On being fat

You can tell from my picture on this blog that I am obese, the medical word for fat.  I also have the health problems that go with that -- sore feet, periodic sciatica, gallstones, fatty liver, what is now called "pre-diabetes" and of course incipient heart disease.  Sheesh.

Still, I feel healthy and take my pills and the problems come and go, mostly go.

I think maybe I've lost my body weight half a dozen times over the course of my life dieting.  Sometimes "eating sensibly," other times fasting -- whatever.  The weight goes off and comes back on.  I have to imagine that yo-yo is worse than the weight, so now I just try to be happy with myself as I am, although of course one never really is.

I was chubby as a kid and big as a teenager, so I did okay even though I was nerdy and a touch effeminate (a trait I learned to suppress).  I look back and realize that the idea that fat people are lazy is true -- we are born lazy, not fat.  We are efficient in our motions and avoid physical work and athletics.  I always prided myself on working smart, not hard.  Well there are trade-offs and every decade five or ten pounds went on, and it added up (although my weight has been steady since I stopped fighting it fifteen years ago).

That is the thing.  We have free will and when determined we can override our bodies, but our bodies have their tricks.  You can override the body's determination that we will breathe for maybe a few minutes, and then it wins.  The same applies to taking in food to maintain a certain weight, although we don't see it as clearly because it works over a longer period of time and doesn't need to take such drastic measures.

Dieting is artificial famine, but the body doesn't know that, and reacts to the real famine, slowing metabolism and reducing available energy and so on.  When the famine is over it goes back to where it had been as soon as possible and then adds on a little as a safety measure.  We are guaranteed to lose, although I understand a few are able to stay down for long periods.  They are to be admired, but I have my doubts.

We are largely what we are for reasons out of our control, at least long term, and we need to learn to accept what we are as we are, and not judge ourselves (or others, for that matter) about such things.