There are countless blogs, articles, and studies you can read that highlight the intense damage that dieting, medical malpractice, and best intention bullying do to fat people. I’m not going to re-write them. Do an internet search. Don’t read the comments. Presume from this point forward that I am not here to debate the morality or healthiness of being fat.
What I am here to do in part one is talk about how my experience in trying to get thin, made it hard to be healthy. In part two, I’ll give other fat folks some tips, tricks, and alternatives that can be used at the gym or wherever you workout, because are y’all as tired as me of being asked how much weight you’ve lost? Or hearing, “Good for you!” like you’re some sort of token fat fucker who is there to be a motivational mascot? Fuck all that.
I thought I needed to be thinner.
I’ve been lifting weights semi-regularly for about seven years. Like a lot of fat people, I started working out because I thought I needed to be thinner and Someone Who Knows™ told me I needed to lose weight for my health.
My doctor said, in round about terms, that if I didn’t get thin soon, it would become insurmountably hard as I got older. She couched that in terms like, “get healthier, take better care of yourself, think about being an example for your children.” She never used the word thin, but it was obvious that’s what she meant. It’s always the true end goal of those kind of conversations.
Tracking every exercise, every pound I lifted, every calorie I ate, became an all consuming religion.
Because I am who I am, I totally overdid it. I started a progressively more difficult lifting routine, created by a fitness model, that guaranteed a better body if I worked hard, ate flavorless food, and kept at it. Tracking every exercise, every pound I lifted, every calorie I ate, became an all consuming religion. I spent hundreds of dollars on tracking apps and shoes and compression shorts which would be worth it all because in the end, I’d be thin. Probably.
I did lose weight. About thirty pounds. I lost inches everywhere. I still wasn’t thin. I was strong. Stronger than I had ever been, even when I was not obese.
Then I injured a knee overtraining.
While I was recovering I put almost all the weight back on, and when I could lift again, the internal discouragement was crushing. I blamed myself for failing. It didn’t occur to me that I was a novice lifter who followed a program that had strained my body past the point of reason. I just knew I was fat and that I’d failed to solve that problem.
I found another program, this time by a “body positive” thin woman, who had overcome eating disorders, and preached a sane approach to fitness that didn’t focus on being thin. But she still threw in the, “losing weight may still be a positive by product, but don’t focus on it.” My strength returned, I lost weight, and it felt like I was finally making progress; I would ultimately find my final form, which would definitely be thinner.
It didn’t matter that I was pretty fucking strong, I couldn’t maneuver myself in the ways that being truly fit required of me.
This time, the issue was trying to contort my body so I could accomplish moves that didn’t account for a bigger belly that got in the way. None of the articles or programs I found really talked about alternatives to traditional big lifting moves. It didn’t matter that I was pretty fucking strong, I couldn’t maneuver myself in the ways that being truly fit required of me.
I’d love to tell you that this is the part where someone took me aside and said some encouraging shit, gave me some good advice, but what really happened was wash, rinse, repeat of everything above FOR YEARS. Doctors treated me like shit when I injured myself, every injury set me back on my goal to thinness, and my blood pressure and blood sugar were quietly rising in the background, as I’d give up, take up smoking, and start binge eating again, ultra depressed about my inability to just fucking will myself through injury and into being a svelte, sexy, reformed woman.
It’s exhausting thinking through it: dieting, overtraining, pushing through injuries, then crashing. I read other people’s stories like this, and I cry through them. At times, I feel exceedingly jealous of other fat people who achieve thinness. Even though we know most people put the weight back on. Even though we know that losing weight isn’t supposed to make you happy or change who you are, which is bullshit, because as soon as you do PEOPLE ARE SO MUCH NICER TO YOU. It’s so fucked up that being fat makes you feel like a bad person. Like you don’t have any other attributes.
I am not sorry for being fat.
But I used to be. Here’s what changed: I found a great therapist, truly fat positive clothing companies came on scene, more fat people started saying FUCK YOU, I AM NOT SORRY FOR BEING FAT. And I lost my fatbit in Texas. I’ve never felt more relieved. Then I freed myself from all the apps I’d purchased to track my movement, weight, and eating. It felt equally amazing and nauseating to delete them. How would I know if I was making progress?
WHAT THE FUCK WAS PROGRESS, NOW? How would I define what I was “doing” if I wasn’t tracking it? And really, what was I doing, anyway? For quite awhile I felt a little lost when I would go to the gym. I didn’t feel purposeful. The benefits didn’t feel readily apparent. In large part, I think the struggle I was having with anxiety and depression and my relationship with my body were like a snake eating it’s own tail.
I stopped fucking weighing myself.
I began seeing a new doctor back in 2017, who had not pushed me on weight when I saw her for other things, so several weeks ago, when I went to an appointment, I brought it up. Being Fat™. She looked uncomfortable.
Before I could nervously laugh it off, I half-shouted, “I am working on not being interested in losing weight!” She asked me to explain. Candidly, and less loudly I told her when I focused on losing weight, I eventually felt totally discouraged and curled right back up with really dangerous habits, like binge eating, drinking too much, smoking again. She listened while I explained that I definitely wanted us to talk about health issues that were important to address, but that I needed her to give me the same advice she gave thin people; dietary changes, not weight loss. Movement, not weight loss.
That day, I stopped fucking weighing myself. I asked at the same appointment not to be shown or told the number, unless there was such significant loss or increase that she had a legitimate concern.
Finally, I deleted or threw out all the logs I’d kept tracking how big around my thighs were, how much I weighed naked before eating or showering. Because it didn’t. fucking. matter. The pursuit of thinness hadn’t yielded the desired result, instead it made it impossible to see myself in any light where that wasn’t a failure. Promotion at work? Still not thin. Getting my work published? Still not thin. Invited to speak at a conference? STILL FAT.
I am still fat. And with so much effort, I am becoming more and more happy with how I look. I’m team Ursula. And Ursula was a fat, strong, bad ass, who didn’t wear floral Lane Bryant shame tents to hide her big, round body. She wore a skin tight, short cut black dress AND FUCKED SHIT UP.
I don’t need to be thin, but I do like feeling strong. When my body cooperates, when it doesn’t ache from sitting, and when the endorphins hit after I’ve been in the gym, I not only feel strong, I feel great. Feeling great does not suck.
So I picked a day and got up really fucking early and went back to the gym.
It feels good to be back.
I mentioned that there are a articles you can find all over that talk about how the focus on obesity damages fat people. Really, if you’re a fat person like me, you might find any variation or combination of solidarity, validation, condescension, or just plain foolishness. These articles might make you feel better or they might make you feel worse. For the most part, those articles are for folks who don’t understand being fat, who say things like, “but I’m SOOOOOO concerned for your health,” and mean it, but hurt you anyway. A lot of us fat people also experience those feelings to varying degrees, and it is great to read things that help change our own perspective, just keep in mind that so many of those articles are not written for fat people or by fat people, and you don’t have to expose yourself to content that damages you.
