What a dollar a day bought me

A lot of women who plan to lose weight relish the idea of taking "before" and "after" pictures. They also preserve one pair of their pants from their largest size in order to do the cliched picture of themselves at a smaller size standing in one large leg of their trousers. Personally, I find that approach to weight loss disturbing.

The reason that this troubles me is that it trivializes the entire process and skips over the hard parts. It focuses on the beginning and end, and skips over the painful and difficult middle. The pictures of the skinny person in the fat pants that is often used is a mimicry of advertising for diet aids that used to be quite common in the 60's and 70's. There's nothing that belittles the process like aping something designed to exploit your pain and insecurity. The sad part is that people don't even know what they're copying.

Because this wasn't some game to me, nor an exercise in superficial change which I would hold out to the world with a triumphant expression on my face, I never took a "before" picture in June 2009 when I made the decision to lose weight. I did have my husband take one picture of me in October of 2009 as an experiment for tracking my visual progress by using photos (as I was not using the scale). At that point in time, I had already lost between 30-40 lbs. That is the only photo I have at a high weight as I avoided pictures like the plague. I didn't continue with progress pictures because I couldn't look at them and my husband couldn't tell any difference looking at pictures taken a few months apart. This frustrated me so I gave up on tracking by photo.

I'm putting a comparison of what I looked like then and what I look like now on my blog not as some testimonial to my success nor as an inspiration. I'm doing it because I think there are some people who read blogs in which fatties talk about trying to lose weight and believe it's for vanity, societal approval, or some other vapid reason. I want people to see what I was and realize more clearly what it meant to be that person.

Being the size I used to be meant crippling back pain every time I walked or stood for more than a minute. It meant being mocked and tormented by strangers every time I went into public. It meant being unable to shop for clothing that wasn't the largest size and stretchy (and only shopping by mail order). It meant difficulty having sex and diminished pleasure for both my husband and I. It meant never going out to restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, or other public areas knowing I wouldn't fit into the seating and even if I fit, I was at risk of breaking the furniture. It meant difficulty moving, heart palpitations, and having my hands go numb and my back ache when I slept because of the compression of my weight. It meant not being able to fully hug my husband or have him fully hug me. It meant digestive issues, IBS, and fatigue. It meant I was afraid to get on a plane, train or bus and would not travel far.

Losing weight for me hasn't been some "hobby" that I indulged in in order to look hot or something I used to fill an empty life with talk of diets and exercise. It's something which had to happen in order to obtain the same minimal quality of life that others take for granted. In order to understand how diminished I was, it's important to know what I was before. That is why I'm putting up a picture. My "before" body, the one 30-40 lbs. lighter than my true starting weight in the photo above, was extremely hard to live in. No amount of effort to love and accept myself was going to change that reality.

The picture is very painful for me to see. It's not because I'm so huge and I disgust myself. It is because I'm afraid I could go back if I'm not careful to continue doing what I've been doing and I remember all too vividly how hard life was to live at that weight. When I talked in a previous post about dealing with food metaphorically as if I were living on a dollar a day instead of ten dollars, I was saying that that change has bought a better life for me. It didn't buy me beauty, approval, or bragging rights. It didn't give me the upper hand in some coffee klatch discussion about weight with the girls. It bought me a normal existence in which I could walk, go outside and not be afraid or tormented, and have physical contact with my husband without my body being a barrier. It also didn't buy me instant happiness or solve all of my problems, but it did bring me a lot closer to feeling "whole" again.

You Are Not Killing Yourself (Unless You Are)

Occasionally, I watch some fairly old television shows. For instance, I have the Twilight Zone series on DVD as well as some old 50's television shows. One of the things that you notice if you pay attention to how the characters are written and treated is that fat characters are, in general, not treated the same as they are in entertainment these days. In modern entertainment, a fat person can't be on a show without their weight being the focal point. What is more, it is fairly frequently mentioned that their weight is related to health.

In “Friends”, when there is a flashback and Monica goes from being overweight to skinny, she mentions that her heart is safe and she's “all healthy” now. On the Simpsons, “Diabetty” talks about eating sugar and her cousin Cletus says that the doctor is going to amputate her foot if she keeps it up. In modern entertainment, there is a focus on the fact that you are inevitably going to die if you are fat. Note that no one ever mentioned the fact that Ally McBeal was practically a skeleton with a bowling ball on its shoulders in that show and that anorexia can shorten lifespan significantly. The evidence of health concerns related to excessive thinness are ignored in entertainment and emphasized for fatness, even when one is moderately overweight.

Any time weight is discussed, there is an implication that you are going to die from your fat. While it is true that weight contributes to some health problems, it has rarely been proven that that is the main cause of certain illnesses. In fact, I don't know if it has been proven that being fat, as opposed to stress, causes heart disease. People eat when stressed as well as experience increased bad cholesterol levels and a suppressed immune system. Is being fat a correlation to heart disease or a causation? Are we fat because we're stressed and due to that same stress we develop heart disease or do we simply develop heart disease because we are fat?

For many people, the answer to the aforementioned question is irrelevant, because they'd like to lose weight anyway. I'm all on board with that, obviously. If you are unhappy with your body and your life, then you should do what you can to become satisfied with them. I am. However, I think all of the fear mongering about health and weight is greatly overblown and only makes life harder for overweight people. Since I firmly believe that there are many people who for one reason or another simply cannot lose weight, telling them constantly that they are killing themselves with their fat only increases the stress they feel, which in turn increases the chance that they develop any of a host of diseases that can be exacerbated by stress and its effect on the immune system and insulin levels. Their misery and fear will get them fatter (from stress eating) which will make them feel more helpless and fearful. It's a vicious circle of anxiety and bad health effects.

What is worse these days is the conflicting information that is starting to spread like wildfire about dieting, exercise and weight loss. The fat acceptance blogs love nothing more than to say that “dieting kills” and that losing more than 10% of your body weight increases your chances of keeling over. The thing is that they may be promoting this information, but they're not making it up. Studies support these assertions, just as they support the ones about being fat moving you down the street right next door to death.

One might wonder why there is such conflicting data. The answers are actually pretty simple. One primary reason for conflicts is that data is interpreted, and can be seen in different ways by different entities who want to use that data to further whatever their agenda may be. Another is that every person who does a study does so with a small sample, generally with groups of people who are desperate for something or other and are willing to undergo tests or people who are paid or get some sort of academic credit for taking part in tests. The test subjects are not average people and the doctors and researchers tend to structure the tests to increase the chances that their theories will be proven. They don't do this because they are evil or want to misinform. They do it because they want to be right and because they get more financial support for studies that support their ideas when they are correct.

The bottom line is that you aren't killing yourself by being fat nor are you doing it by dieting, unless, of course, you are. Merely being fat is not deadly, and you may never develop a weight-related health issue. Merely losing weight is not deadly, and you may not die prematurely from losing more than 10% of your body weight. Each person needs to regard herself as an individual and try not to simply accept the results of studies about weight or dieting and fear that they are making the wrong choices. Instead of spending every day worrying that you are killing yourself, it's more important to consider how well your body functions for you and how you feel. If you have trouble moving and are in pain, you should probably lose weight. If you are fatigued and your hair is falling out while you try to lose weight, you should probably consider changing your eating plan.

If you're really afraid, go to a doctor, but don't accept any sort of pat conclusion about weight (either up or down) simply because of arbitrary notions of what is "right" for your height and bone structure. Many doctors will tell you to lose (or gain) weight because of potential threats to your health whether there are physiological indicators of those threats in your body or not. This is the doctor advising you based on nothing but fear and a misguided notion that every person will be healthier if she is absolutely statistically average in every regard. You may not be broke, but they think you should fix yourself anyway. And trust me, I've heard from perfectly healthy people who were told to gain weight so it doesn't only happen to fat people.

My objection is never to people making the choices to live their lives as they choose or to live in the bodies that they inhabit. My objection is to the fear-mongering meant to bully people into believing that whatever they are doing is killing them, and the way in which that information is used to place people who may be perfectly healthy regardless of body size into a state of panic which in turn causes them to distort their relationship with food. Fear is by far the most avoidable destructive influence on any person's health.

Dem Bones

Several nights ago, I was lying in bed and placed my hand on the upper abdominal area. I didn't think about what I was doing, but I was shocked to find that I could feel the entire lower ridge of my rib cage. It has been a very long time since I could feel these bones from any position. I will hasten to add that I'm still very fat and it's only my disproportionate upper body loss and the prone position I was in that allowed me to feel my ribs at this time and weight.

There are many women who are losing weight who are absolutely thrilled when they discover their bones emerging under their skin. Some of them have an almost pornographic fascination with fondling their newly palpable collar and pelvic bone ridges. More of my bone structure is starting to emerge and it's pretty much something I'm indifferent to. In fact, my tailbone is actually causing me difficulty because it's becoming more uncomfortable to sit as the padding on my posterior thins, so this whole bone thing isn't exactly part of the scenic wonder I enjoy on what many people refer to as the "weight loss journey".

Seeing and feeling my bones isn't something about weight loss that I have found particularly meaningful, but suddenly discovering that I could feel my rib cage had a strange emotional impact on me, and it wasn't a good one. I had a strong feeling of vulnerability and exposure. It was probably more shocking to discover my rib cage area because this is where my heart and lungs are located, and the sense that they were so much nearer to the surface made me feel uncomfortable, as if they would now be easier to reach and harm.

A lot of people reject the psychological notion that people gain weight as a physical or emotional shield. The reason they feel that way is that it seems too abstract. After all, being fat doesn't really protect you from being hurt. Several nights ago, I had an experience which was profound and palpable which told me that weight very much can feel like added protection from harm. That doesn't mean that I'm going to stop trying to reduce my weight, but I think there is value in being aware of what I'm losing along with layers of padding. I'm losing something that made me feel protected and secure on some level, and I'm going to have to find a way to compensate for that loss. If I don't face this aspect, I'll be more inclined to regain weight in the future.

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As an aside, this sudden ability to feel my rib cage inspired me to weigh myself prematurely. I weighed myself last 16 days before this incident and weighed 260 lbs. I thought that this change was odd and sudden, but my weight was 255 at the time of this incident so there actually was no sudden drop precipitating the ability to feel my rib cage.

I note this in part because I feel grateful that my weight loss is so relatively steady, linear, and has gone "as expected". That is, I continue to lose about 2 lbs. a week, which is pretty much what my goal is until I approach 200 lbs. (at which point, I expect it to drop closer to 1 lb. per week). I'm grateful that my body has been so cooperative, especially when I read so frequently that others have far less fortune.

Reasons

When I was a kid, I remember watching a television movie about an overweight, unattractive woman who was transformed into a beautiful woman. Before she had a car accident and plastic surgery, she was treated badly by all of the people around her. After plastic surgeons made her wrecked body and face gorgeous, she took her revenge on all of the people who harmed her.

This movie was written by Joan Rivers when she was an up and coming comedian known for her biting humor, before she became a joke herself. It starred Stockard Channing, before she became a well-known and well-respected actress. It's called “The Girl Most Likely To...” and has far more comments on IMDB than I would have expected for a movie that aired in 1973.

Perhaps I remembered this movie well because in 1973 I was 9 years old and just at the beginning of my life of torment as the “fat kid”. In fact, I started gaining weight in 4th grade of elementary school at that age. The idea of becoming a future beauty and heaping some pain back on the people who made me miserable everyday must have seemed irresistibly appealing at that time.

At 45, my reasons for losing weight have nothing to do with revenge. In fact, as of late I've been pondering expectations of life post-fatness as well as some of the reasons others have stated they are losing weight. Frankly, sometimes I'm really shocked at the type of things fat women say when they speak on this topic. I don't think that they are going to serve themselves well in the long run in many cases.

I am reluctant to frame any person's reason for losing weight as “good” or “bad”, or any euphemism thereof. Back when I worked in a mental health-related non-profit agency, it was drilled into our heads that such words suggested that people were “right” or “wrong” or that there was some moral judgment at play. We were instructed to talk about “appropriate” and “inappropriate” behavior rather than using other words. I don't think the mentally ill people we dealt with on a daily basis missed the fact that we were simply avoiding using other words. When a client would talk about a case worker's personal life, appearance, etc., we would say they were being “inappropriate”, but I'm sure they heard “bad”.

Frankly, I have little interest in judging people. That being said, I can't help but believe that there are reasons to lose weight which are conducive to long-term success and mental health and those which are conducive to disappointment, bitterness, and weight regaining. In this post, I'm going to consider those reasons. I would like to assert most strongly that these are NOT euphemisms for “bad” or “good”. That being said, any action which is based on vindictiveness, spite, or gratification of the id is likely to be pretty bad. No one needs me to tell them that, unless they are amoral children or psychopaths.

As I've been monitoring reasons that other people have offered, I have broken them down into the following categories based on my feelings and considerations:

Reasons that are conducive to possible future success and contentment:

• health
• mobility
• fitness (average)
• pain reduction

Reasons that are potentially conducive to future success and contentment or failure:

• beauty
• fitness (above average)
• relief from depression
• clothing preferences (either sizes or designs)
• cessation of discriminatory behavior against overweight people

Reasons that are likely to lead to failure and discontent:

• revenge against those who rejected you based on weight
• desire to incur envy in others
• acceptance by those who reject you based on weight
• compliments or positive attention for your accomplishment
• happiness (generalized)
• better romantic or relationship potential
• fitness (greatly above average, unrealistic for your body's capability) 
• competitiveness with others (in regards to weight loss or appearance)

Any reason to lose weight based on external validation or that involves other people is going to greatly increase your chances of failing in the long run in my opinion. One of the reasons for this is that you cannot rely on the reactions of others to meet your expectations. Even if you initially receive praise and are validated during the weight loss process, you will have an increased chance of gaining back the weight you lost in the future once the compliments end and you reach your target. In other words, once life returns to "normal" and you no longer get those pats on the back, your reasons for losing the weight in the first place vanish.

By nature, most people, especially those who have little respect or regard for you, aren't paying enough attention to your internal struggles or the external manifestation of you conquering those struggles to even care about your weight loss. Contrary to popular belief, the weight loss of one fat person is not of paramount interest to every person around you, even when your fatness seemed to preoccupy them. Most people don't care, and only notice in the most cursory fashion. They don't envy you, though they may be threatened by the fact that you have succeeded when they have some sort of egoistic interest in your remaining fat. Even in such a case, their responses are about them, not you. People are far too self-centered to concern themselves deeply or at length with your weight loss or appearance. Therefore, any sort of desire for envy, revenge, etc. is going to provide extremely short-lived satisfaction at the very most, and nothing at all in the least.

To me, beauty is a dual-edge sword as a weight loss motivation. Many people expect beauty to be the ultimate reward for weight loss, but as I have said before, thin doesn't mean beautiful. Most people are average-looking and some are actually ugly, fat or thin. You aren't going to be Angelina Jolie once you shed layers of fat. In fact, you're likely to find that you look "different" but not necessarily "good", especially with the sagging skin, possible wrinkles that were smoothed out by body fat (something I'm experiencing), stretch marks, and other battle scars of obesity. There may be a minority of people who lose weight and actually have the skin elasticity, youth, or genetic potential to become great beauties, but such cases are rare.

Most people are unremarkable. And I don't buy into the idea that "fat = ugly" or that "thin = pretty" anyway, nor do most people (including men). Beauty is largely governed by factors related to symmetry, body ratios, and the size of body parts unconnected to weight (eyes, nose, mouth, height). You can be fat and gorgeous, though the body part ratios (like hip to waist) are often thrown off by excess weight. That being said, most people do look a bit better at lower weights because of improved body ratios and more appealing bone structure being revealed (particularly cleaner jawlines and better cheekbone definition, which are part of the symmetrical aspects which we favor genetically). In particular, most people look better in their clothing at lower weights. Whether or not beauty helps or hampers long-term weight loss depends on how realistic one's expectations are and how invested in beauty one is.

In regards to motivations that promote potential long-term loss, I think health is often the most potent one simply because fear of mortality, disability, or pain are enduring. You may get old and care less about beauty. You may grow mature enough not to be spiteful and vindictive. You may stop preoccupying yourself with something as arbitrary as numbers on clothing tags or styles. You will always have to concern yourself with health, pain, and mobility and the loss of them is potent.

While there is a certain logic behind everything I have said, I actually believe that no motivation is very solid or predictable. I lived for years with enduring physical pain and a lack of mobility. It was only the prospect of having to enter a new and unpredictable environment that pushed me to act. I was comfortable as long as I could operate within my limits in my current situation. Essentially, my feet being put to the fire was my main motivation to start to lose. It is merely my hope that the appreciation I have at present for my state of increased mobility and reduced pain will help me maintain after I lose everything. I just know though, that none of the other fantasy outcomes like those that were in the old movie I mentioned at the beginning of this post will serve any lasting good.

A calorie is a calorie is a calorie, yes

When I read forums or comments about people wanting to lose weight, the most common complaint I hear is something to the effect of, 'I work out everyday and eat healthy food, and I lost a little weight, but I can't lose anymore.' The fact that people believe this type of behavior is enough to lose weight is a reflection on how the  media continues to fail people in regards to informing them on what makes us fat.

If you believe all of what you hear about fat people, you think that they all got that way stuffing their maws with fast food and junk food. You also think they are lazy and watching T.V. or playing video games all day. Here's the thing; you can get fat from any type of food, even healthy food. You can be fat if you are very active. Losing weight is far less about what you eat and do than about how much you eat. Period. You can be thin eating McDonald's everyday and sitting on your duff, and you can be fat eating vegetables, high fiber foods, and lean meat and running 5 miles a day.

The perception that all you have to do is be "good" also shows just how poorly educated people are about calories in general. That is, they think there is a relationship between the nutritive value of something and the caloric density. Oatmeal is good for you. Milk is good for you. If you make yourself a bowl of oatmeal with a half cup of dry oatmeal and a half cup of whole milk, the calories are going to come out to 282. If you happen to add some fruit to it, say just half a banana, you're going to boost that up to around 340 calories. If you add even a tablespoon of brown sugar (or honey) to make it more palatable, you're up to 390 calories. Congratulations! Your healthy breakfast now has almost the same number of calories as two Krispy Kreme original glazed donuts (400 calories). Even without the banana, and with skim milk, your oatmeal is the same number of calories as one donut, and your body is going to treat those calories the same when it comes to fat loss or storage. If you eat your healthy oatmeal and your skinny compatriot has one donut and a black coffee, she's going to be eating less than you.

Of course, you will probably feel sated longer with the oatmeal (probably, though frankly it doesn't work that way for me), and it is undeniably healthier for you as your body can take the fiber and other nutrients and use them to help with vital processes like healing, muscle-building, etc. However, my point isn't that the donuts are better for you or equal, but rather that in terms of weight loss, being "good" isn't going to help you lose weight unless you are very aware of the total number of calories you're consuming in healthy foods.

As long as the stereotype of fat people becoming fat is linked to excessive consumption of empty calories and sloth, people who want to lose weight are going to keep thinking that eating good food and exercising are all it takes to lose weight. It takes so much more than that, and it is cumbersome and fussy. You don't have to count calories, but you do have to reduce portions and be aware of how much you're eating with at least some vague idea of how many calories are involved rather than only concern yourself with what types of food you are eating. To me, this is yet another problem that results from people oversimplifying things. They want easy answers and easy advice, and having to weigh and measure your food, and count calories isn't easy. 

When Compassion is Lost With the Weight

I have always felt that the person I am on the inside is what matters and that valuing or judging people by what is on the outside is not only wrong, but an indication of a weak and immature character. I realize that it is our animal nature to judge by appearances, but we are not simple animals. Humans, unlike animals, are capable of reason, restraint, and morality. Humans also are far less enslaved by their biological impulses than animals. While an animal in heat may copulate, a human who is filled with sexual desire may choose not to act on those desires.

So, I have never accepted the excuse that it’s okay to judge people based on what they look like just because it’s what we may do by nature. We act against our nature in the interests of intellectual, spiritual, and psychological growth all the time. Why should this be an exception to transcending our nature, particularly when we all know that beauty is transient? Few die beautiful if they are lucky enough to survive to a reasonable age.

One of the things that I think has been a psychological struggle for me in terms of losing weight is that it is, in essence, “giving in” to society’s judgment of me. They have been telling me for years that I’m a blight and now I’m finally going to agree with them and change my appearance to one they find more in line with their sensibilities. I don’t agree with those sensibilities, so why am I complying with them? There’s also a sense that I’m giving into all of the bullying I’ve endured for years.

So, if appearance doesn’t matter and I should stand my ground in the face of aggressive people who try to force changes upon me, there is quite a block to overcome mentally. For those like me who very deeply believe that looks are not that important (and I really believe that) and that it is character that matters, this is something that has to be set aside in the interest of doing what it takes to improve health and strength and to reduce stress. Let’s face it, being loathed by society every time you step out the door is immensely hard on a person.

For others, there is another path to pursue. That path is becoming what they once hated. As they find themselves physically merging with the ideals of those who once tormented and judged them, they join the other side. They now judge others for not being able to lose weight and talk about things like others “not wanting to lose weight” or “not being willing to do what it takes”. How soon those folks forget that they themselves were once hopeless and helpless in the face of weight gain.

Many of them at one point in time put on 5 pounds then later 10 and later 15 and then possibly up to 50 or even a 100. At any point on that continuum, did they think to themselves, “I just don’t want to lose weight” or “I’m unwilling to do what it takes.” No, at that point, they were thinking what every suffering fat person thinks. “I want to lose weight, but I can’t manage it.” I try to make changes, and fail and keep gaining.” “I’m enslaved by my desires when it comes to food.” The people who were once overweight and are now thin who judge people who remain fat disgust me, and I frankly think that there’s a lesson that they need to learn. Since I believe in karma, and that lesson can be learned by once more becoming fat and developing the compassion they never had or have lost with their weight, I’m figuring that there may be a reason people who lose weight gain it back beyond never developing proper weight maintenance habits.

Losing at a "healthy" rate

I read a news article late last year about a woman in England who went on an extreme diet that allowed her something like 500-600 calories per day. The diet was overseen by a doctor, and included some sort of nutritional supplements that were supposed to ensure that she got enough nutrients during rapid weight loss. The incentive for her desire to lose a lot of weight fast was a wedding, unsurprisingly. Weddings seem to be the biggest push for many women to shed weight rapidly.

Since this woman weighed quite a lot, perhaps in the 300 lb. range, she dropped about 60 lbs. or so rapidly. One day, she decided to actually eat, and she ate quite a lot relative to her highly-restricted diet, though nothing ridiculous. She may have consumed something on the order of 3500 calories at most, possibly as little as 2000 calories. The number of calories she ate is unknown because there’s no concrete report of exactly what and how much she ate because, you see, she dropped dead.

Everyone who wants to lose weight wants to lose it fast, but weight loss is a tremendous strain on your body including your heart. Your heart is a muscle, and shrinks during rapid weight loss. That means it is in a weakened state. This woman who lost so much weight under a doctors care died from heart failure because the consumption of a larger number of calories so stressed her body that her heart couldn’t deal with it.

My husband and I have talked about my weight loss and he’s pleased that I’m losing weight, but he always cautions me when I say I wish it were going faster. He has said that he believes that a more rapid loss would be unhealthy, and that a slow steady loss (around 1-2 lbs. per week) is better not only in the long run, but also in the short run for my immediate health. The news story that I read last year, while somewhat extreme, provides a good lesson in why that is so. Yes, I’m impatient to feel better about myself, stronger, and healthier, but I’d rather get there with a strong heart and a body that has burned fat to reach my goal rather than a weak heart and a body that has consumed muscle and released fluid-based pounds.

To this end, I decided to go against my assertion about not weighing myself again for a long time to see what my one-month progress tended to look like. As before, I thought very carefully before I dragged out that scale and considered what the numbers would mean to me. In particular, I was considering the effect of it not changing as much as I might hope or more than I might expect. I wasn’t going to do it if I believed the number would have an appreciable effect on my plan. In the end, I decided that I could be sanguine about it and that the value of knowing my progress after one month, something which I have never looked at before, was greater than any potential emotional consequences.

The number was 284, which is 11 lbs. lighter than when I last weighed myself on February 12. This number was not surprising and my emotional response to it was what it was last time. That is, a small amount of satisfaction. It’s really about where I expected to be in terms of monthly loss (which I hope to be around 10 lbs. per month at my present weight and possibly lasting to the 250 lb. range, at which point I expect a slow-down) and where I thought I was in terms of my losses since I started this last year (about 100 lbs. lost by now). This is a range that falls in line with what I feel to be healthy, so I’m pretty happy with it.

The Benefits of Being Fat

Recently, I was participating in a thread on a popular weight loss forum about motivation, and it got me thinking about the many reasons we fail to lose weight. This particular thread was from a woman asking how to get motivated in the face of multiple failures. One of the things I realized as I offered my opinion was that one reason we fail is that success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, at least for some people.

This is the kind of topic that is verboten when the topic of weight comes up in public forums. It’s a little like talking about smoking and the fact that many people who smoke are often thinner than those who do not and that many people feel smokers look “cool”. These are potential benefits of smoking. It’s not worth the damage to your body or the risk, but these are “benefits” for some nonetheless. We can suppress the notion that they exist, but they are there nonetheless.

By pretending that there is nothing beneficial in being fat, we ignore the roots of many failures. If those benefits are important enough to us, and we do not first make an effort to substitute some other healthier pursuit or source for those advantages, we greatly increase the chances of failure when we try to lose weight because we're layering multiple sources of stress on top of multiple layers of unmet needs.

The “good points” of being fat are highly personalized, though I can discuss some that tend to apply to me and to possibly others here. One benefit is absolutely undeniable, and that is unrestricted access to the pleasures of food. If you’ve ever endured a rumbling stomach, a low blood sugar headache, or the stress of resisting an overwhelming craving for chocolate, you know that just doing what you want when it comes to food is an experience in luxurious joy. Not having to censor and control what you put in your mouth is definitely better than having to do so.

Another good point is that you take yourself off the market in terms of many expectations that others have of you. If you’re overweight, you can take intimacy off the books if you like because you can tell yourself you’ll never attract someone. You don’t have to wonder what’s wrong with you when no one loves you because you’ve got the reason ready at hand. No one loves you because you’re fat. You’ll never find a mate because you’re fat. The injustices of life make a lot more sense when you’re overweight. In many ways, your life is simplified. Bad things happen because you are fat.

For me, I realize now that one of the motivations I had, besides anesthetizing myself with food, was that it gave me an excuse to isolate myself from the sometimes hostile, always rejecting environment that I live in. It made it easier to cut myself off from people who treated me like part of a freak show exhibit. The resulting health issues made it easy to justify doing even fewer things outside of my comfort zone.

As someone who was raised to always put others needs and wishes before my own, it was more comfortable to be too fat to do something than to refuse to do it because I simply did not want to. I was off the hook from the voice that said, “everyone will dislike you if you don’t do what they want,” because I could beg off for physical reasons. Depending on your character, there is almost certainly no end of reasons to be fat as a form of avoidance of certain experiences.

There is also rejection of the fashion rat race and looks competition. As long as you are fat, you’ve decided that you’ve lost the race before it has begun. You don’t even have to compete. Let’s face it, the race is quite daunting and tiring. If you grew up poor and couldn't buy much in the way of clothes or make-up, or don’t have features which society has deemed to be beautiful, you have all the more motivation to take yourself our of the running. Being fat allows you to be the hobbled horse who sits out the entire race.

One of reasons that I know I gained weight as a kid was for a sense of “armor”. As the child of an emotionally abusive mother and and alcoholic father, I was looking to put something between me and the pain. I also think that there is a desire to be “big” so that you feel stronger against the forces that cause you to suffer. If adults are harming you, you want to be one, too. If you can’t get there in years, you can get there in size.

More than one person has felt that being thinner will make them more vulnerable to attacks of a physical nature. Bigger means stronger. Weight adds power. Women who were molested or raped as children, or who fear such experiences, may remain fat because it gives them a sense of power.

One of the biggest benefits of being overweight is that it changes both your expectations of yourself and those others have of you. If you're someone who is a perfectionist or expects an unrealistic amount of effort or success from yourself, being fat allows you to put down many of the burdens you're placing on yourself. That is not to say that being fat is a good thing overall, but it is useful to ponder the ways in which it benefits you so you can deal with the loss of those benefits more effectively when you change your lifestyle.

Bariatric Surgery

For a lot of people with serious weight problems, bariatric surgery, that is, surgery where their digestive system is altered in some way to stop them from eating too much, is an answer. On a personal level, the idea of such surgery scares me greatly. I realize that for desperate people, it is almost certainly a good solution, particularly if they're at a do or die (literally) point. Perhaps I actually should be desperate, but I'm not, at least not yet.

The surgery scares me on multiple levels. I've had relatively minor surgery twice in my life, once in childhood and once as a young adult, and it's very painful and traumatic. What is more, I think that our bodies have a balance which we have to try to maintain and damaging myself intentionally to stop myself from overeating doesn't feel right for me. Please don't mistake my saying that as a criticism of people who have weight loss surgery. I have nothing but compassion for their situation (as it is pretty much where I am now) and absolutely do not have any issues with their having made such a choice. If anything, they are much braver than me and are reaping the benefits far more rapidly than my approach.

This may be some sort of complex I have, or part of a broader notion of the meaning of existence, but I think I'm fat for a reason. I think that there is a battle I'm meant to fight as a means of spiritual growth and having surgery would be doing an end-run around the way in which I'm supposed to develop control over my emphasis on a particular sensory pleasure. I'm not a religious person, but I do have a sense that we're all here to learn something and our bodies have been designed to provide opportunities to learn. I have a sense that if I take a "short cut" around the psychological adjustments, then I'm going to find myself back here in the next life (yes, I believe in reincarnation) having to start all over again.

I once had a conversation with my husband about weight loss surgery, and told him that, even if I decided to take that path, I was worried about the long term health effects. He said that, though he could understand that thinking, he felt that the effects of being greatly overweight would probably be worse. Of course, he was right, but it never really felt like the right option for me. I don't doubt at all that it is the right option for some people, and more power to them.