My War With Fat

Fat. It's the stuff that makes butter and bacon taste so damned good. It's a four letter word in a thin-obsessed society. It's dead weight that makes you 3 seconds slower per pound per mile when you're running a marathon. It's defined as a group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and largely insoluble in water.It's a suitcase full of emotions that most women drag around with them every day of their lives, whether or not they are actually fat at all.

I am at war with Fat.


I don't want to be. I want to be completely content to be a healthy, fit, vigorous individual who just so happens to carry a few extra pounds here and there. I don't want to look at women who are less fit than I am but far skinnier and feel envy. But I do. I don't want to have only half a Thyroid gland that decides on a daily basis whether or not it wants to do the work it's supposed to be doing to keep my body in a healthy range.

I don't often talk about Fat on this blog. I don't often talk about weight. I try very hard to keep my focus on health and not on numbers on a scale. But I have to admit that lately I am losing the battle of self-contentment in my own head. And I know why. My doctor is adjusting my thyroid medication again. This always means that I gain weight. I gain weight even though I'm working out exactly as much as I was a month ago. Even though I'm not eating any differently. Even though nothing at all has changed other than that damn little pill I have to take.

And really, it's only a few pounds so far. The guys reading this are probably rolling their eyes. I can hear you thinking "Hell, I gain fifteen pounds every winter and just take it off when I start up my spring training. Big deal." Well, I got news for you fellas. It don't work that way for 44 year old women. My husband eats one less piece of pizza a week and he loses fifteen pounds. To take off the fifteen pounds I gained the last time my medication went wonky on me it took me a year of killing myself with Crossfit and eating strict Paleo. For me, it's less about the few pounds that I've gained (heck I can still wear my jeans) but more about feeling out of control.

It's even worse when you coach and teach fitness for a living. This compounds the fear from just "I'll have a muffin top in my tight jeans" to "People will come to my class and wonder why they'd take fitness advice from me". It just seems so ridiculous that a healthy fit woman can have nightmares about a few pounds of fat. I won't go into the whole sordid history of being the fat kid in grade school, eating disorders in high school, blah blah blah. I bet many of you have the same story. But I know that whole history of interactions with Fat and the notion of Fat that we get from our society, they all contribute to what we feel about ourselves.

I just need to bust myself out of this Fat Funk (wish it was a Phat Funk, that would be better). What do you do to keep yourself focused on health, fitness, vitality, and all of the things that matter more than a dress size?