The Body Issues Post

So I'm trying to lose weight. Again. I keep creeping up towards 150, then freaking out and dieting down to 140, so I can stay in the "normal" BMI range. I get successful at making the lifestyle changes; going to the gym, reducing portion sizes, then I get stressed out, then I stress eat (doritos and oreos are a staple!), stop going to the gym, and gain. It's hard though, because my body loves and loves to gain and hates and hates to lose. They say to lose 1 lb a week, you must have a difference between calorie output and calorie intake of about 500 calories a day. I have found that I maintain weight at that difference, and only start to lose weight at a difference of 700. Which is hard, let me tell you. So I reduce my intake by about 500 calories a day (which puts me just at the "minimum to not starve yourself" of 1200). Then I have to increase output (i.e. exercise) for the extra 200. That, at my weight, is about a half hour of running every day. Now I don't have time to go to the *#$@$&ing gym every day, there is just too much shit that needs to get done. So I try to walk to work (woohoo a measly 50), and when I do go to the gym I do an hour workout instead of just 30 minutes.

But that isn't what this post is about. You see, I can never seem to get a grip on how I feel about my body. I used to be one of those skinny-minny, can't gain weight if I try (seriously I even went to a doc about it) waif. I hated my body then. I got all sorts of sneers about how I must be anorexic or bulemic, envy for something I didn't want, and my body looked like, to me anyway, that of a prepubescent BOY. I felt unfeminine and hideous. Now, at the other end of the "normal BMI range," I still feel unfeminine. Sure I have boobs now, and hips (although that was more of a change in bone structure than weight alone), but I also have rolls and a beer gut. I also have...dun dun DUUUNNNNN!...thunder thighs. I am a "fat chick" in the eyes of many, much less ideal than my former underweight self. I hate myself in the mirror. I want to go back to that skinny 18 year old and tell her to learn to eat right, that even though she thought pounding down fries and pizza would help her gain weight and become acceptable, that really it was too much! That she was lucky she could find clothes that fit!

But then I think...so fucking what? So fucking what if I am 0.8 points "overweight"? My husband thinks I am sexy, I am pretty damn healthy if I do say so myself, and really, I do love my tits. I have nice tits and do not want to lose them! I love wine, I love dessert, and I can enjoy my food without having to constantly calculate how fat it is going to make me. There is so much shame thrown at a) fat people and b) fat women. And by fat I mean anything over a size fucking 6, because you and I and the world all know that it's the current fat threshold in pop culture, and even in medicine (thank the good lord I have a fat doctor; the one time I got a physical by someone skinny she told me "well being a little overweight is ok for now since you're in school and stressed, but you won't be able to get pregnant if you don't bring your BMI down to the normal range" orly, lady? I know pleeeeeeeenty of people over BMI over 24.9 who readily attained viable pregnancies).

So sure, weight is just a number, but no matter what the weight, if it isn't in a narrow definition of normalcy, there is all sorts of shame, faux concern and policing thrown at it. I see this and want to be comfortable in my body, and to love it like my husband loves it (well, hehe, not exactly like my husband loves it wink wink nudge nudge).

But I'm still trying to lose weight. And I suspect every time I creep up towards 150 I will. Sigh.