I remember that I was in elementary school the first time I was told by my parents that I was getting fat. And their words, and the words of other people, who also felt compelled to comment on my weight throughout my life, probably had an impact on how I viewed myself, and how I interacted with the world. Growing up, it was an unspoken (and spoken) rule that fat people were unattractive. Since I understand now that attractiveness is subjective, I know that this is not the case. However, all I can say for sure is that I felt unattractive. I felt unworthy, and I felt that if I could just lose the weight, that this ugly duckling would suddenly become a swan. And so, as a teenager, I started researching how to lose weight.
According to the commercials I saw on TV, weight was lost with the help of exercise equipment, (some of which promised to give me rock-hard abs by contracting my muscles for me while I lay on the sofa), and with the help of shakes, pills, or weight loss programs. Plus, the internet had just become a thing that people use, and there were plenty of websites that told me about different diets, which suggested that I only drink coffee, or eat cabbage soup, or only macadamia nuts, or only drink honey-cayenne-water mixtures to detoxify myself.
So let’s just say I dabbled in everything. I purchased diet pills, joined a gym, and tortured myself in hopes of seeing results. I remember secretly wishing my parents would send me to “Fat camp” so that I could have the high school movie experience of coming back to school after summer vacation, my body magically transformed into one my classmates would find attractive.
In college, I was able to dabble a bit more, since I was no longer under the watchful eye of my parents. I ate only the macadamia nuts. I looked at “thinspiration” on the internet, and skipped meals. I tried my hand at going vegetarian, and also, vegan. I took “progress photos” in the mirror every week, in hopes of seeing changes. After college, I gained back any and all the weight I may have lost, and added significantly more. In fact, the expression “I wish I looked the way I did when I first thought I was fat” comes to mind. And at that point, I just accepted that I would always be fat. The research I found online told me that 95% of diets fail, that diets don’t work, and that some people are just bigger than others. The internet showed me articles that people wrote about being happy at every size, and wondered why I was unable to be happy. And so, I was basically stuck feeling like a failure for not being happy in my body, and angry that there was nothing I could do to change it. After all, if 95% of diets fail, what is the point? What is the point of being miserable for weeks or months, if you’re just going to gain all of the weight back? And that brings us to today. Not much has really changed in terms of how people get their information about weight loss. There are still plenty of infomercials that promise quick and easy results, for just 4 easy payments of $29.95 (and if you act NOW, they will knock off one of the payments!). In addition to the things shown on TV and magazines, the internet bombards us with quick-fix solutions, and plenty of contradictory information on which diet actually works. (Keto? Paleo? Weight Watchers? South Beach?) And all the while, we are getting heavier, with obesity rates climbing, and research is being brought forth to tell us that being overweight/obese leads to serious health complications. So basically, we are living in a world that is scaring us with the facts of obesity-related complications, and then is also telling us that weight loss is not sustainable.
So when I stumbled upon r/Loseit, and other helpful subs online that basically explained to me how weight is gained and lost, I didn’t believe it. “Surely, it can’t be as simple as Calories in vs Calories out,” I thought to myself. And then I just sat on that knowledge for months, continuing to indulge in my self-inflicted pity-party. It wasn’t until a friend told me that I would work on my weight when I thought I was worth looking like I wanted to look did I realize that the day would never come, and that I may as well just start then and there. I downloaded MyFitnessPal, started doing my best to track what I was putting into my body, calculated how much my body would theoretically burn in a day, and waited to fail, while secretly hoping to succeed. (I really didn’t think I would succeed)
And it turned out that weight loss is actually just as simple as consuming fewer calories than your body burns. (The not-so-easy part is deciding if X thing is truly worth the calories and not eating due to emotional reasons, etc. but when you know how it’s done, that’s like 75% of the battle). That all the time I had spent in my cycle of helplessness was truly of my own making, and all it took was an understanding of how weight worked, and the willpower to “wait and see”. And now, I am armed with the knowledge that I am in charge of my body’s weight, and wish that there was a way to scream it to the world, so that other people like me could find the real information out there, amidst all the garbage and the naysayers. I wish that I could help empower others to change their weight, if that is what they want to do.
So thank you all, for helping 1 person to change their life. And I hope that you continue to help others do the same.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2Q4bbGs
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