Did being gay make me fat?
tearose4
Posts: 37 Member
My reasons to seek out other gays to be friends with on my weight loss journey is because part of the reason I have become this unhealthy weight is because I am gay. I have just turned 43 years old and was not fully out until I was 39. I lived my youth in a fundamentalist household, repressive environment. I have been taught homophobia all of my life - and I do mean phobia in the sense that it is so often truly driven by fear.
As I advanced into adolescence and young adulthood, this fear and judgement created a cognitive dissonance that was sometimes muffled by food.
When I started coming out in my late teens, I almost immediately encountered a man who assumed he could "cure" homosexuality by proving to me what "real man" could do. . . after which I ate to make myself less attractive to men.
Even now, I find myself reaching for food when my feelings are hurt. People making rude comments about my sexual orientation can still hurt me.
Did being gay make me fat? Probably not. But living an open, out, empowered life is certainly helping make it easier to take off some of the extra weight and set myself on the roaed to better health.
ETA: I Guess I ended this post too soon. What I really want to hear is whether other people have had similar experiences and how they were resolved.
As I advanced into adolescence and young adulthood, this fear and judgement created a cognitive dissonance that was sometimes muffled by food.
When I started coming out in my late teens, I almost immediately encountered a man who assumed he could "cure" homosexuality by proving to me what "real man" could do. . . after which I ate to make myself less attractive to men.
Even now, I find myself reaching for food when my feelings are hurt. People making rude comments about my sexual orientation can still hurt me.
Did being gay make me fat? Probably not. But living an open, out, empowered life is certainly helping make it easier to take off some of the extra weight and set myself on the roaed to better health.
ETA: I Guess I ended this post too soon. What I really want to hear is whether other people have had similar experiences and how they were resolved.
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Good for you for making a change!0
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Definitely facing head-on whatever challenges or fears you may have will help you with anxiety and overeating.
This site has been really helpful to me in that way. It's cathartic just to talk about.
Good luck. You're on your way!0 -
Over-eating made me fat... no whether or not I overate because I was unhappy about not being able to be open an honest about my sexuality... who knows! :ohwell:
I do know that I lost a lot of weight when I fist fell in love ... but then again... I've been up and down like a hot-air balloon in the past 20 years that it's hard to tell.
I think being unhappy can lead to comfort eating which can lead to overeating... so if you're unhappy because you had to hide your sexuality then that is certainly something you can attribute to your overeating, but I don't think it's what made you fat... if was just one of the contributory factors :indifferent:0 -
Cortisol, the stress hormone, has been proven to help us grow lots and lots of belly fat. Whenever I am happy in a relationship, I drop weight at a much higher rate. Being gay didn't make me fat but being marginalized in society as a *kitten* sure didn't help my cortisol levels.
The more I have learned to live in authenticity, the more healthy and fit I have become.
Check out my before pics on my provile from 352 lbs. This is what a *kitten* in pain in the world looks like.
Hugs0 -
I seem to put on weight when I'm happy... Meh!
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