So I've lost weight before, and I did it through /r/loseit. I weighed things. I tracked calories. I meal prepped. I ate diet foods and "substituted" things - fake sugar for real sugar, yogurt for sour cream, halo top, etc etc. I ate a relatively repetitive diet - a mind boggling amount of chicken, lentils, and eggs. And I was pretty happy. And I got smaller.
And then I regained the weight. A LOT of things contributed to it - I got really, really major surgery that meant I was immobile and on a lot of pain medication for a while. I started law school. I moved across the country. (All of this happened in a month...) But something else happened that I think got me off track more than any of that: I moved in with my best friend.
My six foot tall, very very thin, best friend. She is very into intuitive eating and listening to your body etc etc which works great for her, and is so enthusiastic about whole nutrition and eating natural foods but man if I listened to my body do you know what it says? EAT AN ENTIRE BLOCK OF CHEESE ALONE IN YOUR ROOM AND CHASE IT WITH A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY YOU WORTHLESS BITCH. I can't listen to that shit! I have to TELL my body what to do!
But I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that while she gravitated towards what was best for her I needed to weigh and measure everything. I felt ashamed that while she avoided everything processed and artificial I used stevia for sugar cravings and whateverthefuck goes in halo top. She didn't have a scale because she didn't believe in weighing yourself, and definitely did not weigh her food. She is kind and loving and I am sure she would have been supportive if I'd continued my previous habits, but next to her, I felt ashamed. And so I stopped. And I gained the weight back.
[There are a few things I should have realized at the time: the fact that she was WAY taller than me meant the TDEE that would keep her exactly in the middle of the BMI range puts me one point away from obesity, and the fact that she smoked cigarettes daily and did cocaine were not unrelated to how thin she was. But I digress.]
But the shame is weird. I live with someone else now who never uses the kitchen so it doesn't come out. But why IS it so shameful? I am not, and never will be, a naturally thin person. Which doesn't mean I can't be thin. It just means it takes effort, which I'm okay with. But admitting that - admitting that not being fat is hard for me to do makes me feel embarrassed. My friends know I'm "eating healthier" and have commented I'm losing weight but they have no idea I count calories and weigh all my food. Even though I feel so good and it puts my mind at ease I worry it looks obsessive and weird.
I seem to have friends that fall into two categories: either they're super super health obsessed and really fit and into like tracking micronutrients and all that, enough so that my "fat habits" would be appalling instead of relatable for them, or they're significantly overweight (obese or close to it). Maybe that's why I'm so uncomfortable with my own eating habits - they don't seem to mimic anyone else that I know in real life, at all.
Is there anyone else who feels this way? How have you dealt with it?
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2DaafLD
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