There are more than two sizes to the story of women and weight
In this story I give a personal perspective on the subject of weightloss
This time of the year in 2011 I was staying long term in my aunt Caitriona’s house in Moycullen with her husband and commuting into Adecco Recruitment Solutions in Abbeygate Street in Galway.
This was the beginning of my career in human resource management even though I was originally from Dublin.
I had followed my now husband to Galway, as back then, I had no sense that my career was mine- my decision making ability here was completely up Schitt’s Creek…
Flash back to the previous summer, and myself and my aunt, also a Dub, were walking the prom in Salthill. The sun was out, but typically to the area, the wind was strong.
We were on the subject of weight loss programmes, and we were talking about Dr Eva Orsmond.
I strongly remember her saying with passion about how she completely disagreed with the programmes the doctor presented to current and potential customers.
During these early conversations we talked about dieting and the various ingredients employed, but I would be waiting in my mind anxiously for the conversation to be over.
I was in my early 20s and because I was staying a lot more in Galway, I was beginning a reckless relationship with the treats aisle in supermarkets, and when I could afford it, take away menus. In the days before Just Eat and Deliveroo were as popular as they are today.
I was no longer engaging with grocery lists and deciding on the choice of restaurant menu options under the watchful eye of my own parents.
Don’t worry. I did enjoy, as a young adult, dates-for-one in Dublin City.
As I gained curiosity for what downtime as an adult looked like, I could be found sipping a pint in Eamonn Doran’s on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon after some shopping with a slice of pizza from next door’s Di Fontaines. This little sit down in my favourite pub made a read-through of that week’s NME magazine all the more thrilling.
Life in my home city did have some yummy foodie moments, and I look back on that time with fond memories.
However, I like to see my flying-of-the-nest eating habits as being similar to those of Kevin Smith.
He is the maker of Mallrats, Clerks and the Jay and Silent Bob films. He also co-presents the film geek podcast with Fatman on Batman with Mark Bernardin.
Referring to his weight gain during filming a film, he would call it his ‘filmaker 15’ .
A pattern that would develop due to his overeating ‘The Bad Stuff.’ But this came to a halt in 2018 when he suffered a heart attack and had to loose 50 pounds.
For every new stressful situation that would come my way in my mid to late twenties, I would reach for the crisps and pints of ice cream.
Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food if you’re asking.
I would randomly begin a new weight loss diet programme, as similarly multiple bloggers writing about their own health have probably told you, never mastering keeping hunger at bay. Never adopting a long term emotional replacement for this sugary and fatty crutch. And no more than a short two months or so I gave up and began my unhealthy lifestyle again.
Or had I really ever started?
This year I think is the year that I feel most comfortably writing about my troubles with the scales. Firstly I have to thank two women from the public eye for that. Unbelievably successful singer songwriter Adele and funny actress Rebel Wilson.
And secondly my early 30’s first-time confident decision to reach long-term for a career I actually believe I will enjoy. Journalism.
Initially when I found out the news from a casual scrolling of Instagram’s search section, and seeing posts of the two women’s new shapes, I was yet again slightly jealous of two women in the spotlight for overcoming their struggles (at least from an outsiders glance of them). I found myself still plateaued at my highest weight to date.
People have publicly been quite anxious at the change in weight that Adele and Rebel Wilson have gone through; that they are succumbing to societal pressures of body conformance.
I remember driving to Tallaght when I was a child with my mother Ann and we were listening to the radio. I can’t remember the radio station but journalist Fiona Looney was contributing on this occasion. My mom spoke to me over the radio and critiqued her for her speaking style as seeming to know more about the human subject she was referring to without a consultation to their voice in the situation.
Regardless of how plain speaking someone is about their own lives on Instagram, some contributors still seem to speak for those in the public eye.
By the way, reader, this article does not condone the anti-women rhetoric found in other media outlets which reduces the ability to like a women based on her size (and not her character, career success and contribution she has made to the planet). I also attempt to not dismiss the lived experience of those with eating disorders.
Nor do I feel like my words display internalised misogyny.
Despite my initial jealousy, I was actually quite delighted for both singer and actress. Who doesn’t want to look killer in say a 70’s high-waisted jean and a colour block hem t-shirt combo?
Don’t some of us fans of 60’s fashion want to walk into their favourite pub (when the world is ‘normal’ again) looking great in a bright straight line mod dress?
My dream day time/night time looks that look great on figures with a healthy BMI.
But mainly, don’t we also want to do everything in order to try and avoid continued or sudden complications of health?
Which is why for the first time since I joined SlimmingWorld in 2017, I have rejoined this year as of 23rd of September with a unique and new sense of enthusiasm.
In 2017 I was doing it to join the bandwagon of friends and family around me, and their enthusiasm for their journeys, in the hope that I could chase the losses as efficiently as they were.
Now I am doing it for me. With my chosen recipies and meal plan. Listening to what my stomach, blood flow-feel and bones are telling me.
SlimmingWorld basically gamifies a low-glycemic approach to eating whilst allowing a few bits of your favourite chocolate and crisps on the side (if that’s what you like to nibble).
Think Weight Watchers minus the stern 1950’s headmistress vibe. I go into my tortoise shell around people like that.
What you read here is a celebration of women who have been able to make themselves even more fabulous then they already are; and have gotten rid of the dangerous fat around their midriff.
With talk of anti-women rhetoric, let’s continue the story of my walk with my aunt all those years ago. Speaking further on Dr Orsmond, she criticized the kind of diet that Dr Orsmond designed as leaving women with a sort of skin tissue tire around their waists because the body couldn’t catch up with the far too rapid a weight loss.
And I do agree. I remember listening back to Orsmond’s contribution on the Brendan O’Connor show on RTÉ Radio One about the COVID-19 weight gain that people experienced when we went in to lock down. Her message was devoid of the case-by-case nuance needed for individual weight loss.
But it was also devoid of compassion. She completely glossed over the notion that some people turn to the comfort of food when they experience a lack of contentment and control in life.
You could say Orsmond is not a role model of mine. In recent years I stumbled on my own one for body image.
Enter Jameela Jamil and her weight-neutrality Instagram sensation iWeigh. You can thank Netflix’s The Good Place for her coming in to my life.
What I like to classify as the second of two schools of thought on weight loss for women (Orsmond’s being the first), iWeigh gives a home to people who are sick and tired of being given out to or being told by well-meaning loved ones and the media in a toxic way that they are too fat.
Anytime I was in a phase of denial of the potential ill health of my body, I would peruse iWeigh for permission to stay the weight I am.
Meanwhile, my forehead would gather more flecks of what I instinctively know to be my sugar-related psoriasis, making me paranoid that the next bloods taken at a future GP appointment would indicate type-2 diabetes.
That’s what I see for me if my weight stays the same or go higher for the rest of my life.
I still adore Jamil and her associated body image Instagram page; I remember and commend it for recommending such things as even after a chronic binge eating session of The Bad Stuff, that you still eat something healthy soon after.
I think what has finally changed for me is the year of education that I have just been on.
I just finished an MA in Journalism. In my recent employment history of being in the medical device industry as production operator, I quit each new factory (mistakingly thinking the next one would be better) unbelievably quickly down to a deep unhappiness of how the industry treats it’s core workers.
Due to the heavy workload in the MA, I wanted to quit this too countless times and what I like to think as too high a concentration of team work for my personality.
I feel like I gave myself my own ‘educational course 15', looking at how my clothes fitted on my body towards the end of semester 3.
A bit like weight loss, I genuinely love people and the spark of life you get from a flipping excellent conversation over coffee. But I like being around them little and often.
And like I have dream outfits, I have dream careers. Journalism I deem most useful to me right now. To my higher purpose as I see it at this stage in my life.
That’s why I didn’t quit the course. And sure wasn’t me that signed up to it with all that I sacrificed to do so?!?
A bit like the MA taught us about journalistic balance, there could be more than two sides to looking at the issues of weight loss.
I don’t think it’s that you decide to follow either the ethos of Dr Orsmond or iWeigh exclusively. I think it’s that you weigh up (L.O.L.) the pros and cons for either argument yourself, and come up with an internal soothing narrative that tells you that you respect yourself.
I accept that there might be rough patches down the line but this time I don’t want to quit my body. I’ve had fully successful weigh-ins this time around, where I haven’t been starving myself all week.
I don’t want to let me or my loved one’s down. Including my aunt who lovingly invited me to live with her in Moycullen those early years of my life in Galway.