Yet Another Change of Plan

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should post this here: I am on a diet. Low-carb, to be specific, but not Atkins. (Screw induction, I'll eat as many vegetables and low-sugar fruits as I want to eat.) I feel a few ways about this: first of all, I feel a little bit like I've failed. Like I've become a person that just has to be on a diet because they don't know any other way, which, to be honest, is true. I've been on diets since I was twelve—I'm almost twenty-six now, so I've been dieting over half my life. I don't know how to relate to food normally; that's why I am where I am.

I also feel a bit defensive about this choice, and I feel like I shouldn't have to be defensive about it. I probably don't have to be, but since this is a blog, here I go.

I wholly support size acceptance. I do. It feels a bit hypocritical to add “for everyone else,” but there it is. SA should also allow me to not accept my size if it's not what I want for me. I am 80-100 pounds overweight, depending on which numbers you use, and I don't think that's anything to sneeze at. And since it took me twenty-some years to get to this point, logic dictates that it's going to take a fair amount of time to get to the point where I can relate to my body in a semi-normal way again. It's time I don't have. I have a family history of diabetes and heart disease, and I feel like I'm courting disaster, not only with my weight but with my eating habits. In a perfect world I would be able to see this and have some sort of epiphany which allowed me to immediately start eating tons of fruits and vegetables and very little processed food. It's not a perfect world, as we all know, so this is going to take some work. Obviously doing it on my own isn't working. Also, I feel terrible most of the time. I constantly have sinus problems, joint pain in my ankles and fingers, and stomach problems even when I haven't eaten for several hours. I can stand on principal all day long, but if I feel like shit when the sun goes down, I'm going to take some honest-to-God for-reals action.

So this is the action I'm taking. I'm going on a diet. I'm going to try to make it a learning experience and to break bad habits, like eating when I'm full or bored or eating nutritionally deficient foods. And yes, I still think dieting sucks, and I still hate being on one, but you do what you have to do. I want to be around to see my grandkids, and I don't want to be so out of shape I can't enjoy it.