I got a comment on Monday's post that really made me think:
"I have loved reading your blog for years but I feel like so much of your “health” writing reads as fat phobia. Obviously everyone gets to do what they want to do, but many nutritionists argue that intermittent fasting is just a way to justify/repackage disordered eating. I definitely wish you the best and know that all stages of menopause are god awful, but I hope you (and your family) know that you are worth far more than numbers on a scale or calorie counts. Thanks for the insight into your life over the years… I will sincerely miss reading but feel like it is more harmful than fun these days."
I am so sad that someone has decided not to come back to my blog because I am writing about weight loss-- but also I GET IT. I thought these same things as I wrote the weight loss posts-- diet culture, fat phobia, triggering people by talking about weight loss, all of it!
But! Is losing weight inherently fat phobic? How can I better talk about weight loss in a way that is not fat phobic? Is it ok for me to want to be thinner when I understand the broader context of a diet culture that privileges thin bodies, how fundamentally fucked up it is that patriarchy demands women take up less space, etc?
My blood pressure is starting to go up, and my cholesterol is getting really high (this is a thing that happens in menopause? AS IF MENOPAUSE IS NOT ALREADY THE GD WORST). You guys know my dad died at 71 from surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. I am getting worried about my health and longevity at the same time I am gaining weight-- and visceral belly fat-- and seeing those higher blood pressure and cholesterol numbers for the first time in my life.
From my perspective, losing weight is healthy for me. At the same time, I understand that thinner does not mean healthier in all contexts. And! Weight loss is not my only (or even most important) goal. My goals are to lower my cholesterol and blood pressure, build muscle as I head into menopause, and maintain bone health (all my dorky wearable weights--thinking of wrist weights too...). Doing those things, though, is also resulting in weight loss. (Which I enjoy because I am a product of a fat phobic diet culture.)
Anyway-- I am sorry I sound fat phobic when writing about weight loss and health habits.
And! I have also read about IF and eating disorders-- but I have also read about the benefits of IF, specifically for menopausal women... so I am giving it a shot.
Harvard Health Watch July 2024
(And I mean searched my library's journal database for articles, not listened to a few internet nutrition coaches tell me what they think-- because social media health proselytizing is not for me. And! I see this on both sides of the coin-- really fit people who act like macros are morality AND ALSO popular internet advice about the evils of ANY KIND of nutrition and exercise plan)
Because I am tracking macros, not calories, I am NOT starving myself eating from 10-6, and I've cut out my nighttime TV eating (and do not miss it). This doesn't mean I would cancel plans that fell outside my IF timeline-- I am not rigid about this in a weird way-- which is one of the warning signs that IF is leading to disordered eating. Eating in an 8-hour window DOES make it easier to eat less, and for an abstainer like me, eating after 6pm isn't even tempting any more.
It is easier for me to abstain than to moderate in all areas of my life, so I am worried about long term maintenance of health habits. Obviously, I will not abstain from added sugar forever. We are eating cake at least twice in August (probably more like 4 times given how many celebrations Minnie is planning for the big 0-5), and I adore baking. It will be a struggle, I think, to add in sweets without centering them in my diet again because it is really hard for me to just have a little or just have one-- even when I eat it mindfully and enjoy the experience.
For a long time, I was telling myself that I was "practicing intuitive eating" but I was really just eating whatever whenever under that guise-- which is not healthy for me in terms of cholesterol, blood pressure, sodium intake-- no matter how accepting of my physical body I tried to be. (not very-- I am a product of diet culture).
Anyway, this whole thing falls under the doth protest too much umbrella,I guess. Sorry for the triggers on my Monday posts, everyone.
You might check out Sohee Carpenter's work (formerly Sohee Lee before she got married). Yes, she is technically on social media and that's where she got her start, but she's an author and Stanford grad who recently completed her PhD in Exercise Science and is an amazing encourager of HEALTH over all else, intuitive eating, no extremes, body positivity/ acceptance, mindset, etc. She incorporates peer reviewed research into everything she talks about and is super smart. She also has a delightful personality and is so empathetic and really advocates for people with less privilege and accessibility to health resources. She's on IG and her website is soheefit.com. I think she's a fantastic resource on health and exercise topics and seems like an all around wonderful person.
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah! I just wanted to thank you for this post, and for acknowledging a challenging comment that you received. One thing I love about your writing is your authenticity and honesty about EVERYTHING! I didn't take your writing as fat-phobic, but as things you were doing for you to feel better in your body. I know I have had disordered eating in the past and that I am highly influenced by what others are doing, so I do have to keep those things in mind when consuming content about health from anyone. Sometimes we hit other people's "stuff" without knowing or meaning to. I just wanted to say thank you and to encourage you to keep showing up as YOU and being open to learning from others along the way.
ReplyDeleteI’ve debated trying IF but I don’t know how I would do it while traveling for work. The only meal I can count on eating is breakfast as the rest of the day I am at the whim of the sales person and the meetings they’ve booked. I also wonder how I would run 7+ miles before eating anything… I feel like I would like bonk. But maybe it is something I could explore in the winter months when I am not running. My health stats are good in terms of BP and cholesterol. I got my mom’s genetics apparently as my dad’s side is not good with high BP. So if I lose weight, it’s mostly for vanity reasons. The stubborn belly fat is the worst. I want to read the Galveston diet but I have also heard that she is big into supplements so it feels a bit like she’s taking advantage of a vulnerable population in a way… (by vulnerable I mean women desperate to look and feel better).
ReplyDeleteYES! Agree on the supplements-- she has a whole supplement making company. I do magnesium ,fish oil, and fiber-- all recommended by my doctor but do not buy hers
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job with this post and I really appreciate your honesty, candor, and non-defensiveness. It’s such a sensitive and personal topic. For me it is indeed always kind of sad and triggering when amazing and accomplished women who are already objectively quite small and slim focus a lot on … becoming smaller and slimmer. Even for “health” reasons that aren’t apparent just from their appearance. It’s just … tough to read about sometimes. But it’s also your life and health and body and decisions. And there is nothing wrong with making changes that work for you/make you feel your best. And writing about it. So I get it! I’ve been both significantly overweight and underweight as an adult and know that I will never be totally “normal” about food and exercise, will always be aiming to eat less on days after I feel I’ve had “too much,” look to “burn off” sweets by exercising extra, etc. But, overall I feel lucky to be in a pretty good place and not haunted/obsessed with being my thinnest possible self at all times anymore. Taylor Swift had a quote in her documentary about her recovery from an eating disorder that really stuck with me: the “extra” weight made her life better. It’s kind of a revolutionary thought bc we’re so conditioned to think the opposite. But, if you’ve ever restricted to the point of hunger/weakness/limiting social interactions bc it doesn’t fit the diet etc. it really does resonate. Eating the restaurant meal, having the birthday cupcake, not working out 1-2 hrs/day every single day, and yes, carrying a few extra lbs because of it: it can be a better, more fun, less stressful, and healthier life. It sounds like you are not rigid and embrace the balance but just throwing that out there!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a sticky part about blogging--it's nice to have a place to spout off, but then when you grow an audience you're expected to be responsible about their needs rather than your own... (I think your commenter did the right thing in logging off to take care of her wellbeing.)
ReplyDeleteYou deserve to celebrate your health goals, Sarah. And you're helping people consider options... I'm considering HRT for insomnia (and am curious about ACV gummies :) thanks to you.
This is your space and you get to write what you want, and I love your space and writing for just that. If the content I'm consuming makes me feel off or yucky, whether it is blogs/social media/tv/etc., I get to choose not to participate and I can silently leave the space without shaming the creator. You are not responsible for your readers' feelings. I love your honesty about your life - your struggles, your celebrations, and even the mundane!
ReplyDeleteIt's tricky. Writing about weight and body image is tricky. Living life as a woman is tricky. Navigating menopause and hormonal shifts is tricky. Managing weight in a way that maximized our health and minimizes damage to our mental health is tricky.
ReplyDeleteIT'S ALL SO TRICKY.
I've had to take a huge step back from weight in recent years. It was a fixation for me for too long and I struggled with disordered eating. I am, without a doubt, at the heaviest weight I've been for many years, but I am also in the best mental head space. There are times I feel like sliding back into "old" patterns to lose weight but I know it's not worth it for me. I also know that at some point I may HAVE to prioritize losing weight for the betterment of my overall health.
TRICKY.
Sending hugs. And I think it's great the commenter is avoiding triggering topics. It's okay to make choices for our mental health and the topic of food is so fraught. So gold stars to them.
I think I have to agree with your initial commenter. I've been reading your blog for years and while I think you're a great and hilarious writer, it also very much reads as a Diary of an Eating Disorder sometimes. You are literally counting the number of times you anticipate eating junk food next month in this post. Your proclamations of "I'm just trying to be healthy!" are incredibly defensive when, as far as I can recall, you rarely write about the actual health aspects, which is 100% your right. I know I wouldn't want to share the details of my doctor visits with a group of internet randos. But so many posts about "I CAN'T BELIEVE I ATE SO MUCH CAKE/CANDY/UNHEALTHY STUFF" just demonizes food, which is a common ED trope. You also focus a lot on being absolutely appalled by the size of your clothes if the number goes up and celebrating when it goes down (see: your previous post). Again, a common ED trope. While it is certainly your prerogative to write about whatever you please in your space (and acknowledging that I am 100% responsible for the content I consume), to pretend that you're not terrified of "getting fat" by claiming "I'm just trying to be *healthy*" is disingenuous, at best.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I really do think you're right. I don't want to be fat. And I was on Weight Watchers as a middle schooler-- my relationship with food and my body is complex. I think I am getting better and I think I have done a really good job of not passing these feelings onto my kids. But yeah-- you are not wrong here. (This is Sarah, BTW)
DeleteAww Sarah - just sending some love as I know it can be hard to get comments like these (and not saying this to disparage the commenters, they are allowed to say what they feel, too)! I do believe it's okay to say you want to change behavior for health AND because you want to look a certain way vs another, and I also can fully understand that this can be triggering to some (and best for them NOT to read if that's what feels right)! This is obviously a complicated topic and I appreciate your realness in this space. I do think figuring out a sustainable long term approach will be really important (you did previously mention skipping some dinner club thing because there were drinks and I wondered -- well, aren't you going to go back to that at some point)? I also 100% get how abstaining can be easier (For my mental health, I HAVE to abstain from Instagram, for example. And I SHOULD abstain from Reddit but not always successful as of late). BUT, you need to find rules for yourself that are livable and make sense and feel good long term.
ReplyDeleteWe did change a date location from a supper club to a different place because I didn't want to drink! And I am enumerating my encounters with cake! This DOES feel yucky when I look at like that...
DeleteIf you have an eating disorder then so do I…You’re fine! Sugar is so addictive, it makes sense to have the food noise all the time when you set those boundaries around food. I’m an abstainer too, so I totally get your inner food monologue. There are real life consequences to how we eat and drink. Healthier lifestyles are obviously better mentally and physically, and it’s worth the effort, imo.
ReplyDeleteI feel for your commenter, I do. I can see how posts about weight loss can be triggering and I can see how it might make sense for someone to take a break from reading posts like that. I also feel for you, Sarah, both because I know you are trying to combat some unsettling medical findings, and because the topics of "health" and "healthy eating" and weight loss are SO FRAUGHT. Not just because they carry with them a ton of cultural and individual baggage, but because they are, themselves, SO INDIVIDUAL.
ReplyDeleteAs I think you know, I've had both a lot of recent weight gain and an increasing amount of trouble sleeping. I've been doing all the doctor visits to see if I can get to the bottom of the sleep problem (why will NO DOCTOR consider perimenopause????) and the consensus seems to be "lose weight." But... a) my sleep apnea is so mild, they don't even usually consider it worth treating and b) there is no real benchmark I'm being given besides "lose weight" (I mean, I badgered my pcp into saying "maybe you'd see a difference if your BMI was below 25" but I didn't hear any sort of guarantee) and c) all of my labs were GOOD. So it feels like losing weight would be purely aesthetic/vanity and... while I prefer the way I look and feel at a lower weight, I struggle with wanting to deprive myself and I struggle with wanting to provide a good example of body positivity to my kid and I struggle with wanting to feel better about myself. There is no good answer! And there is no "good" way to talk about it. I think each of us has to do what's best for ourselves, whether that's diet or ignore diet talk or strive for a lower cholesterol number or try to lose X pounds or whatever.
I feel like I have lost my way to any sort of a point here, but maybe what I most want to say is that I think it's useful to discuss this stuff, even though it's hard and even though it brings up a bunch of feelings. I know I'm constantly interrogating my own feelings about body size and weight and "health" -- and the fact that you are in a stage of life where these topics are top of mind for you is extremely relatable. As I said, I can also understand wanting to avoid those topics, and I applaud the blog reader for prioritizing their mental health. At the same time, I hope you keep writing about the topics that matter to you, in the way that you want.
We all have so much internalized fatphobia but most of us don’t write about it in a public forum so aren’t pushed to examine it in this way! I grew up in the same culture that values thinness, links it to morality, and awards the asceticism associated with attaining then maintaining thinness. It’s sad seeing all the 20 something’s posting blatant ED content on tiktok but most fatphobia is quieter and plays out more subtly. It’s hard to unlearn. I always think “I feel better when I’m thinner” but that’s not actually true- I like how I look better, I like the clothes I “feel like” I can wear when I’m thinner, and I’ve been trying for years to stop thinking this. I appreciate the discourse on this post and it’s a good reminder that I need to work a lot harder to unlearn these things in practice, not just intellectually bc I read critical theory.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this post. I think it's super valid that people choose what they consume media-wise based on what's best for them, and while I'm very much a "you don't have to announce everything person," I think it speaks to the respect you've earned from your readers that the commenter was willing to give you that feedback. That being said, OMG yes to all of the things. Women of our generation are trying to heal some real ugly body image/food dynamics and at the same time, there are health benefits attached to weight etc. And at this stage of life, it kind of sucks to be in the world bigger AND older. It's like double-invisible. I have found some of the more nuanced diet things a bit *insert synonym for "triggering" that I can't think of here* but it's your space. I've also found your posts about your exercise routine, what you've found helpful to your anxiety vs not, etc super helpful and inspiring. We're all grown-ups here so I'd say that if it feels healthy to you, keep doing what you're doing. When in doubt, I always ask myself "How would I feel if my daughter was doing this?" It's been a good metric and kept my focus in the right direction. Thanks for continuing to post and continuing to be your honest, authentic self <3
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amy: this is your space and you get to write what you want. I also, like Amy, appreciate your writing exactly for your honesty and openness. It sounds like most of us are all over the map on weight, weight loss, weight gain. No surprise. Please keep writing honestly and don't worry about your every word - I think you're great.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a lot of nuance here, in terms of writing about weight loss/ fat phobia. First, it is your blog and you can write what you want, and then as readers we can consume what we want. It is hard to lose a reader when you are writing from the heart, but I do understand that reader's perspective, which I will get into in a moment. I do not think writing about weight loss is inherently fatphobic because there are some health metrics that do tend to be improved with weight loss - specifically blood pressure and cholesterol. I think also you were speaking about swelling and inflammation. But as a person who has struggled with an eating disorder and disordered eating, as well as body dysmorphia and generalized shame about taking up space, I do find prolonged discussions about weight to be triggering. That said, if I walked away from every friend who talks about it, I would have no friends left. That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. I feel like I can spot an ED/ exercise bulimia a mile away because of my own issues. I guess it depends on where we are in our journeys. I used to be very triggered by weight talk but I'm now in a headspace where I can hear it but I won't comment on it - but I will celebrate if someone is feeling healthy and happy in their body, whatever their size, and if someone says they cut x out of their diet and now their skin looks better, or something like that. It's all very hard. And I will say that I saw a photo of me from 6 years ago and I gasped because I had no idea how thin I had gotten - and this was just before I had a devastating hip injury. My body feels so much better now, and so does my mind, because I'm not turning down invitations for lunch or planning how to "make up" for enjoying a chai latte or something ridiculous like that. I just wish we could all find peace in our bodies, but it is a very hard thing. I appreciate your honesty and putting yourself out there. xoxoxo
ReplyDeleteI think the disconnect is your focus on weight as the primary metric even though there are many other metrics you could use given your stated goals. Your metrics could be tied to the specific medical concerns that you're tracking - getting bloodwork every 3 months so that you know if your cholesterol is coming down, getting a DEXA scan 1-2x/year to see if there are changes in your bone density, just using a measuring tape around your waist to track your waist/visceral fat, etc. Your metrics could be the number of of times a week you do strength training, or the number of meals each week you have with lots of cheese or eggs (or other food you're avoiding for cholesterol reasons), or even just as simple as actually asking yourself how you felt after you ate x,y,z food.
ReplyDeleteIt's entirely possible that you can lose weight without seeing an improvement in the metrics that directly correlate with your goals, or you can see improvements in the metrics you care about without losing weight. Only 14 pounds down might be where you land if you're doing all the things that support your goals, while actually achieving all your desired health outcomes. As an outsider looking in, focusing on weight and using it as a proxy for health is fat phobic, as is assuming that your other problems/totally valid health concerns will go away if you weigh x,y,z amount.
Also, I absolutely know where you're coming from. I got a premature menopause/primary ovarian insufficiency diagnosis last year at 39 after 3 years of having major symptoms of perimenopause. In the years before my diagnosis I felt really fucking crummy and worked with all kinds of experts to try to take better care of myself. Under professional guidance I made many of the exact same changes you're making now. The changes you're making are healthy and informed and not inherently disordered in and of themselves. But how you're framing the outcomes may not be the best. To echo an earlier commenter, your value as a human being isn't tied to your weight, and your health goals don't have to be tied to your weight either. And maybe a different framing would be kinder and more loving to you, and not that you have to do it for them AT ALL (it's your life!), but maybe also your readers who are also middle aged ladies struggling to be kind to themselves too and unlearn the messages they've internalized for decades about who they have to be physically in order to be lovable.
Also, you are doing your best and you don't have to be perfect. That needs to be said too.
DeleteYes, good point re: the metrics. But also, if I am eating nutritious food the other things likely WILL get better, too. My doc ordered labs in 6 months, and I will have to do bone scans I get older. I totally appreciate your point about weight as the only metric-- thank you.
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