In A Year of Happy Chaos, I am trying to improve my overall wellbeing, mentally as well as physically. First, I called this area of my site Health. But that is the wrong word. It smells of fat shaming and fit people on high horses. I am not in the best shape, but I can walk, I have bodily freedom and no illness. So instead of Health, it’s called Wellbeing now.
Weight and body positivity
I don’t want to aim for a certain weight or dress size – although that is really hard to avoid to be honest. I have been told that I should lose weight all my life by all sorts of people. No matter if I weighed 62kg or 100kg, it was never good enough. I was never good enough. Now I realize that today, the people who would shame me for being big, are not the people who love me. And they are who matter. Plus, the tide has started to turn because of the body positivity and Health at Every Size movement. I never managed to really feel the positivity though, no matter how badly I wanted it, because of all those decades of being shamed. This time I’m hoping to finally find my way in that more positive outlook.
What works for me
So no weight loss goals. Instead, I want to find out what works for me and what does not, just so that I feel happy and strong enough to get me through the week. It is nice if someone likes to work out five times a week – I know that is not sustainable for me. I do like to walk though, so I try to do that a bit more.
Another misstep would be trying to follow any form of diet, since I have an eating disorder. My weight has gone up and down so much over the years my body is completely confused. It needs to calm down now and become steady rather than thinner. The only thing I want to do is plan my meals and make them (a bit) healthier overall. If I don’t plan meals, I forget to eat and then I binge at the end of the day. (Thanks to Novarum for guiding me through the process of realizing that.)
Because I made this decision, I will also have to make food more often and I will have to overcome years of resistance to that. It will not be easy. I have started and failed so many times. So many times I have proclaimed that I was almost there, or there now – whatever ‘there’ meant. But I just want to be. Try. Fail. And try again. Try to find the fun in the trying. It’s going to be a ride.
Wanna watch me fumble further? I will keep you posted on my blog.
Recent posts on Wellbeing
Featured image
The featured image on this page is rights free and was made by Priscilla Du Preez (@priscilladupreez).