Recently I hit a new weight goal. Between eating healthy in the UK and being a lot more active during touring I dropped about 10lbs. As much as I hope the weight stays off, I have to keep fighting my want to stop eating altogether.
I’ve always had body image issues (as most folks), however, I do feel like my body image issues come from a few places. First, the obvious: wouldn’t it be nice to be skinny enough to wear clothes that actually suit your body. I find it really difficult to find clothes, especially pants. Honestly, a lot of my body issues come from trying to put on pants at different stores. I spent 4 or 5 months trying to find new pants with K and somehow we couldn’t find a single pair. It’s weird. I know pants are made for the “average body type” and I know I don’t have some obscure body. People must have my body type. It’s just I’m very tall, have slim muscular legs, but I carry all of my weight in my gut. Typical dad bod. And I know, I know “you can get rid of your gut through diet and exercise.” That’s great and all when I’m actually in a place where I can “diet and exercise.” These are two things that people always preach but rarely do themselves.
Personally, I don’t get invested in things like running or lifting weights. I want a full-body exercise that gets me going because it’s connected to something. I don’t know if that fully makes sense, but I’m talking about things like physical theatre, dance, performance in general, rockclimbing, high-elements, etc. Things that are creative/skill-based and keep you active. That’s why a lot of the work I create involves a lot of moving or incorporates some sort of workout in it. It’s my way of tricking myself into exercise.
I also live a decently active life. I walk up and down 7 flights of stairs to get in and out of my apartment, I don’t drive so walking or biking are my regular forms of transportation (unless I take the transit to downtown), and I try to take as many long walks with K as I can. Obviously, there are lots more things that I can do, but it’s safe to say that I’m at least actively trying to lose the weight. At this moment, I just want to be in a body that is fit enough to do the activities I want to do. And fit enough to do activities I didn’t know I would enjoy.
As I continue to shred pounds I constantly have to remind myself that I need to eat. K gets worried when I’m away, especially when if I’m excited about quick weight loss. He constantly reminds me to eat. Which is something I sometimes struggle with. For example: when I get sad I ignore my feelings of hunger. Or if I’m working extra hard, I forget that I haven’t eaten breakfast… or lunch. But often it doesn’t come from a place where I think if I starve myself I will get skinnier.
That hasn’t always been the case. In my later high school years, I wasn’t happy about my weight in general. All I wanted was to be skinny. Not healthy. Skinny. Although I’m not proud of it I used to tell my mom I would buy lunch at school and I’d skip lunch. When I’d get home I’d tell her I also bought dinner and would skip that. Later at night I would snack lightly before bed. (As I’m not someone who can go to sleep hungry.) I did this for a good portion of my grade 11 year until I started getting really faint all the time. It’s pretty terrible, especially since my friends were doing exactly what I was doing. It’s odd because it’s not like we had an agreement that this is how we were going to lose weight, we just used the excuse “we’d rather leave campus and sunbathe than go waste time buying lunch.” Fucked up. Right?
I don’t remember exactly what the turning point was for me, but I’m just glad I stopped being such an idiot before it got too extreme. Later that year I started a “healthier” vegetarian diet. I use quotations because I wasn’t a truly healthy vegetarian. A lot of my food intake were veggie burgers, meatless pizzas, some forms of stirfry, and other… “take out” foods. While I was still shredding pounds, I’m really not proud of this either. I still didn’t eat as much as I should have, and wasn’t eating healthy at all.
Last night I had a dream that I stopped eating again. That I got to my “ideal weight” whatever that is… I’m working on pushing back those thoughts and glad this time I have someone by my side to actually tell me to stop and to tell me that no matter what my body size they still love me.
I have been actively cooking healthier meals and have been cooking for us for the past year and a half, but there’s still more I can do. I’ve been cutting out sugary foods, cutting out chips, and when we are too lazy to cook I’m trying to find healthier options for take out. (Which is funny, because a few days ago we ordered pizza… gosh darn pizza, why you so good and greasy?)
I honestly believe that this time around I will reach my goals without terrorising my body, but I thought I share what’s been on my mind today.
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