Did Fat Acceptance Help Me Lose Weight?
In 1998 I became aware of the idea of “fat acceptance” and it may have changed my life. I say may have, because it was not until a couple of years later that I started making even the tiniest positive life changes that eventually led me to where I am today, over 100 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest weight and finally living in a clutter-free, functional and peaceful home.
Have you heard of the fat acceptance movement? It is a loose affiliation of individuals and organizations uniting around the idea that fat people are unfairly targeted for discrimination and hatred in our society. Of course, any of us who are or who have been fat know the truth of this like we know our own names. The revolutionary idea, to me at the time at least, is that this is not okay. Being reviled, discriminated against and treated poorly simply because we are fat is not okay. And, conversely, it’s okay to be fat.
In 1998 I was in my late 20s. It’s sometimes hard to remember exactly how I thought back then, because my worldview has changed so much in the past 10 years. But I recall feeling like my weight was the only thing about me that really mattered, and that because I was so fat I was really just an unacceptable failure as a human. The fat acceptance community helped me to see the irrationality of this belief, and I started to truly understand that I had intrinsic worth as a person and that I had a right to respect from others and, more importantly, some self respect.
There are many people who are active in the fat acceptance community and there are many points of view. There are strong disagreements about certain things within the community. Some people within the fat acceptance community feel that to even want to lose weight is a betrayal of yourself and other fat people. I have to disagree with this perspective. I have seen too many people, myself and others, whose health, mobility and quality of life have been severely compromised by obesity. I have had the experience of losing weight and keeping it off through healthy lifestyles changes, not “dieting.”
But the fact remains that the heart of fat acceptance, the idea that fat people have just as much of a right to stand tall in this world as thinner people, is fundamentally true. And I was able to take on this belief in my own worth because of fat acceptance. And maybe this is what helped me to start loving myself enough to begin to make the changes that have taken me where I am today.
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2 Responses to “Did Fat Acceptance Help Me Lose Weight?”
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Boy, does this sound familiar! I gained a lot of weight in my 20’s while I was in the Navy. Talk about a system geared to mess up your mind, no matter how good your were at your job, if you weren’t physically fit, you weren’t promotable or considered an acceptable office. It took me a couple of years after I left the Navy, but Geneen Roth’s books (I see she is one your inspirations) saved my life by breaking through the beliefs that were so embedded in my brain. I stopped thinking about weight and fat. I have never to this day been on another “diet”. And my weight has fluctuated naturally, mostly down, because I have been able to make healthy lifestyle changes and my compulsive eating sort of disappeared. It was sort of like me and compulsive eating had been in a tug of war (which I was losing), but I decided I didn’t want to play anymore, so I let go of the rope and went and did other things. My road hasn’t been perfectly smooth, but if I feel those old compulsive eating triggers coming on (because of course now I know what they are) I pull out Geneen’s book or my journal and I get through it. Thank you so much for letting me share this.
Angela, thanks for your comment! I like that letting go of the rope analogy
What strategies do you find helpful when you notice compulsive eating triggers? You mention journaling; the idea I found really revolutionary is that it’s helpful to just acknowledge and sit and feel the emotion that might be driving the urge to eat. Is that what works for you?