Weight. Hmph. I don't like this topic very much, but I cannot escape it. It's a damn fixation in our society.
Nearly everyone I know is obsessed with it. At least four people at work are currently going to Weight Watchers, which means they sit around all day and talk about food. What foods they can eat, what foods take too many points away from their day. It always happens when I'm having a snack, too, which makes me feel weird and exposed, like some sort of carnival freak. Even though most of my snacks are fruit, or low fat yogurt, or a small handful of peanuts, or the like- healthy things. Another one of my friends is now on the wait list (what an unintentional pun that is) for bariatric surgery. It's completely inescapable.
Weight has dogged me my whole life. I come from a large people. No matter what I eat or don't eat, how much I do or do not exercise, I've never been able to get to a number that makes people back the fuck off. I've been heavy my whole life. And to tell you the truth, I generally don't care, except that people always harp on it. They don't generally point and laugh (although it has been known to happen from time to time), but they do unintentionally offend me sometimes while trying to be good natured. I eat mostly healthy foods, but I am not fanatical. I love candy so I eat it when I want it, not as much as I want to, as it should be. I swim three days a week. I stand up in my cubicle for at least 6 hours a day instead of sitting on my butt all the time. I am five years smoke free this month! I am generally taking steps to be a healthy person- and yet, people who don't know these things assume I'm a lazy over eater.
I spent all of my adolescence and quite a long time in my adulthood being convinced of that myself. I had the lowest self-esteem imaginable. People would tell me I was pretty and I actually thought they were lying to me for some reason. I have finally gotten to a point in my life where that is behind me, but I still find myself being self-conscious in the most mundane situations- at the ice cream parlor, in a restaurant, eating lunch at work- because I know that other people are making snap judgments. They can't believe it's possible to be healthy AND heavy.
So, yeah, not my favorite topic. I know that I chose to interpret it this way- but do you blame me?