This thread will be talking about body issues, weight and exercise and their impact on my life. I know that many people are triggered by these things, so it's my hope that those who have issues reading about them can pass this thread by.
10 years ago today, I weighed 176 pounds. On August 20, 2011, I weighed 173.5 pounds at 4am. I wanted to carry the least amount of weight possible up Mt. Washington, NH. I'm sure I weighed a pound or two lighter when I got to the top, but there wasn't a scale for me to stand on. Image of Penny, pre-transition, on her bicycle, on a steep r
Not that I could stand. I had just ridden 7.6 miles, all uphill, most of it crazy steep. It took me 2 hours and 20 minutes, which was about 20 minutes longer than I had hoped for.
I actually have a ghost story about my ride. Maybe I'll share it sometime. But not today. A screen shot of the top of the Mt Washington Auto Road Bicy
20 years ago today, I was a roast beef sandwich away from 300 lbs. Probably. I don't have many pics of me from that era, & I rarely stepped on a scale. I do remember my doctor telling me that I was on the line between obese & morbidly obese, and I stayed that way for a long time. Two people standing on a boardwalk with the ocean behind the
The story of my transformation from miserable lump to someone who rode a bike up a mountain is pretty interesting. For a while, I thought it was going to be the most interesting thing I ever did.
But nope.
This was me at the bottom of Mt. Washington, after the ride. Pre-transition Penny, very trim, and in cycling clothes, lea
That's the mountain over my shoulder. I'll let you believe I was leaning because it was a jaunty look and I wanted to make sure you could see the mountain, and not at all because I could still barely stand.
173 lbs (or whatever I was in this pic, if it's lower) is the least I have ever weighed as an adult. Hell, probably since I was in junior high school. Shortly after this, my friend Gordon (who drove me & my kids to the event & took this pic) said "who wants ice cream?"
I did.
Long story short, on May 2nd, I weighed 236 pounds.
This morning, I weigh 201 pounds.
This will be the upper end of the ten-ish pound range I will spend the rest of my functioning life maintaining.
Human bodies aren't designed to lose 120 pounds, then gain 60, then lose 30.
A lot of that weight gain was from dysphoria. But since I carry my weight in a very masculine way, I need to remind myself that I look worse overweight than I do in workout clothes, which triggered the dysphoria.
I hate being called "dude" while on my bike. I hate walking out of the women's locker room and seeing women walking in see me, then glance up at the sign next to the door to make sure it read "women's."
I hate being that heavy more.
So I will moderate my intake, keep track of what I'm eating, and enjoy the way I look.
A friend of mine was diagnosed with a stage 4 cancer a few years back, right out of the blue. She had a very small chance of surviving it. But she did. She's living a great life, too.
One of the things she did was reframe the conversation that most people use around cancer. She didn't "fight" her cancer. She loved it. This is her TEDx talk about it.
If she can love her cancer, and not only survive, but thrive, I can love my body, in whatever state it's in.
For most of my life I've treated my body like it was a rental. Yet my body has stayed with me and sustained me throughout all of this. I'm disgustingly healthy.
No, this is not the body I want, or have ever wanted. But it's the one I have. And I'm making the choice to love it.
I started writing this thread 3 hours ago. It was gonna be the typical "yay weight loss, yay me" thing I do a lot. But it turned itself into something different.
As I've stopped it to do other things, it's given me a chance to reflect and plot not only the next tweet, but how I want to treat my body.
I realized I want to treat it with the love & respect it deserves. So I thanked it for taking me as far as it has.
And I'm going to be doing that as part of my regular practice, and I'll be figuring out ways to keep it as healthy as possible going forward.
It's a good body, and I want it for a long time.
/end

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More from @sterling_penny

9 Aug
I have two responses to this. I have no idea how long it will take me to express them.
The first is to the folks who do this, parent-to-parent:
How dare you? How dare you put your own views, fears & beliefs above the welfare of your child? You're not protecting or helping them.
You are torturing them, because their reality makes you uncomfortable.
Too bad.
The absolute worst thing you can do as a parent is to make parenting about yourself. Nothing involved with raising a child should be about you.
If you have a gender diverse child it's your responsibility to educate yourself about gender diversity. Which means listening to EVERYBODY about this issue, not just to the few who will validate and amplify your fears.
It also means listening to--and believing--your child.
Read 19 tweets
11 Apr
1. People are dropping Robert Moses on this tweet like he's the only racist road builder out there. I'd say Mayor Pete underselling when he says "SOME of our highways." Moses may have been the LeBron of racist infastructure, but he was not the only player.
Here's a little 🧵.
2. First, be aware that the Eisenhower Interstate System had ulterior motives built into it. Yeah, it was great for moving commercial goods from Tucson to Tucumcari. Of course it made it easier for us to See the USA in our Chevrolets, but it also it was great for moving rockets.
The minimum bridge height for clearing Interstates is 16' (4.9 m), not only for the road, but for both shoulders, and a little more. Because a missile on a trailer's height is about 14'. The interstate gave the military a very easy way to move munitions where they wanted.
Read 25 tweets
9 Apr
Once I was the King of Spain!
Ah! My unspeakable wife: Queen Lisa!
I'm telling you, I was the King of Spain!
Read 4 tweets

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