{"id":462,"date":"2021-06-28T09:08:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T14:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/?p=462"},"modified":"2021-06-28T19:41:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T00:41:46","slug":"where-i-was-where-im-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/?p=462","title":{"rendered":"Where I Was. Where I’m Going."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, hello again! I have not written a blog here since 2015, but I decided to start writing again as things have changed so much for me especially because of the pause that the pandemic has given me.

I have written some blogs over the past 6 years on a website called SparkPeople. I have been a member there since 2008. SparkPeople is a website that provided a free calorie counter and fitness tracker. Members were encouraged to have a SparkPage that allowed them a space in which to develop friendships with other members, and get and give support through the weight loss process by blogging. SparkPeople is closing down in mid-August. My blogs were always extremely well received by the Spark community, so I decided to blog here again with the intention of satisfying my readers.

As it turns out, most of my blogs on Spark were not<\/em> weight loss related. For the past several years my blogs read like journal entries and included a lot about my pottery work and family life. The majority of my weight loss was within the first two years of using Spark and then my weight loss stopped and I maintained for a few years, so I started writing different content because I had nothing new to report in regard to my weight.

When Spark shuts down and I will no longer have access to a calorie counter or fitness tracker. Instead of finding a replacement for Spark, like many who rely on these tools to guide them through the process, I feel this utter joy and freedom in stopping the hyper focus on my weight.

When I think back, I have lost weight with tools and gadgets but mostly without the help of those things.<\/strong><\/em> It’s not rocket science, although I’m sure the diet industry<\/strong> makes most people feel like it is. Move more, eat less. That is the formula.

One of my friends on Spark posted an update a few months ago that was a post from a nutritionist calling out “diet culture” and it’s toxicity. I didn’t even KNOW that DIET CULTURE was a “thing.” And when I dug a bit further I started wondering if focusing with laser-like precision on my weight was a good thing for me. It felt good at one time, but now I feel like it isn’t a good thing to focus so intensely and I also feel it is a time and energy suck to track food and all of my activities, steps, and glasses of water consumed.

When I first began counting calories on Spark 13 years ago, I discovered that I actually was<\/em> eating too much, but honestly didn’t think I was eating any more than anyone else. While that may have been true, not everyone’s body is the same. When I counted the calories I had consumed on Day 1, I saw that I was eating what I thought was an astounding amount of calories – more than 3000 a day. It was definitely enough for my weight to have increased gradually and steadily over time. I have lost a total of 135 pounds from my highest weight, but if I counted all the pounds lost over and over again all throughout my life…different story.

In my mid 30’s I was around 300 lbs which put me into the morbidly obese category. I decided “why not try more activity?” So I joined fitness classes and I began to lose weight. Just with increased activity I shrank several dress sizes (from 26 – 18) in a couple of years then plateaued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I moved from Manitoba to Quebec and I gained some weight because my lifestyle changed. By the time I was 48 I was feeling really unhappy with my weight and then I discovered Spark. With calorie restriction I lost several more dress sizes (from a size 22 – size 10) by the age of 50. But when does it stop? Do I really want to be weighing my chicken breast and serving my rice with a half cup measure the day I croak? Or do I want more freedom? I have a friend who is 80 and she is dieting and keeping very active, and she is very angry with herself when a week of pretty hard core calorie restriction only produces a one pound loss.

“You are so free you can choose bondage.”

My weight has been a subject of focus for me since the age of 5 when my tummy was poked at by my mother and then the doctor, and I was pronounced fat. I was put on a diet.

In my late 20’s and early 30’s I rejected all diets and I’d say “If you don’t like the way I look, then look the other way.” I subscribed to a magazine called FAT!SO? and wore a button that said, “How dare you assume I’d rather be skinny.”

My weight loss “journey” has been lifelong, y’all. I’ve been called “fat cow” in the schoolyard and I have been called “skinny bitch” when I lost weight.

“People will love you. People will hate you. And none of it will have anything to do with you.”

\u201cDiet culture<\/strong>\u201d refers to a set of beliefs that values thinness, appearance, and shape above health & well-being. Additionally, the concept places importance on restricting calories, normalizes negative self-talk, and labels certain foods as \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Toxic diet culture<\/strong> has a way of making us feel guilty for eating<\/strong> certain things or for not exercising a certain amount. Food<\/strong> and exercise are meant to be celebrated; they are a form of self-love. Fuel your body out of love, move your body out of love, and stop restricting yourself out of love.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Diet culture<\/strong> feeds body shame, fuels body discrimination, and fosters disordered eating. It instills the false belief that eating certain foods and living in a thinner body increases one’s value.”

After researching diet culture, I realized that having that laser-like focus on my weight isn’t the healthiest way to live. It was the statement from The Nutrition Tea on Instagram<\/a> that made me stop in my tracks and reconsider what I was doing. The statement was “This is a reminder that you don’t have to earn your food with exercise.”

Another statement produced an “AH-HA!” moment and it went something like: when someone comments on your weight they<\/em> have disordered eating. <\/strong>

Well, that is just about everyone I ever met! I recall my father taking food right off my plate saying “I’m saving you from yourself.” One of my best friends said I was always looking at men who were “out of my league” and followed that up with, “Maybe you don’t have a boyfriend because you’re fat.” I nearly threw her out of my apartment and ended our friendship. But instead I said, “I can not <\/strong>believe that you just said that!” And she said, “I can’t either! It just came out. If you want to end our friendship over this I completely understand.” She was nearly in tears and truly embarrassed. I forgave her and later realized that her eating was disordered. This friend grew up watching her mother weigh and track everything she ate, every day for years, and I think she kind of resented the whole act of restricting calories, which is something that I have done on Spark every day for 13 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I began to wonder if I actually have an eating disorder<\/em> as a result of being on diets, being told at a young age that fat is bad, being called names no matter what size I was, and even being asked, “Please don’t lose too much weight because if you do, I won’t feel good about myself.” Seriously? Seriously! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been restricting calories for the entire time I have been using SparkPeople with greatly varying results. I did lose a significant amount of weight. I do feel better having done so. I feel it is so much easier to move and I have better balance and stamina, so truly I have no regrets. I also regained some weight and have been down on myself for it for the past 5 years. And ya’ll, it’s only been maybe 20 pounds that has me feeling so down on myself. <\/em><\/strong>Recently I decided to give up on being down on myself. It’s a practise, and one that I am getting better and better at doing.

These insights, coupled with the closure of SparkPeople have given me the opportunity to free myself from tracking everything I eat and every calorie I burn and balancing it all like a chequebook at the end of each day. Instead I have been listening to my body in all respects, and nurturing myself to where I really want to be, which is super happy and healthy right up until the day I croak.

There is so much more to life than focusing on what I eat and how many calories I burn and getting in 10,000 steps a day and making sure I drink my 8 – 10 cups of water. For a while it worked and it felt great to use guidelines. Now it feels great to have this inner knowing that I don’t need the hyper focus on this subject any more.
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Well, hello again! I have not written a blog here since 2015, but I decided to start writing again as things have changed so much for me especially because of the pause that the pandemic has given me. I have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,13,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions\/470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lmserafin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}