(no subject)

[serene]

Thanks so much to everyone who listened to me the other day and responded to my rambly, frustrated post with understanding and compassion. It made me weepy, and glad to have such a support network around me. It also made me feel like I was wise in choosing a network of friends and acquaintances who are smart, caring, and kind. Thanks, everyone!



1) I have a lot invested in not-dieting. I'm okay with that. Not-dieting saved my life.

2) I really like my body at its current shape/size, and none of this stuff seems to make me want to change those, which is an improvement over the me of twenty years ago.

3) Talking things out with my friends really does help me figure out which stuff is important to me and which isn't.

4) I fear that my friends will respect me less if I have issues around food; it's obvious to me that that's not true, but it's still a fear I have.

Y'all said some really good things, and it felt like I was coming out of the closet. I have so much wound up in being seen as a person who loves her fat body -- and I really do love my fat body; that's not an act -- that it felt like telling a deep, dark secret to let people know that I have these particular food/body issues, especially when I haven't dealt with eating-disorder stuff in years and years.

The thing that rang the loudest, clearest bell for me, though, came from wild_irises:

I guess I'm not sure if you want to change your eating habits to see if things get better, or if you want to change your eating habits because they're the only thing left to change. If it's the first, a scientific spirit of inquiry might help (along the lines of "If I eat that instead of this, I'll screw up the experiment and I won't know").

This really got at the heart of what I want. I want to see if a shift back to the foods I used to base my eating on will also shift my health; I'm not feeling like punishing myself, and I really don't think I've done anything wrong even if my eating *has* had a negative effect on my health -- being ill isn't a moral failing, and eating different foods doesn't make me a better person.

Fortunately, the foods I used to eat are foods I like, and I'm not planning on eating any less or anything, so maybe with some good self-talk (translation: by reminding myself a million times a day), I can keep my hindbrain satisfied that not every diet[1] is a weight-loss diet, and not every shift in eating is about punishing myself.

Maybe not, though, and if it starts feeling like I'm harming myself, I can stop, and y'all will come and say "there, there" to me and shit, right?




[1] Calling a diet a "change in lifestyle" or "eating better for my health" or any other euphemism is also not something I'm willing to do. If I'm gonna do something that worries me on some level, I'm gonna at least call it what it is.

Comments

[hel]

I didn't comment on the previous thread, cos by the time I got there, everything I'd have said had been said. I'll say this now tho. Anything one eats is one's diet. Diet means what you eat. If you read a description of any given animal, it will say something like diet includes X Y and Z. The meaning of the word has been co-opted to mean temporary change of eating habit for purposes of weight loss, but that's not what it actually means. So, that's my $.02

[waywardcats.livejournal.com]

Someday I'll get over my shock that wild_irises was able to clarify things for someone. How unlike her. :-)

But seriously, I am glad you posted this. I wonder can you think of it as "my diet" instead of "a diet"? And would that be enough to take away the negative connotations for you?

I hope the shift back to food you used to eat more of helps you with your health.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of that, too. I hate it when special interests co-opt perfectly useful words/phrases (my pet peeve in this is "family values").

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

While I don't disagree with you on the dictionary meaning of the word, the meaning of a word isn't limited to the strict denotation of it. Words have baggage.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I didn't comment in the original post because by the time I got to it, all the good stuff had been said (and, yeah, second on the fact that I'm shocked, *shocked I tell you!*, that wild_irises put her finger right on the crux of the matter - and yes, I wrote that sentence deliberately :P :)).

Maybe not, though, and if it starts feeling like I'm harming myself, I can stop, and y'all will come and say "there, there" to me and shit, right?

Of course!

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

*shuffles feet*

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Having your (my) finger on the crux of the matter can be a quiet extraordinarily enjoyable experience. *g, d, r*

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Oh, I *know*!

(And now, in my twisted brain, Madeline Kahn is crying, "It's twue! It's twue!")

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Which gives me Richard Harris saying "It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear: the climate must be perfect all the year."

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about "diet" generally meaning low-calorie or weight-reduction diet. However, I've found it very useful, for years now, to never use the word alone & always with an accurate qualifier: vegan diet, high-fiber diet, and so on. Then I can decide what kinds of diet might be OK for me and which are right out.

[jenhowell.livejournal.com]

I never really worried about my weight until this year, then all of a sudden I started reading fitness magazines to help with my exercise, and now I've got all these messages in my head about looking a certain way that I'd avoided having there for really my whole life.

So now sometimes it's hard for me to decide whether I'm exercising or restricting sugar for the "right" reasons.

What I've done is sort of reminded myself, though, that the reason I started exercising and restricting sugar was to become healthier and more in shape ( and potentially develop arm muscles like Linda Hamilton in "Terminator 2" which is more about kicking ass than anything else.)

I've pretty much stopped reading the fitness magazines, too. When I catch myself worrying about my weight rather than my health I make sure to eat more healthy food. I have not restricted anything that is healthy, either. I eat my fats and my oils and my good carbohydrates. But sugar does things to me that I don't like and there is no reason in hell to eat soda.

Anyway, I'm rambling a bunch too. Really all I wanted to say was that I've had similar thoughts lately about how it can be hard to differentiate between a healthy motivation to eat vegetables, exercise, etc. and an unhealthy one.

I wish you luck with keeping the judgmental messages at bay while simultaneously showing your body love by treating it to many healthy foods.

Love,
Jennifer

[ptor.livejournal.com]

I think you said something once about how it is a revolutionary act to love yourself. Thank you for that!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a really good idea. Like Darkhawk's idea that you don't talk about things being useful or not, you talk about what they're useful for.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I am a science geek, so I can't help noticing that what seems to be needed is

You conduct an experiment of different ways to change your diet to see which are useful and which are harmful

Within which, the first approach to changing your diet is to conduct an experiment to see whether your old diet leaves you feeling healthier.

It's quite possible you could add another layer, but probably only people like me would want to (or be able to keep track of which experiment was which, and succeeding or failing).

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

:-) It's exactly the kind of geeking I think I'd enjoy.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

:-) Remember, when you write your experimental protocols and results up each day in your diet lab book, you must get it signed by a witness. Plus, you will need a white lab coat.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Do I finally get hot-lab-assistant glasses?

[hmms-sio.livejournal.com]

And you could consider pigtails. I bet you'd look just like Abby!

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

A law was made a distant moon ago here ...

[ailbhe]

*bag of theretheres*

"A diet" almost always seems to imply a *temporary* thing, which "lifestyle change" doesn't, too. And then there's the diet of worms...

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, us glasses-wearers prefer to not have our culture appropriated by non-glasses-wearers :-). You don't need reading glasses yet by chance?