Anxiety and guilt around losing weight

[Willowtree_21]

• Hey Beyond Blue community, I’m not really sure if posting this will help anything but I thought to give it a try.

Among many other stressors, I’m really struggling with anxiety and guilt around trying to lose weight. The short version of this story is that I put on some weight when I was in my mid teen years which I didn’t really like. It was never a ‘health’ problem as I wasn’t ‘overweight’ (whatever that actually means) but related to how I felt about my physical image. Now that I’m older and know a bit more about nutrition and life in general, I’ve managed to get my weight down to a spot where I am more or less happy. Life got hectic for a while but now I am back to moderate calorie restriction to lose the last bit that I’d like to lose. I am doing it a safely as I can with a long term sustainable diet plan that ensures good nutrition and actually tasty food (I grew up with tonnes of food intolerances so I got a lot of nutritional knowledge early on that allows me to do this. One upside to dietary restrictions)

I just feel so guilty and anxious about doing this though. It makes me feel like I’m a terrible person for actively pursuing a smaller body type when we live in a world where fat phobia is clearly being challenged and addressed. I am very confused by the whole situation because having this kind of body is important to me but I really don’t want to hurt anyone else by making them feel they weren’t enough if they were a larger body size. It doesn’t help that I am really involved within the performing industries where being small is unfortunately the norm (in my experience at least). Being the same small size as those other performers makes the process of losing weight worth it to me because I don’t want to look different - I’m on the Autism spectrum already and there’s a tonne of unusual things about me so I guess I want to be like everyone else for once. Which is ironic because I logically get this whole issue around skinny body types is about it not being super normal.

I guess I’m just impacted by the thin ideal as well, and maybe this is my way of coping with it? 

The whole issue just makes my head spin.

Note: I am aware that I have also fallen into disordered eating tendencies and poor mental health. I do have mental health specialists involved to help me 🙂

I am not sure what kind of responses I want. Just thought to put this out into cyberspace in case someone has also been through something like this.

[therising]

Hi Willowtree_21

Being a 52yo gal and in serious need of losing weight so as to live a much healthier life, I've seen how the campaign against fat shaming has been taken to extremes. While the campaign began for good reasons, to eliminate cruelty and discrimination, now we can't speak of what we'd call our ideal weight or size without someone accusing us of fat shaming and leading us to feel guilty in some way. 

Personally, I want to reach my ideal weight because 1) it will be easier for me to breathe while carrying less weight, 2) my knees will not hurt so much while carrying less weight, 3) I'll be able to do more things compared to what I can do now, 4) I will feel healthier and possibly live a longer life and the list goes on. So, my size is not my key focus, obtaining a better quality of life is the focus. If I work hard in managing eating healthy and I power up my body everyday in energising ways (exercise), the side effect will be weight loss and I'll appear slimmer. 

With your knowledge and experience, when it comes to health issues and good quality diet, you'd have felt the difference when it comes to your body functioning at its best. With all the right chemistry (in food) meeting with the chemistry in your body, it's about creating the right chemical reactions to keep every system in our body functioning happily. Too much food or not enough food, too much exercise or not enough exercise, too much fat or not enough fat etc and the imbalance comes with unwanted side effects (whether those side effects are short or long term).

If your ideal size is 'slim', there is nothing wrong with that as long as you manage being slim in all healthy ways. On the other hand, some people will manage being slim while starving themself of good quality food with plenty of vitamins, minerals, protein etc. They may be slim yet their body will be suffering through a lack of what it needs to function effectively. They may be happy looking in the mirror but if they're constantly fatigued, again you gotta question quality of life.

I think one of our key goals in life is to find the happiest and healthiest version of our self. Reaching that goal can come with a lot of questions. It is the nature of such monumental quest to hold so many questions. Each answer or revelation is a leap forward 🙂