-------------------
I want to talk about body acceptance. I don't understand it.
I hear that you're supposed to accept your body and be happy with it. I'm fine feeling this way about other people, staying away from overt fatphobia. This is America in 2016, and it'd be raw hubris to say I'm immune from making unconscious judgments of others. I'd love for that to be the case, but I exist within a fatphobic culture. Denying its influence on me is dishonest and unhelpful.
Still, it's easy to fight judgments of other bodies compared to judgments of my own. I hate my body. I hate what it's become, what it feels like, what it looks like. It brings me shame and embarrassment. I'm visiting family later this week, and thought of having to... I dunno, "present myself" and try subtly sucking in my gut even though it won't matter or make me look any thinner makes me sweat.
I'm ashamed of having GAINED weight after losing a lot since the last time I saw them, and having to prepare my weight-gain elevator speech if it comes up. "Yeah, went off track a little bit, but doing a bit better now!" And I know they love me and don't really care about my weight, and I hate that it matters so much to me anyway.
---
Which brings me back to acceptance. There are two competing ideas in my mind that I don't know how to bring into harmony with each other:
1) I should accept my body.
2) I want to lose weight and become fitter.
How the hell am I supposed to accept myself if I want to change myself? How does this work?
Note: this is not a rhetorical question. I don't intend to say, "therefore weight loss is a pointless goal" or "therefore body acceptance is a pointless goal." I believe there's a way to square the two. I just don't know how.
---
I've observed a cycle over the last two years of Coldrun Fitness. (Two years over the course of which I've lost a net total close to zero pounds.)
1) Frustration and anxiety and anger about my body.
2) Plan out habit changes to lose weight.
3) Enact habit changes.
4) Stress and anxiety and restlessness builds as I adapt badly to the change in habits.
5) Begin gradually to fall back into old habits.
6) Quit.
7) Frustration and anxiety and anger about my body.
It's a vicious cycle. It feels tied to body acceptance and shame.
I don't know how to make it stop.
Fitness Log
- Breakfast: Iced skim chai latte. Chocolate croissant. (470 cal)
- Lunch: Chicken tenders, sauce, fried, toast. Half hot chocolate. (1,200 cal)
- Food #3 (calories)
Logging you in...
djinn87 126p · 479 weeks ago
And I think...this may upset people, idk...I think there's a difference to accepting your body and not caring about your body. A lot of people talk about body-shaming and just accepting your appearance. I feel like that's okay to a certain point. You can accept that you are not going to be as thin (or as big) as what's accepted by an image focused society. But that doesn't mean one shouldn't care about their health. There are big health risks associated with being overweight.
Body acceptance is something I strongly associate with women. We have a lot of pressure placed on us to look and act a certain way. This is not to say men don't experience that; they certainly do as you yourself can probably relate. But I feel like for women the pressure is intense and it's so easy to go 'hey, I give up. This is how I look. I can stress myself out and put myself through a routine that I can't maintain or I could just...not care anymore.' That's so easy to do and I feel, right now, I'm kinda experiencing that myself.
But the issues around weight need to be more than body acceptance. You need to care. Body acceptance shouldn't be giving up to a situation. It's recognising you are a certain body shape and working within that body shape. So, I'm a bit of a pear: I have a bit of a tummy and biggish thighs. I'm around 60 kgs. I understand that I'm a certain shape that always going to be associated with big tummy and thighs. I probably could lose a little weight but I feel happy at the size I am. I try not to overindulge and I take into account things I eat during the day/week.
You are a certain body shape, Coldrun. There are always parts of your body that are going to be different than other people. They are always going to feel too big or kind of uncomfortable. Body acceptance is accepting that okay, that is your shape, those are the parts of me that will always be a little out of whack. You're going the one step further than a number of women that stop at this point. You understand that there's work you can do to improve that body, to get your shape looking better. YOU ARE NOT WORKING TO GET INTO A SOMEONE ELSE'S BODY SHAPE. YOU ARE WORKING TOWARDS YOUR OWN. That's, from my pov, body acceptance.
I swear to god, I've probably offended a billion women. I just want to say: everyone has this struggle, Coldrun. Everyone struggles with the idea of accepting their body, getting into a certain level of fitness, maintaining that. You aren't alone. Anyone who says they've completely accepted their body has to have the self-esteem of a god.