When I started the diet, Melissa warned me that when telling people about it--or manifesting the results--I would get negative responses. Naif that I am, this amazed me... though I am old and jaded enough that it did strike me as plausible.
I have to say, though, I have gotten very few--just these, with names removed to protect the guilty.
1) "You have to exercise to lose weight." This person was expressing in an untypically preachy way the greatest misconception that I have come across. This is a misconception I didn't have myself, because previous diets I tried involved no exercise and worked, albeit not as well as this one, and I have gained fat while doing frequent, rigorous exercise. But almost everyone assumes that you have to exercise to lose weight. They are amazed when I tell them you don't. Read my lips. See the pictures. I've lost 102 lbs. while being a couch potato, my most strenuous exercise being housework and recreational swimming. Couch potatoes, rejoice!
2) "You're losing weight too fast... setting yourself up for a rebound." Thank you, Mr/s. Positive. Not rebounding is covered in the IP diet (it's called "Phase 4") and, like losing in the first place, is a matter of choice.
3) "Stop! You should stay right there, you've lost enough!" Now sometimes this comes out of genuine, legitimate concern, on the part of people who just aren't used to seeing me slender, so that I appear relatively emaciated. I have learned, when I mention I've lost 90+ lbs., to add quickly that it was by choice... people can think you have cancer or some other severe disease if you don't. But it can also be, as Jane suggested, jealousy. (See previous post re competitiveness.) Some people--okay, I'll call a spade a space, women--don't want another woman to climb higher than them on the status-scale of svelteness. Regardless, what I tell them is that my goal is calculated from my adult weight when I was younger.
But that's it, really, for the negative comments. I'll just add one more pickle-puss reaction that Melissa, not me, got: "You've got wrinkles now!"
My first reaction to this reaction was,"And you have a lovely day, in the deepest pit of hell, too, darling!" That was before I burned off enough fat to learn there was truth in those words--since my wrinkles got worse. I'd already observed my skin sagging on the parts of my body where it had previously been most stretched: tummy, under my arms, etc. But at 80 lbs. or so, I really started noticing my facial wrinkles growing deeper and sharper, and the skin under my chin becoming lined. Fact is, on this diet the fat goes much faster than the skin can tighten up, apparently even if you're young.
So for now I am telling myself "I look more distinguished! My face has more character!" while I cross my fingers hoping that I'm still young and healthy enough that my skin will tighten up, and researching wrinkle creams and so forth.
For me, however, 99.9% of the reactions have been unequivocally positive. The immediate ones go roughly like this:
20-39 lbs.: "That's great, good for you!"
40-60 lbs.: "Wow, that's a lot of weight, you look fantastic!"
60-79 lbs.: "Wow, that's really impressive, what an achievement, you're an inspiration, you're disappearing!"
80-100 lbs.: "OH MY GOD!!! HOLY SH@#$%&&! I didn't know that was YOU!" (And if they haven't seen you in months, they cannot recognize you from behind.)
It gets more and more fun as you lose more. Almost this alone is worth the price of admission.
From my experience, the vast majority of people are genuinely happy for you.
--
Thursday, December 20, 2012
I did it...!!!
Yes... at my weigh-in today, after being stuck at 97 lbs. down for two weeks, I tipped the scale at 141, or 102 lbs. down.
I have been meaning to update here for a while... even have a bit of a stockpile of recipes built up... but something has been stopping me, and I'm not even sure what. It's almost as if some part of me feels I ought not to broadcast how much weight I've lost, not share my success, not crow... as if it's bragging and therefore somehow wrong. Am I proud of myself? Absolutely--and justifiably, considering what I have sunk into it in terms of money, self-restraint and creative cooking energy (though that third one has been fun). Do I regret it in the slightest? Absolutely not; my only regret is not having lost it faster. Do I have any reason to be embarrassed? No... but for some reason I am.
I know that I have learned some uncomfortable truths about my own and my culture's prejudices about fat, just by looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the changes in the meaning of what I was seeing. The time I looked at myself trying on an outfit in the fitting-room mirror and thought "OMG... I'm hot!"... well, of course we desexualize heavy people; in our culture's standard of beauty, fat is ugly, QED. So that one wasn't a surprise.
It was more awful to look at myself and be struck that I looked more credible. Or more important... professional... someone to be taken more seriously. Of course, our culture making judgments like that is hardly news; not if you look at the studies on which personality traits are associated with fatness, the stats on employment prospects, etc. But I didn't think I was doing that...!
Did I really think these things about overweight people? And had I, therefore, previously thought them about myself? Was I going to continue to have such prejudices, even if I was determined not to, because they really are subconscious? How had this affected how I treated people in the past, and how would it in the future?
Three traits that are obviously associated with fat are gluttony, laziness and lack of discipline... so it occurred to me that for years, people were getting the wrong impression of me from my weight. They might have been somewhat right about the gluttony part (in case you haven't noticed, I love food), and I admit I have become much less mobile in the past 10-15 years. But you don't write 1,000-2,000 words every weekday while maintaining two other jobs if you're lazy--in fact I had to cut down to stave off burnout--and you don't get a black belt in karate if you don't have discipline. But people see what's on the surface.
Given that fat is generally vilified... how many people looked down on me more than they would have if I'd maintained a weight of 140 lbs. or so for my full adult life? How much did that damage my already-mangled self-esteem? Would I have been handed opportunities I was not? How different would my love life have been? Would I have made more friends? I will never know. There is no point in thinking about it, beyond writing this paragraph. There is only going forward.
I don't want to think that I think better of myself now than I did. But I do... there's no two ways about it. How many people have I told that my self-esteem and my social self-confidence have gone through the roof? I love the way I look and the way I feel. I think I look more credible. [Smacks cheekbone-showing cheek with skinny hand.]
There is no question that svelteness is associated with higher social status. Including by me. As I've shrunk, I've been more and more inclined to dress more upscale and elegant, despite my relatively-scant means. (If you frequent places such as Value Village, have an eye for quality and a willingness to search, you can do it.) At one event I attended where I was called upon to dress in black and red, and added gold, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, 'I can't believe I'm dressing so well, creating such a feeling of luxury and richness...!' I've never done that before in my life. When I was previously this slender, my self-esteem was so deep in the crapper that I would never have given myself permission.
And it's okay to do this, of course... but what does it all say about my own attitudes re weight?
I'm embarrassed by the whole thing. It has an ickiness that makes me just want to turn away and not think about it. That ickiness is not just in me; it permeates our whole culture. Which is why it seems so massive; why I feel helpless in the face of it, and therefore would just rather not think about it.
The part of me that buys into it makes me feel like now that I'm hitting my goal, I'm rising above and lording it over anyone who is now fatter than me. There's this ugly competitive aspect to it, that part of me embraces and the rest of me hates that part for. This is what's bothering me; this is why I've been stopped from posting here, once I got to a certain point...! Up to 60 or 70 lbs. down, it somehow didn't matter... I was still struggling, still going for broke, still just dreaming... still the underdog in this fight. As soon as I became the winner... I wanted to stop all the positive-positive-positive talk, stop sharing my recipes (since they seem like showing off my mastery of this process), stop crowing, when most would say I most deserve to. I just want to hide away from the whole thing.
Probably there's something even deeper here that I am not inclined to explore yet.
I am not proud of what I have revealed here.
I am determined to treat everyone well, and banish the misperceptions. I hope I can.
I will crow this much: I did it.
And I will also say: if I can, so can you.
--
I have been meaning to update here for a while... even have a bit of a stockpile of recipes built up... but something has been stopping me, and I'm not even sure what. It's almost as if some part of me feels I ought not to broadcast how much weight I've lost, not share my success, not crow... as if it's bragging and therefore somehow wrong. Am I proud of myself? Absolutely--and justifiably, considering what I have sunk into it in terms of money, self-restraint and creative cooking energy (though that third one has been fun). Do I regret it in the slightest? Absolutely not; my only regret is not having lost it faster. Do I have any reason to be embarrassed? No... but for some reason I am.
I know that I have learned some uncomfortable truths about my own and my culture's prejudices about fat, just by looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the changes in the meaning of what I was seeing. The time I looked at myself trying on an outfit in the fitting-room mirror and thought "OMG... I'm hot!"... well, of course we desexualize heavy people; in our culture's standard of beauty, fat is ugly, QED. So that one wasn't a surprise.
It was more awful to look at myself and be struck that I looked more credible. Or more important... professional... someone to be taken more seriously. Of course, our culture making judgments like that is hardly news; not if you look at the studies on which personality traits are associated with fatness, the stats on employment prospects, etc. But I didn't think I was doing that...!
Did I really think these things about overweight people? And had I, therefore, previously thought them about myself? Was I going to continue to have such prejudices, even if I was determined not to, because they really are subconscious? How had this affected how I treated people in the past, and how would it in the future?
Three traits that are obviously associated with fat are gluttony, laziness and lack of discipline... so it occurred to me that for years, people were getting the wrong impression of me from my weight. They might have been somewhat right about the gluttony part (in case you haven't noticed, I love food), and I admit I have become much less mobile in the past 10-15 years. But you don't write 1,000-2,000 words every weekday while maintaining two other jobs if you're lazy--in fact I had to cut down to stave off burnout--and you don't get a black belt in karate if you don't have discipline. But people see what's on the surface.
Given that fat is generally vilified... how many people looked down on me more than they would have if I'd maintained a weight of 140 lbs. or so for my full adult life? How much did that damage my already-mangled self-esteem? Would I have been handed opportunities I was not? How different would my love life have been? Would I have made more friends? I will never know. There is no point in thinking about it, beyond writing this paragraph. There is only going forward.
I don't want to think that I think better of myself now than I did. But I do... there's no two ways about it. How many people have I told that my self-esteem and my social self-confidence have gone through the roof? I love the way I look and the way I feel. I think I look more credible. [Smacks cheekbone-showing cheek with skinny hand.]
There is no question that svelteness is associated with higher social status. Including by me. As I've shrunk, I've been more and more inclined to dress more upscale and elegant, despite my relatively-scant means. (If you frequent places such as Value Village, have an eye for quality and a willingness to search, you can do it.) At one event I attended where I was called upon to dress in black and red, and added gold, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, 'I can't believe I'm dressing so well, creating such a feeling of luxury and richness...!' I've never done that before in my life. When I was previously this slender, my self-esteem was so deep in the crapper that I would never have given myself permission.
And it's okay to do this, of course... but what does it all say about my own attitudes re weight?
I'm embarrassed by the whole thing. It has an ickiness that makes me just want to turn away and not think about it. That ickiness is not just in me; it permeates our whole culture. Which is why it seems so massive; why I feel helpless in the face of it, and therefore would just rather not think about it.
The part of me that buys into it makes me feel like now that I'm hitting my goal, I'm rising above and lording it over anyone who is now fatter than me. There's this ugly competitive aspect to it, that part of me embraces and the rest of me hates that part for. This is what's bothering me; this is why I've been stopped from posting here, once I got to a certain point...! Up to 60 or 70 lbs. down, it somehow didn't matter... I was still struggling, still going for broke, still just dreaming... still the underdog in this fight. As soon as I became the winner... I wanted to stop all the positive-positive-positive talk, stop sharing my recipes (since they seem like showing off my mastery of this process), stop crowing, when most would say I most deserve to. I just want to hide away from the whole thing.
Probably there's something even deeper here that I am not inclined to explore yet.
I am not proud of what I have revealed here.
I am determined to treat everyone well, and banish the misperceptions. I hope I can.
I will crow this much: I did it.
And I will also say: if I can, so can you.
--
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