TL;DR below.
Over the last five years I have been on an intentional weight journey. It has culminated in allowing myself to gain 20+ pounds over the last six months and now I am about as chubby as I have ever been, but I’m also the fittest I’ve ever been.
To understand why I started this journey we first need to look at my weight throughout high school and college. I threw discus for three years in high school, I was pretty chubby but I could also bench press 255 lbs. In college I played Ultimate, did swing dancing, and rode my bike to my internship. By the end of college I was pretty skinny (about 30 lbs lighter than in high school) and in okay shape. However, during both of these times in my life I never thought about what I ate, I just ate what I wanted to when I was hungry and stopped when I wasn’t. I kept eating like this until I got into my late twenties. By that point I was back up closer to my high school weight and feeling embarrassed about “letting myself go” that much. I decided it was time to lose weight.
My weight journey started with running and “eating healthy.” I ran (and hated it) a couple times a week and we tried to stay away from “junk foods.” This was my strategy for a couple of years but I only saw very minimal weight loss. I tried a lot of variations of “eating healthy” during this time, including intermittent fasting. In late 2018 I realized that “eating healthy” wasn’t working and that I needed to do something more, so I joined Weight Watchers (WW). And I did it, I lost over 25 lbs in less than 6 months and achieved a “healthy weight.” Looking back on my journey, this is the part I am most embarrassed about.
I WORKED that WW system. I borderline starved myself to save up points so I could eat donuts. I pushed myself harder than was healthy during workouts to earn extra points so I could eat ice cream. But it worked, I got to eat “what I wanted” while also losing and maintaining my “healthy weight.” After I had maintained my weight for a couple of months on WW I left the program and followed its spirit plus intermittent fasting to maintain my weight. I skipped breakfast every day. I didn’t let myself eat until noon and I made sure I didn’t eat after a certain point in the evening. However, there were some downsides to this “healthy weight.” My concentration took a nosedive (which is really bad seeing as I already have ADHD). I always had food on my mind. I couldn’t go grocery shopping without buying at least two doughnuts for the ride home. I snuck chocolate chips as much as I could during my eating times (I went through over 12 oz a week). Somehow, I didn’t see an issue with any of this, because I was being “healthy” I was maintaining my “healthy weight.”
Then 2020 came and the pandemic hit, but guess what, I didn’t gain weight. I was so proud of myself. I had figured it out, I could do what all those other people couldn’t, I could stay “healthy.” However, I was by no means healthy. My concentration kept getting worse, my attitude was getting worse. I was obsessing about food. I continued to starve myself so that I could eat the foods I wanted. However, at the time I couldn’t see any of this. I had been pulled too far into diet culture.
In spring 2021 my wife read Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison and recommended it to me. I was shocked when she described my exact behaviors and she helped me to see how what I thought was me being healthy was in fact the opposite. I really recommend the whole book but here are a couple of my big takeaways that I have verified myself.
The definition of obesity was changed to be more strict in 1998 but most studies don’t take this into account. So any time you see an increase in obesity from Date 1 to Date 2 in a population, if that range includes 1998 the data is skewed to show greater increase in weight then there actually was.
Almost all diets have been proven to be ineffective after the first 6ish months and the majority of people gain back their original weight within a couple of years. There is an exception to this is, and this is straight from the CDC website:
“People who have lost weight and kept it off typically engage in 60—90 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity most days of the week while not exceeding calorie needs.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time for that.Her biggest point throughout the whole book was that the very concept of health being tied to a light weight is relatively new and is in fact false.
By the end of the book I was ready to change my behavior and try to break away from diet culture.
The next step in my journey was reading Health at Every Size by Dr. Lindo Bacon. Before starting this journey I had seen critics of the Health at Every Size movement: “How can you be healthy if you are so overweight?” “You can only be healthy at a heavy weight if you are actively losing weight.” and other similar things. However they all missed the main point of the book/movement. The goal isn’t to: “be healthy, even though I’m overweight” or “let my health go because size doesn’t matter.” The goal is to be healthy. Period. We can, and should, completely ignore our weight/size in the process. The book taught me how to listen to my body’s cues about food and how to find joy in movement.
Both books talked about initially giving into cravings until you learn to trust your body and your body learns to trust you back. So that’s what I did. For about the first two months I ate so much food. Most noticeable to me, I started eating huge breakfasts. I quickly gained back all of that lost WW weight. However, after that initial burst of weight gain my size plateaued, my cravings decreased, and I started to eat less food. Suddenly I didn’t feel like eating breakfast anymore, so I didn’t. We now keep ice cream stocked in the freezer, we can eat it whenever we want, but we don’t always want to (there is still a half gallon in there that we bought for Pi Day a month ago). I can no longer eat handfuls of chocolate chips because my body tells me that it doesn’t want that.
On the movement side of things I have discovered that I actually like running, when it is not tied to weight loss. I currently go for a single run of three to five miles every week. Sometimes I do two runs a week, but any more than that and I start to dread it, so I listen to my body and don’t run more than that.
Because I have learned to listen to my body regarding food and movement I am now feeling much healthier than I have in years. I no longer am preoccupied by food. My concentration has improved. I can actually enjoy food, be it ice cream or salad.
I highly recommend both of those books. If you are currently concerned with weight and what your body looks like I recommend starting with Anti-Diet. If you are content with your current size, but are just trying to live healthier, I would recommend starting with Health at Every Size.
TL;DR
I read two books. I learned to listen to my body. I gained 20+ lbs. I found joy in movement. I am now chubbier and healthier than ever. My concentration and contentment in life have gone up as a result.
If you are concerned about weight and body image read:
If you are looking to be healthier without concern for your weight read:
P.S. There is a third book that I read on this journey that was very informative. It was written with the best intentions of the reader in mind but is unfortunately so immersed in diet culture that I can’t recommend it until you have read one of the other two books. If you want a book that goes into the biology and chemistry of how your body interacts with food, DM me and we can talk about it.
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