Why Exercise Doesn’t Suck, or How I Learned to (Sometimes) Like Myself

It’s taken me a long time to get comfortable with my body, and almost as long to get comfortable writing about the fact that I am. 

Actually, I’m lying. I’m still not comfortable writing this. And I’m only comfortable with my body sometimes.

On Shrinking

Short version of a long story: I grew up overweight and dealt with all the stuff that meant — i.e., gay prom date; unfortunate goth phase.

After so many weight loss attempts I can’t count them — ranging from visiting a pediatric nutritionist to joining Weight Watchers to simply not eating (which did work, until I couldn’t do it anymore) — I’d pretty much given up.

Then, when I was 22, something happened. I was in a new relationship with a partner who was honest enough to tell me when he found other women more attractive than he did me — which I appreciated, but which got tiresome when almost every other woman fit that description. I got sufficiently pissed off at myself and at the whole situation: I was young and fat. I was never going to have had the beauty that everyone starts to fear losing as they progress through their 20s. 

So I made up my mind. I decided that I’d lose weight or die trying. And, as a result, I lost a bunch of weight.

I wish I could say a more body-positive thing about that decision and that process, but it honestly came out of a place of anger and self-hatred and hurting, and I’m not sure I could have done it if I didn’t feel that way.

Fortunately, what started out as an exercise in self-punishment has morphed, over the last five years, into something that is at least close to a very healthy lifestyle. I eat well and exercise because it feels good, and while I fuck stuff up all the time — I overeat, I like wine *a lot*, I don’t do enough cardio, I’m still really dependent on the scale and let myself celebrate with food if I drop lower than normal — I feel like my efforts have evolved to be (largely) holistic, wholesome, and self-nurturing actions.

Body/Image

The process of transforming from a fat girl to one who at least (usually?) passes for thin, or “normal” sized, has been the subject of a lot of writing on my end that may or may not end up here — that probably depends on whether or not I ever decide to blog with more than a glass or two of wine in me. The radical shift in how I was precieved, and the opportunities that opened themselves up to me as a result, were shocking. It was like I’d been dropped into a different life. I lived as two entirely different people. Men whom I’d met when I was fat — and whom I was interested in, to no avail — introduced themselves to me as if they’d never met me before (and in the true sense of the word, they probably hadn’t).

Then, they started to pursue me. 

The whole thing was crazy, and it made me do a lot of crazy things. I still have a lot of thinking and writing to do to figure out how this shift in my body interacts with my introversion, my flirtatiousness, my ill-advised (but predictable) slip into a pretty slutty* phase almost immediately upon arrival.

But this essay isn’t about that. This essay is about the surprising thing I’ve discovered, having now maintained a steady weight for more than three years. 

It’s not as simple as fat or thin.

My body image is still all fucked up. 

There are still days I look in the mirror and want to just cry and go back to bed, days I want to hide the soft parts of me that move without my control. Days when I feel like the most unattractive person I know. Days when I’m angry at how much effort I put into this to never be able to look like a thin girl who’s always been thin — angry that my body will always sag and look strange in the clothes I’d wanted forever like bikinis and short shorts. My thighs will always rub together — because they’re slung with excess skin. And although I work out six days a week to fill out that emptiness with muscle, any fat on my body pools into those loose spots and looks extra soft and flabby. Because of the excess skin, in fact, it sometimes feels like the more fat I lose, the more I’m disappearing into this baggy body — that I somehow look worse the harder I try. 

But there are other days when I look in the mirror and I see someone strong, flexible, feminine, sexy — sometimes even small, although I still don’t want that to be something I want. I run my hands over the convex, apparent muscles in my thighs and calves; I let my fingers trace the dip at my clavical I used to wish, in vain, to see. Although my belly will never be flat, when I lie on my side I can see the curve of my hip bone pulling my skin taut; when I stretch, I can see the expanse of my ribs, how they’re separate from each other but together form a cage. My true waist is small in comparison to my hips, and — this one I’ve actually started believing most days — I have a nice ass.

I think. Maybe.

That’s what I mean. It’s confusing. It’s very hard to take ownership of any good feeling I have about my body because I grew up with the understanding that no part of my body was good — even that the very presence of my body was offensive to other people. Post-weight loss, I never know how I look to others, and my own perception of myself oscillates back and forth almost daily. All of that negativity is still there, even though I’ve had people tell me I’m gorgeous — and I don’t mean catcalling, I mean friends and lovers, people I’ve sat down with who were suprised to learn I was ever overweight. Even though I’ve looked in the mirror and actually seen beauty in myself more times than I’d ever imagined I would. Even though I’ve (mostly) gotten over being surprised at the smallness of my clothes when I launder them, at the (usual) lack of double-chin in photographs taken of me.

I’d just always thought — as so many of us do — that the weight loss would fix everything. But now that I’ve sat with my body for a while, the novelty of my “new” self has worn off a bit, and I’ve gone on living my life — smaller, but still imperfect. Because the obvious before/after juxtaposition is gone, and because I’m past the rush of all the people in my life telling me how great I look, it’s easy to feel like this new body is still not good enough: I’m still nervous about sleeping with new people and feel like I need to give them a disclaimer about the strageness of body (though, truly, all bodies are strange). I still consider the cosmetic surgeries I came very close to undergoing in college (before making what I think was a good, but expensive, decision to duck out at the last minute). There are still days when I feel just as fat I was when I started.

Movement Makes it Better

Amidst all this confusion, there is one thing I’ve learned for certain: moving your body will make it feel better.

I’m confident that this holds true across size, shape, and ability. Sitting all day is one of the very worst things we can do for ourselves. Our bodies don’t want to be still.

When I started working out, it felt like torture. I would walk endlessly up the stairmaster hating every moment of it, but hating the reflection in the mirror more than I wanted to stop.

Now, I get antsy and cranky on days I don’t have time to get active. I crave the feeling of sore muscles, love how it feels to lie on a foam roller and let tight bundles of fiber loosen. I’ve moved on from the gym and allowed myself to explore different types of dance, pilates, and barre fitness classes. Even running feels good — sometimes. 

Also, movement is one of the best self-esteem boosts there is. Even if it’s not cute when you deadlift a 110-pound barbell (which it is most certainly not when I do), it’s an incredible thing to watch your body doing in the mirror — to see your muscles working, to see your strength building right there in that stretch of time. However rarely I see my body and really like it, it’s usually while I’m moving that it happens. 

I recently found a new way to move: I tried out Hip Expressions in St. Petersburg, a dance studio offering belly dance, Polynesian dance, burlesque, and other exotic styles. 

I was skeptical and nervous when I walked in — but soon I met my teacher, Omaris, who extended her hand softly and told me she was “pleased to meeting” me before starting class without making even a second’s further fuss.

Then, I started shaking my booty — with intention. Shimmying isn’t the same as just shaking! Omaris led us skillfully through hip drops, one-hip-circles, knee shimmies and other classic belly dance moves, explaining everything in really understandable, visual language. Some of ’em, I’m pretty okay at (see above: I’ve got a booty). Others are super non-intuitive for me. But either way, I felt completely comfortable really looking at and feeling my body — in yoga pants, a hip scarf, and a bra. Everyone was accepting and open and just there to learn, dance, and express themselves.

When I got to take a burlesque class, I was really sold — bodily expression in tune with appetite, sexuality, a consciousness of projected image and the art of teasing? I wish they had more than one class a week.

My only prior dance background is ballet, and these styles of dance — these sensual, direct styles of dance, which ask the dancer to loosen, to provoke (while still maintaining control and design) — are almost the exact opposite of ballet (which I love, but which is, of course, full of tight buns [hair! I mean hair!] and exacting positions).

Plus, the studio is really a haven for feminine strength, sexuality, and diversity — I share space with women of every size, shape and age, and seeing how beautiful they are makes me feel more beautiful.

I’m still figuring out my body — still figuring out maintenance, whether or not I’ll ever lose the last fifteen, whether or not it would even make me much happier. But movement — and dance in particular — has been the best thing that weight loss allowed me to discover. It’s enabled me to use my body as a conduit to experience — usually without resentment. It’s part of what makes me feel strong and capable, why I can walk down the street at night with less fear. I feel alert and alive, and — sometimes — pretty.

If you don’t have one yet, please find a way to move — not just for weight loss, and matter your size right now. So many of us fall into the “I will when I’m ________” trap — “I will when I’m thinner,” “I will when I’m better-paid,” “I will when I find a partner,” “I will when (insert your thing here).”

You have everything you need — you live in it. Move it.

**A word I have no issues with — and which I play with adopting as an identity marker — but which I here use to denote that I was behaving in a not-always-positive way that hurt myself and others around me.