One of my friends wrote a blog post with the above title. She got slammed for it and publically criticised (in another blog) so she deleted her entire blog. Sorry, but I won’t put up with bullying.
I am here to re-phrase the words that she wrote because her message is one that needs to be heard. This, of course, is my interpretation and is infinitely harsher and more direct than my friend’s words. If you don’t agree, then that is perfectly fine by me. If you want a “discussion” about it, then bring it on!
No one, but you, cares about your weight loss. Whether you lost 2, 1 or 0.1 of a kilo this week is of no real interest to anyone. For people who don’t obsess about their weight, they couldn’t care less what you weigh. For those who are caught up in the “skinny means happy” lie, the only thing we’re interested in is what your weight loss means for us. Does it mean I’m fatter than you, skinnier than you, losing weight quicker or slower than you? If you’re losing weight so easily, then maybe I should do what you are doing. It is all about ME.
If all you blog is about is the food, the numbers, the exercise, the size of your arse, the endless struggle, and the cute names you have for your binge behaviour, then it could mean that you need another hobby. If you were to go on a date with a man and he asked you what you do for fun, would what you say? “Oh, the highlight of my week is Saturday when I can have my cheat meal and eat until I burst”.
Being obsessed with how you look is the text-book definition of self-absorption, and people who are self-absorbed are rarely interesting or fun to be with.
And don’t go telling me it’s about living a ‘healthy’ lifestyle. There is nothing healthy about counting food and exercise calories and entering them into some giant spreadsheet that quantifies your life. You are more than what you eat, what you look like and what you weigh. You are a spiritual, intellectual and emotional being as well as a physical one. You are all the complex contradictions of humanity – stop confining your worth to what you can see in the mirror.
If you need to lose weight — just do it and stop crapping on about it. If you ate an entire bakery of cinnamon rolls then I don’t want to hear about it (and neither does your subconscious). Stop documenting your flaws and trying to fix them by focussing on them because it doesn’t work (you get more of what you think about).
You’re human, you’re gorgeous and no-one cares if you’re skinny or curvy, healthy or fuelled by diet coke and corn syrup as long as you are peaceful, happy and loving every minute of this short time we have on earth.
And as she said …
Go out..search your passions.
Make peace.
Find balance.
Let the dust settle.
Enjoy the sun.
Here endeth the lesson.
Love it. I needed to read this today for a lot o reasons. Thanks for speaking the truth.
Nothing wrong with that Katie! It’s just so true!
And I’d just like to add to your closing words…Go out and pull some weeds! ;-0
Your words are very true…some folks really need to get out and live instead of worrying about whether or not they’ve been able to burn off their breakfast.
Having said that-I actually do care when someone is actually working at having a healthier lifestyle-especially if they can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without losing their breath-whether it’s from smoking or being obese-or just plain out of shape; I do like to encourage folks when it comes to just being healthier. Cheers!
I wonder why it is that I feel just as worried when I see girls dieting down to competition leaness and afterwards struggling to maintain an unnaturally low level of body fat. Surely the methods employed to conform to the “fit, lean, body” image are as just as unhealthy. Working out two hours in the gym 7 days a week, starving and bingeing are just as worrying as someone who can’t walk up stairs without losing their breath. I guess in the end, we can’t do anything about other people’s decisions. We just have to take care of ourselves and do the best that we can with what circumstances life gives us.
I could care less about how much anyone else weighs (only care about myself and don’t have the time, nor the inclination to do up a spreadsheet or log or whatever). What concerns me is that your friend deleted her blog – just think the right to free speech is so important whether you agree with it or not and hope your friend reconsiders her decision and is proud of what she has written. Bullying on the internet sucks – have been on the receiving end too – so stand up, whoever you are and walk tall!
Bravo! It’s about time someone made a direct hit at the dirty little secret of fitness bloggers. Veiled under “I’m here to help”, many of the leaders and bloggers in this community are doing nothing more than encouraging a lot of wacky behaviour at best and dangerous health decisions, at worst. While it hasn’t yet been pegged in the popular press, I suspect the next eating disorder identified will be something to do with a social media compulsion to advertise the ‘control’ of food intake. (It really does remind me of those awful games that go on in universities and girl’s schools and foster so many eating disorders.)
Before the critics write me off, I’m a person who was not born with a slender atom in my body. I’ve struggled and succumbed and fought and struggled some more with my weight. There isn’t a diet that I haven’t tried. I’ve made peace with my short legs, my stumpy torso and my propensity to gain weight. (I soothe myself with the knowledge I’ll survive a drought quiet easily if I’m ever challenged to do so.) Guess what? Once I focused on something other than my weight, I started to live. You’re right. You’re friend is right. No one cares about your weight loss (except maybe your doctor). I don’t want to see another photo of someone’s weird food concoction because it’s low in points/calories/kilojoules/fat grams. I don’t want to read about how good egg white omelettes taste. I don’t want any clever tricks or tips to make food taste fattening when it’s not. I don’t want to lead an artificial life and that includes my food choices.
And I really, REALLY don’t want to hear about anyone else’s.
Hi Sarah,
I totally understand what you’re saying and where you’re coming from – however there are some great fitness bloggers out there, who don’t partake in any of the above behaviours, myself included. My blog mission is to encourage others to be fitter and healthier versions of themselves, drought management techniques included :). Being fitter and healthier doesn’t necessarily mean sickly skinny – in my Universe, all are welcome!
Cheers
Liz N
So true Sarah. Liz is a rockin’ blogger!
Agreed, Liz. I wasn’t fingering all the fitness bloggers but there are a lot of them perpetuating unhealthy lifestyles. I also see a pack mentality in a lot of them which lends itself to the bullyiing you’re tackling head on. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Sarah – I can glean from reading a bit more about you (sorry I was being a stalker) that rubbishing all fitness bloggers wasn’t your intention. I do agree with you that some fitness bloggers follow decidedly unhealthy practices and the bully mentality is out there. I just want people to know that there are others out there that don’t put up with that sort of BS 🙂
Cheers
Liz:)
Best effing blog post I have read in ages!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
Love and thanks for bringing it back to life
Taking my life into my hands, baby, I should point out here that you post your weight loss ticker on your blog. Perhaps you should investigate if there’s a correlation between the number of hits you get when you post your weight loss ticker against the number you get when you run around waving your $5 note in the air having views on people posting details of their weight loss.
Go fuck yourself Duckfish. I’m a human contradiction so sue me …
PS You’re dumped.
LOL… …I fucking love you, baby!
So fucking true. It’s sad that your friend deleted her blog though. Some commenters/bloggers can’t seem to accept that not everyone is obsessive about food or weight or whatnot.
I blog for myself and I started with a health/fitness bent, waffled somewhere else, back to fitness and away. Perhaps I have no focus but you know what? Exercise is not my life. I am more than that. And so that’s how I blog. Perhaps some of these obsessive bloggers need to get out more and blog about life instead of calories.
this post is the reason I continue to check your blog daily, even when there have been no updates – because when you do post it’s a gem like this that makes me want to stand up and shout HOORAH!! x x
Maybe I’m just ‘over’ everything right now, but I see nothing controversial or inflammatory in what you/she blogged. Of course people relate everything to themselves. Obvious..right? I do think people are ‘interested’ in what you weigh though. My blog hits jump quite a bit when I mention numbers. Whether that is because they are relating to me, or comparing themselves to me, I dunno, but people do like to read about the ups and downs – especially the ups. People love the drama of someone else getting fatter.
You’ve hit the nail on the head there, Katie. There’s a lot of bullying and cliquey practices out there (I found that out when I was competing) and people just need to calm the f**k down. I’ve personally stopped rambling on about my weight lately, coz frankly, its pretty f**king boring to read back. And whatever happened to free speech? Since when do people fell they can slam others for writing what they want?
I am SO hearing you Alicia! Some people need to read their blogs back to themselves! They are FUCKING boring! I couldn’t give a shit how much exercise someone does or how they have managed to take a perfectly yummy dish, replace everything fattening and churned out a dry, tasteless version of said dish! I noticed before I deleted my blog that people only wanted to read about depressing stories or aspects of my life. That’s when they bothered to comment. Any happy posts didn’t attract nyone and considering I spend 98% of my life awesomely happy I couldn’t see the point. Ever since I stopped giving a shit about my weight the kilos are just falling off 🙂
AWESOME post Katie too by the way xxx
I agree with everything you’ve said here Katie! For heaven’s sake when will everyone realize we have such a freakin’ short time on earth; let’s LIVE and stop obsessing about how wonderful one day our lives will be, because guess what? That one day may never arrive! Thank you Katie; love this post so much!
AMAZING post. I love it! I wrote a post called Losing Weight Won’t Change Your Life and months later, I’m still getting angry comments from people who are offended by my notion that the number on the scale doesn’t hold the objective power of giving you happiness.
I love your post, and your writing. Thank you. 🙂
♥