- My weight has fluctuated throughout my life.
- When I lost weight, people noticed, but when I gained weigh they did as well.
Recently, I was scrolling and saw my friend's picture. The caption read, "Please don't comment on my weight. I'm much thinner because I have cancer and part of my tongue was removed. I can't eat. When you comment on someone's weight, you never know what they are going through."
I remember being baffled by this concept in 5th grade. A classmate asked the teacher, "Have you lost weight?" My instinct was, "Why would anyone comment on that?" Then the teacher reacted by smiling and saying, "Thank you." I was gobsmacked. Afterward, I told my mom, and she said, "That's a compliment. It's nice to tell people that."
Over the years, my weight has fluctuated frequently. When I lose weight, people say, "Have you lost weight? You look good." When I gain weight, I assume they notice, feel ashamed, and comfort myself with food.
I struggled with my weight throughout my life
I was stick-thin until puberty, when my mom's friend said, "You're getting meat on those bones." It was a gut punch. If losing weight was good, then gaining it was the opposite.
My mom would say, "That food will catch up with you. You'll stop growing this way," motioning growing taller, "and start growing this way," motioning growing fatter. My mom and her friend didn't mean harm, it was society's message their whole lives.
In college, everyone talked about the "freshman 15." So I lost weight and got super skinny. I brought all the boys to the yard. But they never cared about anything beyond my body. This reinforced that your body is your worth.
Later, I met my future husband and gained weight. A co-worker told me that she and others had been talking about it and decided it was because I was in a relationship and "gave up." The message was, "My weight is something people notice."
Upon getting engaged, I did cleanses, fasted, and exercised fiendishly. I lost 45 lbs for wedding pictures. Throughout my life, any diet or exercise I did was to be skinny and never to be healthy.
My marriage was terrible, and to cope I binged food and gained 90 lbs in two years. In the middle of the night, I'd sneak away to McDonald's and eat a double cheeseburger. I threw the bag away in a dumpster before sneaking back in bed with him, none the wiser.
I tried to convince my husband to admit I was fat. Eventually, when he was leaving me, he told me that I had gained weight and he wasn't attracted to me anymore.
Subsequently, I lost 50 pounds. It was to attract new men. If experience had taught me anything, it was that my worth was in being thin. And attract men I did. But, after a while, it stopped being fun. I deleted my dating accounts, and I gained back the weight to keep them away.
I wish more people would accept themselves
Until 2019, I was binging food periodically, followed by spurts of dieting. I saw posts about manic exercising or unhealthy dieting and would hate myself. Now, when I see harmful posts about weight loss or gain, I think maybe they're where I was a few years ago. Perhaps they need to hear another narrative.
My therapist taught me that food isn't moral. You aren't "good" for consuming broccoli and exercising, and you aren't "bad" for eating a brownie and couch-surfing; it doesn't determine who you are as a person. You're making healthy or unhealthy decisions, but they're not virtuous.
I learned to accept myself. It doesn't mean I lack motivation or am in denial. It means I've stopped beating myself up. Acceptance led me to self-love, which inspired me to take care of my body and make healthier decisions. If I hate myself, then I spiral into more self-hate, and the vicious cycle continues.
My friend that I mentioned earlier — didn't make it through her cancer. With her vulnerability in sharing that post, she taught me an invaluable lesson that I will always cherish: it is invasive and rude to comment on people's bodies. I have stopped doing it to others, and I have stopped doing it to myself.