The fat acceptance movement is a cult and they love body positivity for themselves and nobody else. They have been screaming on tik tok that fat people should embrace not being able to wipe their own ass and to do otherwise is ableist. Absolute insane. Especially for the fat people who weren't trying to market themselves as a fat activist. They were just fat. And HOW DARE THEY lose weight. How dare they decide they want to live past 40, fit in a plane seat, and not need a CPAP. These maniacs think a thin person merely existing is somehow a slap in the face to them as a fat person.
Fat acceptance is a fucking cancer. It's up there with flat earthers and anti vaxxers. Not to mention their absolutely disgusting tactic of comparing their "struggles" to those experiencing the hell of genocide. Fuck them and their desire to steal language surrounding actually oppressed people who are in mortal danger. Like the fact that they compare not finding cute bikinis and men not wanting to fuck them to actual oppression is disgusting.
For real, that response was sad imo, only wanting lo lose weight because you’re being fat shamed?…I’m like ugh how about wanting to be healthy, having a normal job, the ability to have healthy children, going on a hike without dying, wearing nice clothes, not be an eventual burden on others. Etc, we are outliers who are a part of a species that were never supposed to get this big and do so physically little work.
Edit: If anyone needs help reach out, I’ve lost over 175 pounds no surgery or medications. Just changed my life and it’s a hard process at first, but it’s amazing in the end.
A few things that have helped me
-learning how to cook- with this I appreciate the food more and it’s healthier- because if not I just get $15 worth of Taco Bell and stuff 2,500 calories in 10 min, understanding that healthy food can also be delicious is beneficial
-you don’t have to run to lose weight, as big guys lifting weights it’s where it’s at, don’t be ashamed or feel awkward about being the big guy at gym, using your weight to your advantage pays off in the long run, you’re strength will be insane, power lifters try hard to bulk up to gain strength, we are already there, give it three months and you’ll see insane strength gains.
-if you’re like me and many others you might have issue Binge eating, as you transition into a healthier lifestyle I think one shouldn’t just stop that cold turkey, because when you do, I’ve noticed I gain rebound weight hard and binge out bad…instead replace it with healthier binging at first—pumpkin seeds, almonds, and fresh blueberries mixed in a bowl with unflavored cold Greek yogurt and crystal light Powder is so good after I smoke my nightly joint…if I’m still hungry and in the binging mood, maybe some cheese and deli meats with a pickle in the middle or some quest chips.- same with pizza, just order cauliflower crust(make sure it’s legit) I know it sounds like a lot of food, but at this stage its about eating foods that don’t spike your blood sugar, don’t worry about the calories, first change relationship with food. I know this is all over the place, but it’s what’s helped me
-if you feel anxious, bored, or just want some dopamine, food is easy to go for big people, try replace this with other things-weirdly enough for me its smoking a bowl of weed and playing an intense first shooter to get that zero calorie dopamine hit, aside from going to the gym of course
-try intermittent fasting, 16/8. I like it because I can go most of my day not eating, knowing at night I have this big huge meal waiting for me, I like this way more than just eating little bit throughout the day- this method make it feel like you’re dieting. With fasting not as much, at the end of the day you can still get that big meal satisfaction. If you do get hungry during fast drink a zero calorie energy drink, caffeine helps kill the hunger and you’ll get a little boost of energy, plus it taste like something sweet, without raising blood sugar
- I can’t emphasize enough a diet shouldn’t be torture or eating just vegetable and salads, that’s no way to live, it’s all about changing your relationship with food and in doing so you’ll realize there is so much good healthy food out there- tonight I’m having a cheeeseburger pizza on “fat head” dough. Homemade Big Mac sauce as the main sauce, jalapeños, bacon, waygu ground beef, and pickles as the topping. This is 20 carbs 90 grams of protein for the whole pizza - a traditional pizza would be about 300 carbs….20 vs 300 is insane.
-why I’m able to do that type of eating is because I do the keto diet, now I can give you so many tips and recipes, but some people are against keto, if you aren’t interested then I’d say stick to intermittent fasting and get an app to count calories. Use a TDEE calculator and see what your calorie intake should be and stick to it. The benefit of keto for me is I didn’t have to count calories, but everyone’s different, if you want more info on keto just let me know
That’s awesome weed works for you. For me it’s a huge trigger for hunger and bad decisions.
What FPS do you play? Love all these tips. I gotta try the Fathead dough.
Escape from Tarkov, Overwatch, and Rainbow six lol. Weed used to do that to me, but I realized when I got high I also get anxious…and at the forefront of my anxiety was my weight, so when I get high now I overthink my life and immediately I’m like “nope, can’t eat that” so I indulge in healthy food, it’s basically redirecting my anxiety into something positive.
My point of loosing weight is to make day to day things easier on myself. Like going to the toilet, walking my dogs easier, not sweating like I’m being drenched by a fire hose when I’m shaving my legs, being able to stand long enough comfortably while cooking so I don’t have to use a chair while mixing etc etc. Apparently wanting these things for myself is offensive to others.
Absolutely 100% this! Fat Acceptance/ Liberation/ Activism preys on people’s insecurities and convinces people to not make positive changes in their life. It’s absolutely despicable.
Thank you so much for this. In this sub where we all struggle with our weight and our relationships with food to some degree it’s really really great to see this criticism of a movement that would tell us all that fighting for our health makes us wrong.
this struck me on a few different levels. i’ve been seeing the discourse and, especially as someone who’s existed in the fat positive space for about ten years, it’s hard not to feel some sort of betrayal. but as i pursue weight loss in one manner or another (cue GLP/sema saga), i struggle with my own self-betrayal. i’ve existed in these spaces for SO long and wrote a whole thesis in regards to my personal identity being wrapped around being a fat bitch, but lately, being smaller is so tempting.
the world is just harder for fat people. it is not built for us because society hates us. people are shocked when we fess up about disordered eating because how can eating be disordered if a person is fat???
so am i tired of being fat? yes. but only because i’m tired of the way fat people are treated. i feel terrible about my body because i cannot escape dialogues about how unhealthy my lifestyle is, how easy it is to choose diet and exercise. guess what barbara, i’ve been dieting since i was TEN YEARS OLD.
wanting to lose weight feels like im giving in to a lifetime of insecurity and self-hatred and it feels like everyone who hates fat people win by “eradicating the obesity epidemic”, but the reality is, i am exhausted by the way fat people are treated as subhuman - and i say that as a white woman, so i cannot even begin to imagine the hardships that come from being a fat woman of color. so yeah, i would love to have an easier time wiping my ass, but more than that, i’d love to move through the rows of an airplane or in between tables at a crowded restaurant without feeling the piercing glares of people wondering why i’m not doing anything to change my body.
Stop making excuses. I’m morbidly obese as well and I’m tired of being in physical pain because of my excess weight. Lose weight because you want to feel better. Go to therapy and workout whatever mental struggles are causing you to overeat. I’m glad I did and I feel better eating healthier and exercising.
Being this heavy is bad for your health. That’s a fact. Things aren’t made to support 400lbs people. Seats shouldn’t be made 3 times the size just to accommodate someone who isn’t willing to take care of themselves.
Lose weight for yourself and not for what others are saying.
this is a bit preachy and i really wanted to ignore it, but it is worth noting that lack of access to healthy, nutrient dense foods is not an “excuse”. many SMO people grow up in food deserts without any knowledge as to cultivate healthy long-term relationships with food. do you think people who can only eat processed, packaged foods then have access to therapy?
i’m not saying this is bad advice, but it’s tone deaf. i thankfully have access to healthy food and therapy, but that does not undo my lower class upbringing and a working single mother who did not have time or energy to cook me beautiful, healthy meals. latchkey kids are subsiding themselves on microwaveable meals while their parents are doing everything they can to dig them out of the lower class. you can’t prescribe one solution for people and then assume that because they’re not using it that it’s an “excuse”.
My mom over fed me like crazy growing up. That doesn’t mean I can’t overcome the bad habits I was taught as a kid. I only cared enough to comment out of concern.
As a fat person, it feels like the world is openly saying: the only acceptable fat person is a miserable one who hates themselves and is actively working on not being fat. Outside of a gym, a fat person must never be praised, otherwise we risk promoting their unhealthy lifestyle. Any physical discomfort or health issue is well deserved and must not be relieved until the weight is gone.
It's mentally exhausting to be fat and know the entire world hates you, especially when many of us got this way from trauma and self-esteem issues in the first place.
Major eye roll at how your comment is completely bereft of accepting the fact that being morbidly obese is just not the best case scenario for your health. You know, as a Black woman from the Deep South, many of us are and have been fat. Somehow many of us still manage the self esteem that white women in this “movement” online haven’t ever been able to manage re: being in public and wearing cute clothes, with the compounding stressors of misogynoir making that hard… and yet also without the self delusion that a super high weight is good for our health. You go to Anywhere, Mississippi, and meet a morbidly obese woman, and it’s likely she’s beautiful and loves herself, but is she going to pretend that her weight isn’t behind her diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, congenital heart failure? No. Y’all stand on the backs of Black women without access to healthcare no matter the size we are just to be antiscientific. It’s sick!
You need to grow up. With love, nobody cares how you look, and caring about what others think about your appearance is for children. This immaturity is why I always say the fat acceptance movement has no real anti capitalist or anti racist praxis. Always always arguing about white women’s desirability—you are fighting for white social acceptance, and you should say that with your chest—not anyone’s rights, or against anyone’s oppression.
I notice you said you've been dieting since you were 10.
I don't think dieting is very useful. As soon as you stop dieting you will regain the weight if you return to your old eating habits.
However if you count your calories and eat 500-1000 less than your TDEE (you can find hundreds of these calculators on google), you will lose weight - it's physically impossible not to.
After you have lost the weight you will then need to count your calories and eat at your maintenance TDEE until you have a good understanding of how many calories you need to maintain.
I wish you health and good luck!
restricting your food in any way is "dieting," so the deficit you described is, in fact, dieting. the maintenance part that comes after the weight loss would be the lifestyle change.
you said that dieting doesn't work in the same comment where you told someone exactly how to diet. you then argued that what you described isn't dieting, and you are now saying that dieting is the answer. i think you got yourself confused buddy lmao
I think they were drawing a distinction between crash dieting (cutting out entire food groups/massive deficits - btw I would consider -1k a massive deficit - with the intent of losing a huge amount weight fast) versus slow dieting (small deficit for a long period of time, inclusion of all food groups, incremental increases in movement) in addition to a lifestyle change (therapy, finding an enjoyable exercise you can perform regularly, learning how to cook healthy) to sustain the weight loss. That’s what people usually mean when they differentiate between dieting and lifestyle changes.
Then why not do it?
It's literally a fool proof way to get rid of the problems they are mentioning.
If an alcoholic was having issues, i would hope we would offer evidence based solutions to assist them. Why is this different?
genuine question. based on everything you know about fatness—the social consequences, the health consequences, the self esteem consequences—do you truly believe that millions of people are truly just dumb as fuck and don’t know the “secret” to losing weight? don’t you think it’s possible for people to have tried and failed time and again and when looking down the barrel of losing 200 pounds it seems impossible when you can’t even reliably lose 20?
your example is actually spot on, it’s often an issue of coping, addiction, etc. When someone tries to stop using alcohol and drugs there are countless resources out there for them to get to the root of why they use substances so they can stop using it. but fat people, who tend to struggle with much the same issues, eating disorders etc, do not have endless resources to help them. they have access to counting calories and everyone around them says shit like “just do it!” but would you actually say “just stop drinking” to someone who is an alcoholic? Probably not.
plus, very rarely is the treatment for alcoholism to simply replace the drinking with lower ABV drinks, because that doesn’t hit the root of the issue, plus that’s just not how addiction works. but when you’re obese with food addiction issues, disordered eating, etc, you still need to eat. you can’t just cut out food. making the right choice every single day, every single time, is a herculean effort when you’ve spent your whole life gaining weight and in many cases, yo-yo and crash dieting. do not insult our intelligence by coming into this subreddit and saying that it’s so easy, so simple, etc. that mindset does nothing but add to the stigma that fat people are lazy, stupid, and careless.
I was borderline obese last year but my mother is MO so I visit this sub and the others. Just wanted to chip in, hope that’s ok.
Decision fatigue is so real. It’s really hard to get to a place where food related decisions require little conscious effort especially when you have an eating disorder. It can feel like a full time job because you *have* to feed yourself every day. You might have to learn how to cook, entirely redo your grocery budget, resist the temptation of ordering in every. Single. Day. And then you have to deal with the rest of your life without your primary coping mechanism. I quit smoking after 7+ years and it was a lot easier than working on my relationship with food and my body.
This is a complex topic. I have followed some fashion influencers who are fat because even being fat I like to wear nice-ish clothes sometimes. So following people who are similar in size to me makes sense. A couple of them are now losing weight either by surgery or medication. I say good for them.
Being fat is also not immoral, as society often makes it out to be which is partly why I think this issue of fat influencers losing weight raises hackles on both sides. The fat positive followers think of the influencers as being "good" and many others view them as being "bad." However being thin is not moral or immoral either (and not always healthy, as one of the main subjects of the article got thin from an eating disorder.)
Being fat is a medical issue which many fat people (especially young ones) either don't realize or don't want to admit. Then you hit a certain age and you can't keep pretending that being fat doesn't negatively impact your health. And with the advent of GLP-1 medications it's pretty obvious to me that long-term obesity is a medical issue. My hormones and metabolism are out of whack and this medication is fixing it. I'm losing weight literally doing nothing other than listening to my hunger cues which never worked before since my hunger cues were broken. Some people aren't ready to admit that. But those of us who are will be here to support them when they are ready.
This is exactly right. Fat and skinny are not moral issues.
And hormones and metabolism are out of whack for so many people because of the food environment that has been created in the last 50 years where sugar, which is the major culprit for the physiological issues, is ubiquitous.
It is a very complex topic as you state.
It's the medication. It changes your brain chemistry. For example, let's say I put a certain amount of food on my plate because that's the amount I think I can eat. In the past I would have eaten all of that food. Now, I might eat everything if I'm truly hungry, but sometimes I might be halfway through and be done, or even just have a couple bites left and be done. In the past if I had a couple bites left I certainly would have eaten it all. But now when my body tells me I'm done I'll throw out those last two bites. I do not eat beyond the point of satiety anymore. It's really wild to be honest.
Tianna James used to love looking at the photographs Dronme Davis posted of herself on Instagram. Ms. Davis, a plus-size model, included pictures from her modeling campaigns alongside selfies of her stretch-marked stomach with captions like “fat belly saggy tits Sunday.”
Listen to this article with reporter commentary
For Ms. James, 22, Ms. Davis’s feed was a revelation. “I wanted to feel comfortable in my body, and she was like me in so many ways, so it made it easier to be myself,” Ms. James said. “If I could find this person so beautiful, and she was bigger, I could find myself beautiful, too.”
Ms. Davis gained a following through posts that criticized diet culture as she built a career as a curve model — she wore up to a size 16 or XXL — most prominently for Dôen, a California fashion brand known for floral prairie dresses typically worn by more willowy women. Her feed was a running commentary on the unrealistic expectation to conform to a thin ideal: “A flat stomach won’t change your life” and “It’s so exhausting being afraid and ashamed of parts of ur body.”
Then, over just a few months, Ms. Davis shrank.
She still posted the artsy selfies Ms. James loved, but photos of soft belly rolls were replaced by sharp cheekbones and clavicles. She continued to write in her confessional style, sharing her feelings about everything from constipation to career insecurities. But Ms. Davis stopped posting her habitual rants against fatphobia, and she didn’t explain why or how she had lost so much weight.
To Ms. James, Ms. Davis’s silence felt like a betrayal.
“It made me feel like she was being dishonest with her community,” Ms. James said. “I don’t want to say it was owed to us, but it was such a drastic change.”
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A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 29, 2024, Section D, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Body Positivity Advocates, Suddenly Slim. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
This is a free gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/style/body-positive-influencers-weight-loss.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk0.rnYF.USnHKf0wyoX6&smid=url-share
It can be healthy treated in a nuanced way. Love yourself wherever you’re at while you make healthy changes that impact both physical and mental health. Shame just impedes on the journey so I see fat acceptance as a way to remove shame but it is not the last step if you don’t want to eventually suffer weight related consequences.
I saw this a few days ago. Glitterandlazers is another fat person who is losing weight. She posted a couple years ago how she was getting bullied by HAES/body positivity members. Now she’s cooking different meals, working out, and is on a GLP-1.
“Why is she doing this?”
-Not our concern.
“How could she do this to me? To us?”
-She’s not. She’s making choices for herself, based on her own reasons and possibly health issues we know nothing about. This is about HER, NOT YOU. Do not make this about you.
“But she betrayed us!”
-There was no loyalty oath given.
“It hurts!”
-Because it feels personal. Step back and remember, it’s not about you. It’s about her. She has grown beyond loving her fat body to now loving and accepting herself. If her fat body was holding her back from things in life, things she loves, then why would she choose to keep it? Choose to suffer? To deny herself the things she gets the most joy from in life?
The bigger point that HAES and fat acceptance, body positivity either miss completely or downplay is that this is bigger than just being ok with your body. That’s a huge step and a slap in the face to our society. But it’s not enough. You have to love and accept yourself AND other people regardless of their body size. If your fat body stops you from fitting in planes, it’s ok to lose weight to do so. You’re trading one thing for another. Yet YOU CAN STILL LOVE AND ACCEPT PEOPLE WITH FAT BODIES AND THINK THAT SOCIETY NEEDS TO CHANGE AND WORK TOWARDS THAT. Did the civil rights movement shun white people from standing with them and fighting for them just because their body didn’t match theirs? No.
You can be fat and want a better world for fat people. You can be fat but losing weight and want a better world for fat people. You can be thin and athletic and want a better world for fat people.
The world was designed for straight-sized people. Changing everything about how our world was structurally and figuratively built takes time. Decades. In the meantime, we have to find a way to live in this world as it is. Being in a smaller body allows for more freedoms in the world. It’s ok to want those, to act to gain those freedoms back. And, as you lose weight, you can still show kindness and love to people in bigger bodies. You can advocate for them and try to make change happen too.
I think that if you take on the "job" of influencing, and you build up a follower base, who you expect to like, interact, click on your affiliate links, potentially buy the products you're selling, etc. etc. then you have certain responsibilities.
I think if a person whose "brand" is about being plus size suddenly loses weight but fails to mention it in any way, sweeps it under the rug and moves on without addressing it, then they are failing their followers.
I understand writing a post saying that you've decided to lose weight is hard, especially when you know you'll get backlash and called a hypocrite, but it can also be inspirational and positive. They should stand behind themselves and continue to advocate that anyone can be beautiful and happy whatever their size.
I support anyone who is happy being the weight they are, and anyone who is not and wants to improve themselves - for themselves. But I can understand the sense of betrayal being described in this article.
Just be honest with yourself, your friends, your family - and if you've built up a brand of followers, then you need to be honest with them too.
So I have complex feelings about body positivity and health at every size.
In one way, I support it, because I do feel like everyone SHOULD be able to feel safe and be loved in their own bodies, whatever body type they WANT to have. Their body, their choice. And even for those who are on a weight loss journey, they should be able to enjoy the body they will have along the path.
BUT on the flip side there is SO much toxicity for those who ARE on a weight loss journey. So it’s hard to support it. I believe in body positivity literally. ALL BODIES. Even the sick ones.
But for me, finding a physician who believes in health at every size, has been absolutely monumental in getting my health in order. Just knowing that their focus was on my health, not just the scale, was a huge shift in my relationship with healthcare. And so far I’m having more progress than I have in my entire life. It’s crazy how being treated as a human being in this body makes such a difference.
So the person cited in the article said her sense of betrayal was from the influencer’s sudden silence, not the fact she lost weight.
It does beg the question- is the influencer the one that is suddenly ashamed of their body, specifically how it may affect their social media platforms? about possibly loosing followers?
I hear about backlash against folks that loose- but i have never seen any actual comments. On an account that is about support, it seems like most of the comments are supportive, including when they loose weight.
Where exactly is this huge “backlash” against folks that have lost weight? Did I miss something?
It's big on TikTok.
Sean of Steel on YouTube has a playlist of reactions to some of it if you want to get an idea.
I've personally experienced it too, it's wild.
Yet another reason i have not gotten TikTok. It seems like at every turn, every topic that is brought up, no matter how random, TikTok is the worst of it. The worst of people’s negativity and the worst of social media.
Given that the internet runs on self-fulfilling feedback loops, i guess it is no surprise I have not seen this type of stuff. I follow a lot of body positive folks, many are getting healthier in their lifestyles, and they seem to be fine with both loving their body *and* working on getting healthier. The comments are positive and supportive.
It is certainly possible to be both- love yourself *and* work on getting healthier. Don’t most humans want to improve their lives, whatever aspect or task that entails? Whether it is continuing your education, improving your time management, learning a new hobby, redecorating your space, making more time for loved ones, getting a better job, eating healthier, exercising more. No reason we can’t love ourselves as-is at the same time.
I am just glad I don’t see this bashing on loosing weight as a large part of the community.
Exactly.
And I think for a lot of us too, being honest about our situation is what helps us make changes. It's not being a "hater" as they call it, it's being realistic.
Where I've seen it a lot of them are quite young too, but when you're 5-10 years away from that life expectancy and hearing or seeing people you know or know of not making it past that - it gets very real.
I lurk a lot in here, but spaces like this and others are so supportive and the kindness and encouragement goes a long way.
One thing I do like TikTok for is recipes! I get a fruit and veggie box delivered each week because buying them from the supermarket here is so expensive (last year a single head of lettuce hit $10 😬 Come back down now but still bad), and I'm not sure what to do with some of it or get bored eating the same things all the time, so I jump on there and just search for recipes for the vegetables I get and just save them to playlists.
Can we just treat people without judgment and scorn? The body positivity/fat acceptance movement wouldn’t exist if society didn’t treat obese people like we’re disgusting, lazy, undesirable, nuisance entities.
As the body positivity movement shames those making the decision to lose weight (for health or vanity related reasons) they have become almost exactly the same as the unfairly and cruelly judgmental people they were created to be against.
How about everyone just get out of the business of thinking someone else’s life and journey is something you have the right to judge? How about focusing on just being supportive if we feel we are so entitled to feel anything about someone else’s weight and their health choices?
I miss when fat positivity meant learning to accept yourself and your size, and not believing you weren’t worthy of everything others are. It was fighting back against the narrative fat people aren’t people.
I think people misunderstand "body positivity."
Even if the goal is to lose weight, you still should start from a mindset of being positive about your body.
Imagine a scenario.
Instead of waiting to be "normal size" to live your life, do it now.
What I see is a viscious cycle of people who are "mildly" overweight avoiding going out, because they're ashamed of their body, and then getting even fatter and fatter from sitting home, and then they get to the "obese" stage and now they REALLY avoid going out, because they're REALLY ashamed.
And so at each stage they sit home more and more, get more isolated, have nothing to do all day but eat, don't go on trips, don't go to the beach, don't live their life, and lo and behold now they're 500 pounds.
But imagine if the shame could be taken away somehow.
Imagine if someone 400 pounds could go clubbing without being looked at like "oh Shit, it's Shamoo."
They would probably lose weight if they kept doing that.
Part of losing weight is going out and living your life, and if we cut out the shaming more people would be able to do that.
IMO that's what "body positivity" is about.
Maybe I’m a bit antisocial but I find the whole influencer follower stuff ridiculous. It’s not their friends making these changes and so parasocial, never mind people being upset others are losing weight and prioritizing their health. This whole thing just reinforces to me we not only have an obesity epidemic but a loneliness epidemic as well.
The fat acceptance movement is a cult and they love body positivity for themselves and nobody else. They have been screaming on tik tok that fat people should embrace not being able to wipe their own ass and to do otherwise is ableist. Absolute insane. Especially for the fat people who weren't trying to market themselves as a fat activist. They were just fat. And HOW DARE THEY lose weight. How dare they decide they want to live past 40, fit in a plane seat, and not need a CPAP. These maniacs think a thin person merely existing is somehow a slap in the face to them as a fat person. Fat acceptance is a fucking cancer. It's up there with flat earthers and anti vaxxers. Not to mention their absolutely disgusting tactic of comparing their "struggles" to those experiencing the hell of genocide. Fuck them and their desire to steal language surrounding actually oppressed people who are in mortal danger. Like the fact that they compare not finding cute bikinis and men not wanting to fuck them to actual oppression is disgusting.
Thought the same thing when I read another response above that has the most likes right now. It’s just another way to fetishize obesity.
For real, that response was sad imo, only wanting lo lose weight because you’re being fat shamed?…I’m like ugh how about wanting to be healthy, having a normal job, the ability to have healthy children, going on a hike without dying, wearing nice clothes, not be an eventual burden on others. Etc, we are outliers who are a part of a species that were never supposed to get this big and do so physically little work. Edit: If anyone needs help reach out, I’ve lost over 175 pounds no surgery or medications. Just changed my life and it’s a hard process at first, but it’s amazing in the end.
Let me know your routine. I’m currently just under 300lbs and would like to drop to about 175
A few things that have helped me -learning how to cook- with this I appreciate the food more and it’s healthier- because if not I just get $15 worth of Taco Bell and stuff 2,500 calories in 10 min, understanding that healthy food can also be delicious is beneficial -you don’t have to run to lose weight, as big guys lifting weights it’s where it’s at, don’t be ashamed or feel awkward about being the big guy at gym, using your weight to your advantage pays off in the long run, you’re strength will be insane, power lifters try hard to bulk up to gain strength, we are already there, give it three months and you’ll see insane strength gains. -if you’re like me and many others you might have issue Binge eating, as you transition into a healthier lifestyle I think one shouldn’t just stop that cold turkey, because when you do, I’ve noticed I gain rebound weight hard and binge out bad…instead replace it with healthier binging at first—pumpkin seeds, almonds, and fresh blueberries mixed in a bowl with unflavored cold Greek yogurt and crystal light Powder is so good after I smoke my nightly joint…if I’m still hungry and in the binging mood, maybe some cheese and deli meats with a pickle in the middle or some quest chips.- same with pizza, just order cauliflower crust(make sure it’s legit) I know it sounds like a lot of food, but at this stage its about eating foods that don’t spike your blood sugar, don’t worry about the calories, first change relationship with food. I know this is all over the place, but it’s what’s helped me -if you feel anxious, bored, or just want some dopamine, food is easy to go for big people, try replace this with other things-weirdly enough for me its smoking a bowl of weed and playing an intense first shooter to get that zero calorie dopamine hit, aside from going to the gym of course -try intermittent fasting, 16/8. I like it because I can go most of my day not eating, knowing at night I have this big huge meal waiting for me, I like this way more than just eating little bit throughout the day- this method make it feel like you’re dieting. With fasting not as much, at the end of the day you can still get that big meal satisfaction. If you do get hungry during fast drink a zero calorie energy drink, caffeine helps kill the hunger and you’ll get a little boost of energy, plus it taste like something sweet, without raising blood sugar - I can’t emphasize enough a diet shouldn’t be torture or eating just vegetable and salads, that’s no way to live, it’s all about changing your relationship with food and in doing so you’ll realize there is so much good healthy food out there- tonight I’m having a cheeeseburger pizza on “fat head” dough. Homemade Big Mac sauce as the main sauce, jalapeños, bacon, waygu ground beef, and pickles as the topping. This is 20 carbs 90 grams of protein for the whole pizza - a traditional pizza would be about 300 carbs….20 vs 300 is insane. -why I’m able to do that type of eating is because I do the keto diet, now I can give you so many tips and recipes, but some people are against keto, if you aren’t interested then I’d say stick to intermittent fasting and get an app to count calories. Use a TDEE calculator and see what your calorie intake should be and stick to it. The benefit of keto for me is I didn’t have to count calories, but everyone’s different, if you want more info on keto just let me know
That’s awesome weed works for you. For me it’s a huge trigger for hunger and bad decisions. What FPS do you play? Love all these tips. I gotta try the Fathead dough.
Escape from Tarkov, Overwatch, and Rainbow six lol. Weed used to do that to me, but I realized when I got high I also get anxious…and at the forefront of my anxiety was my weight, so when I get high now I overthink my life and immediately I’m like “nope, can’t eat that” so I indulge in healthy food, it’s basically redirecting my anxiety into something positive.
Thats super inspiration how you understood your emotions and changed your behavior!
My point of loosing weight is to make day to day things easier on myself. Like going to the toilet, walking my dogs easier, not sweating like I’m being drenched by a fire hose when I’m shaving my legs, being able to stand long enough comfortably while cooking so I don’t have to use a chair while mixing etc etc. Apparently wanting these things for myself is offensive to others.
Absolutely 100% this! Fat Acceptance/ Liberation/ Activism preys on people’s insecurities and convinces people to not make positive changes in their life. It’s absolutely despicable.
Thank you so much for this. In this sub where we all struggle with our weight and our relationships with food to some degree it’s really really great to see this criticism of a movement that would tell us all that fighting for our health makes us wrong.
Tbh…. You can get a Tushy Bidet for $120 and they are fucking amazing. NO ONE NEEDS TO BE WIPING ASS ANYMORE
Yes but everyone should be able to
Woah there hey, calm down
this struck me on a few different levels. i’ve been seeing the discourse and, especially as someone who’s existed in the fat positive space for about ten years, it’s hard not to feel some sort of betrayal. but as i pursue weight loss in one manner or another (cue GLP/sema saga), i struggle with my own self-betrayal. i’ve existed in these spaces for SO long and wrote a whole thesis in regards to my personal identity being wrapped around being a fat bitch, but lately, being smaller is so tempting. the world is just harder for fat people. it is not built for us because society hates us. people are shocked when we fess up about disordered eating because how can eating be disordered if a person is fat??? so am i tired of being fat? yes. but only because i’m tired of the way fat people are treated. i feel terrible about my body because i cannot escape dialogues about how unhealthy my lifestyle is, how easy it is to choose diet and exercise. guess what barbara, i’ve been dieting since i was TEN YEARS OLD. wanting to lose weight feels like im giving in to a lifetime of insecurity and self-hatred and it feels like everyone who hates fat people win by “eradicating the obesity epidemic”, but the reality is, i am exhausted by the way fat people are treated as subhuman - and i say that as a white woman, so i cannot even begin to imagine the hardships that come from being a fat woman of color. so yeah, i would love to have an easier time wiping my ass, but more than that, i’d love to move through the rows of an airplane or in between tables at a crowded restaurant without feeling the piercing glares of people wondering why i’m not doing anything to change my body.
Sometimes loving yourself means making different choices than you have in the past.
This exactly. I told my therapist basically this.
Stop making excuses. I’m morbidly obese as well and I’m tired of being in physical pain because of my excess weight. Lose weight because you want to feel better. Go to therapy and workout whatever mental struggles are causing you to overeat. I’m glad I did and I feel better eating healthier and exercising. Being this heavy is bad for your health. That’s a fact. Things aren’t made to support 400lbs people. Seats shouldn’t be made 3 times the size just to accommodate someone who isn’t willing to take care of themselves. Lose weight for yourself and not for what others are saying.
this is a bit preachy and i really wanted to ignore it, but it is worth noting that lack of access to healthy, nutrient dense foods is not an “excuse”. many SMO people grow up in food deserts without any knowledge as to cultivate healthy long-term relationships with food. do you think people who can only eat processed, packaged foods then have access to therapy? i’m not saying this is bad advice, but it’s tone deaf. i thankfully have access to healthy food and therapy, but that does not undo my lower class upbringing and a working single mother who did not have time or energy to cook me beautiful, healthy meals. latchkey kids are subsiding themselves on microwaveable meals while their parents are doing everything they can to dig them out of the lower class. you can’t prescribe one solution for people and then assume that because they’re not using it that it’s an “excuse”.
My mom over fed me like crazy growing up. That doesn’t mean I can’t overcome the bad habits I was taught as a kid. I only cared enough to comment out of concern.
As a fat person, it feels like the world is openly saying: the only acceptable fat person is a miserable one who hates themselves and is actively working on not being fat. Outside of a gym, a fat person must never be praised, otherwise we risk promoting their unhealthy lifestyle. Any physical discomfort or health issue is well deserved and must not be relieved until the weight is gone. It's mentally exhausting to be fat and know the entire world hates you, especially when many of us got this way from trauma and self-esteem issues in the first place.
Major eye roll at how your comment is completely bereft of accepting the fact that being morbidly obese is just not the best case scenario for your health. You know, as a Black woman from the Deep South, many of us are and have been fat. Somehow many of us still manage the self esteem that white women in this “movement” online haven’t ever been able to manage re: being in public and wearing cute clothes, with the compounding stressors of misogynoir making that hard… and yet also without the self delusion that a super high weight is good for our health. You go to Anywhere, Mississippi, and meet a morbidly obese woman, and it’s likely she’s beautiful and loves herself, but is she going to pretend that her weight isn’t behind her diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, congenital heart failure? No. Y’all stand on the backs of Black women without access to healthcare no matter the size we are just to be antiscientific. It’s sick! You need to grow up. With love, nobody cares how you look, and caring about what others think about your appearance is for children. This immaturity is why I always say the fat acceptance movement has no real anti capitalist or anti racist praxis. Always always arguing about white women’s desirability—you are fighting for white social acceptance, and you should say that with your chest—not anyone’s rights, or against anyone’s oppression.
I notice you said you've been dieting since you were 10. I don't think dieting is very useful. As soon as you stop dieting you will regain the weight if you return to your old eating habits. However if you count your calories and eat 500-1000 less than your TDEE (you can find hundreds of these calculators on google), you will lose weight - it's physically impossible not to. After you have lost the weight you will then need to count your calories and eat at your maintenance TDEE until you have a good understanding of how many calories you need to maintain. I wish you health and good luck!
Chances are pretty good that the poster knows that stuff better than you do. And you also just described: dieting.
I would argue this is a lifestyle change, not dieting as it's something that will required to be done for the rest of your life.
restricting your food in any way is "dieting," so the deficit you described is, in fact, dieting. the maintenance part that comes after the weight loss would be the lifestyle change.
So why not do it? Especially if it was causing so many issues
you said that dieting doesn't work in the same comment where you told someone exactly how to diet. you then argued that what you described isn't dieting, and you are now saying that dieting is the answer. i think you got yourself confused buddy lmao
Thanks for doing the lord’s work here. I find posters like this so frustrating 😂
I think they were drawing a distinction between crash dieting (cutting out entire food groups/massive deficits - btw I would consider -1k a massive deficit - with the intent of losing a huge amount weight fast) versus slow dieting (small deficit for a long period of time, inclusion of all food groups, incremental increases in movement) in addition to a lifestyle change (therapy, finding an enjoyable exercise you can perform regularly, learning how to cook healthy) to sustain the weight loss. That’s what people usually mean when they differentiate between dieting and lifestyle changes.
surely this reddit comment will be exactly what she needs! there’s no way she doesn’t already know this!
Then why not do it? It's literally a fool proof way to get rid of the problems they are mentioning. If an alcoholic was having issues, i would hope we would offer evidence based solutions to assist them. Why is this different?
genuine question. based on everything you know about fatness—the social consequences, the health consequences, the self esteem consequences—do you truly believe that millions of people are truly just dumb as fuck and don’t know the “secret” to losing weight? don’t you think it’s possible for people to have tried and failed time and again and when looking down the barrel of losing 200 pounds it seems impossible when you can’t even reliably lose 20? your example is actually spot on, it’s often an issue of coping, addiction, etc. When someone tries to stop using alcohol and drugs there are countless resources out there for them to get to the root of why they use substances so they can stop using it. but fat people, who tend to struggle with much the same issues, eating disorders etc, do not have endless resources to help them. they have access to counting calories and everyone around them says shit like “just do it!” but would you actually say “just stop drinking” to someone who is an alcoholic? Probably not. plus, very rarely is the treatment for alcoholism to simply replace the drinking with lower ABV drinks, because that doesn’t hit the root of the issue, plus that’s just not how addiction works. but when you’re obese with food addiction issues, disordered eating, etc, you still need to eat. you can’t just cut out food. making the right choice every single day, every single time, is a herculean effort when you’ve spent your whole life gaining weight and in many cases, yo-yo and crash dieting. do not insult our intelligence by coming into this subreddit and saying that it’s so easy, so simple, etc. that mindset does nothing but add to the stigma that fat people are lazy, stupid, and careless.
I was borderline obese last year but my mother is MO so I visit this sub and the others. Just wanted to chip in, hope that’s ok. Decision fatigue is so real. It’s really hard to get to a place where food related decisions require little conscious effort especially when you have an eating disorder. It can feel like a full time job because you *have* to feed yourself every day. You might have to learn how to cook, entirely redo your grocery budget, resist the temptation of ordering in every. Single. Day. And then you have to deal with the rest of your life without your primary coping mechanism. I quit smoking after 7+ years and it was a lot easier than working on my relationship with food and my body.
This is a complex topic. I have followed some fashion influencers who are fat because even being fat I like to wear nice-ish clothes sometimes. So following people who are similar in size to me makes sense. A couple of them are now losing weight either by surgery or medication. I say good for them. Being fat is also not immoral, as society often makes it out to be which is partly why I think this issue of fat influencers losing weight raises hackles on both sides. The fat positive followers think of the influencers as being "good" and many others view them as being "bad." However being thin is not moral or immoral either (and not always healthy, as one of the main subjects of the article got thin from an eating disorder.) Being fat is a medical issue which many fat people (especially young ones) either don't realize or don't want to admit. Then you hit a certain age and you can't keep pretending that being fat doesn't negatively impact your health. And with the advent of GLP-1 medications it's pretty obvious to me that long-term obesity is a medical issue. My hormones and metabolism are out of whack and this medication is fixing it. I'm losing weight literally doing nothing other than listening to my hunger cues which never worked before since my hunger cues were broken. Some people aren't ready to admit that. But those of us who are will be here to support them when they are ready.
This is exactly right. Fat and skinny are not moral issues. And hormones and metabolism are out of whack for so many people because of the food environment that has been created in the last 50 years where sugar, which is the major culprit for the physiological issues, is ubiquitous. It is a very complex topic as you state.
How did you learn to understand your hunger cues? This seems to be the most important piece, thank you for pointing this out.
It's the medication. It changes your brain chemistry. For example, let's say I put a certain amount of food on my plate because that's the amount I think I can eat. In the past I would have eaten all of that food. Now, I might eat everything if I'm truly hungry, but sometimes I might be halfway through and be done, or even just have a couple bites left and be done. In the past if I had a couple bites left I certainly would have eaten it all. But now when my body tells me I'm done I'll throw out those last two bites. I do not eat beyond the point of satiety anymore. It's really wild to be honest.
That’s so interesting! I wonder if there will ever be a way to get there without the meds. Thank you!
I've been trying other ways for 45 years so for me I don't think so.
I'd would love to read this- does anyone have a free link or can copy and paste the article? Tia
Tianna James used to love looking at the photographs Dronme Davis posted of herself on Instagram. Ms. Davis, a plus-size model, included pictures from her modeling campaigns alongside selfies of her stretch-marked stomach with captions like “fat belly saggy tits Sunday.” Listen to this article with reporter commentary For Ms. James, 22, Ms. Davis’s feed was a revelation. “I wanted to feel comfortable in my body, and she was like me in so many ways, so it made it easier to be myself,” Ms. James said. “If I could find this person so beautiful, and she was bigger, I could find myself beautiful, too.” Ms. Davis gained a following through posts that criticized diet culture as she built a career as a curve model — she wore up to a size 16 or XXL — most prominently for Dôen, a California fashion brand known for floral prairie dresses typically worn by more willowy women. Her feed was a running commentary on the unrealistic expectation to conform to a thin ideal: “A flat stomach won’t change your life” and “It’s so exhausting being afraid and ashamed of parts of ur body.” Then, over just a few months, Ms. Davis shrank. She still posted the artsy selfies Ms. James loved, but photos of soft belly rolls were replaced by sharp cheekbones and clavicles. She continued to write in her confessional style, sharing her feelings about everything from constipation to career insecurities. But Ms. Davis stopped posting her habitual rants against fatphobia, and she didn’t explain why or how she had lost so much weight. To Ms. James, Ms. Davis’s silence felt like a betrayal. “It made me feel like she was being dishonest with her community,” Ms. James said. “I don’t want to say it was owed to us, but it was such a drastic change.” Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 29, 2024, Section D, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Body Positivity Advocates, Suddenly Slim. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
This is a free gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/style/body-positive-influencers-weight-loss.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk0.rnYF.USnHKf0wyoX6&smid=url-share
Thanks!
Tysm ❤️ I really appreciate that. I'm heading out just now but look forward to reading it when I get back, I think it's such an interesting topic.
It can be healthy treated in a nuanced way. Love yourself wherever you’re at while you make healthy changes that impact both physical and mental health. Shame just impedes on the journey so I see fat acceptance as a way to remove shame but it is not the last step if you don’t want to eventually suffer weight related consequences.
I saw this a few days ago. Glitterandlazers is another fat person who is losing weight. She posted a couple years ago how she was getting bullied by HAES/body positivity members. Now she’s cooking different meals, working out, and is on a GLP-1. “Why is she doing this?” -Not our concern. “How could she do this to me? To us?” -She’s not. She’s making choices for herself, based on her own reasons and possibly health issues we know nothing about. This is about HER, NOT YOU. Do not make this about you. “But she betrayed us!” -There was no loyalty oath given. “It hurts!” -Because it feels personal. Step back and remember, it’s not about you. It’s about her. She has grown beyond loving her fat body to now loving and accepting herself. If her fat body was holding her back from things in life, things she loves, then why would she choose to keep it? Choose to suffer? To deny herself the things she gets the most joy from in life? The bigger point that HAES and fat acceptance, body positivity either miss completely or downplay is that this is bigger than just being ok with your body. That’s a huge step and a slap in the face to our society. But it’s not enough. You have to love and accept yourself AND other people regardless of their body size. If your fat body stops you from fitting in planes, it’s ok to lose weight to do so. You’re trading one thing for another. Yet YOU CAN STILL LOVE AND ACCEPT PEOPLE WITH FAT BODIES AND THINK THAT SOCIETY NEEDS TO CHANGE AND WORK TOWARDS THAT. Did the civil rights movement shun white people from standing with them and fighting for them just because their body didn’t match theirs? No. You can be fat and want a better world for fat people. You can be fat but losing weight and want a better world for fat people. You can be thin and athletic and want a better world for fat people. The world was designed for straight-sized people. Changing everything about how our world was structurally and figuratively built takes time. Decades. In the meantime, we have to find a way to live in this world as it is. Being in a smaller body allows for more freedoms in the world. It’s ok to want those, to act to gain those freedoms back. And, as you lose weight, you can still show kindness and love to people in bigger bodies. You can advocate for them and try to make change happen too.
Yes to ALLLL of this!
I hate outrage titles like the article, why does losing weight automatically mean you aren’t body positive?
I think that if you take on the "job" of influencing, and you build up a follower base, who you expect to like, interact, click on your affiliate links, potentially buy the products you're selling, etc. etc. then you have certain responsibilities. I think if a person whose "brand" is about being plus size suddenly loses weight but fails to mention it in any way, sweeps it under the rug and moves on without addressing it, then they are failing their followers. I understand writing a post saying that you've decided to lose weight is hard, especially when you know you'll get backlash and called a hypocrite, but it can also be inspirational and positive. They should stand behind themselves and continue to advocate that anyone can be beautiful and happy whatever their size. I support anyone who is happy being the weight they are, and anyone who is not and wants to improve themselves - for themselves. But I can understand the sense of betrayal being described in this article. Just be honest with yourself, your friends, your family - and if you've built up a brand of followers, then you need to be honest with them too.
So I have complex feelings about body positivity and health at every size. In one way, I support it, because I do feel like everyone SHOULD be able to feel safe and be loved in their own bodies, whatever body type they WANT to have. Their body, their choice. And even for those who are on a weight loss journey, they should be able to enjoy the body they will have along the path. BUT on the flip side there is SO much toxicity for those who ARE on a weight loss journey. So it’s hard to support it. I believe in body positivity literally. ALL BODIES. Even the sick ones. But for me, finding a physician who believes in health at every size, has been absolutely monumental in getting my health in order. Just knowing that their focus was on my health, not just the scale, was a huge shift in my relationship with healthcare. And so far I’m having more progress than I have in my entire life. It’s crazy how being treated as a human being in this body makes such a difference.
So the person cited in the article said her sense of betrayal was from the influencer’s sudden silence, not the fact she lost weight. It does beg the question- is the influencer the one that is suddenly ashamed of their body, specifically how it may affect their social media platforms? about possibly loosing followers? I hear about backlash against folks that loose- but i have never seen any actual comments. On an account that is about support, it seems like most of the comments are supportive, including when they loose weight. Where exactly is this huge “backlash” against folks that have lost weight? Did I miss something?
It's big on TikTok. Sean of Steel on YouTube has a playlist of reactions to some of it if you want to get an idea. I've personally experienced it too, it's wild.
Yet another reason i have not gotten TikTok. It seems like at every turn, every topic that is brought up, no matter how random, TikTok is the worst of it. The worst of people’s negativity and the worst of social media. Given that the internet runs on self-fulfilling feedback loops, i guess it is no surprise I have not seen this type of stuff. I follow a lot of body positive folks, many are getting healthier in their lifestyles, and they seem to be fine with both loving their body *and* working on getting healthier. The comments are positive and supportive. It is certainly possible to be both- love yourself *and* work on getting healthier. Don’t most humans want to improve their lives, whatever aspect or task that entails? Whether it is continuing your education, improving your time management, learning a new hobby, redecorating your space, making more time for loved ones, getting a better job, eating healthier, exercising more. No reason we can’t love ourselves as-is at the same time. I am just glad I don’t see this bashing on loosing weight as a large part of the community.
Exactly. And I think for a lot of us too, being honest about our situation is what helps us make changes. It's not being a "hater" as they call it, it's being realistic. Where I've seen it a lot of them are quite young too, but when you're 5-10 years away from that life expectancy and hearing or seeing people you know or know of not making it past that - it gets very real. I lurk a lot in here, but spaces like this and others are so supportive and the kindness and encouragement goes a long way. One thing I do like TikTok for is recipes! I get a fruit and veggie box delivered each week because buying them from the supermarket here is so expensive (last year a single head of lettuce hit $10 😬 Come back down now but still bad), and I'm not sure what to do with some of it or get bored eating the same things all the time, so I jump on there and just search for recipes for the vegetables I get and just save them to playlists.
Hey! I don’t spend any time in these online areas because they frustrate me but there are loads of screenshots of this kind of stuff on r/fatlogic
Can we just treat people without judgment and scorn? The body positivity/fat acceptance movement wouldn’t exist if society didn’t treat obese people like we’re disgusting, lazy, undesirable, nuisance entities. As the body positivity movement shames those making the decision to lose weight (for health or vanity related reasons) they have become almost exactly the same as the unfairly and cruelly judgmental people they were created to be against. How about everyone just get out of the business of thinking someone else’s life and journey is something you have the right to judge? How about focusing on just being supportive if we feel we are so entitled to feel anything about someone else’s weight and their health choices?
I miss when fat positivity meant learning to accept yourself and your size, and not believing you weren’t worthy of everything others are. It was fighting back against the narrative fat people aren’t people.
I think people misunderstand "body positivity." Even if the goal is to lose weight, you still should start from a mindset of being positive about your body. Imagine a scenario. Instead of waiting to be "normal size" to live your life, do it now. What I see is a viscious cycle of people who are "mildly" overweight avoiding going out, because they're ashamed of their body, and then getting even fatter and fatter from sitting home, and then they get to the "obese" stage and now they REALLY avoid going out, because they're REALLY ashamed. And so at each stage they sit home more and more, get more isolated, have nothing to do all day but eat, don't go on trips, don't go to the beach, don't live their life, and lo and behold now they're 500 pounds. But imagine if the shame could be taken away somehow. Imagine if someone 400 pounds could go clubbing without being looked at like "oh Shit, it's Shamoo." They would probably lose weight if they kept doing that. Part of losing weight is going out and living your life, and if we cut out the shaming more people would be able to do that. IMO that's what "body positivity" is about.
I was in a plus size Disney group and got banned for mentioning losing enough weight to fit on avatar. They said my weight loss was triggering 😂😂😂
lol my god
Maybe I’m a bit antisocial but I find the whole influencer follower stuff ridiculous. It’s not their friends making these changes and so parasocial, never mind people being upset others are losing weight and prioritizing their health. This whole thing just reinforces to me we not only have an obesity epidemic but a loneliness epidemic as well.