Reading Time: 5mins
Hey There,
We have reached Week 3 of the Finding Health Ditching Diets blog and, as I write this, I remember what it was like to write “Week 3” up on the gym whiteboard 2 years and 2 weeks ago at Barbelle. I still have a mini celebration to myself every week when I get to change that number on the board – another week of not f*cking up the best thing I’ve ever made (so far!).
Will this blog last 2 years? I actually place no importance on how long it stays going. I’m happy if I turn up and do a spell-check-assisted-brain-dump. By the way, Week 1 blog was out of a Monday (as planned), Week 2 blog came out on Tuesday and Week 3 is coming out on a Wednesday – the trajectory is not promising.
I’ve really enjoyed receiving your feedback over the last 2 weeks. The main response is :
“it’s nice to know I’m not the only one feeling this way”.
In a way that’s wild to me.
How can so many of us still suffer in silence when it comes to body image issues?
>Perhaps it’s a language thing; meaning that we don’t have the vocabulary to communicate our feelings to others.
>Perhaps it’s a trust thing; meaning that we can’t be sure of the response we’ll get from a loved one should we voice our thoughts. You might be met with a nugget of sheer wisdom such as “just move more and eat less” – so helpful, why didn’t you think of that?
>Perhaps it’s a confidence thing; meaning that you don’t have confidence in yourself to say these things aloud and be that vulnerable. Maybe you always wear the Supporter Hat which therefore implies you can’t ever don the Supported Hat.
>Perhaps it’s a mix of all 3 or something totally different…. I don’t know who’s reading.
For yours truly, it’s mostly Column C; the Hat one. So in today’s edge-of-your-seat-read, I’m going to talk about my latest experience of asking for support and how it went.
Just to go back a step, this is in relation to the questions I posed to myself in Blog 2, so on the off chance that you missed it, click the link and read it for context – but only if you have 8 minutes to spare!
For a few weeks now, I’ve been battling with a resurgence of desire to intentionally pursue weight loss due to feelings of insecurity surrounding some recent weight gain. – Wow it took me a whole blog to say that last week!
I have held back from putting a Weight Loss Plan into place because I’m worried about falling back into old dieting habits which made me very lean, but, furthered insecurity instead of abetting it.
My “To Diet or Not to Diet” decision is also tied heavily to Barbelle and my role as owner and creator. I do not want to act as a hypocritical owner of a Body Positive/Neutral “no ordinary” gym. Talk about pressure!
Last week after writing Blog 2, I reached out to 3 professionals who work in this space to tease things out and get some perspective.
I connected a lot with advise from #1, felt a bit odd about #2, and couldn’t afford a consultation with #3 so I read through a lot of their blog material instead.
Body image is a complex topic so I’m going to give you a quick whizz through what Positive Body Image [PBI] entails.
PBI is the state of appreciating, accepting and respecting your body for what it is. It involves your thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards your body. It is still possible to be dissatisfied with function / appearance BUT you are able to accept and show kindness to your body despite the perceived limitations. PBI should enable you to consider feelings of dissatisfaction in the context of true holistic, internal wellbeing firstly and then the role of external factors such as conventional beauty standards, social media, fatphobia, ableism, gender norms and other marginalisations.
In this next line I’m gunna go into full activism mode so watch out:
PBI should educate & empower you to avoid ranking your body (and by extension, your self-worth) within a social, capitalist, racist system that further entrenches oppression into our communities and future generations. …Not to mention makes $66+bn by preying on your insecurities using quackery-science to sell you the dream!!
There are some great books to help you learn more – I’d suggest starting with this one.
Sounds great in theory, but here are my main problems with PBI:
- Body Positivity is oversimplified in the media – did you know it was created by and for Fat, Black & Queer communities to advocate for acceptance, visibility and value in wider society. So a load of pretty white girls showing you skin-rolls when they sit down in mass produced jeans on your IG feed is prolly not helpful to the cause in the grand scheme of things. Source
- If you have had a lifetime of Negative Body Image [NBI], suddenly being thrilled about your body “warts an’ aul” is likely to feel fricken impossible for you!
- To move from NBI to PBI takes GUTS!! And books! And a therapist! And naps! And a 🥊 bag!
- The acceptance thing; does accepting mean never desiring change??
- What about attraction? Where is the line between desire and objectification?
- What about illnesses that science says are related to extra fat mass; where do we stand on them?
Lately, I have been educating myself on Body Neutrality which is sorta like a middle ground, but that’s a topic for another blog!
Anyhoo, I reached out to this professional to share my struggles and pronounce a winner of the mental tug-o-war once and for all.
She was firstly very compassionate which was relieving. I guess a small part of me was imagining that she would belittle me for feeling this way. Classic projecting of insecurities!
Crucially, she asked me about my life, my routines and the feelings and thoughts I was noticing – this in itself started to paint a picture of overwhelm which triggered some tears. (When the tears come, you know your inner child is desperate for a hug!)
The big kicker was this though: she reminded me that people with PBI cultivate thoughts, feelings and behaviours that treat their bodies with respect and while the desire for fat loss did not make me a hypocrite, neglecting my own self care did. Woah! I felt that like a punch in the throat.
She asked me to go and pose a few more questions to myself, so maybe these could be helpful for you too:
- Boundaries: What can I let go of to make room for me?
- If I continue to engrain these habits [of deprioritising self-care], where will it lead me?
- Am I caring for myself the way that I’d tell my members to care for themselves?
- Time Constraints: If I am having success in making time for exercise, why then, can I not make time for lunch when in theory it should demand less time than a 7km run / gym session.
Tune in next week as I continue this journey of self-exploration and please keep your delightfully positive feedback coming! Did you learn anything today? If you are somebody suffering NBI in silence, how come you do that? Did the 3 reasons I gave, resonate with you? Which question (1, 2, 3 or 4) do you think you most need to figure out an answer to?
Yours in finite borrowed wisdom,
Lots of love,
Bye, bye-bye, bye, bye …. bye!
