As I may or may not have mentioned by now, I am a plus sized woman. I am an overweight woman. I am a size fourteen, and it's not something I'm proud of necessarily, but that's my size. No, I'm not obese, but I could be healthier. I have had serious issues in the past because as I grew up I ate in unhealthy ways and I was always really defensive about it. Basically, I ate my feelings from the time I was six, so I don't honestly remember a time where I wasn't overweight. So after living this way for my whole life, I decided in the past couple years to change and become healthy.
Now, I have been successful to some degree. I have lost quite a bit of weight and become healthier overall, but it has been an extremely difficult journey, and it's one I'm still on. I still am trying to become healthier. Now, I don't mean that I dream of being a size six. That's never going to happen. I am 5'10", I have a big build naturally, and a healthy weight for my size is 165 lbs according to my doctor. Now, I am far heavier than that at the moment, but it's a goal I'm working towards. I'm also not saying I am trying to be skinnier, because that is a horrible goal that only leads you to self-hatred. I am trying to be healthier.
If you've never been overweight, I'm trying to find a way to explain to you how hard it is to lose weight. First, you're addicted to certain kinds of foods, your body is literally craving them all the time. It's a physiological reaction that's difficult to overcome in itself. Also, food is often used as an emotional crutch, I know it was for me. So instead of dealing with my emotions as a child, I ate. Now I'm not letting myself have that option, so it's an emotional struggle as well. Then there's the difficulty of knowing that you aren't where you want to be health-wise, and that it will take a long time to get there. And just knowing that it won't just happen immediately is hard, because oftentimes it turns into self-hating, and then you get emotional, and then you want to eat. I'm not saying it's impossible, because I completely am for people trying to become the healthiest they can be. I'm just saying it's incredibly difficult.
So now let me get to my point. If I'm in the gym working out, don't you dare mock me. How dare you. Now I know for some of you, it's difficult to imagine that this even happens, but it does. It happens all the time. I can't even tell you how many times I've been working out in the gym only to be laughed at or overhear comments like, "I hope the machine doesn't break" or "Isn't it a little too late for you to be trying?" This happens. And it's not just me. I was talking to a girl from one of my classes the other day who said, "I had to stop going to the gym. I had to, because working out was supposed to make me feel good, but instead I left in tears almost every time I went because people were so horrible."
I don't know where people get the idea that they have any right to be rude. Especially since it's quite clear that if someone is at the gym, they're taking the steps to make themselves healthy. I remember I quit going to the gym for a month last semester after one guy, who thought he was particularly hilarious, walked over and said to my face, "You got the wrong place, the BRC (my college's cafeteria) is across the street" before walking off and laughing with his friends. His obviously hilarious joke being that I was more interested in food. The worst part is, I was too shocked, horrified, and embarrassed to even say anything back. And this is because other people were laughing along with them.
Eventually I went back, knowing that if I avoided the gym because of idiots like that then I was just as big of an idiot. But it's difficult and hurtful. I never even told anyone about that incident before now because it was that horrifying for me to admit. I asked one of my friends, who is a major gym-goer, why she thought people did this. She just said that "people a lot of the time feel like if you're fat, you've done it to yourself, and you don't deserve sympathy. I know it's not right, but I know a lot of people that think that way, so they say and do stupid things."
I just wanted to draw attention to this issue, because it's not just me. Gym bullying is a thing that happens, and it's probably more prevalent than you would think. So if I'm in the gym, don't you dare mock me. Don't you dare laugh at me. Just keep your thoughts to yourself, and leave me alone.
There's my rant everyone! Ah, I feel better now.
No comments:
Post a Comment