The Imagination and Weight Loss

Weight loss is funny, no, actually, I take that back, it’s harder than finding true love. And true love is nearly impossible to find, and is there even really such a thing as true love? It’s kind of like the perfect body; flawless bodies and true love only exist in Hallmark and Bollywood movies.

Losing weight is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. What’s really not funny is the fact that it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to lose weight, but you can gain it back in like one-tenth the time tenfold…or so I thought. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I would first just like to say that even when I’m losing weight, I’m constantly thinking about food. I’m not really sure if an hour passes by without me thinking about food. Imagining it, so to speak. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but still, this is the state that I live in. In fact, when I’m on a diet, I’m thinking about food more than when I’m not. What is this madness?

I don’t think I’m alone.

Food addiction is different than almost any other addiction; you can’t simply stop eating completely. And thank god for that. Can you imagine the anarchy? Luckily, I still get to eat, but all day I eat as little as I can manage and save up all my calories for a decent dinner. Dinner is my jam. Dinner is not family time; dinner is food time. It’s when I really eeeeat!

But I’m still mad about it, that I have to eat healthy and eat smaller portions, and eat so much protein that I feel like I’m turning into a piece of meat myself. Don’t even get me started on exercise; I find most of it to be a cruel and unusual form of torture. I find it odd because there are people who actually enjoy these strange movements and revel in them. Runners’ high, they call it, or whatever other terms they have for loving movement.

Let’s be real, I’m lazy. I’ve always been lazy. I’m not proud of it, it’s just the truth. If I can stay in a sitting or lying position for most of the day, I’m good. I know this is not the popular way to live, and my stupid smart watch won’t let me forget that. It’s time to stand up, it will tell me. It’s time to throw you out the window, is what I say! The truth is, however, I have begun to move a lot more these past few months, and it’s helped my mental health. That does not mean I like doing it, at all, not even a little bit, but it feels good afterwards.

Let’s not even talk about my number of steps. I will not tell you my average because it’s pretty deplorable. I went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and walked like 20,000 steps in one day. By the end of the day, I told my companions that I needed a god damn Uber. Then the days after, my annoying watch kept telling me I did so well on Tuesday, could I do that again? No, you useless piece of crap!

The whole process of losing weight/becoming healthy is so annoying that sometimes I don’t know why I even bother. But then I take a peek at myself in the mirror and realize this has to be done, no matter how exasperated I am. I have high blood pressure, and as much as I want to blame that on the fact that I live with my mother, the reality is that it will get better if I lose weight.

My father passed away at the end of July, and I took a break from weight loss then. It was just too stressful to control my eating at that time. I refused to go on the scale for like six weeks. I was sure I gained like 10 or 15 pounds. I went on the scale the other day to find I had only gained about 2.5 pounds. 

I guess the joke’s on me. It’s funny the stories we tell ourselves. I was telling myself this was a huge catastrophe. I even told people I could feel myself getting fatter in my clothes. This is how delusions work, people.

I also had another delusion; I may or may not have bought some sort of potion that promised weight loss results without any effort. It was called Vittaburn. It’s a complete scam, and I watched an hour-long infomercial on it and was somehow convinced that it would work. I know, I know, I’m an intelligent person, this should not have happened. 

Sometimes you get so desperate for fast, easy results, you will believe anything. It’s pathetic, I know, and I’m embarrassed. I like to think I’m smart, and then I do something stupid like this and I’m reminded how vulnerable we all are. I will not get my money back. Oh well. You live, you learn. 

I’ve gotten back on my diet now. I’ve tried a lot of diets in my day, and Weight Watchers always seems to be the best for me. You can literally eat anything in moderation. When I say anything, that of course means chocolate. I mean, if you are not eating chocolate, are you even living? If I had to choose between chocolate and money, I would choose chocolate every time.

Just to be clear my waist does not look like this picture

But I’m not ready to share an actual picture of my own waist, so I’m borrowing from some random thin woman. Image courtesy of Maksim Chernyshev via Scopio

Honestly, the main reason I want to lose weight is for my health. Yes, I am vain and would like to look better, but I’m more concerned with being healthy as I approach old age. I’m not exactly old yet, but I’m not exactly young either. 

I know I’m addicted to food, I always have been, even when I was slim. I have an addictive personality, and at least I’m not on drugs or an alcoholic. I should be grateful; this could be much worse. When things get bad in our lives, my friends and I joke, ‘At least we’re not on Meth.’ It’s true, I’m not a crackhead, chocolate is my crack.

Is that so bad? Well, yes and no. No food is probably not going to kill me, but yes, I could die of heart disease, so there’s that. If I am being dramatic and think of overeating as a deadly problem, it actually motivates me. That’s how my twisted mind works.

You know how they say, just live a little, eat the cake. They are thin and don’t have an eating disorder. I would characterize my overeating as an actual disorder, an actual disease. This label again motivates me. I am not sure why negative reinforcement works on me, and I don’t think that’s the best way to be. But sometimes you just are who you are.

I really think obesity is a disease. I don’t think we should look at it as some kind of ethical weakness. I don’t think it’s wrong to be fat. Just like it’s not wrong to have the flu. Bad example, but moving on, it’s not my fault that I struggle with my weight, and I shouldn’t be judged for it. It’s not my fault that I am overweight, and it doesn’t make me a bad person or less worthy of love, even from men.

It’s true that in our society, many men often prefer thin women. But this wasn’t always the case, and in some cultures, this is not the case. Also, not all men are turned off by a curvy woman. Some men even prefer it. I don’t judge men who only like skinny women, but I also don’t want to be judged for not being one.

It’s all so very complex, and it makes my head hurt. Just consider me a rebel, I’m not falling into society’s norms. I am my own person, I am the size I am, not the size my culture wants me to be. Beauty is so subjective, but it’s hard to feel beautiful with all these images of rail-thin women in mass media. But then there’s Lizzo, and even though I’m not hip enough to listen to her music, she inspires me.

But for my own sanity and self-preservation and self-esteem, I must believe myself to be beautiful. I want to have that mindset even if someone may not think I’m very attractive. This is my self-worth we are talking about; if I don’t love my body, it will be very difficult for someone else to.

Look, I don’t like my body, but I do love it. I wish a lot of things were different about my physical appearance. And I’m concerned about my physical health. But I’m a work in progress, and I’m trying.

Maybe you can understand all of this. More people struggle with food than we are aware of; it’s possible everyone does. It’s probable that every human struggles with body image acceptance in some form or another. If that’s true, then why is there so much stigma out there about not being the perfect size or shape? Why are we obsessed with this unattainable ideal in our culture?

I feel like, personally, it’s just time for me to slow down, mentally, about all my insecurities about my body. I need to take a deep breath. That doesn’t mean I should stop losing weight or stop trying to be healthy. It just means that I need to be at peace with myself at whatever size I am.

That is hard, but life is hard. But it’s good, it’s good to stop the rat race and the treadmill of trying to look like an ideal that isn’t attainable and isn’t even real.

I want to love me, all of me. I can do this.

nina