Sorry, I'm just closing some tabs

[conuly]

I hate my body. For a good 6 months, I (F, 5’7, age 38, two kids) went from 134 pounds down to 124 pounds with diligent single-serving eating and a bite of dessert totaling 1,200 calories a day with 5-times a week 30 minutes of weightlifting and 20-minute sprints/HITT. I was happy. I was thin. And then I burnt out and for two weeks I did not work out and ate normally. And I gained it back! All 10 pounds. My gym in-body assessment said I went from a percent body fat of 17.3 percent to 17.6 percent. BMI from 19.6 to 20.8. Body fat mass of 21.5 pounds to 23.5 pounds. So it isn’t even water weight. I am defeated and I hate myself and my body. I hate it and don’t know what to do. Don’t say therapy—therapy is giving up and accepting being a porker and looking mediocre. And menopause is around the corner and I am dreading the weight gain that will bring. I don’t know what to do to get back on track.

—Going to Scream

Dear Going,

Allow me to share with you what I’ve finally learned, after a lifetime of dieting and exercise: You have only two choices. Behind Door Number one is staying on that 1,200 calorie/day diet (maybe you get to nudge up to 1,500 calories to be “on maintenance”)—i.e., a lifetime of feeling deprived of foods you wish you were “allowed” to eat, and fixating on how much of what you are allowed to eat you put into your body. The reason you will have to diet for the rest of your life, as you discovered recently, is that as soon as you go off your diet, you gain the weight back, and much faster than you lost it. (I myself have lost and gained back all the weight I’d lost so many times in my life I have now lost count.) In fact, every time you diet and gain the weight back, it gets harder to lose the weight again. So—I’ll say it once more—option one is to stay on a diet for the rest of your life.

That might be fine with you. I’ve concluded that it’s not fine with me. So I’m going with what’s behind Door Number two: giving up dieting.

I fully get that right now, to you, that is a horrifying idea. Giving up on dieting is just plain giving up. Living with an “imperfect body.” Abandoning the idea of being thin. Letting your body be. I know that in my 30s and 40s, I would not have been able to do that. I wish I had, though. I wasted a lot of time and mental and emotional real estate fretting about something that was the worst possible use of my (relatively youthful) energy. I swear to you: Those 10 pounds you’ve gained back don’t matter. I know, I know: You’re thinking, Yeah, right, first it’s 10 and then it’s 30. Letting go of the idea that there is some weight you’re supposed to be, some shape of body you’re supposed to have, is one of the most liberating feelings you will ever have. I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear, I know. But I’m here to tell you what you need to hear. Let it go. Your body wants to be what it wants to be. Exercise it because it feels good and is a way of appreciating what it can do rather than how it looks. Find an exercise you truly love, if you don’t love the punishing ones you’ve been doing (I guess you might; some people do). I promise there is one! It was years before I found mine, but taking ballet and other dance classes six days a week has been life-changing for me—and it’s something I look forward to, not something I dread and have to force myself to do. If you’re eating compulsively, when you’re not hungry, get help for that. If you hate yourself—and, face it, your body is part of yourself—get help for that. Otherwise, eat when you’re hungry, and eat delicious food (and for God’s sake don’t measure it). Have dessert if you feel like it. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your life. And maybe listen to the podcast Maintenance Phase for a good dose of debunking diet culture and helping you recognize and fight anti-fatness, in yourself and others.

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Comments

[conuly]

There's no nice or kind way to say this, but the way LW ends her letter makes me think that she does, in fact, know that what she really needs is therapy. I sure hope she gets it.

[conuly]

Also, I didn't want to run the numbers myself, but the people in the comments at slate did and - yeah, her self-image is totally fucked and she really needs therapy.

[minoanmiss]

"a porker"

...

better people than I am can be sympathetic to LW. I hope I never have to interact with her.

[conuly]

The only thing I can say is that this woman clearly is severely ill with a disease that will likely lead to her death if she doesn't accept reality and see a shrink who specializes in eating disorders.

But it's okay if you do not want to deal with her and her language.

[tielan]

Ten pounds. 5kg. Up from 124 to 134. At 5'7"

THE FUCK.

Therapy. She needs help SO BADLY because that is barely a healthy weight and it is most certainly NOT a healthy mindset!

[sporky_rat]

I looked at those numbers and looked at myself and my numbers and said, out loud, "Honey, you need to talk to a doctor because those are both incredibly unhealthy numbers."

[tielan]

Yeah, I'm 5'4" and 140lb and there are exceeeeedingly few people who would call me anything close to 'porky' - and most of them would be holding a massive grudge or else blow away in a light wind.

[melannen]

Yeah, I'm 5'4" and have slowly gone from 120 to 140 over the last two decades and it hasn't even really noticeably changed my body shape? I went up two jeans sizes and that's about it. Most people still think I'm skinny.

LW, get therapy.

[sporky_rat]

Yeah, I'm 4'9" and 144lb and while losing a little bit would be a little more comfortable on my joints (somewhere around five or so, keeping it in the 130's), I'm definitely not "porky". Solid. Hard to blow over.

LW, please, please, seek help.

[dissectionist]

She’s not a healthy weight. I have a genetic condition that makes it very difficult to gain weight, and with medication we’ve been able to get mine up to around 122-124 lbs (I’m also 5’7”, as is LW). But that didn’t get me to a healthy weight; it simply moved me from “severely underweight” to “underweight”. Underweight people do worse at survival over both the short and long term: we have weaker immune systems, less pulmonary function, etc. (And for the record, overweight people have better survival than “normal” weight people. I put “normal” in scare quotes because I hate that that is the term that is used; the system could use “moderate” or something instead of implying that most body types are abnormal.)

I don’t know if 134 might be enough to slightly eke one into out of the “underweight” category, but 124 is definitely still considered underweight.

[tielan]

As people below have pointed out, it's the mentality that's the problem - the self-hate - not the numbers.

[dissectionist]

Yes, the mindset is absolutely an issue and she desperately needs therapy. My response was specifically in response to you saying it was barely a healthy weight; as someone who is this weight, I was clarifying that it isn’t a healthy weight at all.

[ethelmay]

There are plenty of people who just naturally fall into that weight range for that height (I mean the LW's range) who are perfectly healthy, though. And it's not in the "underweight" range, that is, it's not in the range that is generally considered a red flag in itself, in the absence of worrying trends or other health concerns. (That would be below BMI 18.5, or for her height below 118 pounds.) I mean, you could certainly argue that the BMI cutoff for "underweight" should be higher than it is (though BMI is so flawed that I don't think tinkering with cutoffs really helps a lot), but I think you'd get a lot of false positives.

[cimorene]

So much therapy, yikes

[kiezh]

I feel so sorry for her kids. It's not just her own body-image and relationship with food that she's ruining.

[grammarwoman]

Maintenance Phase is such a great podcast.

[ioplokon]

Would it be possible to adjust the cw to mention eating disorders/specific numbers as well? I think it's slightly different to the fat shaming. Also, in terms of eating disorders, it's not so much the value of the specific numbers (ie: whether lw is underweight, except to assess immediate danger) as it is the fear and self disgust they inspire (which is to say, people can have an eating disorder at any weight)

Which also, re: the advice... I know LW said not to recommend therapy or that kind of intervention but... telling someone with an eating disorder to just be happy is also not effective. Then again, almost nothing is. If you say 'this is unhealthy' that's interpreted as 'you're making serious efforts and seeing results'. LW probably looked at the proposition of Door Number One in this response and said, that's for me (and still will feel weak and defeated when she doesn't succeed).

IDK, I guess the fact that she wrote this means she wants out. I hope she does before this steals her life (metaphorically & then literally).

[conuly]

Edited, thanks.

(which is to say, people can have an eating disorder at any weight)

To be clear, I did know that. People who don't believe that are ugh.

[summerstorm]

The amount of loathing and numbers in the letter made me want to run far, far away. Also, I converted the numbers and that's fucking ridiculous, are you kidding me? In fairness her lowest body weight is the heaviest I've ever been if you add three inches to my 5'4" height, but I can't imagine being so broken up about gaining 10 more after that. (I sure wasn't depriving myself of unhealthy foods even after the realization that for the first time in my life I was gaining weight.) That's a healthy weight??? I also wouldn't think of it as fat but that's a pretty arbitrary word. LW needs therapy so bad. I get being disappointed that six months of effort was gone in two weeks but this goes waaaay beyond that.

[resonant]

I see a lot of commenters saying, "But she's not fat at all." But it doesn't matter. It wouldn't matter if she was so massive she bent space-time. She has defined herself entirely with numbers, and making the numbers go down is more important than anything else, and that's incredibly dangerous for her and may also be dangerous for her children.

[michelel72]

It's the decimals that really get me.

[cora]

I didn't even bother with doing the math - it's the "I gained 10 lbs and that's what makes me hate my body" for me. 10lbs can be a perfectly normal weight fluctuation depending on your body type.

Other commenters did the math - apparently the weight came back that fast due to the starting weight being unhealthy. Either way, I do hope LW is eventually ready to go to therapy and can at least get to body neutrality.

[jadelennox]

I am so glad they recced Maintenance Phase; I don't think LW is ready to listen to Aubrey yet but maybe she'd be able to see Michael as a non-fat gay entrypoint into understanding diet culture.

I do wish the answer has said not just "dieting makes it harder to lose weight" but also "dieting makes you more likely to severely damage your heart" but I don't think LW is healthy enough to care, yet. Honestly this is a very gentle letter to someone who is showing a lot of symptoms of a dangerous disorder (not that we should armchair diagnose but there's an ethical responsibility when you're an advice columnist and let's face it, we all are diagnosing this LW).

(Also menopause is not "around the corner" at 38 unless LW's female relatives hit it pretty young. Which is irrelevant but wow so many issues this woman has.)

[sathari]

On top of every right thing that everyone else has said here about what LW does say in her letter, I have another question to ask her: what about the other parts of your life, LW? What are some of the other things that are going on in your life? How do you feel about them?

A thing that I'm hearing, and might be mishearing, from LW's letter is that she's hyperfocused on her weight and the numeric measurements of same because *sings from Hamilton: The Musical*: "I am the one thing in life I can contro-o-o-o-o-o-o-l!!!!!!" Maybe get therapy to talk about literally anything else in your life, LW? Don't discuss the, ahem, eating disorder weight management, try talking about literally any other part of your life and see what comes out? Or start with saying to yourself something like, "The advice columnist says my attitude toward my weight is the problem, but [fill in the blank with literally anything else that comes to mind that's not weight-related] is the problem" and see where that goes? (Honestly, I'm hearing some echoes of Betty Friedan's "problem with no name" here, though I may be not just barking up the wrong tree but in the wrong damn forest.)

[librarygeek]

^What everyone else said above, first.^

Then, since a few people wondered about the effects on the kids? My sister (now 40F) and I (now 50F) could have followed Mom into her rollercoaster dieting and daily weighing, BUT: I was 32 and pregnant when Mom was diagnosed with gastric cancer. Mom was determined to survive to play with her grandbaby. She made it not just the 3 months the doctors predicted, but almost 2 years (58F at passing). She was definitely a very unhealthy low weight when she passed, but she was happy with her own weight finally!?! Cancer sucks.

My sister and I only adjust our diets to deal with our GI and other medical issues, not to any scales. We saw what diet culture did to Mom's conception of health and won't follow that at all.

I have congenital heart disease along with the GI condition. Both my cardiologist and gastroenterologist have written notes for my general practitioner to not say ANYTHING about my weight unless it's a drastic change. I can't afford the above mentioned cardiac damage. I had open heart surgery in 2017 and I was on direct orders beforehand to not modify my diet so I don't interfere with my metabolism or therefore the anesthesia reactions.

[laurajv]

I'm sorry that happened to your mom, both the cancer and the horrificness of having the cancer be...what makes one happy with their weight. I vividly remember a similar thing with a former coworker, and I'm so sorry.