I'm glad you're fat and happy, really. But I'm not.

A few days ago a friend of mine forwarded a viral article from a woman who went from a size 4 to a size-undescribed (presumably larger than a 4) and now self-describes as "fat and happy". You can find it here. It's a pretty interesting read. Given the topic of this whole blog, I'm clearly invested in the project of losing body fat. I am not happy with my body, or at least, I'm not happy with the amount of fat I'm carrying around on it. Her post made me stop and wonder why that is. I mean, she got the Holy Grail (i.e., size 4), and gave it away--she is now happier at a much higher weight. Why am I not happy with myself like she is? Is there something wrong with me? Do I hate myself? Am I a self-hater?! Um... wait, no, I'm not. But I'm still not happy with my body as it is. So here are some of my reflections on this odd situation.

First, some ground rules:

1. Self-absorption: as with all other things, this post is All About ME! This blog is all me, all the time. Yay.
2. Body acceptance: the author claims to be much happier with herself and her life as a larger woman. That's awesome! Go her! 
3. Perspective: she self-describes as "fat". Her "fat" is still smaller than what I've managed to achieve after a year of work. My "still fat" is someone else's final goal. Applying terms like "fat" is a variable and dangerous business. So there's that.

Okay, so the article itself, as I read it, gives me the following two take-home messages. First, this woman was going to fairly extreme lengths to maintain her extremely thin physique. Second, being thin did not make her happy.

I want to start with her claim that being thin did not maker her happy. In principle, I agree with the sentiment that thinness in and of itself does not make one happy. I've seen some really interesting pieces in other places about the problems that present themselves upon losing a lot of weight--HERE is a great one from Strong Coffey about what she misses about being 300 lbs (this is not an ironic post). I think the bad experiences of thin women are genuine, and I am by no means trying to dismiss them. But the thing is, most of what the author says about how bad her life was as a thin person didn't have much to do with her size, but rather were about the lengths she was going to in order to achieve/maintain that size. I'm assuming she believed that these extremes were necessary to maintain her weight, and for awhile at least, that was a price she was willing to pay.

Let's be clear here, the life that the author describes was mind-numbing. I actually do some of the things she describes, like tracking my food, and I find that very helpful and instructive. But other things she did, like running 35 miles a week, sleeping 3 hours a night, running stairs on breaks, or eating 1,000 calories per day while gagging down things like rice cakes (blech), are some special kind of insane. How anyone stuck this out to a size 4 is a mystery to me. I can get why this woman wasn't happy living the way she was. If I really thought that getting to a healthy body fat level included things like nonstop cardio and never having cake again, I'd hang up my tennis shoes right now and snug back into my size 20s. And I'm worried that this is the message a lot of people will get by reading her post--that being concerned with fitness and body composition means engaging in these sorts of soul-crushing behaviors.

So I'm gonna push back, and dissect a bit of what she packaged into "being thin":

Working out nonstop: yeah, see, this is one reason I hate cardio, and why I desperately want to preach the Good News that cardio is not The One True Way to lose weight. (As usual, if you love cardio, have at it, but it is not indispensable, nor is it clearly the best option for many folks.) Depending on genetics, one may well have to exercise nonstop in order to maintain extremely low body fat numbers with cardio alone, and possibly endure massive calorie restrictions to boot. Honestly, I could not function like that. And it wasn't clear that she was functioning, either. As her post said, her body had started shutting down essential functions like reproduction (which is a sort of big deal if evolutionary biologists are to be believed). The revelation that has changed my life was the understanding that metabolism is the name of the game, and that cardio alone is a long-term losing proposition for me. Either I would lose muscle mass, my metabolism would go down, and I would gain my weight back; or, I could try (and totally fail) to maintain an insane workout schedule and calorie restriction in order to maintain my weight. Lifting changed this dynamic radically for me, moving me into a lifestyle that I actually enjoy and am happy to live. These aren't temporary restrictions or things I'm enduring for a particular end--they're a part of how I live now, and that lifestyle is good, not crazy-making. 

Extreme calorie restrictions: this one, too, is neither necessary nor healthy. At 1,000 calories per day, most people's bodies would panic and go into calorie conservation mode, assuming that they're starving to death (because, well, they're starving to death). Becoming lethargic, shutting down various body systems, hair loss, etc. Most people can't endure this for terribly long--frankly, most people give up on this diet quickly (there are doctor-led exceptions to this, of course). Restricting calories to this level for most folks outside of a carefully-guided (and hopefully doctor-led) plan--certainly for me--is counter-productive in the extreme. And believing that one has to maintain this in perpetuity? That just isn't sustainable. But it also isn't necessary.

Never being able to eat cake: I'm tempted to take her at face value here, that she really believed she could never have cake. If I seriously thought I could never eat cake again, all in sacrifice to a particular body shape, I'd quit now.

Substitute "cake" for "tacos". Actually, nevermind, I also want tacos.

Obviously I don't believe this. However, I have had to do a lot of work learning how to be reasonable about how much cake I have, and how to adjust my diet for when I have... *ahem*... unreasonable amounts of cake. Reading the original post, I found a moment of clarity on the whole point of eating cake, which is one reason I'm glad I read this post. You see, I used to think that I had to restrict my cake-intake (or whatever--cake, waffles, ice cream, fill in the blank). I was being deprived of what I want, sacrificing for a nice body. Really, I had a strange sort of entitlement going on, like I deserve to have cake whenever I want, and it's part of an unfair life and crappy genetics that I don't get to. For me, this is a short path to eating a lot of cake (and soaking up the associated guilt when I did so). But my thinking on how I manage my diet has shifted considerably, to a place that is much healthier psychologically. Yes, I manage my diet, I track my food, and I have been known to restrict the amount of cake I eat in order to maintain my calorie/macro goals (currently right around 1800-2000 cal/day). But I'm not depriving myself, because what I'm getting in exchange is a healthier body, with more endurance and which looks better to me. A body that can go downhill skiing for 6 hours two days in a row without falling apart. A body that can enjoy outdoor activities and keeping up with my kids. A body that I feel better living inside, and one that will likely live longer, and have a better quality of life. Is that worth opting to not having a piece of cake sometimes? For me, yes it is.

So, where am I going with all of this? I don't really know, this post didn't come together the way a lot of them do. I really just wanted to spend some time examining why this woman's narrative, while genuine, was simply not compelling to me. I completely agree that thinness does not make one happy. But what does make me happy is the vibrant, energetic life I now get to enjoy. I enjoy looking in the mirror now. (Well, sometimes. That's a different post.) I enjoy working out to see what my body can achieve now. I'm proud of my body, even during its "under construction" phase. I don't hate myself--I love myself more than I ever have. The costs for this, and there are some, are ones I'm very happy to pay. In fact, I've come to love many of the "costs". So I guess my own take-home message is this: there are prices that are not worth paying for a nice body; but sometimes there are prices that are worth paying. And sometimes, the price even turns into the prize.