Tuesday 17 August 2010

FA Progress and Dealing with Weight loss Compliments

I’ve been a fledgling member of the Fat Accepting community since April. April 14th was when I announced it on my blog, which means it has now been 4 months since I ditched the diet and started trying to love my body better.
On the whole I can’t believe it’s only been four months. It feels like so much longer. I feel like fat acceptance was a journey I started on long ago; except for when I’ve been at my lowest points, I feel like I’ve been fat accepting most of my life without knowing what label to apply to the way I felt. It feels like I have been part of this community forever, whereas I never really felt part of the dieting community. Even when I was dieting. And to tell the truth, I have been incredibly happy in those four months.
Hear that, fat shamers? I’ve not been miserable, I’ve not been lonely. My fat has not stopped me doing anything. It has not held me back in anyway, and it has not gotten me down. Probably for the first time in my life I have not felt bad about my body, not in the last four months. Even when I had hiccup days (and everyone has those) my hatred of my body never became fully formed. I recognised that there were other reasons I was hating my body, and either waited for them to pass or did something about them. Nothing I have felt in the last four months matches the utter despair and self hatred I felt back in January that prompted me to start that blog.
The reason that I have become Fat Accepting so easily? I believe it is all down to the community of people I have around me. The people in my everyday life that I can talk to about my body, and fat without them spouting diet rhetoric at me. The people I talk to online and offline that share my views, or views that are complementary to mine. The people who write the blogs that I read every day, that remind me that I’m not along. These blogs remind me that there is a vast army of people from all around the world that think the same things about fat I do. Every single thing I do in my day reiterates and reconfirms my decision to walk the path of fat acceptance.
In four months I have armed myself with scientific knowledge, with cultural knowledge and with greater self esteem. But one of the things I’ve not yet managed to do is learn how to deal with diet compliments. It’s happened a few times since I’ve been fat accepting, and each time has involved lots of mumbling and fumbling and not saying anything that could be recognised as words.
Today Big Fat Deal is letting the commenters offer advice on how to deal with this situation. I quite like the idea of employing the “really, I hadn’t noticed” method. To say that this society is obsessed with weight loss may well be an understatement, and not keeping track of weight is unthinkable in some peoples’ minds. That kind of statement might be the jolt they need to realise that weight is not something that should rule one’s life.
On the other hand, I quite like the advice to take the conversation away from weight and move it towards how you feel. Recently I’ve been feeling pretty good, though I’ve not been doing anything that could be identified as dedicated exercise. I’ve just been living and moving and enjoying myself doing the things I’m doing. Might be worth try this approach just to see how people respond to me feeling great completely independently of punishing myself with the way I eat and exercise.
I could always go the same route as one commenter and exclaim “Holy crap I hope not”. But I guess I’ll approach it like I approach everything else; as it comes. It’s helpful to have a bit of inspiration though.