Move It

I posted an article on Facebook a few days ago that was a study about how fat people react to fat shaming. Does it really help them lose weight? Turns out, no. I guess we could have all just taken the fat person's word for it years ago, but millions of dollars in science later we have something society values more than the words of a fat person. A study. Ok, so if you didnt gather, the sarcasm is heavy today and I apologize in advance.

A couple of women commented on that article with stories about how when they are shamed about being fat they turn to food to feel better or even to fight back. I do the same thing. I certainly never say, you know what- great point. Im going to go hop on that treadmill. Exercise doesnt feel good. In fact, it feels terrible for me. Not because it hurts or I'm out of breath but because it brings up emotions I've stuffed down with food for so long. You know how in the Biggest Loser they all cry and lose their minds on the stationary bike? Yeah, thats exactly what it looks like when I work out. No really, there is crying, there is cussing and a lot of self hate. The kicker is, I never hated myself until someone told me I should.

You know what I've always hated about exercise? Its always felt like it was about someone else.

Since I was little all I've ever heard was how I needed to lose weight. My dad even literally bribed me with a pony. As ridiculously upper class as that seems, we lived on a ton of land. A pony wasn't the riding boots and gate jumping spectacle you might imagine. I start working out because I feel like I have to change for others and then every horrible thing people have said to me about my weight, the horrible things I've said to myself about my weight, all come boiling up. The pain I was shoving down all comes to the surface and I feel it all over again.

I read something a bit ago that challenges that. It said to move your body not to alter it but to work with it. To express yourself. If someone had sold movement to me like that when I was 6, by God I'd have a pony!

Move your body to express yourself. It means something totally different. Exercise is a chore to me. It is doing something because I've finally given in. The only association I've ever had with it was negative. I have to do this because there is something wrong with how I exist now.

How many times have I needed an outlet for emotions I couldn't get out by talking or crying? How many times have I been frustrated because I couldn't figure out how to express myself? Countless.

I'm slowly learning how cathartic moving can be. I was drunk one night... Imagine that... Out dancing and a guy came up to me and was dancing and said, "let it out!" and we just danced and yelled those words that were lost in the music until I couldn't dance anymore. And let me tell you, I've been that drunk many times, but never that free. How he knew I was a tight-ass that needed it, I'll never know, but I'll remember him forever.

So maybe it's time to start moving my body for reasons other than to change myself. Maybe I need to move in order to express myself. I've learned that there is not anything fundamentally wrong with me that I have to change just because I'm fat.

Now, I'm learning how to work with my body instead of around it. Im learning to use it to create, to express and to love. Now that I'm starting to see my body as something I love instead of something that needs to change, I treat it better.