One of my peers said this to me today at lunch.
I started a new school two weeks ago, and every day I pack myself a salad packed with veggies and minimal dressing. Everyone always comments on how beautiful my salads look, and how healthy I seem to eat as they stuff their faces with vending machine chocolate and chips. I thank them graciously but otherwise don't offer much insight into my eating habits.
And then this older women commented today on how I "aught to lose the weight now because it will only get harder" eye roll I absolutely know this. She couldn't understand how I was "so big when your food is so healthy". She asked if I've "ever tried working out". That part was the thing that later pushed me over the edge, because the night before I had had a tough work out with my good friend who's a personal trainer. I've been working out with this friend for 5 years, and all those reps, sweaty t- shirts and lifting goals that had been met felt like they disappeared with this one comment.
All that work and she was asking, concerned even, if my fat ass had ever even stepped in a gym.
After she said all this she looked at me expectantly, like she was waiting for me to say something like "Oh I eat healthy here but go home at night and abuse my skin suit by devouring junk food and overeating because I'm emotionally unhappy". She then turns to another girl who is smaller and comments on how beautiful and thin she looks.
I have gained, lost, and regained my weight in a seemingly unending battle against my body. I'm now 24, and at 5'6' I hit my highest weight this summer of 200lb. I know that some people are higher, or that some couldn't imagine ever hitting 200 at my height , but this was my alarming moment for my body. There were so many moments this summer where I felt my weight climbing, and things would happen to me and I would think This is the moment that will scare me into being healthy or this moment of shame should wake me up but it genuinely just never happened. I would read on this sub and think "Omg that happened to me too, when am I going to wake up and fix this mess" but instead I would internalize that shame or that unhappy moment and just eat my emotions away
I was heavier in high school (though not 200, probably around 180) and when I turned 18 my mother died unexpectedly. I was scared out of my mind that my seemingly healthy mother just suddenly dropped dead. I was probably around 190 at that point, worked my butt off and a year later was sitting comfortably at 160 with a good amount of msucle (always with a goal weight of 140). But then it all became too much. I had some bad boyfriends, uncertainty about my future occupation and some issues with family, and honestly, just some bad food choices because I didn't care anymore.
So now fast forward to today. I've been uncomfortable in my clothes, uncomfortable in my body, uncomfortable around men because I feel unloveable and unattractive. For a while I felt like maybe I was invisible, or that people didn't think I was as big as I felt I was. But her saying that to me was such an unexpected slap in the face. I realized that my weight, and those emotional issues that had egged on my weight were plain as day for anybody to see. That all my hard work in the gym, all my nights of chopping up vegetables were cancelled out by my appearance.
But it doesn't matter because I'm not doing this for her approval of how I look.
That women can shame me all she wants about my appearance and I will continue to make healthy choices for myself. My lunch is not a show. I will not let this derail me, or turn my lunch into what she expects me to eat because of how I look. I am on a journey, and she may have witnessed the beginning of this journey and tried to shame me because my food choices don't match my appearance. But one day they will.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2R8RLkQ
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