So Who Am I? And What is This?

I have noticed a trend. 

As of the last year, when watching the news and talking to friends and family, a theme is coming up over and over again.  When put through the media, it starts like this: 

"Lose weight and keep it off the way the stars do!" 

"Tired of diets?  Need to fit into those 'skinny jeans?'"

(insert image/voice/footage of ridiculously paid celebrity spokes person) "I lost weight using Blah Blah Blah program and you can, too!"

In conversations, it begins differently.  If I see someone I haven't seen for a while, it generally goes something like the following: 


"You look great/Wow, look at you/some sort of exclamation of surprise at my physical fitness to date."


(I say thank you.  I work hard at health and appreciate when people notice.) 


Then, within five sentences, sometimes even in the next breath, 2/3s of the people I encounter state one of the following ideas:

1. They need to go back to the gym. 
2. They know they need to lose weight.  (Sometimes they actually apologize for their appearance. It's awkward and there's nothing I can say to make them feel better.)
3. They don't like the way they look/feel at their current weight level. (Sometimes they look great.  In fact, I'll have been thinking, "Damn, they look good and about to reply and then it's all,'Oh, I feel awful/look terrible/am so fat/insert your derogatory comment here.'")

This happens *all the time.*  I've been asking around to other people to see if it happens to them and it seems this is my own thing that's going on.  Regardless, it's always surprising. I've wondered actually if I'm leading them to it so I've been monitoring my conversations with those I see to make sure I don't anymore.  I don't mention anything about it and then it comes up.  It can be absolutely maddening. 

I also have noticed I have more and more conversations with people I love where we touch on the topic of their dissatisfaction with their own level of appearance and fitness on a regular basis. They tell me they know what they need to do, they'll do it their way, they want to step up the workouts, they are counting points or working a program--all variations on the endless theme of "IIIIIIII don't like my booooody" society teaches us to sing from the earliest of days.  

And you know, I get it.  I do.  I was a picked-on, bullied fat girl who got thin from about her senior year of high school until my early 30's when a nightmare relationship took me down a spiral greased with pizza slices and butter-coated everything.  I was 44 years old when I made a decision to become myself again after living thirteen years, with a brief two year stint around the time when I got married and before I got pregnant with my son, clinically overweight and nearing obese.   So I get it.  


This is what I do not get:  

Per the CDC, as of  2007-2008: 

• 33.9% of U.S. adults over the age of 20 are OBESE. 
• 34.4% of U.S. adults over the age of 20 are OVERWEIGHT  
• 18.1% of adolescents, ages 12-19, are OBESE
• 19.6% of children, ages 6-11, are OBESE. 
• 10.4% of children, ages 2-5, are OBESE

BUT 

• In 2010, the diet industry made 60.8 BILLION DOLLARS hawking their solutions for helping people become thinner. 
• There are various studies and statistics that show 95% of all people who lose weight through dieting gain it back. 
• The average diet cycle per year is 4; meaning those who want to change their appearance will start diets at least four times in twelve months.  

Obviously something isn't working but goodness-gracious: some people are getting rich.  


All of this has me got me thinking about so much.  For instance:

• As a consumer, food has changed so much in the past twenty years that what we think we're eating may very well not be what we're eating at all.  
• I've personally experienced some real craziness ever since the moment I decided to unpin the Type II Diabetes target off my size 16 butt.  From dating, to perception, to dealing with food issues--I've looked it in the eye at one point. I'm sure there will be more, too, and writing always helps.
• What does it really mean to make the changes to live healthy in a culture that promotes quick and easy and impermanent instead of health and self-empowerment?  And how on earth do we raise healthy kids in the midst of the corporate food machines? 

See, I'm 46 and in the best shape of my life (which on update:  which is relative for me and not for Shape Magazine.  I still require airbrushing.)  The thing is:  I'm not done yet.  This is not a diet.  This is a lifestyle.  Life is to be lived and not denied and I'm tired of seeing people throw money down the diet machine maw, myself included.  I want to figure it out--how we can change the perception from "quick fix" to "really wonderful sustainable life style change" and hell, I'll use the internet to help me do it. 


The fact is there is only one way to get healthy. That's to live healthy. And please remember that "healthy" is a relative term defined by the individual and not by society.  I know those who have suffered disabling disease that still maintained a "healthy" lifestyle during their sickness with support and help and through their own personal strength and commitment to their understanding of health.   

The point is, our culture would have us think otherwise. Our culture believes in quick fixes, in teaching us to look outwards instead of inwards for solutions we already have.  In my opinion, it's time for the inmates to start running this asylum, to take back the dieting-night, so to speak--to teach ourselves to live with bounty and in grace instead of deprivation and need. 


So yeah.  I think that's enough for today to start.  So shut my hole, right?

A Note to the Title of the Blog:  Yes, it's called Shut Your Hole.  Get Off Your Ass. I can see where this might be offensive to some.  However, I use this not only as a reference to portion control and exercise but also as the phrase I tell myself when things get hard.  I require tough self-love.  I do not coddle.  

To break it down:  

Shut your hole = stop complaining/whining/giving excuses.  
Get off your ass =  Get moving/take action/affect change.


Sometimes it means moving mountains.  Other times, it means I need to put down the cookies and go to the gym. (Eh, it happens.)  Regardless, it works in every situation.  


Every single time.