My “Normal” Weight

  I just love this picture that I found on DeviantArt.  It reminds me of one of my favorite phrases – perfectly imperfect.  It means finding perfection in the “imperfect” – imperfect as popular culture would define it anyway.  😉   It brings to my mind that perfection is found in acceptance of what is.  That extends to weight – normal, over, obese, etc. 

My friend commented to me that it was inspiring to some folks that I, at my normal weight, still am all into the fat acceptance.  Yeah, this is something I’m really proud of indeed, for many reasons.  Here are some of them…

In the past, whenever I lost weight, I would go into this NEVER AGAIN frame of mind.  NEVER AGAIN will I ever be that fat.  NEVER AGAIN will I be that horrible… disgusting… whatever.  I would then start telling any fattie who would listen, “If I can do it, you can too!!!  There’s no excuse!!!  Stop being sooooo fattttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!” 

Ugh. 

I no longer go there.  Yay me.  😀 

Will I ever be overweight again?  Maybe.  Do I care?  Not really. 

The plain fact of the matter is, I am on Prozac.  Prozac made it very easy for me to “weight restore” as some folks would call an overweight person becoming an average weight.  Prozac doesn’t work this way for everone.  It just happened to for me. 

Perhaps, I became an average weight, because my body is meant to be an average weight and without the crushing depression I eat better.  Perhaps, my brain has some “deficiency” beyond depression and even if I fully recovered from depression and came off the meds that I would be overweight again.  This is a distinct possibility and I’m okay with that.  My goal is to live the healthiest life I can live… and that may mean that I will give up the Prozac some day (as the depression would be healed) and I gain weight.  This is not the end of the world.  I would not see this as a failure – simply the natural order of things. 

In fact, I don’t even like using the word “deficiency” for what may be going on with my brain that could make me naturally overweight.  Maybe it’s SUPPOSED to be that way.  Maybe it’s GOOD that I am this way.  Calling it deficient is implying my brain is somehow less than and I don’t think it is. 

When I first lost the weight, I have to admit that I felt the fear of gaining the weight back.  I became afraid of losing even more weight, because I was afraid the fear of gaining weight would become even more acute… and eventually crippling (as it had become in the past).  So, to me, it is so very important that I practice fat acceptance and body acceptance as a normal weighted person. 

Otherwise, it is so important to me that I am honest and live according to what I believe… and I truly believe that fat is not a health nightmare.  I believe that fat is actually beneficial in many ways.  I believe that being overweight in whatever flavor (obese, morbidly obese)  can be HEALTHY, if you live a healthy life.  I believe that thin can be unhealthy if you live an unhealthy life – no exercise, no balanced diet, etc…  I believe that weight isn’t the big barometer of health. 

Believing this is easier for me than it is for some, because I lived it.  I was thin.  I was VERY unhealthy.  Does that mean all thin people are unhealthy?  No.  Like fat folks, some thin people are healthy and some are not.  However, it is very telling to me to what ridiculous lengths I had to go to to be thin.  I had to starve.  I was painfully cold all the time.  My skin turned grayish and my hair thinned.  Even the smallest little cuts and scrapes took months and months to heal.  My brain was soooooo painfully foggy from mal-nutrition.  While I say I was thin at this time, I was really smack in the middle of what many doctors would call my “healthy weight range.”  This was very thin – to me.  This was so thin that my health was severely compromised and years later I am still not fully healed.  This gives me the idea that perhaps I am not MEANT to be thin.  Maybe I’m not even meant to be a “normal” weight and Prozac is just taking me on a temporarly trip into average-land. 

And ya know what?  I am good with that.  I just want to be the best me I can be and that has everything to do with eating well, exercising, resting well, etc. to me and nothing to do with how much I weigh.

–AngryGrayRainbows