I guess it's fat day

[firecat]

I made this comment in janetmiles's journal. She linked to an interesting article about self-image written by a professor who considers himself fat.

He wrote: Weight loss is usually presented as some kind of road to personal fulfillment and salvation through self-control. But the thinner I get, the angrier I feel. The more I conform to the morality of slimness, the more I want to lash out at people.

I completely relate to this, and it's one of the most important reasons I won't focus on weight loss. I don't like being angry all the time.

"They" say that being fat is bad for your health. "They" don't usually say much about stress hormones being bad for your health, but whenever I am severely stressed, I can feel those hormones destroying my body. So I think avoiding stress is the best thing I can do for my health - better than undergoing the stress I feel when I try to achieve a lower weight. But if I'm wrong, and fatness is worse for my health than stress, then you know what? I really would rather live a shorter, more contented life than a longer, angrier one.

So I win either way by not buying into the game.

Sometimes I see people looking at me angrily and the only reason I can figure for their doing so is because I'm fat and that offends them, because maybe they make efforts not to be fat and they don't like it that some people don't bother to make those efforts. I feel sorry for them.

Note: You probably know that I have opinions about weight loss in general, but I'm not discussing them in this post. This post discusses my feelings and choices about my own life (and some speculations I have about strangers who act angry with me for no reason).

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I really would rather live a shorter, more contented life than a longer, angrier one.

Amen, sister.

The older I get, the more I'm inclined to jettison behaviors, attitudes - and occasionally people - that add negative stress to my life*. The weight-loss game was one of the first to go. Fuck that. This is my fat body, I love it, my lover loves it, and if some stranger on the street is disgusted by it, that's their problem, not mine.

(* Some kinds of stress - struggling to learn a new skill, for instance, or sorting out a communication problem with a loved one who's willing to work on it - can be positive and growth-inducing. But I've learned to trust my instincts; if I find myself angry, frustrated and unhappy most of the time, then that's a sign I need to stop doing whatever it is that's making me feel that way.)

[firecat]

Isn't getting old wonderful? :-) (In some ways at least.)

For me, struggling to learn a new skill that I want to learn feels wonderful, even though there are elements of frustration in it. I don't feel stress hormones chewing up my body. I feel an excited buzz. Communication problems of the kind you describe count as struggling to learn new skills that I want to learn, although sometimes I feel anxious while it's happening.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Getting old rocks. (-:

And yeah, that's exactly what I mean by the difference between good stress/bad stress. The biochemistry, as it turns out, is very similar, but I think it's rewards - real or anticipated - that makes it fun, as opposed to hellish.

For me, weight loss simply doesn't offer that kind of reward; it doesn't make me healthier, happier or more at home in my body.