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Losing weight

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06:26 / 17.07.02

You know that body dysmorphic disorder thing? I kind of have the opposite (body eumorphic order?) whereby I think my body is way better than it in fact is, as evidenced by the fact that I can't fit into my favourite jeans any more & when I weighed myself I appear to have put on 10 kilos without noticing. Weirdly, although I was just trundling along happily thinking lalala, I am perfectly satisfactorily shaped lalalala until then, now that I have a big number to fixate on I am starting to think that I am a bit too fat. I know this is stupid.

Now I know this is a tricky subject for some people here, but does anyone have any good ways of thinking about losing weight? I'm really just upping the developmental side of my t'ai chi training and not eating crisps, so I'm not expecting spectacular results any time soon, but, spookily, I keep finding myself saying "ooh, you disgusting fat piggy!" to myself (in a fairly affectionate tone - so far) when I eat anything fatty. This is clearly a stupid way to reinforce my resolve to lose a bit of weight but I can't think of a clever way that doesn't hook into the sorts of Wrong-Headed Ideas you'll all be familiar with.

Further, is there any point in being half-assed about this? I am sort of trying to eat a bit less fat & seeing what happens at the moment, but should I just either (a) forget about the whole issue & restart my quest for nice jeans, or (b) decide on a target weight and focus on reaching it, then forget about the whole issue?

07:01 / 17.07.02

"I keep finding myself saying "ooh, you disgusting fat piggy!" to myself (in a fairly affectionate tone - so far) when I eat anything fatty"

deva - most of all, i'd cut out those sort of statements. just the kind of seed that self-loathing and using food as reward and punishment can grow from. eating habits are part of a person's lifestyle, so other changes may need to be made. i've always been against crash diets, again, they seem like punishment and it should be more about what kind of food you eat than starving yourself - cutting out fatty food, or replacing it with healthier snacks, and exercise is far better and it seems to me you've got that sorted anyhow.

07:20 / 17.07.02

I know exactly what you mean, Deva. The Missus and I are polar opposites when it comes to this; she's constantly examining herself for imaginary flab when she is in fact really slim while I think I look like Alex from Big Brother when in fact I am starting to get a bit lardy again.

As a complete ignoramus about nutritional values of food and exercising, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I lost loads of weight and toned up with relatively little effort at the gym, but that of course costs money you might not have to throw about. Cutting out crap food is of course quite effective.

And it's not necessarily "succumbing to stupid patriarchal/fashion-industry assumptions about body size & shape" to just want to feel good about yourself, is it?

07:58 / 17.07.02

I'd agree with SFD about being careful - it's all too easy to get completely fucked up over a number on a scale.
It sounds like you're doing things the right way - change little things so that you eat a bit less and do a bit more, and you'll slowly go back to where you were. It's not fast, which can be frustrating, but you're better to alter your normal habits a little than to crash diet and end up in a whole cycle of self loathing. It can get to the most feminist of us.

09:34 / 17.07.02

I'm in dead slow internet cafe in the middle of derbyshire, so I won't chat, but here's my two pennorth worth.
1 Diets don't work. something like 90% of dieters put the weight back and more
2 Advertising images of women are designed to make us desire impossible bodyweights
3 a healthly regime of exercise (40 mins aerobic, three times a week, minimum) and balanced diet, no scales, is the ideal, in my experience
4 low fat diets have recently - and in my view, correctly - been discredited

I have **so** much to say about this topic - it's practically my life's work - but my time's gonna run out. If this threads still active Sunday, you'll be hearing from me.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:04 / 17.07.02

Could we leave this thread for "good feminist ways of losing weight", i.e. actual advice, and discuss the evils or otherwise of the concept of weight loss in the "Fat" thread in the Head Shop, which I am about to bump to the top?

11:29 / 17.07.02

Buy some good jeans and forget about the ones that don't fit any more. Why feel bad when you can feel good? Then, whether you lose weight or not, you will still have good jeans to wear.

Dieting to fit into a specific piece of clothing tends to veer towards crash dieting anyway, and that is neither good nor feminist.

11:49 / 17.07.02

I'm told drinking more water helps, not sure of the science behind it. And hell, virtually everyone should drink more water.

11:57 / 17.07.02

Drinking water is good because sometimes your body confuses thirst for hunger. If you drink water before a meal you might not eat as much unnecessary food because your thirst has been sated and you don't feel as hungry as you thought you did. And yes, water is full of nice stuff that is good for you. And helps with hangovers.

The Apple-Picker

12:13 / 17.07.02

The only way I've been able to keep my body fit without becoming totally neurotic about eating and food, is to read (and then follow the principles of) Overcoming Overeating by Hirschmann and Munter. I love this book. They wrote another one called When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies, which I mostly liked, but had some weird thoughts I found kind of silly.

Because of the first book, I am much more healthy in how I deal with food--mentally. I don't diet, I don't watch what I eat.

Also, I have to be mostly process-oriented as far as exercise goes. As soon as goals overwhelm the balance, the actual process seems like drudgery.

Best luck to you on whatever you decide to do.

The Apple-Picker

12:22 / 17.07.02

Also, in the time you're deciding what you prefer to do, I'd suggest plan (a) forget about the whole issue & restart my quest for nice jeans. Even if you decide that the whole dieting thing is something you want to try out (from which I would *really* like to discourage you), I can think of no reason why you shouldn't be comfortable and look nice while you're doing that.

12:24 / 17.07.02

i think you're meant to drink two litres of water a day.
i know that body image is a really scary thing, because how you percieve your body is generally all tied up in how you actually see yourself. it's hard to know what you actually look like, which is the weirdest thing for me to understand, because it seems to be so simple.
thanks for the book links, apple picker.

The Planet of Sound

12:24 / 17.07.02

I was a plump teenager. When sitting on the lavatory, my own thighs would repulse me. I was embarrassed about going swimming. I had man-boobs. I embarked on a regime of eating only apples for lunch (remarkably filling), avoiding all sweet things (except, of course, alcohol), and jogging at weekends and evenings. The weight stayed off (until fairly recently when long-term 'issues; have seen me swilling wine like Keith Floyd and eating like a Roman slave-trader), although after the original six months or so I gave up on the apple-lunch-thing, which was becoming tedious. And I had trouble meeting doctors.

In a nutshell, and avoiding any moral repurcussions: if you want to lose weight, do, if you don't, don't. Short-term diets don't work, a permanent lifestyle/mental change is what yer need, and exercise (swimming for resistance, jogging for impact) works wonders.

12:30 / 17.07.02

oh! i knew i had something else to say and planet's post helped me remember...thanks, planet.
i have just come out of therapy, which i had for a year, and it was there that i realised that my eating disorder was all down to other issues. these other issues had made me feel so gross and out of control that i used my body as something that i could control and it got way out of hand.
i still have an incredibly fucked up body image, and i have self-esteem issues, but working on them is totally helping me stop taking it all out on my body.
so often i focus on bad things about my body -- it's gross etc instead of remembering that it took me hiking in the himalayas and stuff.

also, i want to point out that the women who sometimes make me feel bad about my body are also making themselves ill. sarah michelle gellar, tara reid and christina ricci have all admitted to also having eating disorders. and that's fucked up.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:34 / 17.07.02

Really? Where?

12:35 / 17.07.02

christina ricci talked about her bulimia in rolling stone. i just heard about srah michelle gellar today at another forum, as well as tara reid last week. it's so depressing.

The Apple-Picker

12:48 / 17.07.02

Some things I neglected to say about the books I read that I think are really important (sparked by what Suds wrote): Once I started dealing with food in a healthy way, emotions were extremely intense. Feelings that I used to check with food had become unadulterated. It was pretty scary, but I feel much better for it now.

Just a warning.

13:04 / 17.07.02

Kit-Kat - while you are, of course, entirely right, I *love* those jeans and it took me about two years to find them. I'm guessing t will take me *way* less than that to lose 2 inches off my waist.

That's flippant, obviously, but it is an irony which probably resonates with a scathing critique of capitalist subject-production in some way.

13:13 / 17.07.02

Well in that case... I understand from my reading that if you don't want to actually succumb to the dieting urge, toning exercise is the best way to reduce without losing weight (as any fule kno, muscle weighs more than fat) so your t'ai-chi is probably the best thing you could possibly do...

13:19 / 17.07.02

And muscle is also 'hungrier' than fat, burning more calories. ie. your metabolism goes up once you've a higher muscle to fat ratio. Which means you can eat more crisps without outgrowing your jeans again.

14:00 / 17.07.02

Deva:
Walk. A LOT. More than you usually do. This works on the lower half of your body and will get you back in those jeans.

14:47 / 17.07.02

I'm heavier than I've ever been too.
Damn this domestic happiness!

I'm working on availability of good food vs. crap food, lately, but there's a well-trained cadre of baking grandmothers who work at my paper, continually bringing in brownies and cakes and hideous concoctions made of marshmallows, melted chocolate and Golden Grahams cereal. This is because they're out to get me. Really.

17:15 / 17.07.02

Shit, and I was on the verge of posting a diet thread a few days ago. But I'm on the losing weight trip too; mainly because a few days ago I finally got on the scales and nearly jumped out of my skin. I'm relatively heavy for my height, but I'm also relatively well-built - body size, not muscle - and always have been. But it's now seriously out of control. The family male metabolism is firmly lodged in the BELLY end of the spectrum, and lack of exercise and ludicrous termtime alcohol consumption has taken it's toll. So I've got the summer holiday to knock a few pounds off, and then make sure I work out more when term begins. Everyone's advice seems pretty much what I've picked up on; I'm now running regularly - it's not far at the moment, given I'm as unfit as fuck, but I'm keeping up with it and just making sure I run further each time. Some brief circuits, and cutting out snacking and extraneous comfort-eating, both of which I'm prone to.

I'm determined to stick at it. Because I don't want to be this heavy again - or rather, I don't want to be this lardy ever again.

18:21 / 17.07.02

Hey ho, I'm dieting too.

18:43 / 17.07.02

I'm gonna second Ierne's suggestion. Find ways to increase the number of steps you take during the day. You know, don't plan on taking care of everything in order each time you leave the desk/office/workstation. It sucks a lot of convenience out of getting from point A to point B, but anecdotally it works wonders. it has the advantage of being half-assed, too.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:22 / 18.07.02

Well, I'm a guy but I am trying to lose weight too. It was easier when I worked in an office rather than in social services, since in an office you can have a very set schedule and eat what you are supposed to...at the group home I am usually grabbing something to jam in my pie hole when I get a spare minutes.

Anyone interested in putting together a Bareblith Weight Loss Spport group where we prod each other to exercise more and eat less? Or even point out better ways to exercise?

odd jest on horn

03:51 / 18.07.02

Topic Abstract:
Good feminist ways of losing weight without succumbing to stupid patriarchal/fashion-industry assumptions about body size & shape.

A few points:

Feminist ways of losing weight. Ways to lose weight.
The methods which you use to lose weight have absolutely nothing to do with the whys of it. Can feminism have anything to say about weight losing methods?
Analogy:
Can feminism have anything to say about the scientific method (as opposed to the way science is used in our patriarchal society).

Also by losing weight in the first place, and therefore being able to fit into more clothes of the rack, some people might say you were "succumbing..". And they'd think little of the fact that you used proper feminist ways of slimming down.

IMNSHO the question prolly should be: Is it the proper feminist thing to do to lose weight to fit into my pants?
Well, if fitting into your most favorite pants is gonna stop you from spending good money on some other pants, then that's a blow to consumerism, isn't it (and a blow for feminism presumably, not having to chase the latest from the patriarchal fashion industry)?

Or the question should be:
Any good (healthy, longterm solition) ways to lose weight (without political qualifiers)?

Well, I'd recommend putting on some muscle, and keeping an exercise/weight diary and a food diary. The feedback of writing stuff down is often enough to miraculously slim you down. I'm taking this to the extreme right now by following the hacker's diet.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html

This makes you keep a diary, and use excel to plot your progress. This is great stuff for a nerd like me. The book is free on the web and so are the excel worksheets.

When you know what you're striving for (10 pounds), know how to go about it (eat *slightly* less, exercise 15 minutes day), and how long it will take, it ceases to be hard. Esp. when you see your progress on a chart. I heartily recommend it.

07:50 / 18.07.02

Hey, odd jest on horn, there are no ways of doing *anything* without political qualifiers! (Incidentally, yes, feminism can have, and has had, a lot to say about both ways of losing weight and the scientific method.)

What I was actually after, primarily, as well as some sharing of experiences & tips, was some feminist thinking about how I can (motivate myself to) lose some weight without (a) getting into this goal-oriented chart-based stuff, which presupposes a particularly machinic-type objectified relationship to my body, and (b) telling myself that I dislike my body as it is, am greedy, etc. It just seems a trifle head-spinny to tell myself "Hey, I love my little round tummy! But I'm going to get rid of it anyway!" and a trifle self-destructive (not to mention weird, given how many fat wimmin I fancy) to tell myself "The fat is bad! It must go!"

And is it insane to change my body shape to fit a particular piece of clothing? I mean, because I'm lucky enough to actually be pretty happy with my body, most of the ways I'm thinking about this are just to do with how odd it is to be brought up against intractable reality in the shape of my favourite jeans, which care nought for my body image and are only answerable to my waist size.

...Anyway. The whys and the hows are inextricable. That's one of the reasons I find the whole weight/fat subject really interesting. But I'm just rambling now, so I'll go off to the Headshop (and hey, Haus made a false binary! Yes, he did! As if there could be weight-losing tips separate from a theoretical paradigm of weight and its losing. Shame on you, Haus.

)

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:05 / 18.07.02

Oops. She's sort of right, you know. Except that I do think it is possible to separate proposals of good feminist ways to lose weight from arguments against the tyranny of the idea of losing weight in the first place, which I think do sit more comfortably in the Head Shop.

09:13 / 18.07.02

Oh just a small point about jogging as exercise, if you can find a park to do it in this much better than running on roads. My dad is a serious jogger and road running managed to do his ankles in seriously, running on turf is much better for you, less impact and all that.

Swimming used to be my favourite form of exercise, causes the least stress on your body with everything being cushioned by water and all.
But at the moment I'm still doing Tai-chi for an hour a week plus whenever I remember, can recommend that as well.

Best thing about doing regular exercise rather than dieting is that you do genuinely feel better after a decent bit of exercise, partially the adrenaline but also because in my head I've pulled my fat carcas off my sofa and done something good for me. Its a postive thing rather than just abstinence from food, where you beat yourself up for eating 'bad' things.

09:15 / 18.07.02

Deva, there's a great feminist-stylee book called Eating Less by Gilian Riely (I think.. will link properly when I'm at home, I'm on vacation)

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:18 / 18.07.02

Can boys lose weight in a feminist way? Because I'm getting a touch flabby around the midsection as a consequence of my advanced age and the fact my body defaults to 75. And I'd rather not, if it's all the same to everyone else.

odd jest on horn

09:55 / 18.07.02

So you don't want to treat your body as a bunch of measureable biophysical/-chemical processes because it's patriarchal? So why don't you wish yourself thinner? Or better yet, wish your pants bigger. Does this thread belong in Magick now, then?

quote by Deva:
feminist thinking about how I can (motivate myself to) lose some weight without (a) getting into this goal-oriented chart-based stuff, which presupposes a particularly machinic-type objectified relationship to my body

I thought your *motivation* was getting into your pants? And that you had a goal, namely getting thin enough to fit into your pants. So why not use a totally non-political way of checking your progress, i.e. writing it down.

Or is writing down and the whole drawing and alphabet thing a particularly devious way that the powers that be use to subjugate women?

And what has writing down a bunch of stuff got to do with negative self-image. Can't you just look at in a positive way? I do:

"Hey jest, you can do 20 situps now, whereas you couldn't do one just a few weeks ago, good going!" and "hey jest, you can use a bunch of pants now that you couldn't a while ago. Screw the sales, screw the capitalist pigs!"

I mean you obviously dislike the idea that you don't fit into your pants, regardless of your great self-image. Otherwise you wouldn't even be discussing this here, right? And no i'm not saying that you're lying to yourself about your great self-image. I'm just saying that you want to fit into your pants regardless of tummy or not.

Going to the headshop too.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:38 / 18.07.02

Can I just take time out from this ferment of highly-developed ideology to point out that "tummy" is a really cool word. And that tummies are nice to huggle.

"Pants" on the other hand, is a very silly word. A very silly word indeed.

odd jest on horn

10:41 / 18.07.02

trrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuseeeeerrrrrrrrrrrssssssss

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