I Don't Have A Good Relationship With My Fatness

 

 

One of the reasons I stopped using Instagram was that it was harming my mental health. Pretty people in pretty places, always thin and photogenic and happy. It's fake, everyone pretends, which is part of why I hate going on there, it's got a real LinkedIn vibe of "only post your successes and never your failures" which just kinda sucks to scroll through. I wish Instagram was just people's dogs and photos of their breakfast. I yearn for the mundane.

I don't post pictures of my body much online. It's not a source of pride for me. My skin is blotchy, my tummy sticks out, there's always a weird reflection in my glasses. I don't love how I look. It's not all negative, I like my long hair and I like my strong arms and I like that when I started exercising my chest became more defined. I'm always surprised at how fit I end up being, because it's always more fit than I thought. 

But I don't like my body.

The mature thing would be to accept my body for its cracks and curves. The healthy thing would be to develop a positive relationship to my body. To accept my body that tries so hard to keep me alive, and all the incredible things it can do, the privileges I take for granted. I can walk and run and jump and while covid did mess up my breathing a little, not enough to stop me from doing anything I care to do.

I should like my body more. But I don't.

And I especially don't like how fat it is.

One of my goals with this blogging project is to be honest, even when that honesty is uncomfortable. My tummy is just fat, and I don't like looking at it, and I wish it wasn't.

Between you and me, hey... Doesn't diet culture suck?

Chasing an ever decreasing amount of calories to consume, targeting a weight low enough to classify you for an eating disorder, and like... I fucking like food, okay? Food is so tasty. I like cookies and pizza and pasta and fizzy drinks and gummies and I crave chocolate like an addict. The science is pretty settled on this, it's calories in versus calories out, and trying to output more calories is a losing battle. You gotta cut, cut, cut. Only way to lose fat is to eat less, and you can supplement it by moving more.

I move enough. I could move more, that's for sure, I don't hit my steps goal every day, but I move enough. There are stretches, a good month, where I manage to move like it's my full time job, but that's unsustainable, and more annoyingly, will not make me thin and pretty.

So all that's left is diet.

I hate thinking about dieting. I don't have the best impulse control. I get very snacky, and then I get a snack, and sometimes it's like, wow, aren't I a fat piece of shit for always wanting to eat? I don't like hearing me talk about myself like that. I hate that. I hate feeling hungry.

What's left. I hate one part of my body and I cannot stand the process of trying to change it, so I guess we're left here. In this unsatisfying, frustrating, complicated place where you have to live with the crack in the wall, with the hole in the ceiling, the one you can't cover up but you can kinda ignore.

If I could have it my way then my body would be different. If I could move a couple sliders and make my body into my ideal body, then I would. But I can't.

 There's a handwritten note on my wall that says to focus on the things I can do and not on what I can't. I can get a little more exercise in. I can change my fizzy drinks to zero calorie alternatives. I can go to bed a little earlier to get a better night's sleep. There are so many things that I can do but there's also so many things that I can. I can say nice things about the parts of my body that I like, and rather than say mean things about the parts I don't like, I can just say that it's part of my wabi-sabi; the imperfections that are and that make me into a flawed beauty.

 Accepting and liking are not the same thing.

I'd like my body more if it was less fat, but it is as fat as it is and maybe someday I'll find a way to change that, but I have strong arms and mobile hips and soft eyes, so I'll focus on that.

 Hope you can focus on the parts of yourself that you love, and accept the rest as part of your wabi-sabi.

From Luna, With Love