Do fat memories ever fade?
{Image Credit :: wolvesandrabbits}
She’s only half the woman that she once was, but don’t tell her that.
At 28, my friend Laura has long lost almost half of what was once her highest weight. She hasn’t been to that point in almost ten years, dropping the pounds in desperate attempt to forestall what she perceived to be inevitable rejection come move-in day of her freshman year of college. Her self-proclaimed fat clothes are not shoved in the back of her bulging closet; they are long discarded – adorning Goodwill-goers and those with bodies far larger than Laura herself.
But Laura doesn’t see herself as the size six with killer triceps. When she looks in mirror, she is flooded with memories of sitting alone at the community center, drinking her diet coke and feeling hot and uncomfortable in the black tafetta dress her mom finally found on sale in the Women’s department. “Black is so slimming!” she was told. “Right,” she thought. “And so are vertical stripes. But I refuse to go there.”
She recalls watching the other girls dance with bright, carefree smiles adorning their perfectly made-up faces. And Laura is angry – though she’s not sure if it’s at the girls for fitting into the strapless sequined dresses that she’d been eyeing for months or at herself for letting Dunkin Donuts distract her from her low-carb, low-fat, high-anxiety diet once again.
But Laura is no longer that girl, though her mental image of herself retreats to that dark place whenever her anxiety starts to build. She can’t understand why, years after she has shed the weight and has built what she considers a healthy lifestyle, she remains stuck in a 16-year-old’s mind.
Speaking with may individuals who have lost a significant amount of weight, the disconnect between their new bodies and their old minds becomes strikingly apparent. Despite years upon years passing, many still describe themselves as feeling, at their core, like a fat pig.
Do memories of being overweight ever fade?
According to NPR’s Peter Sagal, the answer is no. Even physically fit as a 3:27 marathoner, he grapples with the concept of not being fat. “Mirrors are not to be believed,” he said in a Runner’s World piece. “You stand in front of them, knowing that you can’t trust yourself as an arbiter of truth, so you turn from side to side, thinking that maybe, if you snap your head around quickly enough, you can actually see yourself as others see you.”
Like Sagal, those who have become thin through regular and intense exercise often continue to feel that they are the mercy of their athletics. Sure I’m skinny, you’ll hear. But that’s because I run thirty miles a week. The implication of course is that if by some horrible stoke of luck they weren’t able to exercise, they would return to the large life as quick as you can say tendonitis. They are, they believe, fat people in thin disguises.
Why is it so hard to adopt a new mental image of yourself? One reason might be that our brains are actually wired for distortion when it comes body image, as recent research suggests.
Another reason is that often the feelings associated with our body size are visceral – the transcend all reason and are rooted in a place far more powerful than intellect. Those who have found themselves struggling with weight, particularly as children, often form an identity around this. If not given other messages, we often learn, in part due to the weight discrimination rampant in our society, to approach others from a place of disempowerment and of shame.
At the heart of the matter is not fear of simply having an arbitrary numerical value on a scale rise again – it’s a fear of a loss of human connection, of feeling powerful and capable and strong, of rejection. And in an ironic twist of fate, fear and stress are connected to weight gain.
Learning to let go of a restrictive view of ourselves is a task for all of us – whether we have lost, gained, or maintained our weight throughout out lives. When the stories that have defined are lives are no longer working for us, it’s time to write new ones.
Have you ever found yourself caught in memories of a body you no longer have?
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[...] we continue to feel larger than the mirror would suggest. So this week I’m talking about whether fat memories ever fade on my site, Nourishing the Soul.Hope you’re inspired to something amazing for yourself this [...]
PJ
373 days ago
Interestingly I was having this conversation with a friend just the other day. When I look in the mirror I can see myself as I am. I can see that I am too thin. But away from the mirror I have to constantly body check to remind myself that I am too thin – otherwise I feel exactly like I did when I was carrying pregnancy weight. I am particularly self conscious of my chest (having been quite large when I was feeding) – in my mind this part of my body is still very prominant (although when I check it is not that way at all). Feeding was such a short time in my life in the big scheme of things (three years in total for all my babies) but it seems to have left an indelible imprint on my mind that I just can’t shake.
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Katie @ Health for the Whole Self
373 days ago
Very interesting post. The key is understanding that it’s less about our actual weight and more about our weight mentality. As you say, our feelings about our bodies often defy logic. I know I thought I was fat even when I was underweight. It’s like I was never able to “own” a smaller body, so I felt like it had to keep getting smaller and smaller. Eventually I had to come to grips with the fact that it was never about the size of my body in the first place; it was about the connection and approval I thought I could gain by being thinner.
Katie @ Health for the Whole Self recently posted..The Post I Wrote Through Tears
Kendra (Voice in Recovery)
373 days ago
OK I SOOO read that in Runners World and was going to write about it and totally forgot all about it. Interesting post. I know I have heard this from others. I guess for me I dont have that experience as much. With my ED and SA, I was at my heaviest and not underweight, and am now at the same stable weight for years.
Toby (BodyZen)
373 days ago
Great article. Totally in line with what we practice at BodyZen – we must address the underlying issues before we can truly find peace with our bodies. We must shed the emotional weight as well as the physical!
K
373 days ago
This is really timely for me. Thank you. I’m currently not overweight, but I was as a child. I spent several years binge eating, a few years using laxatives, a many more years just worrying about my weight. I still do. I treat myself better now – I do yoga, I don’t do crazy things to lose weight, I don’t binge. I also run, and I feel exactly about it as Sagal describes.
The other day someone made a comment to another student in a yoga class I was in (something positive) and I felt terrible – immediately I thought, she’s thin and I’m not. I wanted to be the thin one, or at least to not have to think of how fat I am or feel. I stopped the worst of my eating issues ten years ago – but this one comment still affected me a lot. I was thinking, when will it end… I guess it is not the most promising answer, but this post does give me some insight into it.
K
373 days ago
Hi there – same commenter with another thought: could you or any readers recommend any books, resources, or even terms to google for more information on this topic? I guess more specifically, the experience of being overweight as a child and how it can or may affect people as an adult. Thanks.
McKella
373 days ago
I’m currently smack dab in the middle between my highest and lowest weights, and from here I can remember them both quite clearly. When I was at my thinnest, I knew what I looked like, but I still kept that mindset of being undesirable, unworthy, and unwanted. It had nothing to do with size, it’s low self-esteem.
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Toby (BodyZen)
372 days ago
@ K, May 10, 2011 at 9.47pm
K, please visit us at http://www.bodyzen.co/ or on facebook/bodyzen. We have created a range of resources (many of them free) to help women come to peace with their bodies…our resources are designed to help you address the core issues that contribute to carrying extra weight, emotional eating, and negative body image. We recognise that no matter how well the scales read or how many dress size we drop – we won’t truly be at peace with our bodies until we address the issues affecting our hearts and minds.
And, @ Ashley – we’ve linked this blog post to our facebook page – because it is so relevant to our community. Thank you!
Lori Lieberman
371 days ago
I wonder if this subject gets addressed at the eval for gastric bypass surgery? And I suspect the same is true for individuals post cosmetic surgery? Does implanting bigger breasts or liposeuction change one’s perspective about herself? I’d love to know if these studies were ever done!
Thanks for another great post!
Lori Lieberman recently posted..My Selfish Post
charlotte
371 days ago
This: “it’s a fear of a loss of human connection, of feeling powerful and capable and strong, of rejection. ” is SO TRUE. Fantastic post. I know that I feel that way about my weight. That it’s not even about being “fat” (despite all my neuroses, I never have actually been overweight), it’s about everything that weight connotes in our society. The pressure can be crushing. For me the only “cure” is to accept myself for who I am independent of my weight. I’m still working on it.
Heather
356 days ago
I think this is a really interesting (and emotive) question to ask myself.
When I was suffering from anorexia, it was only at my thinnest when I guess I’d even acknowledge that I was thin (in my sensible, logical head) but I still felt massive. I was convinced I was still fat, and would literally see myself that way in a mirror. Only maybe once in a year did I catch a two-second glimpse of myself as I think others saw me, which I dismissed as me seeing things.
When I’ve been at my biggest, and even now where I’m a bit overweight, I’ve kind of known what size I am but in my head, I still see ‘me’ as a medium-sized, curvy, fairly slim woman. This was what I was like before my size had fluctuated so crazily as did my relationship with food.
I still struggle to see myself as I am, and in my minds eye, I still don’t ‘feel’ my current size. It is an issue, because it does mean when I see myself I’m still saddened, shocked and disgusted at times. I just can’t seem to grasp the idea of seeing myself like this all the time or else I might feel permanently sad.
It also hurts because I am aware of how lots of people with EDs see themselves as bigger in their heads than they are. I am doing the opposite, as a form of protection. I am also somewhere deep down hoping that this won’t be forever.
I hope that makes sense.
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353 days ago
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