Why I’ve “Let Myself Go”

Although I don’t blog a lot these days, I still read other people’s blogs on a regular basis. Many people I have followed for years and I have watched them constantly struggle with their weight. There is not one person I know in the “fitness” community who wouldn’t like to lose at least another 5 kilos.

I am tired of beautiful, talented, sexy woman beating themselves up because they’ve regained weight that they’ve lost and given up their gruelling exercise regime. Their posts are filled with words like failure, disappointment, lack of discipline, laziness and regret.

I can tell you what it is like to be at my “lowest weight ever” and I can tell you how much work it takes to get there and how you feel when you can’t sustain that routine any longer. I have fought day and night to stay lean (but never lean enough) for FIVE FUCKING YEARS.

It is not worth it my friends. There is no intrinsic pleasure in having a body with low body fat, there is no prolonged feeling of accomplishment when you reach a number on the scale and there is moral superiority in being “fit and healthy”.

Today I am probably 10 kilos heavier than the weight I fought to stay at for the past 5 years (not competition weight). I am a size bigger than the clothes I previously referred to as my “off season” clothes. I haven’t been inside a gym for over 6 months.

But I am happier and healthier than I’ve ever been. It has taken me a long time to let go of my body shape obsession (I haven’t dieted for almost a year) but I can honestly say that I would rather be heavier and free than thin and totally obsessed with how I look.

These days, I hardly think about food. I eat at meal times and choose either what is on the menu, in the fridge or cooked by Duckfish. I stop when I’ve had enough or if I’m not enjoying it. I can go hours without food and even sometimes forget to eat. It has been over a year since I’ve binged. Sure I’ve comfort eaten at times, but never to the extent where I’ve felt completely stuffed.

My weight doesn’t fluctuate (as far as I can tell without scales) and doesn’t react to too much sodium or carbs. I don’t suffer from constipation or gas, I don’t smoke to avoid eating and I’m not constantly sore.

But what I really want you to know is that I am not less of a person because I don’t have a size 8 body as a goal any more. I haven’t “let myself go” because I am comfortable with a few extra kilos. I am not less beautiful, intelligent or sexy because I don’t look like Pauline bloody what’s her name.

If you want to spend all your time and energy making your body something other than what it looks like when left to its own devices, then go right ahead. But that is just your hobby in the same way that stamp collecting and train spotting is a hobby. I don’t envy you because you have used your strength of will to lose fat which naturally lives on your body, I just see it as your way of filling your leisure time.

But as for me, I’d rather spend my days laughing, drinking wine, reading, swimming when it’s warmer, and soaking in the joy of right now. I don’t want to be hungry and exhausted for months to be rewarded with no boobs, no period,  loose skin and an uncontrollable appetite. I don’t want to cry when I look in the mirror.

There are much more important things in this world to strike at your heart and make you sad enough to cry than a number on scale. It doesn’t matter what you weigh. Save your tears for a broken heart, or a tragic death, don’t waste them on the size of your jeans.

I know it is hard to believe but you have to try letting it go. The reward is the ability to jump in fearless to the adventure of life without anything holding you back. Be authentically you — even if it turns out to be a few sizes bigger and a completely different shape to those girls in the magazines.