Thread by @bethanyamanda

I think one of the biggest differences I have noticed between being skinny and being plus-size is a keen awareness of how what I eat looks to other people. (thread)

I never had a second thought about indulging in an upsized Chick-fil-A meal for lunch when I was skinny. Now, if I’m eating anything more than eggs and veggies, I assume I’m being judged — and to be honest, I assume this because I used to do so myself.

I drink unsweetened iced tea practically by the gallon and waltz in to work with an XL McDonalds cup more often than not and I always feel this stupid nagging impulse to tell people “It’s just tea! Not soda!” It’s entirely possible no one actually cares/notices, but even so.

Another changed aspect of my relationship to food: I am genuinely content 98% of the time with my weight now (because I traded skinniness for mental health via medication and because frankly I just have other things to invest my emotional energy in). However...

...Because of social conditioning or whatever, I still catch myself feeling slightly resentful about other people’s weight loss. Not because they are losing weight, to be clear, but because it is PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE for them to do so.

I have dieted. I have rigidly kept myself to a calorie deficit. I have worked out regularly. At my most intensely committed, you know how much weight I lost after three months? Two pounds.

So I look at r/ProgressPics or see people documenting their #weightlossjourney on social media and I see exactly how they did it and how many pounds they’ve dropped as a result and I simply can’t relate. I could take all the same steps and, history suggests, see little to no loss

Currently, I’m doing 18:6 intermittent fasting, restricting my portion sizes and sugar intake, and hiking a couple times a week. These aren’t drastic measures, because 1) my priority is sustainability, and 2) I do not equate weight loss with health.

That said, it just so happens that my boss started IF the same week I did. Within a month, she had dropped a size and change. I, on the other hand, am now three months in and have no visible change to show for it.

Again, weight loss is NOT my priority. These things are good for my health regardless. But I feel some resentment when I look see what other people can eat without gaining weight, or while losing it, and consider just how miserably I’d have to restrict myself to achieve the same.

Because at some point there’s diminishing returns, right? Sure, maybe you’re losing weight, but in exchange for what kind of quality of life?

I have lost a meaningful amount of weight exactly once in my adult life: When I was sick for five months and lived almost exclusively on small portions of green beans, poached eggs, and brown rice.

It. Was. Miserable. And if THAT is what it would take for me to get back to a size 6, without hesitation I choose to stay fat, thank you very much.

I’m not sure I have a point to this thread, other than maybe hoping other people can relate and feel seen (the reason I share anything about my life), and maybe to highlight some problematic holes in our culture’s obsession with weight/weight loss as a primary gauge of health.

I don’t owe anyone an explanation or an excuse or an apology for my weight. And yet I find myself offering these things almost involuntarily. It’s such an insidious, toxic, annoying impulse, and not an easy one to shake off. But I’m trying — and trying to do so thoughtfully.

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Got a DM from a friend with another bit of important nuance.