What's Your Treat?

Do you remember when you were a kid, and your Mom couldn't get you stop moving? She had to tell you to stop moving, so she could a)take a bath b)get you to eat, or c) sleep? 

And staying outside until dark, determined to get another fifteen minutes more of play, namely, moving around? 

When did that all change? When did moving around become a chore, something we have to fit into our schedule? 

This post in one of several I like to call "deep things about losing weight." I share this stuff from my own musings along the journey to better health, and hope it helps someone else out! 

I was talking with someone I know a few days ago and I told her that I want to learn to "treat myself" with exercise rather than food.
You see, I used to love movement and feel bad if I had not exercised for the day. Exercise, movement was the treat, the good part of my day. Did you ever feel that way? 

Somewhere along the way, with the busyness of work, career, heartbreak and family, I lost that feeling. Exercise just seemed like one more thing I had to add on to my day, another obligation. And food, too much food, especially, was my treat for many years. Hello! Can anyone relate to me? 

That feeling that overeating, or eating large amounts of junk, is my "treat" has lessened considerably. I see excess food as more of a burden now. It's not that my eating is always perfect but when I do mess up, I know it will cost me in a feeling of being uncomfortable, a feeling of shame, and lack of control. 

I know that it may cost me a higher number on the scale and make it less easy for me to move. I also feel bloated and a general feeling

of "yuck" when I overeat. 
My thinking has changed too in that I know, now, what it feels like to eat normally day after day. I know how it feels to start to lose weight and get lighter. And I love this feeling. I crave it. I know what it feels to be in control of my eating. I have processed this feeling deep within myself. 


Eating right and healthily is not just something I have "put on" because someone told me to, but rather it's becoming part of who I am. I am changing from the inside in.


And this is one of the reasons that I believe so strongly that I can do this. Because I am processing it, not just forcing myself to do it. I feel at peace with it. 


Treat: An object or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure. 

-- Dictionary  

What about you? Can you relate to any of this? What is your treat? How do you think we can make exercise our treat? Please share. We would love to hear your stories! 

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Prejudice

Well, I made my semi-regular trip to the local DVD store to pick up a movie for my class to study. (I create my own lesson materials based on quality movies, using an alternative method of teaching some of the basic literary components. -- It's alternative -- and that's what we do.) While there for the two minutes it took to pay for the movie, I remembered a conversation I had had with the cashier a few months ago. She's quite chatty, and was telling me about her daughter, whom I have never met. She has frequently mentioned, though, that her daughter is quite overweight, said with a mix of pity and disapproval.  In this particular conversation, she was able to clarify her description of her daughter, with a comparison: "She's almost as heavy as you."

Her daughter, as well, happens to be, according to her, depressed and hardly able to function in the real world. She seems very burdened at all the work that has gone into taking care of her. It must be hard, and I have always sympathized with her tales of various plights. When she made the comparison, however, it got a bit  more personal. Now, she was making a judgement of me, and felt that it was okay to tell me about that judgement. Wow.

What I was thinking about today was, what kind of person does this? Why are some people so weight-conscious, and seemingly weight-prejudiced? While others are not? And how do you tell if you are the subject of weight judgment?   How do you know whether or not someone is rude to you just because of your personality, or because of your weight? And does it matter?

Well, I do think that weight prejudice, like other forms of prejudice comes from fear. Perhaps fear of not fitting in, or being beautiful enough. And with that fear, a desire to feel better. How to feel better? Perhaps by putting down someone you perceive as less beautiful, less acceptable.

With some people, I believe there is an actual barrier in their mind when they see a heavier person. They are not capable of seeing them as real people, but instead see all of their preconceived notions of what a fat person is like ... perhaps lazy, perhaps a little dumb, perhaps not with it. Almost certainly a bad eater, almost certainly a non-exerciser? So, regardless of what the fat person actually does, the individual only sees their stereotypes ... Just as they would only see their stereotypes of an Asian, of a African-American, of a Native person. They are not "trying" to be rude, but they are literally, "ignorant."

I confess I used to be a bit fat-prejudiced. I remember seeing fat people, and having certain feelings about them, of disgust, and not really seeing as the same as me. (I was not really heavy as a teenager.)  I believe that that what was made it so, so hard when I first gained weight: I had deal with the hatred I felt towards myself for becoming this disgusting. I was in shock that I could actually be in this body. What caused this disgust in me? Looking back, I think maybe it was because I took a lot of stock in my appearance ... and placed a great deal of importance in it. I was also refecting what I felt in society around me.

It has only been lately, as in the last couple of years, that I have changed my attitude a great deal in this area. I am no longer disgusted, usually, by myself, and my now-fat body. In fact, I love my body, in spite of its flaws. I know my husband does, too, which I thought was impossible. It has been my husband's love, in fact, that has been slowly changing my feelings about my body. Love has melted down my self-hatred and replaced it with acceptance. And more people now accept me, too, than used to do so. There are still some, however, that slightly shock me with their judgments. Shock me because I now longer do that ... at least not that often!

So, I am interested  in your feedback: have you ever experienced this form of prejudice? Ever given it? What are your thoughts on what causes it? To me, this topic still has a lot of exploration to be done. I certainly do not have all the answers. I am just trying to ask some good questions, and hopefully, start some dialogue. Cheers!