I want to lose weight.

And everything that comes with wanting it

TW: Diet culture and weight loss

I have come a long way from hating my body. Actually hating isn’t strong enough, loathing with pure vitriol and eye watering venom is closer.

I am someone who spent years living in diet culture. My teens and 20s were all about Weight Watchers, Atkins and of course, The Special K diet (where you just ate loads of Special K.) All had one goal: weight loss (and to look like Keira Knightley.) Food was something to be controlled and my body was something to be conned. It didn’t matter what I liked to eat, it mattered what would help me lose weight. Being smaller was the only thing that mattered. I spent years worrying about my weight and it left me miserable and stuck.

I would like to say this all ended sooner than it did but dieting remained a constant in my life throughout my thirties with ventures into juice diets (I turned it into bellinis and order a pizza) 5:2 diet (I lasted one full day) and before my wedding, Slimming World. All had the same effect, minor losses, big gains and an obsession with food.

As they say in the self help books, it’s been a journey. I spent almost a year having intuitive eating therapy. I read about body positivity, despite it feeling at odds with everything I’d been told. I wrote letters to my body, cleansed it’s chakras, massaged it, acupunctured it, told it I love it in the mirror.

I’ve learnt a lot and have truths that I cannot unknow. I now know about how the food industry wants to fatten us up for Christmas and slim us down for summer. I’ve seen how the patriarchy have preoccupied us with the impossible task of being a smaller size so we don’t get all empowered. How we’ve been tricked into thinking there are magic solutions which don’t require willpower so we’ll spend more money and buy more things.

I know all of this and yet still, I want to lose weight.

does my phone look big in this?

I know the short cuts don’t work, god knows I’ve tried them. So now (and this requires a very deep breath) I’ve got to try another way, with something that’s been missing for these 40 odd years: compassion.

Whereas I previously would have said, I hate my body so I want to lose weight, now I can say I don’t hate it but I still want to lose weight. It’s a small but very important difference.

But what about body acceptance?! What about being comfortable in one’s skin? What about body positivity? And taking up space? What about saying to hell with it! This is who I am dammit!

Being born in the 80s (when calorie counting was invented) growing up in the 90s where you couldn’t be thin enough and going out with boys in the 00s where the skinny jean ruled and eating was cheating, is a hard indoctrination to break free from. It’s very solid belief system that has tentacles in every area of me.

So what next? Weightloss jabs? I can’t say I haven’t been very tempted. But it won’t tackle my underlying emotional crap will it? I’m no therapist but *surely* that’s worth exploring.

Even though I can now say I like my body (sometimes) I still want to lose weight so the obvious question is, why?

The weight I want to lose is something I hide behind. It’s an emotional armour. A cuddly safety blanket. As much as it’s cold hard pounds, it’s emotional baggage. It’s keeping me safe. Means I’m not fully visible, not completely out in the world, only pretending, not really appearing. It’s like the whole thing is a dress rehearsal. I’ll do it again properly when I’ve lost the weight.

Only now I’m 41. And not to be bleak but I could be half way through if I’m lucky (both my Nans are 92 this year which I’m leaning heavily on) It’s time to step out of the shadows. Shine the light into the dark corners of what’s stopping me. Because it’s not just willpower alone that’s going to shift this one. It’s me. Wish me luck babes.