Thursday, August 04, 2011

You have my permission to love your body.


" Just remember: You only have one body and despite how well you live your life, it may never change. Can you afford to hate yourself for the rest of your life?" -Linda Bacon



I stood up in the meeting.
I explained that I had had success in EVERY area of my life that I put my mind to- but this one.
If I had a goal that sang to my heart I accomplished it. I had got into OT school when it was harder than medical school to get accepted. I had fought addictions. I had a wonderful marriage. Beautiful children, and I had accomplished financial goals so that I could be a stay at home mother.
But then I publicly acknowleged that in that one area I always failed.

Can you guess where I was?

It could be any number of "hate yourself" places that dot our landscape, but that particular night it was Weight Watchers.

Did I lose weight? Yes.

Did it say off? no.

After years of intense willpower and numerous attempts, tears, and failures, a wonderful support system, prayer, and inner enlightenment. I have moved past those issues of feeling inferior because of my body. I don't have a "weight loss" blog. I don't visit yours. And trust me a lot of beautiful fat women have them: Here is my family blog - here is my weight loss blog.

I have a testimony because of the Gospel that one of the most important reasons we are here is to have and enjoy this body we were given.

I have definite opinions on the topic.

To put it in a nutshell, I think our obsession with weight is a full on attack from the adversary to make us feel like crap.

How much emotional and financial energy is wasted on our weight and obsessing about our bodies?

And its not even about our HEALTH.

its really about our SIZE.

Recently I started reading this book on my mom's kindle and I was so impressed with all the thorough and honest research I was mesmerized. I kept daydreaming about meeting the author in person and hugging her like crazy.

I am going to do an entire series on my blog about this topic. It needs to be talked about.

The general premise of this book: Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon is that our focus should be on improving our health NOT our size.

Because despite our best efforts at dieting you may be harming yourself more than helping. Many people who diet frequently end up weighing more. Drugs and surgeries may make you thinner - but the longevity of that is debatable, and the research shows you will NOT be healthier.

We should focus on WHOLE, healthy foods.
Intuitive eating - eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full.
Move your body.



Here is an excerpt:

"Until recent decades, adult weight stability over long periods of time was the norm and was an effortless process....
The healthy weight that your body aims for is called your set-point weight. Think of it as the preferred temperature on a fat thermostat. Like any thermostat, this one can be set at whatever point is most comfortable. The system then works tirelessly to do ANYTHING it can to bring your body in alignment with that point. It acts like a biological force: The further you go from the center, the stronger the pull to get you back to the comfortable range.

This system only works if we let it, however if you keep "jiggling" the thermostat via diets, the mechanism breaks down. This jiggling is like a power struggle to wrest control away from your body's innate weight-regulation system and in the end it only makes your body fight harder to retain control. The result: Your body forces you to not only REGAIN any weight you've lost, but you may even pay a penalty with extra weight gain, and a new setpoint weight set higher to protect against future restrictive diets.


My hot button topics that I'm going to blog about over time:

- How much I think gym class can hurt kids who aren't naturally athletic and over time develops a HATRED of exercise when it should be doing the exact opposite.

- What stupid things we say, even complimentary sometimes that make women feel sad about their bodies (I may even talk about the baby shower that I cried the whole way home from)

-Is accepting your size like giving up? Is is support of unhealthy habits? - short answer: No.

-Weight loss surgery - paying someone big money to force your body into malnutrition. (I may get my mom to guest post - she had weight loss surgery when I was a toddler. I grew up to the regular sounds of her vomiting.)

-Why the media talks of those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia with compassion and those who are fat like they are demons. Why is making fun of the fat person completely accepted across all venues of entertainment?

- Are you a restrained eater? If so you may be making your own life difficult. Are you a super taster? FASCINATING stuff!

-Fat children were excluded from protection in the Safe Schools Improvement Act - a measure to prevent bullying. How is that possible? If you don't think being bullied for your size is an issue - you obviously have never been bullied or seen a fat kid be bullied.

and more...


ps. here is my favorite review on Amazon about the book:

Health at Every Size starts with a discussion about the social and cultural myths surrounding weight. She talks about how at different times in the last century, women's magazines have had articles about how to GAIN weight, instead of how to lose it. Maybe the most important lesson in the book is how the weight loss industry, which includes government agencies, lies and manipulates statistics in order to make us believe that if we are fat, we are going to die.

1.) We're all going to die. Skinny does not equal immortal. (In case you were wondering.)

2.) The Center for Disease Control helped to design the `obesity crisis' with false statistics.

3.) The act of trying to obtain a `perfect' weight causes far more health problems than the act of trying to be as healthy as possible at your current weight, whatever that may be.

The first part of this book, for me anyway, felt like a battle cry.

The next part of the book talks about Health at Every Size and how to implement it into your life.

I'll admit something here. I skipped ahead to section two. And I was confused. Because I was looking for menu plans and concrete steps to follow. I've read a lot of diet and `life style change' books, starting with Susan Powter and ending right here. They all have steps to follow.

This book doesn't break HAES down that way, and at first I was confused. Because-well, how am I supposed to do this if you don't tell me how? Where are the charts? What about a training schedule or a list of HAES friendly snacks?

Then I went back and read from the beginning. (This was one of those times that my penchant for reading books backwards didn't work out for me.)

Turns out that HAES isn't a diet. I was a little slow integrating that information, because I actually knew that going in. It isn't a fitness plan. It isn't anything other than a validation, permission to treat yourself well right this minute. So Bacon's section two talks more about easing yourself out of what may well be a decades long addiction to dieting. It gives you permission to exercise because it's fun and feels good, or even as training, rather than as a punishment for the sin of being fat. To enjoy whatever food you want to eat-literally, whatever food-without putting a moral judgment on it.

HAES breaks down like this:

1. Love yourself. Yourself today, not yourself 10 or 50 or 150 pounds from now. Your body is just your body, it is neutral morally.

2. Eat good food, eat what you want and enough of it, and stop when you're full.

3. Move because it feels good, it is good for your health (yes, even if you never lose a pound) and it's fun.

Deceptively simple, right?




10 comments:

Meg said...

Ooh ooh what about everyone who is big has to have a medical excuse: ie thyroid issues , eating disorders, emotional anxiety, hormonal issues.
I have seen that if people are talking about weight or dieting, if there is someone big there they feel the need to present an excuse for their body. I DON'T!!!!!

Heather said...

Wow, I am totally going to look at this book. Thank you!

Kleanteeth said...

The concept is right. It is about health. I don't agree with dieting because that means something temporary. It's about lifestyle. The thing that bugs me a bit is that we accept or settle for a body and health and say that is what we want when really we are too lazy to exercise or cook healthy foods, etc. I find myself rationalizing many things.
You should travel a bit. There are entire societies who don't obsess about weight and being fat is actually desirable. It is really comfortable to be there. I didn't see a mirror for 3 months, it's eye opening. However, I have seen health issues sky-rocket along with weight and the introduction of western food. To deny the relationship between diabetes, hbp-heart issues and weight is ignorant. Here we have the luxury of being lazy because we have a drug for everything. It is so much easier to use medication than actually fix the cause. And I'm not saying skinny people never have hbp, it happens too, but in general.
About kids and P.E, I think all kids, all ages need it. Kids don't hate exercising because of p.e., they hated it before that and it's usually the only exercise they get. Playing xbox soccer is the closest thing to exercise a lot of kids get. Raising kids to not obsess about weight is good. Raising kids and teaching them to eat healthy, proportionate, an exercise is good. Raising kids and telling them that basically it is inevitable that they will be bullied and fat their entire lives so they might as well get used to it and be happy with their bodies now is child abuse. Give them a chance to be different. Maybe they don't want to be us, but as parents we control things, and by the time they realize it, they are us.

Janie said...

You hit the mark on a few points but miss it entirely on others.
I loved to walk, ride bikes, and run as a kid. PE traumatized me and is doing the same to my kids. You are making bold assumptions on somehting you personally have not experienced.

and read the book - cholesterol, high bp and diabetes - have not connection to weight. only lifestyle choices. Skinny folks experience those things and fare worse from them when they do.

the american diet is evil. there are food choices and government subsidies that damage everyone health. western junk food has become cheaper per calorie than REAL food.

All that is a terrible state of affairs - we are very unhealthy as a nation, but the news programs can stop showing the headless fat woman and bemoaning the obesity crisis.

It really has nothing to do with our size.

Kleanteeth said...

Western diet is awful. It is way cheaper to eat unhealthy. But do we sue McDonalds for making us fat and unhealthy? Agency.
True, I haven't experienced being traumatized by p.e. Maybe it isn't for everyone. What is the way to get more activity into schools? It shouldn't be just for athletes, but I guess team sports are the cheapest way to go.
I have read the book, many books. I'm sure you can find multiple sources to prove multiple sides of views to find what you want to believe.
It's true, though, society is harsh to fat people. It's hard to say on one hand that over-eating needs to be taken seriously as an addiction on one side and that there is nothing wrong with being fat on the other. Can't have it both ways.

Janie said...

You've read this particular book? I find that hard to believe since you contradict its findings in your off hand statements.

You are assuming that all fat people overeat - and that is not the case. So if someone eats healthy, exercises and is still fat they should be ashamed because its not "ok"

what about skinny people who eat crap - do they get sh*t from people.... nope.

Cathy said...

I am just home from the annual NAAFA conference and attended some interesting workshop session. One from a dietician who quoted quite a few statistics on the inaccuracies that people accept as fact because they are so often used by the media and by doctors. I think that ALL people regardless of size should educate themselves on what health at every size means. I am soo lucky to have had the chance to attend this convention!

Kleanteeth said...

Weight is not a mystery. A body requires so many calories to maintain. If you consume more than you burn, you gain weight, it's that simple. So it's not an assumption. There are few exceptions. Some people have faster metabolisms and can play with more calories, they are just lucky. You give s*** to skinny people who eat crap, but for the most part no, I agree it's not fair.

Cathy said...

Oh, kleenteeth... I can't disagree with you more. Weight IS a mystery. Each body requires a different amount of calories to maintain itself.. isn't that a mystery? Experiments have been done... control the activity level of a group of people, feed them the same thing, and they gain, lose, or stay the same. How can that be? I had Weight loss surgery in 1981. I can eat no where NEAR the amount I ate prior to surgery.. yet in the 30 years since my surgery, I have regained all the weight. It is metabolism, genetics, insulin resistance and use, allergies, and a million reasons in between. I don't think Janie gives sh** to skinny people who eat crap - I think she just makes the comparison of how people "blame" a fat person for what they eat but excuse that behavior in someone of a socially acceptable size. I am hopeful that "intuitive eating" will become the norm and that people will stop the dieting regime. Long ago an endocrinologist told me that I am the size I am because I was just a wonderful dieter. I did NOT understand that at the time, but after reading HAES, I do. I did not set out in my life to be the mountain of a woman I am. I just spent waaay too many hours trying to be what I am not - to please people who blamed me for being fat, without understanding my journey or walking a mile in my shoes. Every day I ask Heavenly Father to continue to give me the strength to keep going and to surround me with people who are enlightened enough to understand the dynamics of body size. I am tried of being the world's whipping boy. I tried each day to raise my children to love themselves and to see only possibilities in the world. I never used the word "fair". It is what it is. Fair is everyone getting what they need - not getting the same. Okay.. enough out of me. Peace - and out!

Janie said...

here's a great post from someone else who puts it perfectly:
http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/long-healthy-life/

from that:

Even if we assume that being fat is a choice for every single fat person (and I don’t think it is), the treatment is still unequal when compared to others who choose a “risky lifestyle”. Nobody is launching a “War against sedentary thin people who only eat fast food”. If an NFL linebacker needs two seats on a plane people ask for his autograph. If a fat woman needs two seats on a plane people publicly humiliate her.

I lived a diet lifestyle for many years and I know what that looks like. Restricting food, working out far beyond what was healthy for my body, losing weight, gaining it back, never being happy with myself, my body or my situation.

The thing we’re forgetting about is having the happiest life. I choose Health at Every Size for the same reasons that I hear from people who choose to skydive. I think that the odds are in my favor and if not I choose the fullest, happiest life – not the longest one. If a healthy diet and exercise aren’t enough to keep me healthy then I’ve made my peace with that because I’m happy, I feel great, and I love my life. I’d rather have fewer years of that than more years of hating my body, and trying a strategy that fails 95% of the time.

I think that the odds are in my favor that healthy behavior gives me the best chance at health. And I get to make that choice, just like you get to choose to eat a vegan raw food diet, do two hours of yoga a day, and do it all living in a bubble if you want. And maybe I’ll die of a heart attack at 40 and wonder if dieting would have given me more time. Or maybe you’ll get hit by a bus at 40 and wonder what cake tastes like. Or maybe we can hang out when we’re 90 and talk about how both of our health choices were valid. Either way, we’ll be living with the consequences of our own choices and that’s exactly as it should be.