone wrote to me, asked if I wanted to chat, said he'd like to know more about me. I'm usually wary when they don't say anything more specific than that, but I looked at his profile and he actually sounded like someone I'd like -- we had some interests in common, he sounded like a grown-up, he sounded kind -- so I said hello, mentioned that we had the same favorite book and said, "Ask me anything." He responded by asking me out to coffee. Sure. I'm all about a face-to-face meeting. I believe you learn very little by corresponding with someone you haven't met. So we made a plan to meet tomorrow morning and he asked if I'd send him another picture, "...just to be on the safe side." I assumed he wanted to be sure he recognized me. But then I had this dilemma: I don't have another recent picture. I have a handful of pictures I've used before -- the one that shows me laughing at my sister and two or three others -- but in all of them I am somewhere between 25 and 50 pounds heavier than I am now. I look different. And apparently the way in which I look different is a big deal to a lot of men. Ugh. I am at the same time vain, wanting to send a picture of me right now, not just thinner but fitter, happier, more at ease in my skin -- I think all of those things make a difference --and I am resentful that it makes a difference. I like those older pictures. I think I look good in them. Why should I not send a picture in which I look good? In any case, I didn't have the option of another new picture, so I sent an older one. In it, I'm about 25 pounds heavier than I am now, which is about 18 pounds heavier than I was in the picture he's already seen. I refused to mention the change in my size, but I did say that I didn't have another recent picture and that this one was a few years old.
I got an email from him ten minutes later: "I've changed my mind, sorry. Good luck."
I feel so icky about the whole thing. I mean, he's being horribly rude. No one has ever done that to me before in years and years of online dating. And I find it odd that anyone could take a picture so seriously -- I've done this enough to know that people just look different in person. I never know if I'm attracted to someone until I meet him. Part of me, even though I now hate this man and would never want to date him, is still insulted and kind of hurt. I don't like to think of myself as so unattractive that I'm not worth an hour in a coffee shop. I don't like to think that someone would find me attractive now or sometime in the future when I'm thinner than I am now, but would be repelled by a photo of me taken 25 pounds ago. I absorb that. I feel shame. I hate that I can still feel that.
I don't usually get into other pieces of my life here, but it's all twisted up in body stuff, so I will. I'm single and heterosexual. I do the online dating thing. I don't particularly like it, but I don't really have other places to meet men, so it's what I do. One of the horrifying things about online dating is that you can see right there in black and white that many, many men are very specific about what you need to look like to date them. Mostly, they don't want you to be fat. Some of them want to date someone between 5" and 6" but not over 130 pounds. Do they know what 130 pounds would look like on a 6" woman. Well, obviously not, since she'd be dead. Anyway, they're not all like that and while it does hurt my feelings sometimes, I am also aware that (at every size I've been) I am like most people in the world: some people will find me attractive and some people won't. Frankly, I have no interest in dating someone who doesn't find me attractive.
Only this weird things is happening where my body is changing and I look different and I had this online profile with a picture of me (a picture I like -- wind is blowing my hair in my face and I am laughing at something my little sister is telling me and I look like myself) and it no longer represents what I look like. So I changed the picture. I posted the one I mentioned awhile back. It's a nice picture. I am laughing at my nephew. I look like myself. And I suppose I look more accurately like myself now.
A few days ago, someone wrote to me, asked if I wanted to chat, said he'd like to know more about me. I'm usually wary when they don't say anything more specific than that, but I looked at his profile and he actually sounded like someone I'd like -- we had some interests in common, he sounded like a grown-up, he sounded kind -- so I said hello, mentioned that we had the same favorite book and said, "Ask me anything." He responded by asking me out to coffee. Sure. I'm all about a face-to-face meeting. I believe you learn very little by corresponding with someone you haven't met. So we made a plan to meet tomorrow morning and he asked if I'd send him another picture, "...just to be on the safe side." I assumed he wanted to be sure he recognized me. But then I had this dilemma: I don't have another recent picture. I have a handful of pictures I've used before -- the one that shows me laughing at my sister and two or three others -- but in all of them I am somewhere between 25 and 50 pounds heavier than I am now. I look different. And apparently the way in which I look different is a big deal to a lot of men. Ugh. I am at the same time vain, wanting to send a picture of me right now, not just thinner but fitter, happier, more at ease in my skin -- I think all of those things make a difference --and I am resentful that it makes a difference. I like those older pictures. I think I look good in them. Why should I not send a picture in which I look good? In any case, I didn't have the option of another new picture, so I sent an older one. In it, I'm about 25 pounds heavier than I am now, which is about 18 pounds heavier than I was in the picture he's already seen. I refused to mention the change in my size, but I did say that I didn't have another recent picture and that this one was a few years old.
I got an email from him ten minutes later: "I've changed my mind, sorry. Good luck."
I feel so icky about the whole thing. I mean, he's being horribly rude. No one has ever done that to me before in years and years of online dating. And I find it odd that anyone could take a picture so seriously -- I've done this enough to know that people just look different in person. I never know if I'm attracted to someone until I meet him. Part of me, even though I now hate this man and would never want to date him, is still insulted and kind of hurt. I don't like to think of myself as so unattractive that I'm not worth an hour in a coffee shop. I don't like to think that someone would find me attractive now or sometime in the future when I'm thinner than I am now, but would be repelled by a photo of me taken 25 pounds ago. I absorb that. I feel shame. I hate that I can still feel that.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
My Prom Dress
As I write this, I'm wearing my prom dress. I find clothing sizes confusing, as they are different from brand to brand and year to year. Last March, I was wearing a size 20 or a 22. In October, I could wear 16s in most things, the smallest size I'd worn as an adult. Two or three weeks ago, I got a new winter coat. I'd been trying on Extra Larges but I was at an outlet and not everything came in every size. The one I really loved was only in Large, so I tried it on. It was a little snug, but not too, and I'm still losing weight, so I went ahead an bought it. I kind of thought it was a fluke. But this afternoon I went out to take advantage of our crumbling economy via sales at Macy's. It turns out I'm a size 14 now, or a Large in almost everything. I mean, I didn't like everything I tried on, but there wasn't anything that didn't exist in my size. It's an incredible relief and also kind of surreal. I remember that I was a 14 in high school, or maybe that 14 was a little too small for me, but it was always the biggest size -- I didn't know clothing sizes came bigger than 14. And I didn't want anything that fit me properly then anyway -- I was wearing oversize T-shirts and long flowing skirts with elastic waists. I wore men's jeans from thrift stores. So I'm not sure what size I really was and I'm not sure if a 14 then was like a 14 now. But my prom dress was made for me and right this minute, it fits perfectly.
I'm pleased to fit into it. But it's also bringing up stuff I don't want to remember about being a teenager. I thought this size, the size I am now that feels pretty comfortable, was disgusting. I thought I was so fat that everyone was ridiculing me, that no boy could possibly be attracted to me, that I couldn't try to wear flattering clothes because I would look like I wasn't ashamed of my body. And I was supposed to be ashamed of my body. It makes me sad to think that I allowed myself to feel that way, and that no one else tried to make me feel differently. A lot of it came from my mother, who was and is far too concerned with my weight. Some of it came from the usual public places -- fashion magazines, movies and TV shows that not only starred beautiful and thin actresses, but that openly ridiculed overweight women and girls. I lived in Los Angeles, where being thin is valued over almost everything. There was no other voice. I look around now and even though the actresses and models are thinner than ever and we hear about "The Obesity Epidemic" from doctors and journalists and kindergarten teachers, there is also another voice. There is a pretty loud fat acceptance movement. There are so many more places to buy decent and sometimes adorable clothes in bigger sizes -- not enough, mind you, but infinitely more than when I was a teenager. There are women of all sizes blogging about their relationships with food and their bodies. I think if I were seventeen now, or even twelve, I would be finding some of that. I would be hearing more voices, voices that encouraged me and accepted me and told me I was beautiful, I was fine, I was not alone. I wish I could give those voices to my younger self.
I'm pleased to fit into it. But it's also bringing up stuff I don't want to remember about being a teenager. I thought this size, the size I am now that feels pretty comfortable, was disgusting. I thought I was so fat that everyone was ridiculing me, that no boy could possibly be attracted to me, that I couldn't try to wear flattering clothes because I would look like I wasn't ashamed of my body. And I was supposed to be ashamed of my body. It makes me sad to think that I allowed myself to feel that way, and that no one else tried to make me feel differently. A lot of it came from my mother, who was and is far too concerned with my weight. Some of it came from the usual public places -- fashion magazines, movies and TV shows that not only starred beautiful and thin actresses, but that openly ridiculed overweight women and girls. I lived in Los Angeles, where being thin is valued over almost everything. There was no other voice. I look around now and even though the actresses and models are thinner than ever and we hear about "The Obesity Epidemic" from doctors and journalists and kindergarten teachers, there is also another voice. There is a pretty loud fat acceptance movement. There are so many more places to buy decent and sometimes adorable clothes in bigger sizes -- not enough, mind you, but infinitely more than when I was a teenager. There are women of all sizes blogging about their relationships with food and their bodies. I think if I were seventeen now, or even twelve, I would be finding some of that. I would be hearing more voices, voices that encouraged me and accepted me and told me I was beautiful, I was fine, I was not alone. I wish I could give those voices to my younger self.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The No Angst Policy
I spent a good part of this morning trying to decide whether or not to go back to that gym class today. I have felt a lot better about it after talking to my trainer who assured me that it's a fucking hard class and most people who come once don't come back and that he knows I don't stop to rest because I'm lazy. I felt all validated and encouraged. And then I got a cold early in the week and thought, well, I may be well enough to work out by Saturday, but I certainly won't be up for that class. Which was a great, no angst excuse. Then the cold really never got that bad and I was pretty much entirely well by yesterday. So I had to make a decision. I went back and forth.
Running would be good.
Maybe I would even be up for a workout as hard as class, but did I really feel like being around other people?
But cross-training is really important.
But I do cross-train. In this very week there has been weight-lifting, running, and swimming -- I'm not in a rut.
But if I don't go today, maybe it'll be easier for me to chicken out of going other days.
Etc...
And then I remembered a philosophy I adhere to at work.
I'm a children's librarian and while we have plenty of rules and thou-shalt-nots in my library, we also have what we call The No Tears Policy. If a small child is panicking about something -- wants a prize she hasn't earned, absolutely must borrow this book even though he has fines -- we go ahead and break rules to avoid tears. Give her the prize, let him check out the book. No Tears is a priority, and I believe in that.
I remembered, after all my deliberating this morning, that I have a No Tears Policy for myself -- or more accurately, No Angst. That's what has kept me sane about all the decisions that affect my body. No Angst over whether or not to eat a second cupcake. No Angst over whether or not I lost weight this week. No Angst over when or how or how much I work out. And I felt so relieved. I put on my workout clothes, went to the gym, waved at my trainer, put my headphones in and ran on the treadmill for 45 minutes all by myself. I stretched for a long time afterward because stretching felt good. Plenty of workout, zero angst. Maybe I'll feel like class next week or the week after, but deciding against it today felt like the right decision.
A couple of you commented last week with similar stories of gym class fear. I hope you can get past the fear if you want to. I hope that if you want to practice yoga or go to your trainer's class even though everyone else in it appears to be in better shape than you, you manage to suck it up and do it and reap the benefits. But I hope that if you decide the angst involved isn't worth it, that you go do something else that makes you happy without feeling like that class is something you should do. You should do what works for you. We all deserve to exercise happy.
Running would be good.
Maybe I would even be up for a workout as hard as class, but did I really feel like being around other people?
But cross-training is really important.
But I do cross-train. In this very week there has been weight-lifting, running, and swimming -- I'm not in a rut.
But if I don't go today, maybe it'll be easier for me to chicken out of going other days.
Etc...
And then I remembered a philosophy I adhere to at work.
I'm a children's librarian and while we have plenty of rules and thou-shalt-nots in my library, we also have what we call The No Tears Policy. If a small child is panicking about something -- wants a prize she hasn't earned, absolutely must borrow this book even though he has fines -- we go ahead and break rules to avoid tears. Give her the prize, let him check out the book. No Tears is a priority, and I believe in that.
I remembered, after all my deliberating this morning, that I have a No Tears Policy for myself -- or more accurately, No Angst. That's what has kept me sane about all the decisions that affect my body. No Angst over whether or not to eat a second cupcake. No Angst over whether or not I lost weight this week. No Angst over when or how or how much I work out. And I felt so relieved. I put on my workout clothes, went to the gym, waved at my trainer, put my headphones in and ran on the treadmill for 45 minutes all by myself. I stretched for a long time afterward because stretching felt good. Plenty of workout, zero angst. Maybe I'll feel like class next week or the week after, but deciding against it today felt like the right decision.
A couple of you commented last week with similar stories of gym class fear. I hope you can get past the fear if you want to. I hope that if you want to practice yoga or go to your trainer's class even though everyone else in it appears to be in better shape than you, you manage to suck it up and do it and reap the benefits. But I hope that if you decide the angst involved isn't worth it, that you go do something else that makes you happy without feeling like that class is something you should do. You should do what works for you. We all deserve to exercise happy.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Working Out with Other People
I would like to begin with the disclaimer that my trainer rocks. I adore him to no end and any complaining I am about to do is not in his direction.
He teaches this class at the gym on Saturday afternoons. It's a crazy mix of strength stuff and cardio stuff, a couple round robins of different exercises and some stuff we do all together as a group. It's unbelievably hard work. It kind of kills the rest of the day for me because all I can do is lie on the couch and marvel at how my limbs are useless. And I kind of dig that. I like the hard work and it's a good kind of fatigue. I like that it's sort of a freebie session with him -- an opportunity for me to do a workout I wouldn't do on my own.
But there are other people. I'm a friendly person, very social, almost extroverted most of the time. But there are times when I really don't want other people to exist, and while working out is one of those times. When I run on the treadmill, I take my glasses off and listen to my ipod and I'm in a bubble where no one else exists. I love that. In class, occasionally there's someone friendly who introduces herself and wants to chat. I hate that shit. I mean, I understand that for many people, that's why they take gym classes -- because it's a social experience. For me, it's an unavoidable side-effect of the free workout with my trainer. I can live with it.
More difficult is the fact that I cannot keep up. I can do most of everything. But it's damn hard. Everyone is red and sweaty and panting, but I'm the only one who occasionally just stops because, frankly, I want neither a heart attack nor an asthma attack and if I don't stop, one of the two is likely. I'm not vain, really. I don't know these people and don't care what they think about my fitness level. But it makes me feel lame. I get a lot of exercise. I run and swim and lift heavy things and take yoga classes (where, incidentally, it is encouraged to do what your body wants to do, even if the rest of the class is doing otherwise...) When I'm doing those things alone, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape. I don't care how slow I am, so long as my heart rate is up. But when I see everyone else managing to do what my body just cannot do, I feel inadequate. I feel fat. I feel like the reason I can't do shit is because I'm fat, because that's my go-to excuse or something.
I've rested and showered and rested more and eaten lunch and rested still more. My body feels good. I feel strong and also relaxed. But I'm wanting not to go to class next Saturday because it makes my brain feel lame.
He teaches this class at the gym on Saturday afternoons. It's a crazy mix of strength stuff and cardio stuff, a couple round robins of different exercises and some stuff we do all together as a group. It's unbelievably hard work. It kind of kills the rest of the day for me because all I can do is lie on the couch and marvel at how my limbs are useless. And I kind of dig that. I like the hard work and it's a good kind of fatigue. I like that it's sort of a freebie session with him -- an opportunity for me to do a workout I wouldn't do on my own.
But there are other people. I'm a friendly person, very social, almost extroverted most of the time. But there are times when I really don't want other people to exist, and while working out is one of those times. When I run on the treadmill, I take my glasses off and listen to my ipod and I'm in a bubble where no one else exists. I love that. In class, occasionally there's someone friendly who introduces herself and wants to chat. I hate that shit. I mean, I understand that for many people, that's why they take gym classes -- because it's a social experience. For me, it's an unavoidable side-effect of the free workout with my trainer. I can live with it.
More difficult is the fact that I cannot keep up. I can do most of everything. But it's damn hard. Everyone is red and sweaty and panting, but I'm the only one who occasionally just stops because, frankly, I want neither a heart attack nor an asthma attack and if I don't stop, one of the two is likely. I'm not vain, really. I don't know these people and don't care what they think about my fitness level. But it makes me feel lame. I get a lot of exercise. I run and swim and lift heavy things and take yoga classes (where, incidentally, it is encouraged to do what your body wants to do, even if the rest of the class is doing otherwise...) When I'm doing those things alone, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape. I don't care how slow I am, so long as my heart rate is up. But when I see everyone else managing to do what my body just cannot do, I feel inadequate. I feel fat. I feel like the reason I can't do shit is because I'm fat, because that's my go-to excuse or something.
I've rested and showered and rested more and eaten lunch and rested still more. My body feels good. I feel strong and also relaxed. But I'm wanting not to go to class next Saturday because it makes my brain feel lame.
Oh, Hello There!
Hi.
It appears that someone is reading this. Maybe as many as four of you! I'm flattered, really. When I decided to do this it was primarily because I wanted to write about the experience of losing weight -- wanted to remember later what the emotional pieces were, since I knew they would be changing day to day. I also wanted to make myself organize those thoughts while I was thinking them. In another piece of my world, I'm a professional writer, but what I usually write is a very different animal. So this is an experiment.
I decided to experiment in the form of a blog for a couple reasons. Reason the first was to keep me writing and keep me organized. If I were writing in a notebook, I'd be more likely to write scattered, run-on sentences about my whole emotional life rather than attempting to organize thoughts specifically about my body and food issues. Of course, there are still scattered run-on sentences here. Oh well.
Reason the second is this: Over the last several years, as I've lost and gained weight and tried to make some sense of what my relationship to my body means and how I fit into the world, I have read several books about people dealing with the same stuff and I have found them to be invaluable. I grew up, and into my 20s and 30s feeling very alone with my fat. I had never talked to anyone or read anything that made me believe that others were struggling in the same ways as I was. It hadn't even occurred to me. And then, I can't remember how the first book fell in my lap, but it did, and I started reading. Books about people who started out much bigger than me and ended up much smaller. Or about people smaller than me who felt bigger, or people just my size who were comfortable there. Everyone's story was different, everyone's relationship with food and clothing and her mother was unique. But familiar. There was always something that overlapped with my own experience -- the comfort of eating too much when no one was looking, the pressure from family members, either overt or subtle, to lose weight, to be different, the shame of not fitting someplace -- into chairs or socially acceptable clothing sizes, feeling both elation and discomfort with losing weight, with inhabiting an unfamiliar body. It is comforting to recognize myself in these stories.
And yet I know that my story isn't just like any of the ones I read. And I am a writer. A writer writes. Knowing that reading someone else's story is helpful to me makes me hope that reading my story will be helpful to others. I started writing and posting my blog without ever seeking out readers. I am shy, and this is still an experiment, after all. But I am glad you are here. Welcome. Please comment and/or email me freely. I would love to hear from you.
Some of the above-mentioned books:
I'm Not The New Me by Wendy McClure
Passing for Thin by Frances Kuffel
Half-Assed by Jennette Fulda
Tales from the Scale by Erin J. Shea
The Incredible Shrinking Critic by Jami Bernard
Confessions of a Carb Queen by Susan Blech
Thin is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel
Many of these people are bloggers. I'm too lazy to create links, but I'm sure you can find them if you haven't already.
It appears that someone is reading this. Maybe as many as four of you! I'm flattered, really. When I decided to do this it was primarily because I wanted to write about the experience of losing weight -- wanted to remember later what the emotional pieces were, since I knew they would be changing day to day. I also wanted to make myself organize those thoughts while I was thinking them. In another piece of my world, I'm a professional writer, but what I usually write is a very different animal. So this is an experiment.
I decided to experiment in the form of a blog for a couple reasons. Reason the first was to keep me writing and keep me organized. If I were writing in a notebook, I'd be more likely to write scattered, run-on sentences about my whole emotional life rather than attempting to organize thoughts specifically about my body and food issues. Of course, there are still scattered run-on sentences here. Oh well.
Reason the second is this: Over the last several years, as I've lost and gained weight and tried to make some sense of what my relationship to my body means and how I fit into the world, I have read several books about people dealing with the same stuff and I have found them to be invaluable. I grew up, and into my 20s and 30s feeling very alone with my fat. I had never talked to anyone or read anything that made me believe that others were struggling in the same ways as I was. It hadn't even occurred to me. And then, I can't remember how the first book fell in my lap, but it did, and I started reading. Books about people who started out much bigger than me and ended up much smaller. Or about people smaller than me who felt bigger, or people just my size who were comfortable there. Everyone's story was different, everyone's relationship with food and clothing and her mother was unique. But familiar. There was always something that overlapped with my own experience -- the comfort of eating too much when no one was looking, the pressure from family members, either overt or subtle, to lose weight, to be different, the shame of not fitting someplace -- into chairs or socially acceptable clothing sizes, feeling both elation and discomfort with losing weight, with inhabiting an unfamiliar body. It is comforting to recognize myself in these stories.
And yet I know that my story isn't just like any of the ones I read. And I am a writer. A writer writes. Knowing that reading someone else's story is helpful to me makes me hope that reading my story will be helpful to others. I started writing and posting my blog without ever seeking out readers. I am shy, and this is still an experiment, after all. But I am glad you are here. Welcome. Please comment and/or email me freely. I would love to hear from you.
Some of the above-mentioned books:
I'm Not The New Me by Wendy McClure
Passing for Thin by Frances Kuffel
Half-Assed by Jennette Fulda
Tales from the Scale by Erin J. Shea
The Incredible Shrinking Critic by Jami Bernard
Confessions of a Carb Queen by Susan Blech
Thin is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel
Many of these people are bloggers. I'm too lazy to create links, but I'm sure you can find them if you haven't already.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
More Semantics
I find myself in a socially awkward situation when people say to me, "You've lost weight." I believe that they expect me to say, "Thank you." Only, is that a compliment? It's an observation, a statement of fact. If someone said, "You got a new tattoo," or, "You cut your hair," it would be unclear whether or not she approved of the change in my appearance. I would say, "Yes I did," and would not say, "Thanks," unless she expressed a positive opinion.
So I follow my belief in language, rather than the universal assumption that losing weight is an inherently good thing. I nod and say, as neutrally as I am able, "I have lost some weight." If she then says, "You look good," I smile and say, "Thank you."
Am I being petty?
So I follow my belief in language, rather than the universal assumption that losing weight is an inherently good thing. I nod and say, as neutrally as I am able, "I have lost some weight." If she then says, "You look good," I smile and say, "Thank you."
Am I being petty?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
"You're wasting away,"
...said one of my co-workers this morning, then added, "You look great!"
Am I really supposed to take "wasting away" as a compliment? Makes it sound like I'm dying of consumption. How glamorous.
Am I really supposed to take "wasting away" as a compliment? Makes it sound like I'm dying of consumption. How glamorous.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Dangerous Leaps
I realize I'm making up for lost time, here. Blogging is new to me, as are the changes happening to my body, and sometimes I'm not quite up to looking either one in the face.
I've lost a little over 50 pounds, now. I weigh about 200, depending on at what hour I step on the scale. 200 was my goal for the end of October, so getting there a month ahead is a bit startling. It's not just a number -- I seem to have leapt forward all at once. I lost more than 6 pounds in two weeks. All of a sudden, none of my clothes fit. Nothing. I had to buy new bras (and I know I'm not the first to say this, but I did not sign up for losing a cup size!) I had neither time nor money to go clothes shopping, but I had to do it anyway. And people started noticing. I lost 20 and 30 and 40 pounds and pretty much no one said anything -- a couple people thought I was tan or had cut my hair or something. But in the last two weeks, everywhere I go, people are commenting on my weight loss -- my co-workers, who I've seen every day all along (including one person who never speaks to me), friends I hadn't seen in awhile, friends I see all the time. And suddenly, I feel like I'm walking around in a different body. It's not entirely comfortable. It's weird. Maybe a little scary. Weight loss is a loss. Part of me, a big 50 pound chunk of me is gone now (and where did it go? seriously, I'd like to know) and that frightens me in ways I don't entirely understand.
This week, after losing 6 pounds so quickly, I actually tried to eat a little more -- I was never starving myself. I always ate all my daily Weight Watchers points and a few more due to all the working out. I have always indulged here and there in pizza and cupcakes. But this week, I did a little more indulging. I ate heavy dinners Monday and Tuesday nights when I had friends visiting from out of town. I found myself craving heavy food on Wednesday and ate several mini-chocolate bars at work, plus lots of after dinner snacks. I was in a grumpy mood all day Friday and ordered greasy Chinese food for dinner. Now, Monday and Tuesday, I was deliberately relaxing, allowing, even urging myself to eat more because I wasn't comfortable with my rapid weight loss. But the second half of the week the indulging has felt more emotional, a little out of control. Part of me wonders if this is where I will start sabotaging myself.
Once before I lost about this much weight and stopped right here. Here as in October. Here as in 200 pounds. This might be the place I'm afraid to go past. But I do feel different this time. The few people who know I'm trying to lose weight will occasionally say that I'm working so hard. It doesn't feel like it. I hear that and it sounds wrong and I point out that I'm not doing anything I'm not happy with. I love working out. I'm happy, really, entirely happy with my food -- happy with the veggies, happy that I'm able to do pizza and cupcake just often enough, and happy that I'm not hungry. And that feels different. It's hard to sabotage something like that.
The other thing is, I don't feel so alone. I have always felt really alone with my food/body struggles. My friends are thin, and mostly have pretty healthy relationships with food and their bodies (and I'm kind of proud that I've gravitated toward people like this). My sisters are thin, as is my mother. My mother has not been helpful -- I'll write about this some other day. So whether I've been frustrated with my size or working at trying to change it, I've always felt I was in that alone. My body, my issues, nothing anyone else could help with or understand. It felt lonely, and feeling lonely makes me want to eat cookies. It was trying to get away from that loneliness that inspired me both to join Weight Watchers (which as you know I have mixed feeling about) and to hire my trainer. Going to Weight Watchers meetings is helpful. I haven't made friends, have rarely spoken to anyone outside of group discussions, but I feel them there, working on the same stuff, and that helps. And my trainer just rocks. It helps that he's all about getting me in shape, getting me stronger, and not about denying me food or making me thinner. I like focusing on strength. And I like knowing he's there. Yesterday I was at the gym on my own, not paying him for a session, and he snuck up behind me (not hard to do, as I take off my glasses and put on my headphones when I work out) and raised the incline on my treadmill. I growled at him, but kept the incline where it was and kept running. I was thinking about it all day and smiling. I realize the reason it made me so happy was because it felt like someone was watching out for me. It felt safe.
I've lost a little over 50 pounds, now. I weigh about 200, depending on at what hour I step on the scale. 200 was my goal for the end of October, so getting there a month ahead is a bit startling. It's not just a number -- I seem to have leapt forward all at once. I lost more than 6 pounds in two weeks. All of a sudden, none of my clothes fit. Nothing. I had to buy new bras (and I know I'm not the first to say this, but I did not sign up for losing a cup size!) I had neither time nor money to go clothes shopping, but I had to do it anyway. And people started noticing. I lost 20 and 30 and 40 pounds and pretty much no one said anything -- a couple people thought I was tan or had cut my hair or something. But in the last two weeks, everywhere I go, people are commenting on my weight loss -- my co-workers, who I've seen every day all along (including one person who never speaks to me), friends I hadn't seen in awhile, friends I see all the time. And suddenly, I feel like I'm walking around in a different body. It's not entirely comfortable. It's weird. Maybe a little scary. Weight loss is a loss. Part of me, a big 50 pound chunk of me is gone now (and where did it go? seriously, I'd like to know) and that frightens me in ways I don't entirely understand.
This week, after losing 6 pounds so quickly, I actually tried to eat a little more -- I was never starving myself. I always ate all my daily Weight Watchers points and a few more due to all the working out. I have always indulged here and there in pizza and cupcakes. But this week, I did a little more indulging. I ate heavy dinners Monday and Tuesday nights when I had friends visiting from out of town. I found myself craving heavy food on Wednesday and ate several mini-chocolate bars at work, plus lots of after dinner snacks. I was in a grumpy mood all day Friday and ordered greasy Chinese food for dinner. Now, Monday and Tuesday, I was deliberately relaxing, allowing, even urging myself to eat more because I wasn't comfortable with my rapid weight loss. But the second half of the week the indulging has felt more emotional, a little out of control. Part of me wonders if this is where I will start sabotaging myself.
Once before I lost about this much weight and stopped right here. Here as in October. Here as in 200 pounds. This might be the place I'm afraid to go past. But I do feel different this time. The few people who know I'm trying to lose weight will occasionally say that I'm working so hard. It doesn't feel like it. I hear that and it sounds wrong and I point out that I'm not doing anything I'm not happy with. I love working out. I'm happy, really, entirely happy with my food -- happy with the veggies, happy that I'm able to do pizza and cupcake just often enough, and happy that I'm not hungry. And that feels different. It's hard to sabotage something like that.
The other thing is, I don't feel so alone. I have always felt really alone with my food/body struggles. My friends are thin, and mostly have pretty healthy relationships with food and their bodies (and I'm kind of proud that I've gravitated toward people like this). My sisters are thin, as is my mother. My mother has not been helpful -- I'll write about this some other day. So whether I've been frustrated with my size or working at trying to change it, I've always felt I was in that alone. My body, my issues, nothing anyone else could help with or understand. It felt lonely, and feeling lonely makes me want to eat cookies. It was trying to get away from that loneliness that inspired me both to join Weight Watchers (which as you know I have mixed feeling about) and to hire my trainer. Going to Weight Watchers meetings is helpful. I haven't made friends, have rarely spoken to anyone outside of group discussions, but I feel them there, working on the same stuff, and that helps. And my trainer just rocks. It helps that he's all about getting me in shape, getting me stronger, and not about denying me food or making me thinner. I like focusing on strength. And I like knowing he's there. Yesterday I was at the gym on my own, not paying him for a session, and he snuck up behind me (not hard to do, as I take off my glasses and put on my headphones when I work out) and raised the incline on my treadmill. I growled at him, but kept the incline where it was and kept running. I was thinking about it all day and smiling. I realize the reason it made me so happy was because it felt like someone was watching out for me. It felt safe.
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