Thursday, December 13, 2018

Weight loss and empathy

Someone I know was being a bit of a dick about weight loss on Facebook today, saying that she had no sympathy for people who “do not do anything to lose weight but just complain,” and that she refuses to commiserate in order to be considered “woke.” Although she may have a reason behind updating such a status, this got me thinking about my own experience. I wrote this on Facebook and thought I would share it here, since I personally find this sub very supportive and understanding:

I’ve often seen that people who are slim—thanks either to good genes, crazy metabolism, or just sheer hard work at the gym—tend to be quite dismissive (sometimes borderline hostile) towards others who aren’t as blessed as them. However, although I wouldn’t necessarily presume to call myself slim (I currently weigh 55.7 kgs which, although within the “Healthy” BMI range, isn’t really evident from my appearance), I have nonetheless noticed that the opposite has happened with me.

Ever since I began taking fitness more seriously, I have become much more sympathetic towards people who don’t have it as easy as some others. I don’t think I was ever hostile towards people who were overweight (or underweight), but these past few months of training have made me more understanding and empathetic in general. Because weight loss is fucking difficult. I won’t sugarcoat it—it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It requires some serious commitment, a pretty solid overhaul of one’s lifestyle and food habits, and an immense amount of discipline. This has not only made my respect towards people who manage to maintain their fitness skyrocket, but also made me realise why some people can’t do so (this realisation is in addition to the very obvious fact that everyone has their own battles to fight and we simply cannot presume to know what someone who belongs to one of the extremes of the weighing scale—a very imprecise marker of fitness and health in the first place—is going through). This augmentation of empathy has, for me, been the single biggest takeaway from my very modest (and still in its infancy) weight-loss journey. :)

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