Paul has been taking Fridays off of work, as he usually does in the summer in an attempt to spend down his vacation days. Usually this is really nice: it gives us a day each week for family activities or couple activities or dad-and-kids activities such as going to the movies, or going to a museum or attraction, or going to the pool, or going out for breakfast or lunch, or doing something we don’t want to do but need to do such as mattress shopping, or…well, you see the issue, now that there is a pandemic and we’re not doing any of these things. Now that it’s just “he’s at home all day,” and he’s ALWAYS at home all day, there is considerably less thrill to it. It means that I have more trouble getting my Friday stuff done, because he keeps being AROUND. Then, on Mondays, he’s been saying the three-day weekend makes it harder to get back into work. He came to talk to me THREE SEPARATE TIMES this morning before I’d even had BREAKFAST. GO TO WORK.
Without lingering on it, I want to say that I am now up 30 pounds from pre-pandemic times. This gives me important information, which is this: if I diet strictly at least 6 days a week, eating in what is a weird and challenging way (keto) but is the only diet that has been sustainable long-term for me, I can keep my weight SO LOW that my doctor says I would ONLY need to lose another 20 pounds to be in the “””healthy””” range on the chart. If I stop that strict and weird way of eating, and go back to eating a normal array of foods, the weight comes right back to me. It’s good to know. I had wondered.
The pandemic has made me focus more on making sure we’re getting exercise and good nutrition, despite all the restrictions on us right now: the kids used to get exercise walking to/from school and walking to meet friends, and I used to get exercise at my job, but now we have to do exercise on purpose. Which I’m finding harder to do, somehow, as the number on the scale goes up. Diet/thinness culture sets up such a false binary: either we are Thin, which is understood to mean we must be exercising and eating “healthy”; or else we are Fat, which is understood to mean that we don’t exercise and that we buy two super-sized value meals at the fast-food drive-through and eat them secretly before going home and making and eating dinner with the family, after which we eat a half-gallon of ice cream and an entire bag of chips.
It is hard to shake off the feeling that if we’re not going to get to be thin we might as well not do any of the exercising and nutrition we have been taught to associate with thinness—even though we know, we KNOW, it is OBSERVABLY TRUE, that there are ALSO a lot of dubious/unhealthy things that can lead to thinness (smoking, diet pills, eating disorders, exercise bulimia, eating insufficient calories, diseases and illnesses, fad diets that may or may not be good for us, foods that have been made low-calorie in non-healthy/non-nutritious ways); and that some people are thin without doing the strict exercise/food we associate with thinness; and that some fat people are doing the exercise/food we associate with thinness and are nevertheless fat, because that is the delightful variation of the human body; and that the things we have been taught to associate with thinness (exercise, good nutrition) are well worth doing for ourselves, unlinked to what our bodies look like.
WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET THIS TO SINK IN? I feel like I have to fight it so persistently, the idea that if I’m going to be 30 pounds heavier I might as well not take a walk or do the strength-training video or whatever. As if THINNESS is the only possible reward for exercise and nutrition, rather than improved health and mood and physical ability—and it’s hard to do the work without the reward. THINNESS IS NOT THE REWARD.
Not sure if this directly applies to what you are talking about – but there is a statement you made years ago that I quote often – It was to the effect that just because a robber broke into a house, does not mean he might as well just go ahead and murder the entire family while he is in there.
I find that really helps me get out of the “Well one thing is not going the way I want, so I might as well give up all together” mindset.
Have you read about HAES? Health at every size? I don’t really know much about it, but I’m learning more. I get so angry at diet culture.
I also recently found an exercise program that has been mind-blowing to me. It is ONLY about function. There is absolutely no talk or mention of what your body looks like or how much it weighs. Only how it functions. I found this program in January when I was on the new-years resolution bandwagon of “I need to lose weight” and I can’t tell you how much my mindset has changed since then. I exercise most days, take more walks, and I feel a lot stronger. But I have no idea if I have lost weight (I only wear ath-leisure clothes these days and I literally threw away my scale).
I have to hold back because I acknowledge I sound like I’m in a cult if I talk too much about it :)
Thanks for writing this post! We all need to hear that thinness is not the reward more.
I also recently found some exercise programs where the focus is on function and strength and it is MIND BLOWING! I’ve always been rather thin, but it really had nothing to do with my actual health. Sometimes I was in really good shape, sometimes I got winded walking to the mailbox, but I was always being complimented on my size (which is weird, isn’t it? and also, it puts a weird mental load on staying that size, because obviously it is something to be praise even though it isn’t), but I knew that it wasn’t anything that I did.
I feel like you, the member of some strange cult, but I want to shout it from the rooftops. Exercise is to make you feel good, not to get thinner. You might get thinner, you might not, but you will get stronger and healthier. And it is just amazing. Also, watching my parents struggle with their health in their late 70s has made me focus even more on getting stronger and more functional so that I can have more years without pain or discomfort, and am able to do what I want to do instead of being limited by my body.
Loved, loved, loved your comment. I also threw away the scale. My husband hates it, I love it.
In reading through, I realized I forgot to add that as I reached my early forties I started to gain weight – particularly around my middle – and that threw me into a whole spiral of doubt and worthlessness. A lot of that stemmed from the fact that I, apparently, took a lot of worth and value from the comments about my size, and now that I was no longer that size, what did that mean? Did it mean I lost my worth and my value?
Obviously not. And, I’m working really hard to work past these feelings and mindset not only for my own mental health, but also for my two daughters
But, using exercise to focus on health and not on smallness just makes me realize how ridiculous it is to be focused on diminishing ourselves for the gaze of others.
YES!
Yes yes yes HAES!!!! It’s funny because Swistle has come to these conclusions from her own experience, where I had to have a couple years of therapy for an eating disorder to come to the same conclusions. I too am only in the “healthy” range of weight if I am severely restricting. I really liked “Body Respect” as a kind of nutshell HAES and “The Fuck It Diet” by Caroline Dooner.
This is really helpful to learn about the HAES group. I am going to check it out. Thank you Rachel!
What is the program you like, if I may ask?
It’s called Mommastrong (fitness) and Mommastrong Fuel (nutrition). It is very much geared toward mothers (people that are trying to become pregnant, are pregnant, or have kids – even if they are adult kids). You don’t have to be a mom, but the language is certainly there and it might be a sensitive subject for some. There is also Papastrong and Teenstrong.
I came here to say this very thing. Please read about health at every size!!!
@Rachel, can you share the exercise program you found that is solely about function? Very interested. Thanks! (Or if anyone else has a similar recommendation)
I don’t know what program Rachel is referring to, but you could look at Katy Bowman’s work at http://www.nutritiousmovement.com or Erwan Le Corre’s work at http://www.movenat.com. Both of these movement philosophies are built around function at any size or age.
It’s called Mommastrong (for fitness) and Mommastrong Fuel (for nutrition)!
Thanks for this post, and I hear you. Here’s what helps me. The reward isn’t “just” health – the reward is also joy. Activity gives me a way to connect to my body, feel pride and joy from what my body can do, even when I am at my heaviest. And I say this as a bookish, nerdy introvert who was always self-conscious in PE. It helps a lot to find exercise that you enjoy. I hate swimming and spinning, but I love walking and running. It can also help to “link” exercise to another joy, like fun music or an audiobook or time alone. See what works for you.
It’s also true that the joy isn’t immediate. The first time I do a new activity, I often feel awkward or out of shape. For me, it helps to stop when I still have something left. Instead of walking until I’m ready to drop, I start with a modest distance, stop while I still feel good, and then I can go out again the next day. It might take some experimenting to find the activity that works best for your body and your personality. Once you find it, it only takes a few sessions to start feeling good.
I agree with finding something you actually like doing. I HATE running, but don’t mind walking. I play the phone game Wizards Unite and you earn rewards by walking. There are also potions that work for a specific amount of time, so I use those while I’m on a walk and it makes me walk longer to get the full effect. So my multiple walks a day are really just me playing a phone game and get some alone time.
I agree, I find joy in movement itself. But not all movements! I love running, walking, biking, spinning, and of course, yoga. But swimming fills me with dread, I can’t imagine doing any kind of team sport or boot camp or what have you. A great playlist is what gets me going.
I have given up soda and eating out during the pandemic AND I have been exercising almost every day, which is new for me. My weight is the exact same. I’m so glad you talked about this today, because I do need to take my focus off the weight and put it more on function, heart health, feeling better, etc. That would be much better.
I just love and appreciate the way you think about things SO MUCH. It is so hard not to think of thinness as the reward. So hard. I wish I could talk to myself the way I talk to my kid about exercise and eating right. (WITH NO MENTION OF BODY SIZE OR SHAPE.)
I go walking with my son most nights while he plays pokemon go. It gets us both out when it’s relatively cool, and it feels good to get moving before bed.
I’ve stopped restricting and started ADDING food. “What do I need to stay healthy?” Added vitamins. Added vegetables. Added iron-rich foods. Added chocolate so I don’t kill my husband and son for breathing too close to me in this heat (HOT FLASHES + INCESSANT INCANDESCENT RAGE = CHOCOLATE). Added water.
XOXOX
I love the idea of focusing on adding healthy food to your diet instead of restricting particular foods. When I go into the kitchen to prepare dinner, the first thing I do is put together a plate of fruit, maybe add a few veggies and nuts or other healthy* foods and put it on the table for everyone to graze. When we finally sit down for dinner, we’re not starving and we have some nutrients in us already.
*I know healthy foods are different from person-to-person
Yes to all of this! I’ve had to do a lot of work around thoughts like these:
-I want to be thin so I can be SEXY
-I want to be thin so I can be OUTGOING
-I want to be thin so I can be HEALTHY
-I want to be thin so I can be ACTIVE
-I want to be thin so I can be WITTY
Turns out, I can be all of those things at a variety of weights. Pandemically speaking, I haven’t weighed myself, but I’m sure I’ve put on 20 lb or more, and I don’t love it, but I also reject the self-loathing that comes automatically. Hopefully I can get in touch with all my goals independently of weight.
Do you use instagram? I like to follow accounts of fat women/people who exercise because they like to exercise/for non-thinning health reasons. It’s refreshing. A couple I like are arti.speaks and onehot.fatbabe.
The only reason i’m ever able to convince myself to exercise is that I know it’s good for my mental health. I know I will feel better emotionally and think more clearly and be overall more pleasant if I get some exercise. Other considerations / reasons for exercising are not motivating for me, so they don’t get any mental airtime. One thing I’ve been having a hard time with lately is feeling like I’m not doing ENOUGH; the solution to that, I think, is to keep telling myself that if I do ANYTHING AT ALL, then I have succeeded.
I am not sure there are enough years left in my life to fully deprogram the “thin=healthy and good” mindset for myself, but I am working VERY VERY HARD to try to prevent it from being instilled in my kids. We talk all the time about how mama and dada exercise because it makes us healthy and strong. So far the kids (still v young, 2 and nearly 4) seem to really pick up on that and tie exercising purely to wanting to “get strong.”
….and then we facetimed with my truly lovely mother-in-law, who was marveling at how much my kids eat (to be fair, it’s a spectacle) but followed that up with “you’re lucky you’re not fat, [nearly 4 yr old girl]!” ACK. NO. WHAT.
Almost a year ago, I had a very serious health problem that left me with lung issues. Now I find I don’t want to exercise (I can — I can walk just fine) because it makes me cough and my pulse skyrockets. I hate it. It makes me feel awful. So I usually don’t. For a year. I imagine myself as having wasted all my muscles, and being basically fat on a skeleton. Alluring!
But I know that’s not why I’m loved. And also that if I could work just a bit on function, as some of you have said, I’d feel better. So I’ll look for that. Thank you.
Jenny, has your doctor referred you to a physical therapist? If not, I would encourage you to see one when you can do so safely. (You want to avoid sports medicine and think outpatient rehab.) They can really help with evaluating your function and designing a program to safely improve.
This had absolutely not occurred to me. I thought PT was for… knees, and rotator cuff injuries. I am literally tearing up with gratitude at the notion that someone who is trained might help me figure this out! I will ask, thank you so much.
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-procedures-and-tests/pulmonary-rehab
https://www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/pulmonary-rehabilitation-program/overview/ovc-20398578
Pulmonary rehab can be life changing!
I, too, am up 30 pounds since early March. The day the gyms shut down, I stopped keto and exercise cold turkey. Why does my mind work that way, so black and white (“Gym shut down ,routine broken, give up.”)? Perhaps because of what you just laid out here in this post. Another analogy I’ve heard is that if one of your car tires gets a flat, you don’t pull over, get out and slash the remaining 3. Of course not! Yet I do/did/have!
I’d say the thing that frustrates me most is when I’m IN the rhythm, I never want to be unhealthy and sluggish and winded again and cannot fathom returning to sedentary ways. But then I tumble out of that routine/mode of thinking and cannot get back in.
A: I want all the people who claim they live here to get out of my house for a few hours.
B: The local parenting discussion website has a “Diet and exercise” forum that is so relentlessly about weight loss, I could weep. Not only is the purpose of what you eat and how you move to weigh less, but the shape of your body is wrong, somehow. Someone is complaining about the appearance of the *backs of her thighs* — “Hello, and welcome to ‘Self-loathing Quest,’ the show where we help you find reasons to hate your body”
I read a comment on a long-lost reddit post that I found intriguing. Assuming that my normal tendency is to do nothing to advance the state of my health, I want to earn a binary 1. Not a point per se, more just a philosophy. I can get the 1 by eating something healthy or exercising. Eating something AND exercising doesn’t earn me more than 1. I can do 5 minutes or 45 minutes of exercise and I still get the 1. I tend to want to be gung-ho about health–I am either all in or a slug. I also tend to be competitive with myself, so this helps my “I constantly have to run/walk a little more every day” or “I ate more vegetables today so tomorrow, let’s do no vegetables AND no sugar.” I can’t do any more than 1, so there’s much less pressure to do fail/succeed. And if I don’t get the 1? No big deal, I can get a 1 tomorrow.
I cannot bring myself to restrict food/diet during the pandemic and I have (predictably) gained weight. I’ve also walked 10,000 steps EVERY DAY since lockdown in March & I do some online exercise most days. I try to still feel good about how my 47 yo body looks but it’s not easy.
Two studies I have found very helpful (I’ll try to add the links later). The first one is a meta analysis (the best kind of study because it’s a study of many studies) showed that overweight people have the longest lives. What you say! That because while they may be more likely to get diabetes (a manageable illness) overweight folks are more likely to survive pneumonia and cancer because they have reserves. This didn’t apply to obese, just overweight (I hate these terms, but I use them because I don’t remember the corresponding BMI) the authors were shocked and some folks who staked careers on the gospel of thin denounced the study. A follow up analysis by a different team found the same conclusion. So I’m not fat, I have lifesaving reserves.
The second was also a meta analysis, and the authors concluded that negative impacts of nutrition (as measured by death or illness) were from what people did not eat, not what they ate. So not eating enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains was more detrimental than eating fats, processed foods, and alcohol. THIS CHANGED MY LIFE. Rather than stress about cutting things out I’ve focused on getting enough of the good stuff. It’s hard, but lots of times I find that once I eat enough vegs etc I don’t want the bad stuff as much. I don’t feel deprived because all food is good, nothing is off limits as long as I’ve gotten enough health food at each meal.
Not the studies but summaries
https://food.ndtv.com/news/focus-on-eating-healthy-foods-more-important-than-avoiding-junk-food-study-2064849
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-healthiest-weight-could-actually-be-overweight-huge-study-finds
I watched a Nova show recently about fat. It went into a lot of detail about the hormone, leptin, which signals to your brain that you are full. It explained how genetics controls how much leptin your fat cells release. Each person has a different leptin response. One person’s default weight is so very different from another person’s because leptin production is genetic.
Another thing I learned in the show is that sumo wrestlers are not at risk of health conditions that are normally associated with obesity (diabetes, heart disease, etc.) These guys were working out up to 8 hours a day (and also, of course, consuming large amounts of food). But when they retired or quit their workout regimen, those risk factors came to them quickly. So sumo wrestlers are healthy while fat, as long as they are wrestling and exercising.
I think that’s the NOVA special based on the book The Secret Life of Fat, by Sylvia Tara. I still have the book on my TBR list. I know she also talks about fat as an organ.
I’ve been mostly keeping with my diet during pandemic but eating more sugar than I should be based on how it makes me feel. Also trying to walk every day but struggling with the 90 degree heat right now!
It’s all tough!
For me, the biggest benefit of exercising is that I sleep better if I do it. And as a chronic insomniac with anxiety issues, exercise is the most reliable sleep aid for me.
I’ve lost a small amount of weight during the pandemic because I am not in the office eating the constant array of provided snack foods. Nonetheless, I am still – shall we say – on the pleasantly zaftig side. But I am capable of feats like canoeing for 8 miles which my skinny middle-aged guy neighbor was telling me would be way too much for the likes of him.
I have lived with chronic illness ranging from moderately severe to quite mild my entire life. My health habits – food, exercise, sleep, stress management – or lack thereof have a direct and fairly immediate impact on how I feel. Managing my health has meant listening to my body, and it tells me pretty quickly when I get too far off course. I am also genetically thin and my health has at times made me thinner than was healthy. (Though, very few people have ever recognized that in our the thinner the better society.) I can not tell you the number of conversations I have had along the lines of ‘like you need to order the salad/ go to the gym/etc.” Yes, in fact, I DO need to eat my vegetables and move my body. We all do. I just get more direct feedback than most young people. (Well, now that I’m in my 40s most people do get that feedback. They just don’t know how to read it as well as I do.)
I am taking a drops-in-the-bucket approach to pandemic exercise by doing a few pushups and back stretches (too much sitting during the pandemic) while I wait for the kettle to boil and for my tea to steep. I only do so if there is no one around to see me. I had also been taking daily walks but it’s extraordinarily hot and humid these days, so I haven’t done that regularly for a couple of weeks.
And when I say a few, I should qualify that the pushups are from the knee. I can now literally do ONE proper pushup.
Karen, holy crap, go you! Pushups are HARD.
Thank you!
You make excellent points. The reward is feeling fitter and healthier and being able to walk a distance without feeling like you’re going to expire.
The thinnest I’ve been in the last 20 years was when my first kid was a toddler, and I had to run around after him. Any time we went out or went to friends’ places or whatever, I had to stick by him. I got so many compliments about losing weight. It was one of the worst-feeling times of my life, because I didn’t get to relax and was only thinner because of stress and running. I got very little help from my husband, I had to do it all, just like I had to change all the nappies and get up at night every time.
One day recently after I’d been extra conscientious about daily exercise for the last couple months, and my husband sure had not, we walked to our neighbourhood shops together. I felt veeeery smug because I was comfortable going at a decent pace, and he was huffing and puffing and grumpy about it.
Is it petty? Hell yes. Also, see paragraph 2, lol.
On the husband being home – I GET IT! My husband recently exclaimed how *well* we are coping with all of this. I responded that it was because he was still going to work Monday through Friday – so I can attest that having us both home all day on the weekends can get grating.
I work out because both my parents had dementia before they passed away and there is some evidence that dementia could be a circulatory issue (blood flow to the brain) that is helped with regular exercise. I strength train and run/ walk and one thing I have noticed as I’m aging is that it also helps a lot with balance. I’ve had a couple of stumble/ falls in the last year and I think it would have been worse if I didn’t have the ability to catch myself. I don’t always like doing it but it’s so built into my routine at this point that I do it anyway. Without my family history though, I doubt I’d be as motivated.
My husband is going to be off from work the entire month of August and I’m thinking we should have no talking afternoons to save my sanity.
I listen to a few science-based podcasts and I can’t remember which one it was, but there was an episode examining the various diets and keto was not recommended for the reasons you are experiencing: it’s very restrictive, and as soon as people stop following the strict rules they regain the weight almost immediately. Maybe it was Life Kit? It was awhile ago but I do remember that they recommended pretty much any diet that focused on healthy fats, whole grains, lean proteins, and lots of fruits and veggies – they specifically gave the Mediterranean Diet as an example, but there were a couple of others – partly because it was simple and easy to follow so people found it was something they could stick to long-term.
I’ve been tracking my calories and weighing myself daily since the beginning of January (because my weight had crept up to what it was when I’d been 9 months pregnant with my last child). I had lost almost 20 pounds when we went into lockdown mid-March, but I’ve continued to very slowly go down about a pound every 2 weeks so I’ve lost another 10. When I hit my goal weight in another 5 I’ll still be considered overweight, despite the fact that my fancy-schmancy scale confirms that at this point I’m in the “athletic” range for body fat and the low range for subcutaneous fat, while my muscle mass is “high” and my bone mass is “above average”. So my takeaways are 1) I’m literally very dense, and 2) BMI and therefore what your doctor says is healthy is pretty much BS.
I also want to add: I chose to diet because I was starting to have some health issues (e.g. my feet were developing plantar fasciitis which was restricting my mobility and reducing my enjoyment of, say, vacations where I couldn’t go on long walks because my feet hurt too much), because I noticed that it was getting hard to zip up my winter jacket and those things are expensive and I’m too cheap to buy another one when the one I have is in fine condition, and because I am a fitness instructor and was starting to get a bit self-conscious on the stage, in that order. People who are happy and healthy at they size they’re at obviously have no reason or obligation to change it for other people, and I wouldn’t want to imply otherwise.