TLDR: My dad made me weigh myself in front of him every day and made me sit in hot cars with the windows up without water to “burn more fat”.
I’ve had scattered bits of weight loss journeys for the past 15 years or so, and am now recently having good success (down 20 pounds) and newfound confidence at 29 years old. This has, of course, brought back past memories of losing weight and all the trauma that came with it.
There’s two particular situations that stand out to me. For some background, my dad struggled with his weight for most of his adulthood and managed to lose ~80 pounds within 3 months right before he started trying to get me thinner.
First, he would go with me to the gym and tennis and constantly remind me to sweat more, (This was literally his suggestion) while showing me how much he had sweat compared to me. We would then go to a sauna, or drive home in a hot car with the windows closed, to help with the “burn”. He also kept reminding me and stopping me from drinking water as that would “stop” the fat burn. Once home, we would immediately go to the scale and he would watch me weigh myself and either give me a high five or be disappointed in the effort I gave during my workout. He would sometimes also weigh me before and after a meal to see how much I gained. This crazy weighing routine pretty much continued until I was out of the house for college and started refusing him information, though he would still try to get me to tell him my weight.
There was a particular summer when he was traveling a lot for work and I had to work out by myself. That freedom was awesome. Though, like clockwork, he would call every single night to check my number. Since he wasn’t around to scare me into listening, I would make up numbers, thinking I would lose the weight quickly later before he returned. Boy did I get yelled at when he finally got home.
The other thing my dad did, that creeped me out a bit, was that he would comment on the figures of my friends. Like “look at her legs, don’t you want those legs?” or “so-and-so gained/lost weight recently”. Sadly, it made it hard for me to stay friends with some of those people because I started feeling weirdly jealous of them, more because of my desire for my dad’s approval than wanting their bodies.
It’s weird now. I want to love my dad but every little comment he makes about food or exercise make me feel a little physically ill. All I want is distance from him now. The crazy thing is that when I was a teen, I was about 30 pounds overweight, which I feel could be easily helped in positive fun ways. Instead, my parents put me on Nutrisystem (disgusting btw) and gave me so much pressure that I was researching Lapband surgery at 15.
All in all, I’m just so grateful for all the information on the internet these days and especially this subreddit. It feels a lot less lonely with the support of everyone here.
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