As a 50+ year old woman who loosely monitors posts in a popular menopausal athletic women’s forum, it is apparent that we twist ourselves into all kinds of knots trying to lose weight whether or not we need to do so for health reasons. We still treat not being completely free of flab or having a barely perceptible tummy bloat as a moral failing, and we silently judge others as much as we do ourselves. Maybe it’s time we took a look at this tendency. Certainly weight loss can be necessary sometimes for improving health. But I notice there are a steady stream of posts from women showing interest in micro-dosing weight loss drugs for what seem to be minor complaints. Which is all fine and good – you get to decide for you. But we can examine this even further – is this obsession with aesthetic weight loss coming from a place of self-love, or self-loathing and fear of negative judgement?
Self-love of course recognizes that we do need some form of strength and cardio exercise. We do need to make sure we get enough fiber, protein and water. But what would happen if we just stopped quantifying and measuring for a time? What if we didn’t count macros, didn’t try to eat “clean”, and let go of food rules**? What would happen if we just took one month out of our lives to eat and/or train freely and rest whenever we needed rest? What doubts and fears would even contemplating this bring up? Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out what would really happen?
Before going further, I should address the fact that I am currently not experiencing food insecurity. There were times of my life when I have. Even in those times I felt bad about myself and unworthy for having excess fat. I think it was precisely those times, especially earlier in life, that taught my body to hang on to excess fat in the first place along with a tendency to diet. Excess fat affects those with less money for food, ironically, because of the way our government subsidizes highly-processed, nutrient-poor yet calorically dense foods and how our bodies naturally react to them. There are also the generational and present-day effects of racism, red-lining and food deserts (the empty landscape kind, not desserts), which if we have not experienced is worthwhile to read more about and try to understand. Not to mention the added stress response that being financially insecure adds to your daily life. There are complex societal problems that have absolutely nothing to do with individual failings. Which is why it is important to try to catch this tendency to silently judge ourselves and others – it needs to first of all be noticed and then let go. Meditation or simply allowing some time for self-reflection can help.
For me, the only time I actually started to look “less fat” ironically was when I just stopped obsessing about it. I got to my lowest weight ever without trying, which was for me at 5’5″ was ~145lbs – which is still technically “overweight”. For reasons I can not fathom, I fell in love with mountain biking, then really long events and training 15 hours per week or more, and I was constantly hungry. I let go of all sense of restrictions around foods. I never once thought “woohoo, I’m gonna just eat ice cream and cookies and chips all day”. I found that when I sat down and really asked myself “OK, if I allow myself to eat anything available to me right now what would I want?” I found that I didn’t want the foods that dieters obsess over anyway. What I REALLY wanted was just what my body needed — real, sustaining nutrient-dense “real” foods. When I under-ate real food — that’s when I would gravitate towards the empty sugar and oily/salty snack foods.
What I also found was that I stopped being tormented by food cravings. If I wanted an ice cream cone, (or, if someone else offered me one), I would just have it and enjoy it. I was not getting trapped in a cycle of resisting and obsessing over the impulse, leading to binging and remorse.
Maybe about 6-7 years after that, menopause came along, hormones disappeared, and I gained 10-15 pounds seemingly overnight without changing anything (still obsessed with ultra-endurance and still doing all the training). But that is such a common experience for menopausal women that I feel I am better off just accepting that the new normal for me is a bit fatter, and slower up the hills, than it was before. I still have no desire to restart that endless weight loss obsession.
If you would say, oh yes, I recognize what you’re talking about – it’s called “intuitive eating”, I think you would be right. Nobody told me to do this – I never read about intuitive eating until much later. But beware — what some authors label as intuitive eating involves an astonishing amount of rules and macro counting. What I’m talking about is ditching all of that. Learning to trust yourself. How many women do that? There is no checklist to follow. No monthly subscription apps, no spreadsheets. No pages and pages of meal plans. No need to sink your hard-earned money into drugs or services. I read that Americans spend over $50 billion on weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, and more than $78 billion in diets, gyms, and other products and services. Jenny Craig and the like can cost ~$1000/month. There are powerful forces and lots of ads dragging us into the disempowering rabbit hole of dieting and obsession with aesthetic weight loss.
So I say, F that. What would happen if you took back all that time, money and mental space? You could use it to “kill it” in your career, be more present with your family and friends or just relax and get some sleep. You deserve to have the time and mental space to be someone who makes a difference in her circle or society at large instead of spending all her days counting macros and obsessing over food to keep 10 pounds at bay.
So please go to your doctor and ask for a blood test that checks for common, medically-accepted health markers for avoiding chronic diseases. If that all looks normal, then maybe it’s time to pursue different goals? Go forth, mature woman, and use your superpowers of hard-earned experiential wisdom. Treat that belly fat as a sign of your freedom. If more women used their excess time, energy and money from not dieting to do the other things they were dreaming of doing — the world would be in a much better place.
**I’m not talking of course about religious/spiritual restrictions
