“You look so good!” one well meaning Redditor commented, “You must feel like a completely different person!”
My stomach dropped and my hands started to sweat. “Thanks!” I replied, “That means a lot!”
I put my phone down and flopped back into my bed, covering my face with a pillow. I took a long look at the post I had just replied to; staring back at me were two pictures of myself side by side, one where I’m wearing a bathing suit while looking uncomfortable, and the other where I’m wearing a form fitting dress and looking confidently into the camera. The post is titled, “6 month mark and thirty pounds down!”
My phone chimes, indicating a new notification. I quickly hide the notification and roll over in bed, unsure of why my stomach hurts. “This is supposed to make me happy,” I think to myself. “Why am I not happy yet? Why am I not a different person yet?”
I was ten years old the first time I thought I was fat. I had stood in front of a mirror after school one day with tears rolling down my ruddy cheeks. As I poked and prodded at my growing hips my Mom walked into my room.
“What are you doing?” She had asked.
“I’m fat!” I responded through sobs, my face swollen from my hysterical fit.
My Mom sat me down that night and explained that there was nothing wrong with the way I looked, that I had so much more to offer than just my body, and it’s normal for weight to fluctuate as I grew into a strong, healthy, and capable young woman.
I didn’t listen to a goddamn word she said.
And honestly, how could I? Sure, my mom was giving me truthful and loving words of wisdom, but how could I have believed her when every time I left the safety of my home I was given the exact opposite message? From the kids on the playground to school officials, I was always given the same message: being overweight is the worst thing you can be.
I’ve struggled with my weight and body image my entire adult life and at the age of twenty-two I decided that enough was enough, I was going to stop caring about “being fat” and I was going to focus on making myself happy. Ironically, this is when I began losing a significant amount of weight. Within six months I had dropped four pant sizes, and by my twenty-third birthday I had lost fifty pounds. I had been told my entire life that losing weight was the “cure-all” to every one of life’s problems, from depression to bad sex. I was given the message that losing weight would fix all of that.
And guess what?
It fucking didn’t.
To say I was pissed was an understatement. I was confused, disappointed, angry, and also a little hungry. I had been told by the powers that be since puberty that when I lost weight my life would turn around, that I would be swimming in validation, sex, success, and numerous other pleasures only reserved for the conventionally attractive, but only once I achieved my one true goal. I was confused why after losing fifty pounds I was still the same insecure dork I had been months earlier. I was upset that the same problems I had from before reaching my goal were still plaguing me. I was confused why I didn’t “feel like a different person,” even though everyone was telling that me I should.
Weight loss is often marketed towards women as a radical change. Most weight loss ads usually follow the same formula: two pictures of a woman are shown side by side with the “before” photo usually being overtly unflattering, and the “after” photo showcasing a much “happier, healthier” woman. Sometimes, the weight-loss ad will pepper in a few insults on the woman in the “before” photo while showering the “after” photo with compliments, but the message is always the same: women are to stay as far away from becoming the “before” photo if they ever want to be happy.
And I think that’s bullshit.
Aside from the fact that a lot of weight loss “after” photos are taken in much more flattering light and angles (ever notice how most diet pills have the “after” example standing at an angle while the “before” is head on? It’s because you look wider when looking straight on and slimmer when turned), categorizing people as “before and after” is weird at best, and deliberately harmful at worst. People are constantly evolving; we are never truly a “before or after” and what that translates to in diet culture is pretty much “bad then, good now” and that’s such horseshit.
I wasn’t bad “before” NO ONe was bad “before”. There was nothing wrong with who I was fifty pounds ago, and there’s nothing wrong with who I am fifty pounds less. Losing weight doesn’t change who you are as a person despite what messages you may hear in media. In fact, losing weight rarely will radically change your life or magically cure all of your problems, you will do all of those things DESPITE what you have been told your whole life. Just because you may feel like you look like a “before” doesn’t mean that you’re any less important than someone who has lost twenty, thirty, or even one hundred pounds. Accomplishments are not measured by pounds lost and I really wish I would have listened to my Mom thirteen years ago because it would have saved me a lot of heart-ache. I don’t even know if what I want to say is nuanced in this article in a way that can reach people. I’m not sure if my message is developed enough because honestly, I still fall into the trap of diet culture every now and again and sometimes I still feel like a “before” photo, even though I know there’s nothing wrong with that. I guess I can only leave you, the reader, with the reply I wish I would have sent to that well meaning commenter on Reddit months ago:
“Actually, I’m still the same person, and that’s perfectly fine.”