Diet Shame

Team! It's been forever! How are you? Awesome. Me? Oh I've been busy, you know. Ok - small talk aside, I've really been trying to identify what exactly it is about Calgary that saps my desire to post. I think I'm growing increasingly accustomed to a life of mediocrity - my nights have consisted of watching my parents' appalling television choices and tucking myself into bed with an audiobook by 10:30. Last night we ate chocolates and had a glass of wine, making it the most exciting night I've had in about two weeks. I am determined, however, to not be ok with this. While a cozy night in is, honestly, great most of the time, I would like to actually have plans. And I haven't. Or have, and bailed, because leaving my suburban cocoon just sometimes takes more effort that I feel willing to expend.

Project "Fun Calgary" will commence next week. Why next week? Because I start making money next week. Ye haw Calgary, ye haw.


Ok, so none of this has to do with diets, though shame of my premature middle age is hopefully apparent. Another reason I haven't been posting is because I've been really back and forth in my mind about whether I wanted to admit to the blogosphere what I am going to admit to you right now: I am on a diet. And I don't just mean casually watching my calories or trying to eat healthier - when I'm doing that, I say that. I'm on a honest to goodness, book-written-by-doctor type diet. I didn't buy this book, by the way, nor would the diet have been something I would have done on my own accord - it is a by-product of living with my mum, but I'm doing it, baby.

So, I'm not actually going to get into the diet - the 17 Day diet (a total misnomer, by the by) - at this particular junction. I am more curious about the fact that I debated even mentioning it. Intrigued by the fact that, when it comes up in conversation, which it somehow, inevitably and painfully always does, I always try to pass it off as something I'm doing in solidarity with my parents, rather than something I started before, and have continued to do more faithfully, than either.

It is exactly that difference between "watching what I eat" or "eating a bit more healthy" and being "on a diet." If you follow fitness blogs they will almost all abhor diets; their authors' insist that they just eat a healthy, balanced diet and, my least favourite phrase ever, "just listen to what their body needs." My body insists that it needs a sugar boost after every meal. It insists that sugar be in the form of chocolate. My mind-body connection is not so hot - my mind is a dictator who likes chocolates and dislikes my pathetic, complaining knees. I don't know that I'm all that unique in that regard though - how many people do you honestly know who can say "my body just really wanted something green" or "I just needed some protein," who aren't utterly full of bullshit? My mind tells my body those things using logic and research: "Yo body, you will get scurvy if you don't put spinach in you" or "You just worked out - protein builds muscle - eat it." Before my inner monologue totally derails me from my point here, I will make it; to admit that you are on a diet points to a flaw in your will power. You can't just intuitively do something good for you, it has to be dictated and formulaic. And this paints you as a weak person. But following a clear set of guidelines is what I need. And the same goes for a lot of people. Because, guess what, a lot of people are overweight. Most people, in fact. I'm not even overweight, but my impulse control is negligible unless I can give myself a very concrete reason why refusing one more chocolate or a glass of wine will make a difference. And a diet does just that.

Despite the fact that most people have a hard time making the right choices when it comes to nutrition, and particularly weight loss, there is some very bad vibes that get directed at those who take the route of a prescribed diet. Yeah, it is a consumerist thing, making doctors richer for writing books full of things that should be mostly common sense, blah, blah, communism, blah. I get that. But why do people always give you a look like, "Oh...?" as though your diet is actually a second head growing out of your armpit? I like to tell myself that it makes them re-evaluate their own dietary choices and feel insecure, but I really don't think that's it. That's just what people on diets tell themselves: "they're just jealous because I'm doing something about my weight." Uh, no - they're eating cake and ribs. They are not jealous of your baked chicken breast, wilted spinach and soda water. It's because they've suddenly realized that your are vain and insecure and don't have a) the strength to change things for yourself without a book or support system holding your hand or b) you aren't imaginative enough to come up with an excuse that doesn't open you up to such scrutiny. "Oh, yeah, I'm not drinking beer right now because I've been casking my own Irish whisky all day and I'm basically drunk already," or "you know, I heard that they found a human heart at the Lilydale factory in Glenridge" would be responses that would certainly debunk judgment much more effectively than "oh, I'm on this diet."
 
But guess what else - diets can work! Most diets today come with weening phases where they admit "yeah, we've changed what foods you can and can't eat, but by doing so we've also changed the foods you crave and the way you approach your meals." Which is really just a long road to getting to the "I just eat a healthy, balanced diet," phase which elicits no societal sneer. I have been on this bad boy diet for 20 days, and I have lost an inch and half from my waist and weigh less than I ever have in my adult life. So when I tell you I'm on a diet, it is not an invitation for you to comment on my weight or evaluate my body perception. If I tell you I'm not having a beer because I'm on a diet, I don't want to hear "You don't need to be on a diet! You're crazy!" Shut up. I'm on a diet because I have goals, man! And those goal include looking really sexy while I still am at an age where that is relatively easy to accomplish.

So viva the diet - haters, go hate elsewhere. With fries if you like. They look tasty.

Stop Shaming the Ashamed

Shamey Shame Shamed.

Ok, but brace yourselves, because this is actually a serious post that I have been thinking about for a while. I wrote up some thoughts on the topic a couple months ago, but Kathy's visit, which brought with it a number of serious chats about body image, gave me the impetus to actually proclaim what has become a cultural taboo as of late:

I do not love my body.

Typing that, having it written, seeing the words, I feel this urge to clarify, "I mean, I don't hate my body" or "I respect my body's physical abilities," but these urges get right to the heart of the problem that I think really needs to be addressed.

We are bombarded with what are, from most arenas denounced as unattainable bodies, published in magazines and sashaying on television. It has become so pervasive that we often times don’t even realize how horrifically thin an actress is unless a tabloid points it out.  Surrounded by air brushed bodies and an elite who can devote unending time and money to their physical upkeep, there has developed a defensive coping mechanism amongst so-called average women. Women have begun to proclaim that they should not compare themselves to that standard of beauty. True beauty is to love yourself, cellulite, love handles, arm hair and all. Instead of prosecuting the fashion and entertainment industries, your average North American woman has opted to denounce the women who let this impossible standard of beauty make them feel badly about their bodies. We start writing off women who order salads, "side dress, hold the cheese and croutons," as shameful and shallow and perpetrating a body type which is so difficult to attain and fraught with frightening implications for young women.

This mechanism, which my friend Kathy so appropriate posed as the question "Can a feminist go on a diet?" has the potential to do almost as much damage as the industry which has lead to unhealthy body images and mass body dismorphia amoungst young women. When I told Kathy that I just had no perspective on my own body, and that it scared me that I perhaps had some sort of body dismorphia, she responded "I'm pretty sure all girls our age have some form of body dismorphia." Sometimes I am truly repulsed by my body, particularly when I am in cobbler’s pose in yoga, where my impressive flexibility allows my forehead to touch the soles of my feet, providing a panoramic view of my folded-in-half gut: I shudder in revulsion at what is going on with this body of mine. Self-depricating? Perhaps. But honest. And not, given all the images that pervade our social consciousness, unreasonable or inexplicable. I don't consider myself ugly, there are just times, lots of times, when I wish my body were different than it is.

My friend Claire confessed to me a while ago, “Sometimes I just wish I was rail thin. I mean, I love being curvey, but I wish I could wear a sack sometimes and have it look stylish.” I was kind of shocked by this statement for two reasons. One, I considered it to be a self evident fact that most people would rather be thin. If you disagree, I am sorry, but you’re a damn liar. This society privileges the svelte. It is easier to live in Western societies if you are blessed enough to be thin – this point is not up for debate. The second thing that surprised me was how instantly Claire felt guilty about having confessed this, and felt the need to amend her statement with a retroactive prologue - "I mean, I love being curvey..." - to assure me that she still was content with the body she has.

Why are we so ashamed about not liking our bodies? We have started to feel bad about the fact that we do, in fact, feel bad about our bodies. It is a perpetuating shame. Why?

We are told that if you are strong and confident, that those qualities are what make a woman sexy. That only the truly naive would believe that what they see in media is an achievable standard of beauty for average women. There is even an unspoken accusation of laziness; if a woman was really so unhappy about her body, wouldn’t she do something about it? I think it needs to stop.

We hate the women who hate their bodies. We condescendingly pity them and their obvious lack of insight and maturity.

Maybe it's because we see these insecure girls as the remnant which holds us back from being gloriously self-indulgent. As long as you have one friend who asks for dressing on the side of her salad, you will be nagged with guilt for eating a pint of Hagan Daaz. That girl with her dry greens is a bitch, making you feel bad about yourself. Bitch, bitch, bitch. And so we concoct self aggrandizing slogans about acceptance and comfort in one’s own skin, natural beauty, etc, etc. I even read in the February edition of Elle Miranda Purves explaining that “In your teens and early twenties many – I dare say most- women have days, or just PMS strained hours, when something about their appearance strikes them as intolerable, monstrous...By your thirties, hopefully your body has been loved by someone over the longer haul, and other priorities take precedence.” The implication of these lines is that a) unhappiness with one’s body is an immature, even teenaged, phenomenon which we grow out of once b) someone else loves our body or c) we just figure, “fuck it.” 

It is being forced on us that we have to be happy with who we are or else we are immature and shallow.

Sorry, but fuck that.

I am not going to feel guilty that I don’t like my body anymore. It’s too hard. The shame of admitting to your friends “yeah I wish I was thinner,” just makes that longing you have for a fitter frame even more painful.  It is as though if we admit displeasure with our body it will immediately lead to concerns about psychological health, the dreaded worry your friends will start whispering about “ssssp psssp ssssp...eating disorder...” And it does drive women who feel unhappy about their bodies to make it a battle they deal with when they are alone in the dark, out of fear that their friends will write off their complaints; "oh shut up, you look beautiful," or "you just need to be comfortable with the weight you're at when you're at it." Really? Thanks. If I could do that, I may not have confided to you that I loathe my saddlebags and think they are repulsive. But yeah, totally, mind over matter. 

I don’t think I am alone in wishing I didn’t have cellulite and that my thighs were slimmer and my butt were rounder. Why do we ostracize ourselves from each other by refusing to admit it and turning into pariahs those who do?

An interesting website, which I am not entirely sure I support as a wholly healthy body image promoter, despite their mission statement being to give women perspectives on their bodies is My Body Gallery. Us average girls upload body shots and give our dress sizes, weight and height, and you can go forth from there to see what women with your proportions actually look like. It could be helpful for gaining insight and perspective (though it was really just disheartening to find that there were no images of women whose proportions matched mine...).

I think we just need to create an atmosphere where we can discuss our insecurities openly and without judgement, rather than hide them away like dirty little secrets. When we shame people about their negative thoughts, those thoughts just get perpetuated when they are alone, creating an even worse stigma and closing off the possibility of fruitful and healing discussion about feelings which naturally arise given what we face as the beauty standard in North America. So when your friend tells her she thinks she's fat, don't just try to tell her she's wrong.

Group hug guys.

Too Big to Blog?

Today anyone plugged into the fashion blog scene (I utterly refute and refuse the term "blogosphere") has probably asked themselves this question, or some variant today: can someone be too big for a fashion blog?

So, we all instinctively want to say "No! Fashion should be for anyone who wants to adapt it creatively for whatever their body type," but Scott Schumann has left me in doubt.

On the fashion blog par excellence, the Sartorialist, Schumann featured Angelika, a blogger out of Milan, rocking some seriously bad ass shoes. Unfortunately, Schumann offered a brief write up about the young lady, something he does not always or often do, saying " I loved that she's a bigger, curvier girl than most of the other bloggers who you see in the the press and tend to represent the genre," and admiring "the sturdy but beautiful shape of her legs."

So, as you can imagine, the Sartorialist has been inundated with offended and outraged comments. I am very much in sympathy with them. This girl is certainly larger than the average waif featured on the website, and, let's be honest, body affirmation is not why anyone goes to the site, but she is not big and she is not curvy. I must admit, I am wholeheartedly tired of the wordy "curvy." It is a euphemism for fat - let's just put it out there. Unless you are Kim Kardashian or Christina Hendrix, by "curvy" you probably mean "plump." And I'm not hating on that either. I think most of us are a bit plump and that is fine. But stop throwing around "curvy." That said, I prefer "curvy" to "sturdy." As one comment reads, let's not use the word "sturdy" to define anything other than antique mahogany furniture, shall we?

But, as I spiral deeper and deeper into the world of blogs - friends', fashion and food are, no joke (but alliteration is always a joke), my favourites - I think that Schumann is making a point that is being missed amongst all the outrage. This girl is big for a fashion blogger (though there obviously has to be a distinction made between a fashion blogger who uses self-as-subject, which this girl does not appear to be doing). I am following four fashion blogs, Sartorialist aside, that feature teeny tiny girls. My friend Kathy told me recently that she wisely culled any of these sorts of blogs that have been functioning as thinspos (such a terribly depressing bit of eating disorder terminology for you - thin-inspirations). But, what can I say, I really do appreciate the fashion! And, alas, I am yet to encounter a fashion blog that features a girl who is more similar to my body shape (which, if you're curious, I would classify as athletically pear-shaped. Not. Curvy.).

I do follow one blog, Hey Good Lookin', which features the lovely Evey, who I know personally, and does not strike me as a size 2 (though I will admit I am completely ignorant to what her actual dress size is). Immediately upon writing this, however, I feel the need to apologize to Evey; "Evey, sorry man, I don't mean you're fat!" This is exactly the problem.

Sigh.

It is no secret, given my penchant for fitness and continually trying to drag my diet together that I have some body aims of my own, so I would never go on a truly hypocritical rant about loving your body the way it is (in fact, I will very likely in the future go on a rant against that particular breed of rant). But can we dress our bodies fashionably the way they are?

Yes please.

If anyone knows any fabulous fashion blogs that I must check out, particularly ones of the "body inclusive" or "body harmony" varieties, please share.