You see, for the last week or so, I've been reading a lots of blogs round the Fatosphere, and have come across two terms that require investigation and thought.
The first term is Fat Acceptance, and the second is Health At Every Size.
Fat Acceptance is the act of giving up the dieting and self hatred lifestyle in favour of eating whatever the hell you want and learning to love the body you have. I am seriously considering this as a lifestyle choice for me. But it requires more investigation and research before I can decide whether this is the path, the community for me. To this end I have ordered what is in fact my first 'self help' book' ever. The book is Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby. I trust Marianne Kirby quite a bit, as I've been slogging through the archives of her blog, The Rotund, over the last few days. I will probably end up posting quite a bit on the subject of Fat Acceptance as I investigate and decide upon my journey.
The other term, Health At Every Size; this is the notion that every single body is different and totally unique, and the exercise of making a human body conform to arbitrarily assigned societal ideals is futile and counter-productive. I have even less knowledge on this of this subject than I do Fat Acceptance, but I do intend to buy this book at some point in the future.
In other news, tonight I managed to fit comfortably into size 20 trousers, which is just one size above my goal size. In light of my investigation into FA and HAES, I'm unsure how to feel about this. At the moment my body feels good and I'm enjoying trying out the new foods that I am, so I will take this as positive news. It's just that I'm becoming more and more aware that weight ≠ health and weight loss is not the be all and end all of my existence.
