I have customers coming in all the time to get fitness clothing because they are embarking on a fitness journey for various reasons. They just bought a new bike, they just bought a gym membership, but the most popular is that they want to lose weight or "get in shape".
I had a customer in the store yesterday who was in the category of wanting to lose weight. She claimed that within a few months she'd gained a couple sizes and was unhappy in her body. She proceeded to tell me about her first spin class. The teacher went around after the class making exclamations at each student. He would point at each student as he said, "Good focus today... Way to push yourself...etc" When he came to my customer he pointed at her and said, "Eat less."
Eat less.
I could cry. That those words could escape someone's mouth in our society; where women have to fight for permission to eat anyways. Women are already bombarded with messages to 'eat less'. We are already encouraged to take up less space. We eat in secret. We pursue the ideal body. We abuse ourselves to fit. Our weight rockets around as we diet, gain the weight back, diet, gain the weight back. Our closet is full of every possible size of clothes because at one point we 'ate less' and got so tired of starving we threw in the towel and binged, retaliating against the diet culture. Only to go on one more diet, promising that this one is it.
We fight against the diet culture every day to gain permission to eat. Every magazine cover we see at the store tells us we have too much belly fat, that our thighs are too big, and promises a solution. Our culture is addicted to this, addicted to dieting, addicted to the fact that we do not have permission to eat. We are addicted to trying to change our bodies. The women in our society have to fight for their permission to eat without being on some kind of diet. We fight for our permission to be hungry.
Eat less.
I got to talk to my customer about this comment, what it did to her emotionally, and how she processed it. The first thing she wanted to do after hearing that comment was eat. That didn't surprise me at all. Someone who is struggling with their weight, either over or underweight, takes out emotions on food. We do not know how to process emotions. We do not know how to cope. We use food as a way to control our emotions by either over-eating or starving. The comment made her angry and want to retaliate. Not knowing how to process these emotions, the answer is food. She said the first thing she started thinking about, the first question she asked herself was, "What kind of food do I want to eat?" Instead of, "How am I going to process this hurtful comment? What am I feeling? How am I going to cope with these painful emotions?" She unconsciously went straight to, "How am I going to tune out the world with food?" This is the essence of an eating disorder.
How can I distance myself from my life?
How can I tune out the world?
How can I make it so I am not really, truly alive?
Food.
For the few minutes, or any length of time, we are obsessively focusing on food, we don't have to think about the real elements of our lives. We can tune out, we don't have to process emotions, we don't have to be uncomfortable, we are soothed by focusing on food.
I teach spin myself. I encourage intuitive eating, and body acceptance, among my students. Eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full. Stay mindful when you are eating, pay attention to taste and your fullness level. Do not use eating as a way to escape from the world. Accept your natural body weight where it is when you are eating intuitively and exercising when you have energy. Love and honor your body.
Sometimes I feel hopeless that there are people out there clueless to these issues and I wish I could reach, and inform, everyone of the severity of eating disorders. I feel that this, here, is a way that I can influence our society. I can reach out through writing. I can reach out through my classes and students. I can practice what I preach. Which means giving myself permission to eat. It means giving myself permission to separate out emotions from food. It means continuing to educate myself and advocate for those struggling with any kind of food and weight addiction. Having been through what I've been through, my struggles with an eating disorder, I cannot stand by and allow fitness instructors to humiliate those struggling with their weight, and food, by exclaiming that they should "Eat less."
Give yourself permission to eat. Give yourself permission to accept your natural body weight. Honor your hunger. Process your emotions. Take pride in who you are and don't let our culture's addiction to dieting dictate how you live your life.
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