oh, the contradictory nature of life...
I remember when I first told my family I was going vegetarian. My uncle Ray, who I hadn´t known since I was a child had just come back into the picture and happened to be there. He was a military man, but also a traveler, and fancies himself to this day a bit of a Charles Bukowski type. I can remember having a conversation with him one day when I was about six years old about the existence of God. I later overheard him tell my mother that I was a very "precocious" child. He then disappeared into the world and stories were told about how he was homeless or had at least been homeless at one time. My grandmother died without knowing where he was, much to the trauma of her other children. She asked for him, apparently, but he wasn´t to be found. About six years ago, he phoned my mother and asked if he could stay for a while. He had been diagnosed with cancer, had had an operation to remove his voice box, thus he spoke with a machine. I don´t know what you call them, but he sounds like a robot to me. He was on his way to Florida to die and wanted to spend a little time with his family in Louisiana. That was six years ago, and he is still in Shreveport.
But this isn´t about my uncle, is it? Anyway, on that day when I told my family I was going vegetarian my uncle and I had a fight. One of the reasons I cited was because it was healthier and that I just might lose some weight. That was acceptable to him, that I go on a diet. When on being goaded a bit more, I began divulging a bit more information about my reasoning, he said I was being bourgeois, and speaking from a place of white priveledge and it quickly escalated into a huge family argument. That is okay, I can deal with that part of it, but his acceptance of a lifestyle because I would lose weight is an idea that still resonates with me a little bit now, due to the changes in my life that have since happened.
After that, I quickly went vegan, and have never looked back and recently have begun incorporating large amounts of raw foods into my diet. The general idea that people have about raw foods is that it is to lose weight as well, and this idea is in fact proported by a number of so called experts in the online raw food world.
I also love yoga. Yoga is the reason I was able to come off medication for depression and to begin to learn how to enjoy life. It has opened my heart in many ways for which I am forever grateful.
This lifestyle that I am currently experimenting with, the combination of raw foods and yoga seems to be confusing to a number of people in my life. The just assume I want to lose weight. I´m trying to reach an optimal level of health, so that clearly equals being thin. But for me it doesn´t.
Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that I also believe in fat acceptance and HAES (Health at Every Size). If I am completely honest with myself, I don´t really WANT to lose weight. I´ve invested so much, so so so much in accepting my body as it IS now, at this moment that the idea of losing enough weight to pass as "normal" kind of scares me. Maybe that will change, maybe it won´t. Part of my very essence is that I am fat. I have been marginalized, discrimiated against and abused because of my body. I internalized that hatred for so many years that when I realized that it didn´t have to be that way, that it wasn´t me that needed to change to fit into the little mold society says I have to fit into, that maybe society needed to change to fit me, it was like a bomb was dropped. I then read Kate Harding´s "The Fantasy of Being Thin" and it was another little piece of the puzzle filled in for me.
I still struggle with this, and I still have bad days but all in all, I am pretty happy with the direction that my life is going now.
This has been a bit rambly and all over the place, but I wanted to put my thoughts down now so that I can maybe organize them a bit more later. Life is clearly a work in progress always.
But this isn´t about my uncle, is it? Anyway, on that day when I told my family I was going vegetarian my uncle and I had a fight. One of the reasons I cited was because it was healthier and that I just might lose some weight. That was acceptable to him, that I go on a diet. When on being goaded a bit more, I began divulging a bit more information about my reasoning, he said I was being bourgeois, and speaking from a place of white priveledge and it quickly escalated into a huge family argument. That is okay, I can deal with that part of it, but his acceptance of a lifestyle because I would lose weight is an idea that still resonates with me a little bit now, due to the changes in my life that have since happened.
After that, I quickly went vegan, and have never looked back and recently have begun incorporating large amounts of raw foods into my diet. The general idea that people have about raw foods is that it is to lose weight as well, and this idea is in fact proported by a number of so called experts in the online raw food world.
I also love yoga. Yoga is the reason I was able to come off medication for depression and to begin to learn how to enjoy life. It has opened my heart in many ways for which I am forever grateful.
This lifestyle that I am currently experimenting with, the combination of raw foods and yoga seems to be confusing to a number of people in my life. The just assume I want to lose weight. I´m trying to reach an optimal level of health, so that clearly equals being thin. But for me it doesn´t.
Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that I also believe in fat acceptance and HAES (Health at Every Size). If I am completely honest with myself, I don´t really WANT to lose weight. I´ve invested so much, so so so much in accepting my body as it IS now, at this moment that the idea of losing enough weight to pass as "normal" kind of scares me. Maybe that will change, maybe it won´t. Part of my very essence is that I am fat. I have been marginalized, discrimiated against and abused because of my body. I internalized that hatred for so many years that when I realized that it didn´t have to be that way, that it wasn´t me that needed to change to fit into the little mold society says I have to fit into, that maybe society needed to change to fit me, it was like a bomb was dropped. I then read Kate Harding´s "The Fantasy of Being Thin" and it was another little piece of the puzzle filled in for me.
I still struggle with this, and I still have bad days but all in all, I am pretty happy with the direction that my life is going now.
This has been a bit rambly and all over the place, but I wanted to put my thoughts down now so that I can maybe organize them a bit more later. Life is clearly a work in progress always.