Introduce your self!

numberscolors

My name is Evan. I'm 24 and I am on track to be an RN. I'm in school full time, and spend the rest of my time working customer support for an online therapy-referral service. I live with my boyfriend of 3.5 years and our cat, Moomintroll.

I've never been "thin", but several years ago, I gained a lot of weight as a result of severe depression and anxiety that stemmed from unresolved trauma from sexual assault. I coped in the best way I knew how: by completely numbing out with food, prescription drugs, and alcohol.

I don't blame myself or hate myself for gaining weight and resorting to unhealthy methods of pain-relief. I wasn't ready to face the s*** that life had thrown my way and was just trying to survive at the very minimum. Today, after extensive therapy and putting in the emotional/psychological work, I'm happy, confident, and unafraid of the world. My anxiety and depression are in remission! Now, I'm ready to work on the outside.

Since November 2010, I've lost 36 pounds by moving my body and eating healthy, nourishing, delicious food. I currently weight 183.6 lbs and I plan to get down to 120ish (I'm 5'3", so that shouldn't be too extreme). Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't want to lose weight; that it's shallow and I'm just giving into the Patriarchy and all that s***. I can't be the only person that struggles with this!

Anyway, thanks for reading. Tell me about you! Who are you? Why are you here?

-Evan

unsuspectingfish

Hello! I'm Jaq. I'm glad this group is here, considering I got called a man-hater on the boards for expressing feminist leaning opinions (like, when a woman asks for advice from other women, she's not secretly waiting for a man to come tell her what he finds attractive). ANYway, I decided to lose weight so I could feel better and be healthier. People can assume what they want, but this is all for me.

Liopleurodon

Hi I'm Emmy. I struggle with the tension between on the one hand, loathing all the body shaming, hatred and scorn that gets thrown at women wrt body shape, and on the other knowing that it would be a healthy and positive thing for me to shed some weight. I'm not entirely sure why our culture finds it so difficult to combine an understanding that obesity can be bad for you with an understanding that your worth as a human being is not hampered by being overweight. I absolutely loathe a lot of the weightloss messages out there and the diet culture stuff. So this is all jumbled up in my mind at the moment!

electriq

Hey, I'm glad to see this group. I relate to many of the sentiments expressed. Thanks for starting it up and I look forward to further discussion with you all

violet_sphinx

Hello! I'm Kirsten, a 28 year old library assistant living in the UK (originally from Seattle). Today is my first day on MFP and this is my first forum post!

Hi I'm Emmy. I struggle with the tension between on the one hand, loathing all the body shaming, hatred and scorn that gets thrown at women wrt body shape, and on the other knowing that it would be a healthy and positive thing for me to shed some weight. I'm not entirely sure why our culture finds it so difficult to combine an understanding that obesity can be bad for you with an understanding that your worth as a human being is not hampered by being overweight. I absolutely loathe a lot of the weightloss messages out there and the diet culture stuff. So this is all jumbled up in my mind at the moment!

This is precisely where I'm at. I struggled with the issue of WHY I wanted to lose weight for a long time before realising that I couldn't just spontaneously gain the willpower to always eat healthy foods and exercise and that some form of "diet" was needed, but I too hate the diet culture. This site seems like a really positive, non-judgemental, very customisable way of managing and inspiring some weight loss.

The best advice I was given when I told friends and family that I was planning on losing some weight was from my fabulously feminist father, who lost an impressive amount of weight in is 50s and has kept it off into his 60s. He said, "Know thyself. Understand your own body such that when you hit a comfortable set weight...a weight that you can maintain...you give yourself a sense of success." I think that's very good advice. I'm not setting out to look like a mainstream fashion model. I just want to be healthy and more able to do activities I love doing, like dancing. So I plan on setting a manageable goal and being satisfied when I get there.

Great group! I look forward to some interesting discussions!

cherdan

My name is Cherdan, I lost 60 lbs in the last year using MFP, and I am a PROUD feminist! One of my goals this year is to no longer be 'afraid' to declare that, as well as the "scarlet A" (atheist). I feel like since my weight loss I have become even more of a feminist since I am just seeing, at 26, how different men, and society as a whole, view and treat you based on your weight, now that I am on the "other" side of the fence. (I was obese most of my life.. from about age 13-25.)
I think feminists of all sizes need to embrace 'fativism' just as much as we need to embrace feminism for us women of color, because they all relate, and we all have the same mission/goals.

nevadjinn

Hey, I'm Michelle. I HATE the not so subtle sexism that pervades the diet culture. There seems to be an underlying belief that self deprivation = sexy in women which, as a devout hedonist, really pisses me off. The extremes to which dieting is taken are the modern equivalents of foot binding and whale bone corsets: they keep women caught in a contest of self-inflicted torture that prevents them from disrupting the status quo. I went from 174 pounds to 129 pounds, but I've gained back nine of those pounds in a series of binges which I've justified with feminism. However, I now believe that my body is no more a martyr to the fat positive movement than it is to the patriarchy. I love the androgynous look that skinny girls have. I want everyone, not just a progressive minority, to be turned on by me. I want the confidence of conforming to my own aesthetic ideal. It's my body. It's gonna look the way I want it to look. I wish that, instead of telling women to "accept" whatever body they're in, instead of telling them that attempts at change are futile, feminist thinkers (I'm thinking mostly of Joy Nash here) would instead tell them to strive for whatever body they want, and trust them to define and achieve their goals for themselves. I've dealt with a lot of gender dysphoria. I feel that if I were living as a boy, I could lead my fitness-obsessed life unhindered by feminist ideology. But I realize that that conundrum springs ultimately from sexism (not to say that there aren't genuine trans people, I'm just not one of them): the belief that men may craft their bodies into forms that delight them, personally, while women must stagnate in a body that they aren't happy with because to have a body that pleases sexists is to make one's body a concession to the patriarchy is the most misogynistic BS I can imagine. There is also the issue that, as a woman, I want to be skinny. It takes more to conform to the cultural aesthetic ideal for women than it does for men. But if I were a guy, I would be determined to be skinny because my taste, not the patriarchy-infused media, dictates that skinny guys look better. I've got to treat the extra work it takes to be skinny as a girl in the same way I would treat the extra work it takes to be skinny as a guy with a slow metabolism. My gender is no more an excuse to put off beautifying myself than period cramps are an excuse to miss my teachers' lectures. I want to have the same attitude about my body that the gay community has. In the gay community, there are multiple subcultures devoted to the admiration of chubby guys. At pride, the guys with the potbellies are running around in their speedos and look just as shameless as the nearly naked guys with six packs. But there are a lot of nearly naked guys with six packs, and whenever I wander past the 24 Hour Fitness in the heart of my gayborhood, there are loads of guys sweating rivers on the treadmills. They aren't sweating because they'll be shamed by society or unable to get any if they don't. They're sweating because they're willing to work hard to look beautiful to themselves. That is what I'm willing to give up my weekly splurge day and binges for. That is the freedom I will claim, patriarchy and feminist dogma be damned.

oyyster

Hey, name's Oyyster. Nice to meet u I was drawn to this group because I too struggle with unifying my feminist ideals with dieting. It's a load of **** that women HAVE to be skinny in order to be beautiful. That they're told to hate themselves if they're not. Our bodies are sacred, so **** the patriarchy that hates us, that thinks we're less than human, that tells us our worth is only measured by how well we serve our male masters. I am not a sexual object, I am a person. So why would I want to make myself into a sex object? Why do I want to lose weight? The number on the scale doesn't represent wellness. So why does it matter? I don't know. I guess it's a by product of being in shape. And thats ultimately what I want, to be in shape. I want to be able to run five miles at the drop of a hat, just because I can. I want to play soccer again. I never feel so alive as when I'm on the pitch - it's a matter of such soaring joy, of such bubbling delight that I can't believe that I got so out of shape. I LIKE working out. I like swimming and jogging. I like having huge muscles. It cracks my **** to surprise people with my meaty biceps or thighs. (When I'm in shape, that is.) I hate this physical weakness in me. I like girls with either some muscle or some curve. I don't mind myself being chubby. Personally I think its cute. But I feel like I'm wasting my talents. So I don't worry that my reasons are un-feminist. But I see how my reasons are a response to the male-dominated world around me (my need to be muscular to prove a point). And I don't like that. But that's the world we live in. I want to show girls that we can be strong too. That we don't have to be helpless. I want to be ripped as ****. Because I'm pissed off at a world that says weakness in women is the only beauty. But that's enough about that.

Other things about me, I just started MFP last week, today was my 10th diary log in and I'm feeling pretty good about this. I'm 192 pounds but I'm shooting for about 120. I like video games and political rap. I'm full-blooded Pinay. And that's about it, any questions just ask. I'm hoping to find more friends on here so don't be shy!

Peace
-O