I'm not going to link to the post that prompted this response. It contained the "encouraging" image displayed above.
After 33 years of trying to hate myself thin, I was fortunate to discover the principles of Health at Every Size and size acceptance. Otherwise, I would be 56 years old, still fat, and still loathing myself. I not only have endocrine system issues but I completely wrecked my metabolism with dieting. I have an eating disorder (no, not binge eating, which is what most people think when they see someone my size) that will never go away. I fight with ED, my abusive life partner, every day.
Diet culture destroys lives. Being thin doesn't make someone a better person. I don't eat more than my more slender counterparts. Most of the time I eat far less. The medications I'm on tend to kill my appetite. Still fat. Always will be unless I become terminally ill. I refuse to apologize for my body anymore.
Continuing beyond the comment I left on the blog:
I have "just begun" more times than I can count. I used to lose weight each time. Then the weight came back with friends. About 10 years ago, I no longer lost weight when I started dieting.
Below is the only diet that I follow. The Fuck It Diet is the only diet that works long-term for every body.
http://bit.ly/FIDCIE
I also recommend Health at Every Size by Dr. Lindo Bacon.
I'm not really angry at the person who posted this crap because I was indoctrinated into the Diet Mindset for so many decades myself. I just cringe so hard whenever I see it these days. I want to shake people and scream "you're an intelligent person! How can you buy into this shit?"
We buy into it because we're reminded every day that we're garbage if we're not perfect.
As Ragen Chastain of Dances With Fat (
danceswithfat.wordpress.com) always says, you're the boss of your own underpants. I can't tell you not to try and manipulate your body's size through dieting. I'd simply like to suggest that maybe YOU aren't "failing" at dieting. Dieting is failing YOU.
(You can buy Ragen's book "Fat: an Owner's Manual" from her website. You can also purchase this cool book of affirmations for every body that she co-authored.
http://bit.ly/BodyLoveAffirm)
Dieting fails all but a very small percentage of people who engage in it, and the multi-billion dollar diet industry knows it. They wouldn't stay in business if there were diets that worked. Dieting triggers the body's starvation response, which prompts the body to store fat. That's why whenever a person stops dieting and starts eating normally again (in other words, not starving themselves), the weight they lost returns with friends. Eventually, some people stop losing weight altogether unless something catastrophic happens.
I have diabetes. While I'm not a perfect little saint, I do watch my carbohydrate intake. I often have to prompt myself to eat, because Januvia kills my appetite. I have to fight not to fall into the trap of allowing ED to praise me for not eating.
I wish that dieting wasn't so normalized. When I briefly went back to work in an institutional setting after a couple of years working as a home care nurse, I was reminded of just how obsessed people are with dieting. In the employee lounge, it was all the female employees could talk about. I wanted to go out and sit in my car so I didn't have to listen to the constant diet talk. It was, honestly, insufferable.
I'd love to be able to discuss good low-carb recipes without everything always cycling back around to TEH WATE LOOZE!!!111!!
I know...thinness is next to godliness, and I am a dreadful fat devil tempting all the pretty, young, thin people away from their youth and slenderness with my devil's food cake and devil dogs and other devilish treats by refusing to buy into the diet industry's lies anymore.
I honestly don't care about your size, how much you exercise, or your preferred diet. As the late Carrie Fisher opined, that shit's boring. I really hate it when I end up talking about it. I'd rather talk about almost anything else.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
Free use image by Open Clipart Vectors
