It’s bad enough to be fat in a doctor’s office - studies have found that many health professionals view overweight patients and lazy and noncompliant - but if were fat and on medication, I knew I would be treated even worse. My blood pressure was slowly creeping up and I did not want to be on medication. But I was worried about how my weight would affect me as I got older. By then, I was deep into the body-positive movement, eating food I enjoyed and barely exercising. Three years after we moved, my spouse retired from the military and we moved to another location. I gained all the weight back in less than a year. I tried to get back on track, but there was no way to re-establish my routine. It was hard making friends, and rather than putting in the effort to do meal prep, I started relying on restaurants. I loved where we lived before, and our new town was not a good fit for me. As soon as the plane landed at our new location, I started eating foods that were not on my plan. I knew the only way I would be able to maintain my weight loss was with the support I had from my doctors and friends. It’s like I could live in this world and not be ashamed of who I was, not have to justify my existence or apologize for the space I occupied.īut soon after my spouse came home from being deployed, he received orders for us to relocate. I felt respected and seen - when I said something, people actually listened. I had loose skin and flour sacks for boobs, but still, it felt amazing! I was able to fit comfortably in plane seats and was unafraid to fly. My whole life centered around my weight loss. It’s like I could finally live in this world and not be ashamed of who I was. I recruited other women to lose weight with me so that we would have a support group. I weighed and measured everything that went into my mouth and exercised two hours a day. I turned all my attention to food, exercise and caring for my two young children. I asked my doctor for a referral to a dietitian and exercise physiologist. My spouse, who was in the Air Force, was getting ready to deploy, so I was able to clean out all his high-calorie foods and alcohol. It was a monumental effort that I treated like a full-time job. I completed this cycle over and over until I had my last big weight loss, about 10 years ago. But, inevitably, I would regain a large amount of weight, freak out and prepare to hop on another diet. I would immerse myself in affirmations of self-love, load my social feed with body-positive influencers, nourish my body with nutrient-dense meals and try to use exercise as a way to care for my body, not punish it. I wanted to be okay with my body and not treat it like something that needed to be fixed. I craved the peace I thought I saw within the body positive movement. My feelings about fat acceptance would cycle, too. As I grew into my 20s and 30s, my weight went up and down - I would lose 40 to 50 pounds at a time and then gain it all back. I started my first diet when I was just 10 years old and centered my life around weight loss for decades. Well, I’ve made it to 42 so far - and I don’t have diabetes. In fact, I had been told by doctors since my early 20s that if I didn’t lose weight I would become diabetic at best (even though my blood work never showed this risk), and I wouldn’t live more than another decade at worst. After all, it had been recently approved by my insurance carrier and if I didn’t get the weight off I would surely die. In fact, when I mentioned the book at my next prenatal visit, my doctor told me Wann was “glorifying obesity” and recommended I look into LapBand surgery after I gave birth. But I learned very quickly that the rest of the world wasn’t as open to the concept of body acceptance. I wanted to share her ideas with my doctors, friends and family. I bought Wann’s book, FAT!SO?: Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size, and loved it. I eventually landed on fat activist Marilyn Wann’s website, FAT!SO? When I first read her explain how you could eat delicious food and be fat but still be healthy, it seemed too good to be true: Up until that point, I didn’t realize it was an option to live in my body as it is to be worthy of eating, moving and enjoying my life without losing weight. I was afraid of passing down my weight-loss obsession to my child, and I spent my evenings on the Internet looking up phrases such as “fat and healthy weight loss” and “fat exercise”- trying to find something that would teach me to make peace with my size. The first time I came across the fat acceptance movement was in 2008, when I was five months pregnant with my daughter.
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