I am no stranger to dieting. I understand that, in general, to lose weight you need to eat less and move more. I can diet with reasonable success for months at a time. I restrict my calories and keep track of everything I eat. When I first started dieting under my parents’ supervision, I would do this in paper journals. In this modern age, I use an app on my phone. I recognize that, despite what certain weight-loss system commercials would have me believe, I cannot eat everything and anything I want. And that is one of the cruelties of our cultural obsession with weight loss. We’re supposed to restrict our eating while indulging in the fantasy that we can, indeed, indulge. It’s infuriating. When you’re trying to lose weight, you cannot have anything you want. That is, in fact, the whole point. Having anything you want is likely what contributed to your weight gain. Dieting requires deprivation, and it’s easier when everyone faces that truth. When I am dieting, I try to face that truth, but I am not terribly successful.
There is always a moment when I am losing weight when I feel better in my body. I breathe easier. I move better. I feel myself getting smaller and stronger. My clothes fall over my body the way they should and then they start to get baggy. I get terrified.
I start to worry about my body becoming more vulnerable as it grows smaller. I start to imagine all the ways I could be hurt.
I start to remember all the ways I have been hurt.
I also taste hope. I taste the idea of having more choices when I go clothes shopping. I taste the idea of fitting into seats at restaurants, movie theaters, waiting rooms. I taste the idea of walking into a crowded room or through a mall without being stared at and pointed at and talked about. I taste the idea of grocery shopping without strangers taking food they disapprove of out of my cart or offering me unsolicited nutrition advice. I taste the idea of being free of the realities of living in an overweight body. I taste the idea of being free.
And then I worry that I am getting ahead of myself. I worry that I won’t be able to keep up better eating, more exercise, taking care of myself. Inevitably, I stumble and then I fall, and then I lose the taste of being free. I lose the taste of hope. I am left feeling low, like a failure. I am left feeling ravenously hungry and then I try to satisfy that hunger so I might undo all the progress I’ve made. And then I hunger even more.
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I start each day with the best of intentions for living a better, healthier life. Every morning, I wake up and have a few
minutes where I am free from my body and my failings. During these moments, I think, Today, I will make good choices. I will work out. I will eat small portions. I will take the stairs when possible. Before the day starts, I am fully prepared to tackle the problem of my body, to be better than I have been. But then I get
out of bed. Often, I rush to get ready and begin my day because I am not a morning person and I hit snooze on my alarm several times. I don’t eat breakfast because I’m not hungry or I don’t have time or there is no food in the house,
which are all excuses for not being willing to take proper care of myself. Sometimes, I eat lunch—a sandwich from Subway or
Jimmy John’s. Or two sandwiches. And chips. And a cookie or three. And it’s fine, I tell myself, because I haven’t eaten all
day. Or I wait until dinner and then the day is nearly done and I can eat whatever I want, I tell myself, because I have not
eaten all day.
At night, I have to face myself and all the ways I have failed. Most days, I haven’t exercised. I haven’t made any of the
good choices I intended to make when the day began. Whatever happens next doesn’t matter, so I binge and eat even more of
whatever I want. As I fall asleep, my stomach churning, the acids making my heartburn flare, I think about the next day. I
think, Tomorrow, I will make good choices. I am always holding on to the hope of tomorrow.
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I often try to create goals for myself that go beyond what I hope to accomplish for my body in a given day. I will lose x number of pounds by the time I go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or before I go to Australia or before I next see my loved
one. I will lose x number of pounds before I go on book tour. I will lose x number of pounds before the new semester starts. I will lose x number of pounds before I go to the Beyoncé concert. I create these goals and make half-hearted attempts to meet these goals,
but I never do, and then I enter a spiral of feeling like a failure for not ever being able to be better, to get smaller.
I reserve my most elaborate delusions and disappointments for myself.
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My disdain for sports and, now, exercise remains pure and constant. It feels like a waste of my time, moving around, sweating and hoping that something good will rise from that effort. Certainly, there are moments after a workout when I feel refreshed and powerful and healthy, but it is very easy to forget those moments when I need to change into workout clothes and go to the gym or go for a walk, or do whatever it takes to move my body.
I generally dread exercise, all of it, and then I feel terrible about myself for being lazy, unmotivated, utterly lacking in discipline or self-regard, because intellectually, I know exercise is good for me. My hatred of exercise is unfortunate because exercise is necessary for the human body. It is a key component of losing weight and good health. I know the math.
In order to maintain your body weight, you need to eat 11 calories for every pound you weigh. In order to lose a pound of fat, you must burn 3,500 calories. If you’re a 150-pound woman, thirty minutes of aerobic exercise burns about 220 calories. Thirty minutes of elliptical training burns about 280 calories. Running at a brisk pace will burn 120 calories for each mile. A brisk walk will burn 100 calories for each mile. I should take some consolation in knowing that at my size, I burn way more calories than the 150-pound woman, but alas, I do not.
In the corner of my bedroom sits my recumbent exercise bike. When I am feeling particularly motivated about losing weight, I will ride the bike for up to an hour a day. It’s a good time to sweat and catch up on reading. I own a few hand weights that I’ll flex and curl when I remember to. I have a large inflatable ball upon which I sit to do abdominal exercises and squats and the like. I do not suffer from ignorance where exercise is related. I suffer from inertia.