What I Miss About Being Fat

March 19, 2014 12:14 PM

After years of struggling with the scale, one woman finally hit her healthy goal weight. So why didn't she feel like celebrating?
posted by amitai (51 comments total)

I hate the underlying idea in this piece that being thin means you are never allowed to enjoy food.
posted by Sara C. at 12:22 PM on March 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

Being fat, and then becoming thin, means having to be more careful about food (compared to one who has never been fat). The fat cells don't disappear, they shrink, and are always ready to come back to their previous size.
posted by idiopath at 12:25 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

"It's just a little shot of whiskey, what harm can it do?" (they asked the alcoholic).

I'd say it's more about the individual and what they know about their own weakness to food.
posted by symbioid at 12:25 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

symbioid: I don't know if that was in response to my comment, but there is solid biology behind it - creating new fat cells requires much more energy than refilling emptied ones does, so the body does the latter more readily.
posted by idiopath at 12:28 PM on March 19, 2014

This lady has a lot of problems, being "fat" wasn't the biggest of them. I don't think she misses her fat, I think she misses her excuse.

I guess it's her truth and I'll honor that, but so many women buy into that whole, "My only problem in life is my weight,"

She should envy the fat ladies, happy in their bikinis because those ladies are fully enjoying and living their lives. Would we like to lose some weight? Sure! But we're not under the impression that it will change our lives to any huge degree.

Good for her for reaching her goal, now she needs to make some new goals.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:28 PM on March 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

having to be more careful about food

I suppose, but there are several points in the article where she mentions things like not being able to share a pitcher of beer with friends. Which, if you can't ever drink beer again, what's the point?
posted by Sara C. at 12:29 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

The All Or Nothing American attitude can have shitty effects sometimes.
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 PM on March 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

seems more an example of the broader "if only I did/have X, then I would truly be happy", which is usually the advertising lie, but we all believe it, for some values of X..
posted by k5.user at 12:34 PM on March 19, 2014

I dunno. Seems like a whole lot of humble-bragging, only glancing occasionally in the direction of the consequences of serious life changes. I'm glad it worked out great for her in the end and all, but alcoholism, chronic depression, body dismorphia and recidivism in the "newly thin" is a serious issue treated with a shallow glibness here.

(Also treated with shallow glibness here, but damn I giggled.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:34 PM on March 19, 2014

Yeah, wow, I agree with Ruthless Bunny. There's nothing about this woman's issues that centers around her weight.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:34 PM on March 19, 2014

I did not know fat cells worked the way idiopath describes, the whole fighting against "the baby weight" is now in a new light.
posted by dabitch at 12:35 PM on March 19, 2014

Which, if you can't ever drink beer again, what's the point?

The point is that it wasn't ever about the beer in the first place. The beer was inside us all along.
posted by jph at 12:38 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Is it bad that I read that she's 5 foot 6 and 140 pounds and thought, "that's not really very thin"? Yeah, I think it is.
posted by JanetLand at 12:38 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

JanetLand, yeah, I thought that, too. Although 140 is much smaller than 180 at that height.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:39 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

140 is normal weight (by BMI, which I presume we're familiar with the problems of), though, and I don't see her ever claim to be skinny, just no longer overweight. 140 isn't overweight for that height by any means.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:41 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

The benefits of being thin strike me as a weak reward for giving up almost everything in the world that makes me happy. Hence my motto: Live fats, die young.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:41 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I don't see her ever claim to be skinny

Yeah, my reference was more to her shitty-sounding friends who are being all "Oh here comes Miss Skinny!!"

I'm 5'10" and super lanky with thin little arms but, being in my mid-30s, I'm starting to develop a belly pooch, definitely from poor diet, sleep schedule and lack of exercise. I've begun running with the intention of shrinking the belly fat, but BOY is it annoying when people berate me for doing it, because they think I SHOULD be eating more and getting fatter. Guess that would make THEM feel better? Hehehe fuck that.
posted by ReeMonster at 12:46 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

I just had the weirdest experience: she was "fat" at exactly my height and weight (until last year). I thought of myself as "plump", but not fat -- maybe because I am fairly active and there are people in my family who were and still are struggling with morbid obesity that has serious immediate impacts on their health and quality of life. But I guess I was fat.
posted by jb at 12:49 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't know - I sort of saw it as a melancholy look back as she moved forward. I've changed homes quite a few times, and even when I was moving into a nicer place, the last look around at the place I'd called home for a while would make me sad. This piece read list that to me - she's in a better place, but she'd been pretty comfortable where she was, as well.

The last few lines seem to indicate she got over it, mostly.
posted by Mooski at 12:50 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

symbioid: I don't know if that was in response to my comment, but there is solid biology behind it - creating new fat cells requires much more energy than refilling emptied ones does, so the body does the latter more readily.

I've heard that recent research suggests that one does (eventually) shed fat cells after losing weight. Also, I'm not sure about your claim - I'm mostly in the "1 calorie = 1 calorie" camp. In other words, you'll gain weight if you're on a surplus and lose it on a deficit. My intuition (and experience) suggests that all other considerations are minor in comparison to this one. I can see where it might have an impact on distribution of fat, though.
posted by Edgewise at 12:51 PM on March 19, 2014

Sara C.: "I hate the underlying idea in this piece that being thin means you are never allowed to enjoy food."

We're pretty comfortable with the idea that an addict who has given up is never again able to enjoy drugs/alcohol... Well, the problem with food is that you can never go cold turkey. A food addict (not saying that all overweight people are food addicts or vice versa, but some are) still has to eat. Worrying about eating the right things, in the right amount, forever? Yeah, it takes a lot of the enjoyment out of eating. But a big part of being a food addict is finding that the only thing you enjoy is food. When you find other things to make you happy, it can take the place of enjoying food.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:53 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

By the way, you can lose weight while eating good food and drinking beer. Just at lower quantities. Most of the time, we consume past the point of appreciation, anyway.
posted by Edgewise at 12:54 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

150 is still a normal BMI at 5'6" (24.2).

Sometimes people will complain about BMI and how it "overestimates" overweight and obesity - but really, it's not about being "fat" or "thin", it's about "at what heights/weights are we more likely to see people affected by weight-related health problems".
posted by jb at 12:56 PM on March 19, 2014

I think the key bit in the article is

When I lost the weight, I got a harsh reality check. I was still me with the same problems. I was just smaller.

That's true of many things. Wherever you go, there you are.
posted by Justinian at 12:57 PM on March 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

We're pretty comfortable with the idea that an addict who has given up is never again able to enjoy drugs/alcohol...

From reading the article I really didn't get the sense that she was a food addict.

At her heaviest, she weighed 180 lbs at 5 foot 6. Which is overweight (per BMI) but doesn't merit quite the level of vigilance described in the piece.
posted by Sara C. at 12:58 PM on March 19, 2014

We're all food addicts, really. It has taken me a lot of years to slowly edge around to a better relationship with it, and it has absolutely nothing to do with obsessing about everything to pass my lips. Doing that could have killed me if I hadn't gotten help. It has to do with enjoying treats less frequently so that they actually mean something, and enjoying how healthier foods actually make me feel better. It's a doable thing, but hard to manage when you're being motivated by being in some kind of battle against your body. The fact that she was not that heavy jumped out at me, too--not that it wasn't a good time to make some healthy changes, it's way easier to do sooner than later, but the way she talks about it, this was not a project she started because she liked her body and wanted to treat it better. It sounds like she hated her body (and her life) and wanted to trade it in for a different one, and you don't actually get to do that.

I'm glad she's coming around to working on that stuff. It's definitely the harder part. I wish I could have gotten to that before I went too far.
posted by Sequence at 1:00 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I thought the descriptions of grabbing rolls of loose skin were a bit overdramatic for having lost 40 pounds. I lost 30 pounds a couple years ago, and, I dunno, I guess there's a visible difference, but it really doesn't begin to approach the what-do-I-do-with-all-this-loose-skin level.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:00 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Read the article, it is contrarian, navel-gazing link-bait.

Lost 110 pounds about 15 years ago, kept it all off for about five years, currently about 25-30 pounds above that. There is not a single drawback to being much thinner. It isn't a panacea or a ticket to a completely wonderful, glamorous life. But there is really zero to complain about.
posted by skewed at 1:02 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I don't know anyone who's lost a substantial amount of weight who was able to ever go back to the way they ate before if they wanted to keep the weight off. You don't have to be addicted for that to be a difficult change.
posted by girlmightlive at 1:04 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have lost a bunch of weight in the past two years--65 pounds to be exact--but I'm still far closer to the author of this article's "before" weight than her "after".

Or how nearly every interaction includes a reference to your new size. At first I enjoyed hearing, "Look at you, Miss Skinny!" But sometimes I didn't want the attention; I just wanted the comfort of the group. There were times I also felt I had broken a social contract. "Well, I'm still fat," one friend would say.

This is the thing I was totally unprepared for. I spent months where I could not go a single day without someone commenting on my weight loss. My body became public in a way I was not always comfortable with. It's a little maddening for almost every social interaction to include a reference to your body--even if it's complimentary.

Some people even went as far as to ask my boyfriend's opinion on my weight loss and saying things about how he must be so happy I lost weight.

Sometimes I felt like I had to remind people I was a person with ideas and who was capable of things beyond just losing weight.
posted by inertia at 1:07 PM on March 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

It seems really weird to give other people advice on how their bodies work in the face of their experience to the contrary. I've spent enough years losing weight and gaining it back to know what I can and can't do, and some of it is really random and unexpected; if she's worried about the pasta, I trust her to know her body.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:08 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

I hate the underlying idea in this piece that being thin means you are never allowed to enjoy food.

Others have commented, but I'll chime in...

You don't set out to get fat or obese. In my case, I think there are a few bad habits and attitudes that create a trap:

1. A lack of self control for some things--I can't save some for tomorrow; I have to eat it then.
2. Having "x and y," not "x or y"
3. Eating out of habit ("I always have cookies with milk" or "I always have ice cream with Julie")
4. Telling myself I can indulge at lunch and be good at supper...and not following through.
5. Food-as-Reward
6. Get big enough, I passed a threshold and said "screw it."

Each one needs a different response. Some may be temporary; some permanent. Cutting out a food with little redeeming value, high in calories, and not something that you may not be super-attached to (eating out of habit for instance) is a quick fix to many of these issues.

But I know that those habits lurk inside of me. The only way I think I'll keep off weight I"ve lost is, in some ways, to never not be acting like I'm on a diet: tracking what I eat, and avoiding food and situations. The only difference will be the calorie limit will be for maintenance rather than reduction. I suspect many people who have struggled with weight feel the same way.
posted by MrGuilt at 1:09 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

idiopath: "symbioid: I don't know if that was in response to my comment, but there is solid biology behind it - creating new fat cells requires much more energy than refilling emptied ones does, so the body does the latter more readily."

It was actually in regards to Sara C (sorry for the delayed reply - just able to check in now). My general idea was that we all have a propensity to certain weaknesses. I'm morbidly obese, myself. I think it's too easy to put pressure on the individual and not the overall system in which we consume our "food" in.

I certainly understand where she's coming from in regards to not being puritanical and prescribe these sorts of rules for everyone, but as a story from a particular individual about their own habits and lifestyle and what they deem necessary for their own life, then I can't really argue against it, which is why I said it was up to each person to understand their weaknesses. If that makes sense.
posted by symbioid at 1:11 PM on March 19, 2014

("I always have cookies with milk" or "I always have ice cream with Julie")

I'm a big fan of dangling modifier humor, so, obviously, you've made my week.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2014

Diet experts don't tell you how left out you feel when you're unable to share the platter of penne alla vodka at Buca di Beppo with your family or pitchers of beer with friends.

Maybe I'm missing something but that's the only line I can see in the article that specifically talks about not eating certain things. The rest is clearly about ther sense of identity. Who she was as a heavier woman in terms of her friends, her feelings about her life, her "magical thinking" about the future she would have if she lost the weight. It's about her lack of confidence, despite losing the weight, and how this feeling of everything slotting into place if she could just be thin didn't materialise, and it was disorientating to her.
posted by billiebee at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

As an aside - 140 is the "ideal weight" for a 5'6" woman of medium build according to the Met Life tables (the weight associated with the least mortality), and well within normal for modern BMI calculations. In addition, she's very physically active (kickboxing and spinning on the regular), which means more muscle density, which means she looks leaner than her weight would imply.

So - Yeah, she can call herself thin, especially coming back from 40lbs overweight.
posted by Slap*Happy at 1:13 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

We're all food addicts, really.

No, not really. Addiction is a specific thing, and throwing the word around to cover basic life functions is just dumb. Some people have a genuinely dysfunctional, addictive relationship with food. Others have bodies that for one reason or other don't do the normal self-regulation -- and given the spectacular variability in energy inputs and outputs we have, and the subtle processes that modify reaction to nutrients, for nearly everyone it's autonomic processes doing the job, not willpower.

I'm quite fat, but I also don't gain weight -- I've been at much the same weight I have been since not long after college. Could I override my autonomic processes and get my weight down? Sure, but it would require making it pretty much a full time job, mentally, and a miserable one. I've considered doing it anyway, because I'm hitting the age where the knees and the back could really use the relief, but it's not a problem because of addiction, it's because my body has some pretty set ideas about what weight it should be and fighting that is brutal.
posted by tavella at 1:13 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

The trouble is that a lot of people have been told, often by glossy magazines, that the only way to do this is to be really hard on yourself, and the longer you're really hard on yourself, the less likely you are to actually keep up the change. My stepdad had bariatric surgery before he married my mom, and I've seen his "after" photos--great results. No resemblance whatsoever to his weight today, although he hasn't gained back up to where he was. The post-surgery diet was just not sustainable. That, of course, is an extreme case.

I know that not everybody is as inclined towards disordered eating as I am, and so other people talking about food tracking should not make me so worried for them as to produce heart palpitations, but I'm working on that. Even so, I think it bears saying that there are ways to do this that do mean you have to be mindful of your eating, but don't mean you have to feel deprived. Coke is never again going to be a routine part of my grocery list, but it actually tastes way better when I only have one every once in awhile, so my net sugar intake is down but my net enjoyment is actually up. It's very possible to have a relationship with food that makes you feel more satisfied with eating instead of less, but it's a lot harder to achieve.
posted by Sequence at 1:15 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't know anyone who's lost a substantial amount of weight who was able to ever go back to the way they ate before if they wanted to keep the weight off.

Think about what you just said there.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:15 PM on March 19, 2014

Ruthless Bunny: "This lady has a lot of problems, being "fat" wasn't the biggest of them. I don't think she misses her fat, I think she misses her excuse."

Yes. That's one of the things she's saying in this article.
posted by desuetude at 1:16 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I certainly understand where she's coming from in regards to not being puritanical and prescribe these sorts of rules for everyone, but as a story from a particular individual about their own habits and lifestyle and what they deem necessary for their own life, then I can't really argue against it, which is why I said it was up to each person to understand their weaknesses. If that makes sense.

I guess my main problem with the food themes in the article is that this is an article for a woman's magazine. If I were just chatting with her over drinks and she was like, "ugh, it sucks, but if I want to not die of diabetes I can't have [foo]," then, OK.

But we're reading about this in a magazine. The sort of magazine that makes women feeling bad about themselves it's underlying MO. The sort of magazine that flogs fad diets and basically exists to sell women pretend food for purposes of (pretend) weight loss.

So I think it bears mentioning that there are all these sort of extreme references to food in the piece.

Then again, maybe I'm the only person on earth who is happy to be 10-15 pounds overweight it if means I can have a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.
posted by Sara C. at 1:16 PM on March 19, 2014

I'm sorry that this piece wasn't more interesting, because it has the potential to raise so many interesting questions. Are you obliged to look sexy or wear revealing clothing if you lose weight? Can you wear such things if you are not at your ideal weight? How much does your weight have to do with the way you perform your gender, and how does that make you feel? Etc.
posted by newrambler at 1:17 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

And I should add, re: addiction, that I just mean, dysfunctional attitudes towards food abound. Collectively, we do not do this very well, at least not in the US. But you can't necessarily solve one dysfunctional relationship with food by adopting a completely opposite dysfunctional relationship with food.
posted by Sequence at 1:18 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Of course, presumably then the essay wouldn't be in Marie Claire.
posted by newrambler at 1:18 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Eating out of habit ("I always have cookies with milk" or "I always have ice cream with Julie")

Julie is either the luckiest or unluckiest woman around. I can't quite tell without more context.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 1:20 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm surprised she didn't mention how everyone can't help but lecture her on how she's wrong about her fatness, her thinness, and how she feels about both.
posted by desuetude at 1:21 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Think about what you just said there.

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure what you're implying.
posted by girlmightlive at 1:21 PM on March 19, 2014

I know I've read better, more insightful articles on this subject, but I can't recall where. I want to say from Kate Harding, but I'm not sure. I don't think this was particularly well-written, but there's certainly a widespread belief that losing the weight will transform you and make you happier - but so often, it doesn't. And when you've been overweight for a long time, you've already internalized so many negative things people say and think about fatness, and that doesn't go away when the weight does.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:22 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I just had the weirdest experience: she was "fat" at exactly my height and weight (until last year). I thought of myself as "plump", but not fat -- maybe because I am fairly active...

If you're active you probably have more muscle mass. Muscle is denser than fat. You can very well be plump and weigh exactly the same as someone who calls herself fat - or as a 0% body fat body builder for that matter. Weight doesn't tell you everything.
posted by Sourisnoire at 1:22 PM on March 19, 2014

Then again, maybe I'm the only person on earth who is happy to be 10-15 pounds overweight it if means I can have a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

I lost almost 40 pounds and I still have beer, and french fries, and I ate a ridiculous amount of pie over the weekend (because there was a pi(e) say party Friday night) and so on. I just don't eat or drink like that every day, like I used to. That's okay! I still like all the food I eat, it's still delicious, and I'm not like pressing my nose to the window of the bakery. You can have a damn grilled cheese sandwich once in a while and not be overweight, if that's what you want.
posted by rtha at 1:22 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I wonder what weird cultural moment is spawning all these 'regrets about when I lost weight' articles I've been seeing lately.
posted by winna at 1:23 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]