Last night The Husband and I watched a show called The Food Investigators. I am a bit leery of it sometimes as they play somewhat to the OMG OBEEESITY EPIDEMIC!!!11!, but they’re better than the majority of shows and I find some of their information very interesting.
So, during last night’s episode, they mentioned that 62% of Australians are overweight. The Husband asks me “do you count as overweight” and I said yes (although I was too cowardly to say “well actually, I’m classified as obese”) but I pointed out that actually, he is pretty damn close to being classified as overweight as well. He denied this vehemently of course, but based on his being 180cm (the height he claims) and 82.7 kgs (the last time he weighed himself), he actually has a BMI of 25.5, making him one of the overweight Australians. But whatever.
Then he said “well isn’t being classified as overweight a good enough reason to lose weight?” and I basically said “no, and besides its just some arbitrary classification”. And then he had a small hissy fit about how could I just choose to ignore something like that when THE SCIENTISTS SAY and he LOVES how I just choose bits to believe and ignore the rest etc etc. (Yes, I choose to believe the science and ignore the media, thanks). It didn’t blow into a full scale argument though, for which I am thankful, as I chose not to respond and he didn’t pursue it. He also didn’t go off into a “mood” (at least that I could see), so that was an improvement.
So then we dropped it, and later that night we were having a discussion about the politician who doesn’t believe in global warming based on a graph of the last 10 years, and how much this annoys us both, along with the extreme annoyance we have at the news.com commenter population. The Husband prides himself on thinking more deeply about everything than most people, on considering all the angles and making his own decisions. I subtly commented that a lot of people can be very open minded about most things, but then have one or two topics on which they are absolutely closed (I used religion as an example, but points if you can guess the subtext!). We talked about how a lot of people aren’t willing to consider any of the evidence for themselves, but just take whatever they are spoonfed (subtext again!).
I suspect my intended subtexts were too subtle for The Husband to relate to his own issues with weight, but I know that he tends to take some time to process things like that, and so maybe in a later conversation we can return to it with more success. The interesting thing for me is that he admits that intellectually, he knows this shouldn’t be an issue, but he cannot seem to get past it. I find it frustrating that he is so open-minded about most things, but is not even willing at this stage to have a rational discussion about why I believe what I do, and has no interest in looking at any actual evidence on this particular topic, although he will happily read a 21,000 word article (very interesting) about the AI singularity. I really believe that if he would allow himself to consider the evidence he would come to the same conclusions that I have, but I think it will take a bit more time for him to get to where he’s willing to look. I know he isn’t really concerned about the health aspect of it, but if I could get him to appreciate why I’ve decided that dieting doesn’t work and isn’t worth it, that would be a good start.
I also had a little bit of a panic last week, for a couple of reasons. When I was dieting I would weigh myself multiple times a day, but since finding FA I’ve been consciously avoiding the scale. However, I still find myself getting a bit panicky after about 2 weeks without weighing myself. I start to think “OMG but what if I’ve gained heaps!” and I get stressed – but then when I weigh myself, I find I’m pretty much the same as I have been for the last 6 months (that in itself is amazing to me – I don’t think I’ve gone 6 months without reaching a higher weight in the 7+ years I was dieting). So, a long time since I last weighed plus the news that my bridesmaid’s dress for my sister’s wedding had arrived and needed to be tried on, kind of made me lose my mind a bit.
But its ok, my scales reassured me that I haven’t gained a million kilos in the last 2 weeks, and the dress fitting got delayed – although I can think of no reason that it shouldn’t fit, since I’m the same weight now as I was when it was ordered. And I reminded myself that all I will achieve by dieting is ruining my newly-gained sense of peace and wellbeing, and probably make myself fatter to boot.
Finally, had a bit of a shock moment speaking to my Mum. She baked a fantastic cake for my sister’s birthday, and I was telling her again how delicious it was. She said she might bake another soon, just because she could – but then said maybe she shouldn’t, because that would be baaaaad. I asked why – she said “because I’d eat it and I don’t need the extra calories”. I very eloquently replied “pfffft”, and that was the end of the conversation. But this was seriously shocking to me – I realise that I honestly thought my Mum didn’t even know (or care) what a calorie was. So a little piece of my innocence has died, and I feel badly for my Mum because I now wonder how much of the self-acceptance I see in her is in fact nothing but a front she put up for her children. It makes me sad, because she has always been a fabulous, happy fat woman in my mind.
So basically this week shook my FA faith a little, but I’m happily back in the right headspace for now. Go me!
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