Leaving my body as-is

Most of the discarded clothes yesterday were things that technically did fit, but not in a way I liked. There wasn't really much in the way of outgrown or motivational clothes left. There was a time.

I recent wrote about recommended increases in my insulin dose leading to higher blood sugar and weight gain.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/08/knowing-my-body-part-1.html

I have made progress over time in accepting my body as it is, which includes being fat. 

I have considered myself fat since I was at least six. 

I have written at other times about how that self-image kept me from recognizing the health and abilities that I had. I have also written that part of surviving that fatness (which I blamed for everything wrong with my life), was that eventually I would figure it out and make it work, and then I would lose weight and everything would be perfect.

The unfortunate thing about that -- and this may sound familiar to some -- is that every time I was ready to try and fix it, I not only failed but put on more fat. It seems like that would be ironic, but there is a lot of logic and science that can tell you a) why that makes so much sense and b) why that works great for an expansive weight-loss industry.

There was a long process of getting to that acceptance, punctuated with many hopes of "Okay, I'm fat, but can't I at least be a little less fat?"

No, apparently.

I had kind of gotten okay with it, and then there was this recent gain. It wasn't fair; I was just trying to be a good patient!

It is probably not appropriate to accept it as my punishment for not pushing back sooner, because that plays into the stigma on fat, and that is unhealthy.

But it is still unfair, and it's unfair that I know that anything I try to do specifically to get rid of it will be likely to fail, and almost certainly result in additional gain.

It means I need to accept this extra. 

It was a source of great stress on the plane, though really, nothing was worse that it had been before.

It might have been an issue if we had tried to go on more rides. For what we did ride it was not an issue, and I am grateful for that.

Let me point out again that no advice is being requested. If you are among the 5% of dieters who successfully keep the weight off (or you have not yet learned that you are actually in the 95), bully for you; don't be obnoxious about it. 

I get the resistance. It is baked into our culture. Even as more and more science confirms it, the biggest difference it seems to make is that diets are now called not-diets-but-lifestyle-changes, but with surprising similarities to diets, right down to the failure rate. 

Believe me, I've tried.

It is hard to discard that mindset that thinness=health, but honestly, as the dieter it was harder to give up on the hope of attractiveness. The thinness=health part just serves as a handy justification for people who want to look down on you. 

I am spending a lot of time now thinking about health, and what it means for me.

Those ruminations have to include an extra fifteen pounds now. I am not happy about it, but I can't let it be an obstacle.