Where's My F***ing Cake?! Part 3: Danger, Will Robinson!

So, after a fairly “easy” start, I’ve finally stumbled quite spectacularly into the danger zone. That’s the point in every weight loss attempt when I start to feel restless and coveting all that awesome food that I’ve been very virtuous about ignoring up until now. Ironically, it usually coincides with the first signs that the deprivation is actually working. My clothes feel looser, I have more energy, people start to notice that I look “different” in some vague way etc. All these should be good things, which they are, but it’s the people noticing that I struggle with the most. I’ve always had trouble accepting the inevitable “you look so good now” comments that come along with weight loss. I am not disagreeing that fat is ugly, and anyone overweight is going to look better when there’s less of them, but I do struggle with the feeling that no matter what else happens, you’re always going to be more “acceptable” if you’re thin than if you’re fat. Maybe that’s unfair of me, in fact I’m sure it is, but it’s hard to break that mindset. And yeah, I get that it is entirely my issue and people are actually being kind when they comment, but unfortunately a lifetime of dieting has kind of warped my mind when it comes to these things. Anyway, this time around the very mild physical changes also coincided with a sudden influx of online articles about the evils of fat people. Okay, they weren’t really about that, they were mostly about some woman who wrote a blog on the Marie Claire website about how she hates fat people and they’re all disgusting blah blah blah. This apparently created a shit storm amongst Marie Claire readers who were appalled and offended by the article, which in turn spawned a whole lot of other articles about the reaction to the original one. Now the issue for me was not the original article because I don’t read Marie Claire and I wouldn’t have known it existed if it wasn’t for the resulting brouhaha. It wasn’t even about the articles written about the readers reactions or the writer’s inevitable apology. The unfortunate thing for me is my compulsion to read the comments on the follow-up articles which, not surprisingly, mostly consisted of people saying they agree with the original writer and embellishing on the idea that fat people should be shot at birth. Or, you know, words to that affect. Yes, I know I shouldn’t take it personally, and it certainly doesn’t matter what complete strangers on the internet think, but it didn’t help when I was already feeling bad about eating more than I should anyway. And it’s always depressing to be reminded that so many people suck, even when it has nothing at all to do with me. Of course the inevitable irony of feeling bad about my weight is that it only makes me want to eat more. Which I did. And not in that good, 'I’m enjoying my meal so I just don’t care' kind of way. So yeah, all of that is a long-winded way of saying that I’ve been kind of crap at the dieting lately. Although it’s also an odd sort of relief because it was all a bit too easy for a while there, so at least this feels more normal. Oh, and I did get to have some awesome cake before the guilt set in, so that was a bonus.