Although I believe in total body liberation and fat removal, I don’t like to talk about my “I’ve been fat all my life” baggage. It’s become kind of a weird thing, actually. I certainly don’t mind talking about my fatness or the ways this world isn’t made for me or people like me, but I hate going deeper than that. The truth is that for many of us who grew up fat, our lives were filled with one traumatic body-related event after another. Anything that could help keep the human body healthy in the long term (watching the quality and quantity of the food you eat, exercising regularly, drinking water, etc.) becomes a perverted, oppressive system of restriction when you are in a fat kid forced to lose weight. And my experiences match exactly that.
I can’t remember when I started my first diet as a child, but I know I was less than 10 years old. He was an active kid who played both recreational league and school sports and was constantly out biking and rollerblading with my friends. but none of it kept me at what the doctors and my family would have considered a healthy weight or appearance. You can’t diagnose anything more than 24 years after it actually happened, but I’m pretty sure it was mostly the lifestyle and financial changes in my entire family that caused this to happen. Over the years, doctors and therapists have urged me to remember when I started emotional eating because that’s what they always assume is happening. But I have never been an “emotional eater” or a “compulsive eater.” I also don’t have any chronic illnesses, hormonal issues, or problems with my thyroid, which makes it difficult for these people to answer a question that, to me, has a glaringly obvious answer. Why am I fat? Well, I have a fat body. And I’m supposed to live in that fat body. Of course, this is not an answer they’ve ever come up with because it doesn’t fit the narratives and the treatments they’re selling.
when it was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my left knee this year, I knew that one of the first things the orthopedic doctor would mention would be my weight. And he did. Very gently, knowing full well that losing weight might not cure my knee but it might relieve some of the pain and problems I was having. After our appointment, I did some research on my own and learned that every pound you weigh puts three pounds of pressure on your knees and that for people with osteoarthritis of the knees, every pound they lose takes four pounds off. As much as I wanted to say “Fuck this shit” to everything I read, I couldn’t deny the reality that my knee was in terrible pain, I had mobility issues, and I needed to find ways to change that without relying solely on cortisone. injections in my knee.
I knew that in the process of doing this, I would be struggling a lot. Above all, I would have to learn to silence the many thought processes that try to take over when I am thinking about the way I eat and how much I move. And I would have to restrain myself from falling into a cycle of self-flagellation that I had learned from my nearly two decades of yo-yo dieting. I wanted to start rebuilding my relationships with these things, but I felt like I also had to be careful how I did it. I turned to one of my closest friends who participates in strength training competitions and whose healthy, hard-earned relationship with exercise makes him an extremely knowledgeable and compassionate person to talk about on this subject. When I told him that he was thinking of strength training to help combat the degeneration that has happened and will continue to happen in my knee, he encouraged me to do it and connected me with his strength coach to help me get started.
In a couple of weeks at the strength gym, I experienced something really special. Strength sports are not about vanity, perfection or thinness. In fact, they are more exactly the opposite. It’s about progress, about getting stronger and pushing yourself harder, but not at a speed that your body can’t match. If you go too fast or push yourself too far beyond your limits, you risk injury, and injuries have the potential to erase your progress. In the strength gym, no one judges you by your size or doubts your ability; They congratulate you on how much your squats have improved since you started or tell you that you will do it the next time you can’t achieve something.
It’s easy to exercise there because everyone makes you feel comfortable, which definitely alleviates some of the anxiety I had about this process in general, but I’d be lying if I said that exercise was a beautiful and magical experience for me. I keep joking asking everyone when the supposed endorphin rush is supposed to kick in, and I make jokes about how my brain must be broken because all I want to do after working out is cry or sleep. I’ve been consistent because I know I have to, but it really is one of the hardest parts of my day, and I never see anyone talking about how most of the time, this shit isn’t all that fun. That being said, of course, there are some exercises that I prefer to do over others, and the ones that I hate, well, I really do.
regressive pull-ups
As my strength coach, Vinny, always says, “All exercises can go backwards.” But honestly, maybe some just shouldn’t? Like push ups. I used to think that pull-ups were the toughest, hardest-looking exercise a person could do. I’m sure you know what I mean…you’ve seen the movies where a stern-looking character jumps up, grabs a barbell, and begins to pull himself up vigorously. Yes, this is not exactly so, but the idea is that maybe, maybe someday I will do that (probably not). For now these really hurt my hands and make me feel like my heart is about to jump out of my chest.
battle ropes
People seem to love these, and I sort of understand the appeal. You are literally just moving your arms and you can get some satisfaction from slamming the heavy rope into the ground. They have been shown to improve flexibility and endurance. But overall, these bore me to death. They are also not as satisfactory as sled tires.
Barbell Squats
I’m going to keep it real with all of you… I mostly hate you because I still can’t do it very well. I know you probably look at a barbell squat and imagine that it’s the amount of weight that makes it difficult, but I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. Zercher squats, goblet squats, dumbbell squats, I can do all of those, no problem. But barbell squats? No. Barbell squats shift your entire center of gravity because your arms and shoulders have to be pulled back to hold the bar resting on your back. Every time I try to do them I feel like I’m going to fall backwards and break my neck on the bar as I fall.
dead bugs
Did you see the video? Okay, so you can see why they suck.
pushing the sled
Everyone who knows me has heard of the sled. This shit is horrible. Yes, awful. Look, I know it seems like it’s not a big deal. I know it seems like there are more difficult exercises out there, and there definitely are. BUT pushing the sled? I do not know how to explain it. Actually, I do. Ok, so I don’t agree with the general message of George Orwell Farm or anything but remember Boxer? Boxer was slowly working himself to death. That’s what pushing the sled makes me feel. He makes me feel like he could collapse and die at any second. But I guess he’s good for my mobility and stamina or whatever.
