Morality of my Fat Acceptance

I have been painfully introspective the past few weeks. I think that my quest for self awareness may have taken on a life of its own. In my looking within, I think I have been overlooking some obvious things going on around me that are very important in my Fat Acceptance Journey.

If you have read through my blog, or seen the type of comments I leave on other blogs, (with the exception of Shapely prose who moderate my comments for some reason unknown to me) you will see that my journey through Fat Acceptance has been an emotional one, with little spotlights here and there about my health.

One of the things that happened for me when I started blogging, is that I fond myself involved in community. This is a good thing. The good emotions I experienced as I jumped in feet first were cathartic. As many of us can understand, having been rejected, admonished, stigmatized, and discriminated against from almost any community I was involved with throughout my life, having people smile at me, acknowledge the validity of my thoughts, encourage me, seemed like a nirvana manifested.

I was lucky enough to meet an hang out with Marylyn Wann at the ASDAH convention who invited me to join her list-serve and has been very generous with her comments and support there. Linda Bacon was kind enough to comment on a blog post I did from a very frightened place, others in the community who would respond to my postings were also very kind. As I was learning about the lay of the land of the fat-o-sphere, making new friends, and working through the sppedbumps and potholes with my family, I became encouraged that I could actually figure out a way to a happy life and let go of the self hatred and shame that was at the core or my psyche.

So now I am more aware of the politics of the movement, I have a better understanding of (not complete) privilege, I understand what set point theory is, and I have dabbled in improving my nutrition and my movement.

So here is where I go into the "good fatty/bad fatty" introspection. But before that, there is another aspect that has captured my attention lately about this wonderful community.

And it is a wonderful community. It is not perfect. But I find for the most part, it is filled with well intentioned, principled folks with whom I have a lot in common.

Here is the rub. Being in the community had become more important to me than actually moving forward with what this community promotes around my nutrition and movement. I haven't found (and I have been looking) for a voice or a segment of the community that says just eat whatever you want and only move if you are motivated to, otherwise just stay at home, motionless and eat anything you want to. You are accepted Ivan! We accept you. It is not your fault. You are not responsible. The nasty fat hating world has wronged you and now your "Peeps" in the fat o sphere will let you know that everything you are doing (actually everything I am not doing) is okay.

Well, is it? I am not feeling good about the type of stuff I eat, the amount of stuff I eat, or the way I eat it. I am ashamed of my lack of movement. I do not want to talk about this or write about this.

I was feeling good about the walking I was doing, and that I have added a few vegetables to my food, I was taking some time to check in with what my body was hungry for, etc. One of my mantra's was as long as I am moving in the right direction, I am good. Another mantra was; I am working on my health because my mental health is a big part of it, so coming to terms with all the stuff that Fat Hatred, Stigma, etc etc did to me is working on my health.

However, lately, my attention has been on what I am eating and how much movement I am getting. I would not want to post what I eat and the amount of movement I get ( basically enough to get my to and from the bathroom and to and from the kitchen) Some of the lack of movement is legitimate pain from my big medical drama 2.5 years ago, and some of it is just plain slothfulness. The food is a story in and of itself.

Yet, I am hesitant to reach out for help with my food or my movement because an alarm goes off in my head saying I am not accepting myself, if I look at my food like a problem that needs to be fixed. It is too important that I accept myself. fail fail fail….

Yet I have to be honest and say that my food is not healthy. I cannot deny it. Which is what it seems to me I have been doing.

This laziness manifests itself in the low quality of the food I eat, (fast foodish, processed, sugary, cake and cookieish eating) and in the very limited amount of movement I get. Part of it is that the pain meds I take from the "medical drama" take away my mental sharpness and I sleep a lot. I can get some movement in when I take them though. So I am doing this juggling act between, pain meds, sleep, wanting to be able to read and pay attention, wanting to get more movement, and the idiot box that doesn't demand anything from me other that sitting in front of it and looking in its direction.

I am not depressed, although I did consider that. I am just tired. And a voice in my head is also telling me I am just lazy and don't want to work that hard.

Ya know, if there was some research out there that was endorsed by the likes of Wann and Bacon, that said and individual like me, in circumstances like mine, has as his best bet at a happy life is to just accept that very little movement and eating large quantities of food and spending most of your day watching tv.

I know in my heart of hearts that this is not okay.

I am still a card carrying member of FA. I definitely understand that trying to loose weight is a loosing proposition for someone like me. I am just feeling a little suffocated from all the moral judgement I am buying into about what by most standards could be considered Sloth.

I can play my medical condition card here. My blog details all the medical trauma and drama that has been part of my life. I am disabled from the last episode. Yet, there is room for more movement, I think, if I push myself through the pain so I don't have to take more pain meds. There is room for healthier choices about what I eat, about how much I eat.

I just do not want to go back to a life a shame, self hatred, and walking around my life apologizing for taking up two seats everywhere I go.

I want to feel good about the decisions I make around nutrition and movement while taking into account that the meds are a hurdle to the movement, and all the delicious goodies I like to keep stocked in the house are a hurdle to better nutrition.

I am very interested in hearing what folks have to say about this.

Cheers,

Ivan