Losing Weight
Untying the knots of my weight loss journey
In August of 2024, I stumbled upon this article that states that we don’t age in a nice slow line, we age in two sudden burst. One of them happens when we turn 44. I turned 44 in September of 2024. Ever since I was worried about what lies beneath this sudden drop.
I realized maybe for the first time in my life, that I was aging. That I will have limitations that I cannot control, that I will have to get used to it. Control what I can control, and try not to control what I can’t. There are things in my health I can control, and my weight which at that time in December of 2024 was higher than it ever had been before, I felt like I needed to control. It was also for me the hardest to control, because for me, my weight has been a lifelong struggle. So at the start of January I decided to go on a diet.
But isn’t this typical? I feel like anyone that has lost a lot of weight will eventually write about it, or talk about it at length, or think of how profound it is. But I do feel that for most, losing weight feels like a transcendental journey. Especially for the people like myself, who struggle with it. Naturally we think about the higher meaning of it, because it’s such a complete life changing thing.
I also know that writing this, and sharing it, may be good for me. If you relate to this, that’s great, but this is a selfish exercise. Forgive me, my therapist said this may be good for me (and as much as I fight her on this, she’s probably right).
To be honest, I have come back to this draft for about a month. I have struggled writing this. But here it is.
Control what you can Control - A Knot
Control what you can control, accept what you can’t. That’s the common mantra that a lot of people will give to you. It’s a trueism that makes sense. However, when it comes to my weight, I haven’t learned to accept, nor have I learned to control. It lives in this anxious liminal state that I don’t know what to do with.
I didn’t really understand this state that I was in, until I read this post by Peter Limburg called “Existentially Knotty”
Peter talks about the book “Knots” by RD Laing which is an exploration of thought patterns that people make which keeps them tangled. Usually it’s a self-perpetuation motion machine. The book reads less like a psychological text book and a more like poetry book. This passage in the book I really related to my weight knot:
Losing weight for me has been a knot that has been tangled up for decades because I wrestle with the notion of control. Can I control my weight, what are the factors that help me control my weight, but also what does this say about me? How do people perceive me? How do I perceive myself? And how does society perceive me? Can I control that? Should I accept it? A knotty knot. Here’s a timeline:
In my early years, my weight was part my name, my South American nickname. I was so used to, I felt like it didn’t phase me. I was perceived as fat. I accepted the names, they became a part of who I am. This happened before I started to know how to perceive myself.
In my teens, my peers started to notice my body therefore I also started how I was perceived. I got called rude names, I was told I was too big, I got picked last for sports, yada yada yada. So I started to work out, played more sports, yet it didn’t really work for me. I felt fat. Funny enough looking back at those pictures of me in my teens I was pretty skinny! I knotted myself badly.
In my 20’s and early 30’s, I worked shift work to pay the bills, I couldn’t control what I ate (what I told myself), so I just accepted that I would eat crappy food with my friends. No one really said anything about my weight. People liked me, I had a couple of girlfriends. But I was gaining weight. I didn’t care, I don’t think I was even aware of it. Maybe I was scared to look. Maybe I was just lazy.
In my 30’s I went to my doctor and my doctor said I needed to drop my cholesterol. I felt miserable, I didn’t like how I looked or how I felt. I chose to go on a diet and that worked! I dropped about 25 pounds. However I didn’t know how to diet properly. I just looked at the weight as this singular thing rather than the knot that it is. Then I started to eat awful again because what was inside wasn’t fixed at all.
In January I started again because the knot was there the whole time now it was staring at me and poked me enough to notice it. I wanted to untangle this knot and this time for good. I want to do it because I want to live well. I want to be healthy, but I also want to enjoy food. I also want to enjoy my body, and I also want to feel good. And how do I feel good? That’s the million dollar quon.
Gender Knots
At first I wanted to be silent about my weight loss and see how it went before telling anyone, after about a month I started telling people and I was getting some side comments. My boss told me “I didn’t want to say anything about your appearance, but I did notice!” My co-workers are a bunch of moms around my age who are generally kind and gracious. They usually will not comment on people’s appearances unless prompted to, but I have gotten some looks and some glances and wonderings about my “style.” No one will outright say “hey you’re looking better than before.”
The other day, another one of my co-workers who I don’t see that much, straight up said “Are you losing some weight because I can see it on your face.” Kinda shocked me, and I said yeah. “You look good” she said, and I didn’t know how to respond to that. Saying thank you would mean that I think losing weight makes me look good, a thought pattern I’m trying to eliminate.
I do outwardly think that beauty can come in all shapes, but internally I still believe *I* look better if I was skinnier. But I also know that if I believe that, if I gain some weight again, I will think I’m not good looking. Therefore I may think I am lesser than because I gained weight. And I would be knotted once again.
So I just said “yeah, I’m doing it more for my health.” She smiled at me and told me I’m an inspiration because she would like to try that too. I wanted to crawl inside my skin. I wondered if she would’ve said it to her female co-worker, maybe she would. I don’t know.
I do know that if 20 year old me heard this, I would’ve been beaming. And now I just wanted to back away. I felt uncomfortable, but I also felt uncomfortable thinking that I do feel good in my body, that maybe I do look better. It’s hard.
Untangling the Knot
Four months into this journey, I want to make it stick. I regularly discuss this with my therapist, who asks if dieting will solve the knot. I said “it may but I have to try.” I know what I was doing before wasn't working.
I have to try controlling what I can and accepting what I can't. What exactly falls into each category remains unclear, but the untangling has begun.