Meeting topic: Support System

At a recent WW meeting (two weeks ago?) we talked for quite a while about our support systems, and the meeting leader encouraged us to spend some time thanking all the people who have supported us during our weight loss. She reminded us that when it gets difficult—and it will get difficult—that it will be especially important to lean on those people. And I realized that, truth be told, I had only told two people (!) that I’d joined WW: my sister, who hasn’t brought it up again since, and my partner. I started this blog in hopes of feeling less ashamed about my need to lose 20 pounds, and also to get some of the support on line that I wasn’t sure how to find in person. But I also promised myself I would find someone in person to “come out to” about this. I have lunch with her Wednesday and am going to tell her then. (Hey, I mean to tell other people in time. And soon they’ll spot it. But one step at a time).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this: why all the shame? Being ashamed about being overweight is one thing. I’m not saying one should feel ashamed, but there are certainly a thousand cultural messages that make that shame understandable. But why feel ashamed for trying to lose weight? Why not grab a bullhorn? Well, of course, in part because it casts a spotlight on the attempt and therefore possible failure (I’m not trying to be negative, but hey: we don’t succeed at everything we try in life, and nobody starts their weight loss program certain they will succeed. Though I’m getting more certain every day!).  Partly I find I sometimes need to get used to something quietly, privately, and only later let people in on it—not just with this, but all sorts of big changes and decisions. I can be a private person that way. To be honest, then, it’s somewhat reassuring that for the most part my weight loss has so far been invisible to people—well, I do think I’m getting checked out more, and as I mentioned, my partner has noticed—but 7 pounds isn’t so dramatic that the spotlight is on me. I want time to get used to it inside myself, before I let the world and their opinions in. In this sense, weirdly, I’m glad the weight loss doesn’t go any more quickly. One needs time to adjust to one’s new self, pound by pound. How do I inhabit this changing body? How do I occupy a slightly different place on this earth? Who is this me whose form is changing?

OK, so a desire for privacy, space and time to think and adjust. But is there still some shame, some hiding? Yes, for me there is. And over the last few days the “why” has started to come into focus for me, in part because of some thinking I’ve been doing for a long time, and in part because of something I read on my new most favoritest blog ever. Sheryl (aka “bitch cakes”) wrote about one somewhat uncomfortable aspect of reaching goal: people feeling endlessly free to offer unsolicited comments about her body. And boy, do I get that. It’s not just the intrusiveness alone (like her, I’m tattooed; like her, I get very sick of people commenting on them; unlike her, I still love mine!). When she lost her weight, and I can corroborate this from being at goal in the past, not all comments one gets are positive. Some, she observed, are downright passive aggressive, such as the comment that one is too “skinny,” a very charged term, I think. “Don’t lose more weight!” “You’re wasting away!” I’ve heard equally upsetting comments, even at the upper end of my healthy weight range. I even was told once—by a nutritionist—that I had an eating disorder because I was tracking all my food. People, I was glowingly healthy, happily poised around 130-135, and came in to talk about how to safely get down to 125-130—see if there was anything I could fine-tune that would work for me as a hypoglycemic and a vegetarian. I did NOT have, and indeed have never had, an eating disorder. It was a real eye-opener, but it also destabilized me quite a bit, and actually threw me off my eating plan. Very upsetting: I felt more disordered when I left her office than when I went in!! (In her defense, I was a graduate student, and a nutritionist in a college setting must be on the lookout for eating disorders. But I am still flabbergasted about it to this day: I simply had none of the symptoms. Tracking food is not disordered!).

This was a freak thing, but let us be frank, some people do not want you to succeed—either their misperceptions or upbringing or jealousy gets in the way. You know, some people are actually more comfortable if you’re overweight. Because then you are not putting pressure on them to change their lives.

This gets close to the heart of something very real for me that I rarely see talked about: the anxiety of losing solidarity with other overweight women. That there is something traitorous about becoming the thin one, singling yourself out. I think this can work in couples too, where one partner decides on a lifestyle change that the other resists, but in my experience and opinion it is much worse with fellow women. There are, as Mary Gaitskill once said, two girls, fat and thin.

I’ve thought about this a lot, because over the years I’ve become aware of what I can only describe as anxiety when I am at or near my ideal weight. I’ve never been obese: I’ve always kept myself just plump enough (although, over the years, this has crept up from 10 to 15 to 20+ pounds above where I’d like to be). It’s partly anxiety about unwanted attention, but more often that’s merely uncomfortable, not fear inducing. The anxiety, though: well that is more seriously a fear of being shunned in some way. Being one of the thin women. One of them, not one of us.

I am still trying to sort through what all this means for me, and more importantly start developing strategies now, while my weight loss is still hiding in plain site, for dealing with what I fear might be snarky or jealous or edgy comments from some quarters. I’m trying to run through scenarios in my mind, to be prepared. And I’m also trying to talk about it, here and with trusted people in person, so that I can get a hold on it. It puts a new angle on “emotional eating,” doesn’t it?

Anyway, one of the reasons for this blog is to try to find a support system of other like-minded people on line, those truly dedicated to this process, so we can thrill for each other rather than hold each other back. I hope you’ll come with me.

Sheryl at Bitch Cakes, thanks for the enormous inspiration.