I just stumbled across this brief essay, titled “Enormous,” written by a friend of mine:
Considering how often the issue of weight crops up on this board, I thought this was a lovely perspective worth sharing.
That is really beautifully written. I’m not sure why, but it made me cry.
It makes me sad for him. As a formerly obese person, I used to diet like that all the time. I always thought diets were horrible, I also thought they were temporary. I wanted to diet “hard core” for a short period of time and then eat “normal.” Two things always happened:
- I deprived myself so much, I eventually “binged” felt like a terrible out of control loser, stopped dieting and regained any weight I had lost (and added more).
- I reached a goal weight, stopped dieting and regained any weight I had lost (and added more).
20 years later, after dieting my way from a tiny bit chubby 140 lb high school sophomore to a 200 lb 35 year old woman, I finally sat myself down and asked honestly myself “why can I lose weight and why can I never keep it off?” I was GREAT at short term diets, OUTSTANDING. I could be strict - eat less than a 1000 calories a day, plain baked chicken, salads with lemon juice, apples but why could I NEVER stick to it? It took me 20 years to realize that my “eating normal” made me fat. I had to change normal.
In July 2004, I decided to stop dieting. I changed how I ate forever, no more food I hated, no more being hungry. I switched to a whole foods diet (eliminated as much processed food as possible, NO fast food), started counting calories and eating 5-6 times a day. I like all the food I eat now, no more unappetizing/watery Lean Cuisines or other diet “frankenfoods.”
I lost 70 lbs and have kept it off. I still eat exactly the same way - still eat whole foods, still food journal, still calorie count, still weigh once a week, still avoid fast food. This is just the way I live now. Every now and then I miss some of the foods I gave up, but I remind myself that eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it, did not make me a happy person. My mouth might have been temporarily happy, but I was a fat, miserable, tired, depressed person.
So, my heart goes out to this poor “bear.” I have been there and it did feel like I had tried “everything.” I had to give up the idea that a short term diet could have long term results. I had to do something I could do forever and there was no way I could live on plain chicken breasts and non fat cottage cheese forever.
Physical Enormity has nothing to do with what’s in your soul. That was beautifully written, crafty.
Don’t forget the soul is here for it’s own joy – rumi
That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us.
I feel lightened by this. As another, shall we say, ‘big person’, I worry over how I look, or if I could truly be loved so even when I am considered imperfect by many, although I myself have a SO.
Such a beautiful piece of writing, I love it so.