The fantasy of being thin

[alias_sqbr]

A quite good essay about the "When I'm thin everything will be better" thinking of a lot of dieters: The fantasy of being thin.

I must admit, I have pretty much literally thought "How dare they take my hope away?!" when reading fat acceptance blogs and their message that diets don't work. Because if that's true, then that sinks the only (fairly slim) chance I have of getting rid of my reflux, which is something I'm not ready to come to terms with. But if it's true then it's true, it's like debunking ineffective cancer cures etc. And as she says in the post, if you spend all your time pinning your hopes for bettering your life (in whatever way) on losing weight, and it never happens, then that's a waste of all the time and energy you could have spent pursuing those goals in other more effective ways.

I still think Weight watchers has been good for Cam and I even if we end up as fat at the end as we were at the start, since it's gotten us exercising and eating healthier. (I've seen one or two blogs which even argue against that, but them I don't take so seriously)

EDIT: the other thing I find annoying about fat acceptance blogs, which is totally not their fault, is all this talk about "eating whatever you want" when if I did that I would be seriously sick. Stupid allergies for all the foods I really like :(

Comments

[rescviki.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how relevant or how much this post interests me Sweet Spice. As you know due to my battle with hypothyroidism I am about 15 kg slimmer than this time last year. It's not obvious to most but only to some. One thing they never tell you about getting slimmer are some of the negative side-effects. I can't fit into half my clothes and lack the moeny to go out and buy new ones. I also find I have greater choices but don't have the means available. And I am getting more attnetion from the opposite sex from situations such as walking down the street, which frankly, makes me uncomfortable.

On the plus side I am a little more confident but that is about the only good thing at the moment. It's not making y degree come faster and it isn't changing my job prospects.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Have considered having a Clothes Swap Party with your friends?

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, I used to envy women who got more attention from men, but it didn't take many strangers trying to chat me up for me to be glad I don't have a striking figure (my mum looks like an older, bustier version of me and gets all sorts of nasty hassle)

One of the funny things about me is that I'm always moderately happy with the way I look, but afraid of getting any fatter...and then I gain weight, and realise that I actually carry it off ok, and that the chunky forearms are offset by the increased cleavage etc :)

[evil-megz.livejournal.com]

What I've noticed about the few fat acceptance arguments I have read is that they will all approach fatness as a social acceptance issue, not a health issue.

Being comfortable with your imperfect body is one thing, but realising it is causing health problems and there are actions you can take to reduce those problems is another.

Dieting may not often prove successful when its purpose is to make you attractive, as people will set themselves a goal weight and reaching it may not ever happen, or if it does, they no longer feel the need to diet and put it back on.
Dieting for health is ALWAYS successful. One less burger, one less mouthful of cake, walking for 15min instead of driving, and the chance that you will die at a young age from heart disease slightly decreases. It doesn't matter if tomorrow you can't hold back, and don't lose any weight, it will still make a difference whether or not you hold back today.

People who push the fat acceptance attitude just make other people like yourself, who are on the right track dieting for health rather than appearance, feel worse about what they are doing, as though they are either shallow or stupid for trying.

[alias_sqbr]

I don't know, with the very odd exception, all the fat acceptance stuff I've seen has been quite clear that it does advocate exactly the same behaviours as doctors (exercise lots, eat lot of veggies etc), they just don't think it'll give long term weight loss.

See for example Don’t You Realize Fat Is Unhealthy? from the top of the post I just linked.

But as far as I can tell, all the healthy eating and exercise in the world won't do anything for my reflux(*) unless it helps me lose weight :(

(*)Though obviously it'd make me much healthier in general. Also there are some unhealthy foods which set it off (plus a lot of very healthy ones), but I cut those out of my diet already.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Good essay.

I finally figured out (thanks largely to Trinny and Susannah) that weight is not really my issue so much as my inconvenient proportions. Inconvenient vis a vis off-the-rack clothing, mostly. I often see women who are definitely much much larger than I am wear jeans successfully and it baffles me. I haven't found a pair of jeans to fit me in decades.

Like you I'm on a heavily restricted diet for health reasons, but I really dislike using the D word. I lost a chunk of weight quite quickly, which was nice, and good for my feet, but I appear to have plateauxed (sp?) now. If I stay here, so be it.

But sometimes, I'd like to be able to buy wearable shiny things :-(

[alias_sqbr]

weight is not really my issue so much as my inconvenient proportions

Same. Luckily I realised this in highschool when I was skinny (my hips were too wide for most pants despite being literally skin and bone) so I never went through the "If only I was skinnier I would fit into clothes better" phase most pear shaped women get.

It's actually gotten better as I've gotten fatter and my body has filled in around my oddly shaped skeleton.

But sometimes, I'd like to be able to buy wearable shiny things

Me too (I have a soft spot for long slinky numbers that only suit stick insects) But at least there's always accessories :)

fantasy of being thin?

[unfatblog.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I think batting around the "95% of all diets" fail is an oversimplification. There are a lot of factors that make diets fail. Poor planned fad diets make up the majority of these attempts.

Nearly, 80% of all smokers fail to quit smoking when trying, as well as heroin, and crack users. We don't tell them oh well...just don't try.

Intuitive eating "eating what you want" assumes that our bodies are programed to eat correctly. When in fact (IMO) our bodies are programed to eat as if we face starvation tomorrow. That is why people relish fatty and high carb food, because our bodies are programed to eat as much of it as we can in order to survive the lean periods.

The fact that we face a huge obesity epidemic (yes it is real) demonstrates that intuitive eating is doomed to failure.

I've been arguing with fat acceptance at my blog www.unfatblog.com for sometime trying to debunk their myths. They sing a tempting siren song to those who are overweight and struggle to lose it. It is tough to lose weight, no one is arguing that.

Re: fantasy of being thin?

[alias_sqbr]

Huh... a random stranger with an anti-FA blog with a ".com" ending shows up...

CLEARLY YOU ARE A TROLL IN THE EMPLOY OF THE MONOLITHIC DIET INDUSTRY

*cough*
I think batting around the "95% of all diets" fail is an oversimplification. There are a lot of factors that make diets fail. Poor planned fad diets make up the majority of these attempts.

Possibly, though even weight watchers (which I think gives good advice) doesn't do that well (pro WW slant, anti-WW slant) and this study has low results for all diets studied long term (but has better news for exercise)

And even if there was a 50% success rate for dieting overall that's still 50% of people who are stuck the way they are and have to find a way to live with that.

Nearly, 80% of all smokers fail to quit smoking when trying, as well as heroin, and crack users. We don't tell them oh well...just don't try.

Absolutely, and I agree that it makes sense for overweight people to try eating healthy and exercising (it certainly won't do any harm)

But I actually think our society is too hard on smokers and the overweight: yes, these are unhealthy things to be, and people should be encouraged to try to change, but given how provably difficult they are to shift, we shouldn't accuse those who fail of laziness, and instead should make some efforts to accommodate them. I realise this is an unpopular opinion amongst my fellow nonsmokers!

My personal feeling (based on anecdotal evidence) is that the truth lies halfway between: if you don't exercise enough or eat very healthily then changing that will make you lose some weight, and that's a good thing...but there's no guarantee that it'll make you thin. And if you know that you're as thin as you're ever going to get then I think it is ok to accept that, and work around it rather than spending the rest of your life trying and failing to lose weight and making yourself miserable.

But yeah, the "intuitive eating" thing seems unintuitive to me, even apart from all the stuff I'm allergic to I constantly crave sugar, but it always makes me feel like crap afterwards.

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

O ho ho... this old chestnut.

First of all - it is COMPLETELY possible to lose weight unless you've got a -combination- of medical conditions that prevents it, in which case you'd probably know that and the weight issue would (or SHOULD) be handled by medical personnel, and the psychological issues that fatness has should be handled also by professionals, such as psychiatsrists/psychologists.

That said, it's ok to be ok with being fat, but ONLY as long as you do realise that there is a great possiblity that your health has a MUCH greater possibility of going bad.
It's a matter of personal choice and, to be frank, laziness. Losing weight is REALLY, REALLY HARD. I know this from years and years of trying diets, exercise, seeing countless dieticians, doctors, psychologists and all that, and on top of that, coming from an emotionally abusive background that had me believing that me being fat was not only my fault, but something that affected everyone around me that I knew or met negatively. As you can imagine, I was a pretty mentally screwed up kid.
Now... I can't say that some of the diets I tried while in this environment didn't work - doctor-reccommended diets did what they were supposed to, but dieting and forcing yourself to exercise for the benifit of other people and to your own mental detriment is an incredibly difficult thing to do. At one point I lost 20 kilos to look nice for my cousin's wedding (I was the only bridesmaid) and... you know what?
I still felt really fat and disgusting.

In addition to that, after I stopped busting my ass over it all, I gained all the weight back over a couple of months (it took about 8-9 months to lose) plus more, and kept going up from there.

So, only this year, after about 3-4 years of getting myself OUT of the abusive environment, seeing both a psychiatrist and a psychologist as well as a doctor, I finally managed to get my mind into a healthier state, and instead of dominating every aspect of my life, my being fat became more of an incidental inconvenience, which... Well, that's what it is in truth.
This year, as you'll probably know, I bit the bullet and had bariatric surgery. MY weight was getting to a really stupid point, and I was worried about my health suffering in the future as well as feeling heavy and slow. Finally, doing it for the reasons that matter. It took a lot of willpower and quite a few tears, as I had to lose 5-10% of my bodyweight before they coupd do the op, but with the help of a doctor I managed to lose 16 off kilos in 6 weeks, before the procedure. (Also, I'm very badly needle-phobic, so blood tests and injections had to be dealth with... good thing I have a good psychiatrist and access to sedatives o..0)

As of now, after the procedure, I've lost about 25 kilos, and will continue to lose weight slowly until I find my body's own 'pivot point' when my input and output of energy equalise.

What I've learned from this whole giant mess:

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

A) Being fat sucks, from both a physical and mental POV, seeing as the society we live in treats fatness as both undesirable and unhealthy. The latter is somewhat true, but... yes.

B) Losing weight while in an environment that treats fatness as somehting that must be stamped out of existence and blames you entirely for that fatness and not getting rid of it fast enough... It's nigh impossible to do healthily and successfully.

C) Fat people aren't necesarily unhealthy, fat people aren't necessarily fat because they're lazy foodaholics. I ate less and healthier food than my boyfriend, we had a similar lifestyle, I piled on the kilos and he stayed the same.

D) If you're going to lose weight successfully and keep it off, it has to be done for the right reasons, and for your OWN benefit only. Trying to diet because other people say you need to is unhealthy - it encourages spirals into very unhealthy mental patterns and is the leading cause of eating disorders.

E) I can see 'fat acceptance' (and even weight gainer!) communities are a big turn on to many people who've spent their lives unsuccessfully trying to fit into what they think they should be doing with themselves weight-wise. When you're up against it and failing constantly to lose weight, you feel intensely alone, even if you're associating with a group of people who seem to be in the same boat. "Wow, I'm not alone" and "Wait... it's OK to be like me?" are VERY powerful realisations.

F) While I can see the allure of these communities, I would only agree with them being there if they promoted two major things - being healthy, and weight loss (done healthily) as a good thing.

In summation of this pathetically long-winded spiel of mine... uh...
Yeah. Losing weight is really, really hard, but naturally thin people have no idea exactly how hard, and so tend to assume that people are fat through their own laziness and bad habits. This is a load of bull in many cases (not all, obviously), but weight loss can be maintained easily and healthily if the person concerned uses the right resources - IE medical professionals rather than trying random diets and trying to overexercise.
Also, surgical procedures - completely NOT overkill. I've heard some people say it's 'taking the easy way out' and stuff... but considering the shit I had to go through to get it done, and how incredibly good I feel even now... They can go expletive themselves. :P

[alias_sqbr]

I've only been overweight for the last few years (and not very much), but I've had a lot of overweight friends (and a husband :)) and it's always really distressed me to see the horrible way they're treated.

Yes, despite what the FA blogs say, I'm pretty sure that all things being equal it's better to try not to be overweight. Then again, I get the feeling it's a lot better to stay at a stable, high weight than to yo-yo back and forth, so if you know you don't have the willpower to stay thin, and aren't willing to get surgery etc then it's probably the healthiest option. But that's different to saying that there's no point in anyone trying to lose weight, since some people really can do it.

I think we, as a society, really need to seperate the health issues of fatness from all the other social crap about it, especially the way it's treated as a moral failing. I guess the "people who get surgery are lazy" crap comes from the same place: if being fat is just punishment for not doing the "right thing" (diet and exercise) then anyone who loses weight in any other way is "cheating".

Personally I think it's like any other sort of medical surgery: best to be avoided if possible, but sometimes worth the risk/side effects. Putting down everyone who does it is like putting down everyone who gets a heart bypass etc.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

When I exercise, I enjoy life more, and I also tend to lose a bit of weight until I (once again) drift back out of patterns of regular exercise for whatever reason (typical culprit: moving house or job, extended bad weather).

Whatever people think about weight and programmes of weight loss, the debate shouldn't allow the marginalisation of the benefits of exercise ... I suspect there are people pursuing sedentary lifestyles out there who don't even know how great it feels to exert yourself physically without a reason, once in a while.

But then, I'm not a fan of "I'm perfect the way I am" thinking. There's clear space between accepting your imperfections and approving of them. Not that I like excessive self-optimisation either. Pursuing particular traits (perceived as a static set) to the exclusion of activities that are irrespectively fulfilling seems unhealthy.

[alias_sqbr]

the debate shouldn't allow the marginalisation of the benefits of exercise ... I suspect there are people pursuing sedentary lifestyles out there who don't even know how great it feels to exert yourself physically without a reason, once in a while.

Absolutely. And I feel a lot healthier now that I eat more fresh fruit and vegetables and less sugar and caffiene, regardless of the fact that it didn't help me lose an ounce of weight.

I find it very unfortunate that any message of "Your life could improve if you did *blah*" easily turns into "If you don't do *blah* it's entirely your own fault if your life sucks", even if only in the minds of the listener (see any suggestions for helping the disadvantaged help themselves). In the other direction, a sense of self worth shouldn't imply complacency, but it often does.

Pursuing particular traits (perceived as a static set) to the exclusion of activities that are irrespectively fulfilling seems unhealthy.

Yes, that's why I have some sympathy for fat aceptance stuff: trying to lose weight requires So Much Effort, and in many cases that energy could be better directed elsewhere.

[shehasathree]

dude, i was looking through your tags (hunting down fic recs atm, to avoid working!) and came across this post, and here, have my thinky related thoughts, if you like.

(i totally hear you on the reflux thing, btw!!)

[alias_sqbr]

*reads your post*

Ok, get out of my head :D I was nodding along to pretty much everything except the personal experiences with Crohns.

I hope you don't mind, but I think you may have inspired another thinky post...EDIT: wait, is locked. Well, I'll just have to try to express my opinions myself rather than saying "What she said" then :)