Rant

I wasn’t planning on blogging tonight, but I’m irked.  I had a conversation with someone and I was describing the taste of a cookie I had recently baked.  The conversation went as follows:

Her:  Ohh, that’s not good.
Me:  What’s not good?
Her:  You ate a cookie.
Me:  Yes, I eat cookies every day.
Her: *gasp* I’m scared for you.
Me:  Why?
Her:  Because you’re going to go back to the way you were.
Me: *sputter* Well, my trainer says I can! (I was too taken aback to be coherent)

There was so much wrong with that exchange for so many reasons.  Firstly, this person knows me pretty well…what I eat, how much I exercise, etc. etc. so if she stopped to think about it she would have realized that I am in absolutely no danger of gaining weight.  The fact that she said what she did means she has zero faith in my ability to make my own healthy choices.  Never mind the fact that I’ve arrived at the place of health that I’m currently at ON MY OWN MERITS!  While I’ve hired a trainer for guidance, I’ve done all the work myself and I’ve gotten to this point by myself.  I am perfectly capable of knowing what to eat, and I’m perfectly capable of making decisions about what to put into my body, or not.

When you tell someone that eating a certain way’s not good for them, you’re telling them they’re not intelligent enough or self-disciplined enough to know what belongs in their body.  Frankly, that’s just insulting.  You actually have no idea the whys of how they got to be overweight and what emotional and mental state they are currently in.  Perhaps they like being the way they are.  Just because they might have been fat before doesn’t mean that they are going to stay that way.  They might have periods of ups and downs and that’s okay and frankly no one’s business but theirs.

According to BMI charts, I should be around 120lbs to be at my ideal weight.  Guess what?  I have no desire to be that thin and that’s not my goal.  My goal is to be strong and fit and healthy, at whatever weight I might be at.  I make intelligent choices about eating that are in line with my health goals, but I’m not going to starve nor deprive myself of foods.  I don’t want to live my life that way.  So for anyone to assume that: a. they know what weight I should be at, b. they know what I need to look like or c. they know what I should eat better than I do…well, that just pisses me off, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

Next time ask, “How does that cookie fit in with your health goals?” if you genuinely want to know, otherwise, don’t say anything.