You're Doing It Wrong...

I have lost over 130 pounds, at the moment, counting recent slight regain (hopefully some of it muscle, as I am now lifting 1.5 - 2x what I was a month ago, overall.) I have fought my way, tooth and nail down from morbid obesity to slightly overweight. I know that the vast majority of people who lose large amounts of weight regain it, and then some. So I am paying lots of attention to other successful people's blogs, other success stories on the web. I need to focus, to plant my feet firmly in the grass, and hope to learn from others what works for them, choosing what makes sense for me.

I am noticing a disturbing trend recently. Many of these successful individuals, on a regular basis, point to other people's blogs, to their attitudes, beliefs, struggles, or to the myriad ways to lose weight, maintain or become more fit and say "You're doing it wrong!" This is disheartening to me.

Why? Well, for one thing, I know for a fact that what works for one does not work for another. You can stomp your feet and scream to the sky that your personal experience and/or your chosen brand of science supports this idea. It does not matter how nastily or confidently you state this. My personal experience does not bear this out.

I tried switching out beans for meat protein, for example, eating LESS calories but matching protein amounts and found myself gaining massive fat around the middle, while many people claim that just the opposite happens for them. My friend lost weight doing this, I did not. I was scrupulously honest in my approach. I do not have time to mess around with denial. I wish to change my body composition for the better, and beans did not work. For me.

I lost my weight my own way, a particular method which many people say is wrong. But I'm still here, still ex-obese for the first time in my entire life. I'm still reaching for the body that I want, adapting my lifestyle, working hard. I've seen many people who lost it the "right" way who are struggling, who regained some or all of their weight, and some who did so and disappeared from the blogging world forever and ever. I do not blame them or their methods of losing or maintaining weight. We are all in this together. Sometimes tragedy overwhelms us, or life has a different lesson to teach us just then. I only miss them and wish them well, not feeling any bitterness towards people in those circumstances. I have lost and regained before. I have spun off the track before. I understand how it can go. Many of the greatest success stories have lost and regained before, like Sean from The Daily Diary of a Winning Loser. What matters is that you keep trying.

Another example of "You're doing it wrong" I see a lot is accusing others of a bad attitude. Man, your life is not my life is not his life is not her life. We all need to be supportive of others and understand that they have daily circumstances and life experiences that have shaped them in very different ways than your own. Yeah, there is such a thing as a bad attitude, but pointing to someone or even to people in general and mocking them for their attitude is not going to help, and seems to me the worst attitude of all. Modeling good attitudes, such as finding joy in everyday life, of finding the motivation and strength to live well, of caring for oneself, not tearing down others to make one's self feel better is probably a gazillion times more helpful. Yes, I see the irony here...I'm guilty of criticizing right here and now. But my criticism is of this mean-spirited crap I keep seeing, not the person's own daily struggles. Nobody is always happy/in the groove/motivated. NOBODY.

I accept that each and every one of us has a unique voice, our own way of doing things, methods and struggles and philosophies. What I do not think is constructive is the negativity, the smug know-it-all-ness that points to other people's blogs and says "FAIL." You can choose to blog that way, but I will probably never follow you or un-follow you in the near future. Maybe some people need to hear these negative messages to be motivated, but that's pretty much the opposite of what I've learned about human psychology. It only makes me sick to my stomach when I start to hear that condescension come out. Yet I do see people jumping in together to be nasty, to point to others and mock. It feels so...high school. It feels like a failure to evolve.

I am inspired by other people's inspiration. That's what I find infectious. When they eloquently state what got them going, what keeps them going now, despite all odds. When they celebrate their victories, their beautiful transformation. When they speak honestly about their own struggles, or even when they struggle with their own honesty but keep talking about it. Who amongst us doesn't deceive ourselves, from time to time? No matter what methods each of us choose about eating and exercising and living life, we all have things we can learn from one another. We can support one another. It doesn't mean that we endorse that other person's particular method, that our own is invalid. Your own success and joy and light will attract far more converts to your way than "You're Doing It Wrong" could ever hope to. I would hope.

Seeing Through the Looking Glass...

I started to write this yesterday, but it got too late to finish it.  Thanks for all the well-wishes, I'm finally feeling mostly better today.

I've spent a few days really thinking about internalized size-ism.  Ever since I started the work of posting my pictures, I've dwelt on the waves of emotion that have risen up to the surface as I gazed upon them, each provoking an individual response.  At first I could hardly look at the old pictures.  I did feel a sense of disbelief at the denial I had been immersed in.  I really never did see myself as THAT fat.  I always knew I was big, but I didn't realize how big.  I think that when we look into mirrors there can be a million tricks we play to find the "me" that we want to believe exists there.  I still find myself doing this, angling my face and body to see a more defined jaw, a thinner midsection, sucking in my cheeks to find the bones buried beneath.

Pictures are frozen moments in time; you can't control the image being reflected back at you.  You are forced to face a much more objective version of yourself, freed from the normal filters that your defenses throw in front of your vision.  Normally, when I looked at pictures of myself, my response was to wince, look away.  As a result I almost never looked at those pictures for more than a second or two.  This time was different.  This time I had to choose pictures to post, and to do this I had to carefully contemplate what each photograph was displaying, finding the ones that showed what I really looked like each step of the way that I was willing to share.

At first I found it extremely painful.  I felt embarrassed, shocked, and disgusted when I realized how truly obese I appeared in the pictures.  I found it hard not to be judgmental about each and every one down to the latest set.  I focused on the flaws.  I agonized over the choices, but I made them.  I cropped and brightened, posted them to my blog, made up captions, reviewed and revised endlessly, swapping them out to better tell the story.  A few days passed during this process.  I read other people's blogs while I continued to work on my own, read about their own issues with self-image, and had revelations about how my feelings were evolving as I commented on theirs.  As I scrolled up and down my little filmstrip, something began to happen.  I realized that I had been judging myself in a way that I would never level at another.  Never.  My own dear friends are of all shapes and sizes, from the largest to the skinniest, I love them without prejudice and don't ever even consider what they weigh, only the loveliness that comes from the whole of who they are.  Why am I so hard on myself? 

There was so much internalized size-ism bubbling up from within.  I remembered all the reasons why.   My parents, peers and other adults were ruthless, tearing me down for my appearance at every opportunity.  Add that to the prevailing social attitudes I grew up with where you are thin or you are worthless.  I took it as a child, never able to stand up for myself. I swallowed it and felt shame, though at least part of me felt it was wrong.  I secretly vowed as a child to never judge others by their looks, but it's been a constant struggle to overcome my own feelings of self-loathing, instilled by others.  I was made to feel ashamed, guilty, unacceptable.  I realized that's why I couldn't look at those pictures without it being so painful.  It's very complicated, this seems overly simplified...it's like internalized racism or any other prejudice.  If you're surrounded by it, it poisons you, even if you reject it on an overt level.  My favorite performance artist, Guillermo Gomez Pena helped me see this, that every single one of us walks around with internalized shame and prejudice.  In order to deal with internalized prejudice, you must bring it out into the light, examine it, share it, exorcise it.  Putting up these pictures and talking about here now means that to me.

Repeatedly seeing the pictures began to desensitize me...I no longer flinched and felt bad.  I began to see that I was more than the weight on me...the sparkle in my eye, the way I lovingly held A, the stylishness of that outfit...it was really me in each of those pictures, and there was nothing wrong with who I was. 

Why am I trying to lose weight then?  I'm proud of my ongoing transformation.  I do think that, at least in my own opinion I am now more physically attractive, and I know that am healthier and happier.  But being fat doesn't make me a bad person, and I don't need to feel ashamed of where I've been.  I just wasn't ready to heal in that way yet.  At various times I was working on various things, maybe healing something else, maybe stuck and hadn't hit the point where change had become imperative.  And that's okay.  The pain and suffering, the struggle contributed to who I am today.  Someone who champions the underdog.  Who sees through outside layers to the heart of things.  A person that appreciates diversity and uniqueness, instead of someone who clings to some unattainable uniform vision of who we ought to be sold to us from the powers above.  Someone who knows how easy it is to get stuck, and what it takes to find and embrace change.

This is a very delicate thing to talk about because I don't want to make the implication that being fat means that someone is stuck, wounded or has something else wrong with them.  It doesn't mean that at all.  I meant that for ME, and me alone.  I do not feel that I am healthy and happy when I have a lot of extra weight; it is my choice to lose it.  I think it is completely individual, this choice.  I have a friend who is quite large, and she is happy, vibrant, wittier than ten of me, and I wish I could be her for a day.  She's an actress, comedian, singer and showperson extraordinaire, and the most popular person I know.  She is at complete ease with herself, flirts with people constantly, shoot, even I have a little ol' girl crush on her, to be perfectly honest.  She's perfect the way she is. 

But my journey is different than hers.  I don't think my body and face look as attractive with weight as hers does.  I have health issues that losing weight helps address.  I have emotional issues that are untangling along with the weight loss tied to child abuse, comfort, gender identity, sexuality, loss, self-esteem, all manner of things.  I am not a witty vibrant actress, overflowing with natural charm -  I have a different shape to my soul that demands a different container to be expressed the way it always wanted to be.  I also don't want to sound like a Pollyanna, spouting some gussied up false message that taking this path is all rainbows and glitter and happiness pie.  It's hard to feel your feelings, to make yourself face painful things, to become more disciplined and put forth an effort.  It's not easy, but like most developmental and healing processes, it's worth it, at least to me.  This is the right way for me at this time.  I guess I do have a message of hope, because hopeful is how I feel.  YMMV.  My truth is my truth alone.  Nobody has to feel the same way I do about it.  They can talk about how much it sucks, how it's a drag and a struggle and no fun at all.  They can decide that they are happy to be heavy, and that's totally okay too.  I, myself feel very lucky to be here, becoming what I've always wanted to be.  And I'm very glad that I took the risk to put those pictures up.  It gave me a chance to begin seeing through the illusions, both good and bad that I've always attached to my self-image and into who I really am.

Beating the Odds Together

You've heard it over and over.  That most people fail to lose weight when they try.  That almost everyone who does manage to lose weight will inevitably gain it all back and more.

I bought that, for many years.  I mean, I did TRY to lose weight, and sometimes I would be successful for the briefest amount of time, but then, boom, I did indeed yo-yo right back up the scale.  Once I lost 80 pounds and kept it off for a while on a no-grain/starches/lactose diet I was on to curb IBS that seemed to be developing into Crohn's disease (it totally worked, along with a strict and expensive gut-healing regimen after a few years, different story), but as soon as I added back any carbs, it all crept back on, bit by bit over the next three years, plus 5 pounds, maybe more.  Somewhere in my heart, I had accepted it.  I believed that I couldn't really do it.  I thought it was inevitable.

This time is different.  Why?  So many reasons.  But I think the number one reason is - I don't believe the lie about it being impossible to lose and maintain your weight any more.  I've seen too many people succeed to believe it.  I am not alone in my journey.  And neither are you.

Suddenly there's a whole community available, without barriers, as long as we have access to the technology.  I keep seeing the blogs and sites of people who have lost hundreds of pounds and have kept it off for years!  When we read one another's stories, we gain insights into our own.  The reasons for our weight problems, what we are clinging to or medicating, the physical things that need healing, the emotional issues that need solving, the different paths to freedom.  We can talk over what works for us and what doesn't work.  I see the positive examples, the people who have made it.  I see the support that we can offer one another, and it is incredibly powerful.

Once I started seeing success after success, something clicked into place.  Once I saw with my own eyes that what was "common knowledge" about losing and maintaining weight being next to impossible was a lie, it became possible for me, too.  I had to find the methods that worked for me and heal myself physically and emotionally.  Still on my journey, but I'm telling you, it's totally different this time.  Life is new.  I've lost over 100 pounds.  I can't see myself ever going back.

Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being out there.  Thank you for showing me the way.  Thank you for exposing the lie for what it is.

I haven't forgotten about the award, 266, btw.  Had an exceedingly wacky day yesterday, full of both pleasant and unpleasant surprises, and in my spare time I've been hunting down my 15 newly discovered bloggers to hand it off to.  Hopefully tonight.  Best to all of you.