MyFitnessEnemy

 I re-downloaded the MyFitnessPal app today. Again. For the nth time.

It has all my weight records since I first started worrying about my weight. Back in mid-2018.

On June 27, 2018, I weighed 148 pounds.

I now weigh 226 pounds.

That means I've gained 78 pounds in two and a half years. Or, put another way, a pound every 11.7 days.

My records show I struggled, even in 2018. A day later, I recorded a loss of 2.4 lbs. A day later, back to 148 lbs. Three days after that, back to 145.6 lbs. And then up to 147 lbs. a month later, and then nothing until just over two years later --- October 8, 2020.

I weighed 210 lbs. on Oct. 8 of this year.

So I've gained 16 lbs. in just over two months. A pound every 4.4 days.

This scares me.

This scares me even more than the thought of being a bad feminist by trying to lose weight. This scares me more than the idea of being able to walk into Lululemon and instantly find something in my size. Lululemon! The store I visited once, with a similarly sized friend, and realized in synchronous with her that there was nothing there for us.

Who will I be, within this weight? Who will I be, without this gravity?

Sometimes I like being heavy. When my Great Pyrenees, Mally, pulls at her leash, I can plant myself like a tree and not budge. I took a paper plate of peppermint meringues to a friend last week, and the wind nearly whipped them away.

I do not want to be a meringue.

There is a Tumblr post that has been sticking to my ribs lately:

https://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/182093822823/systlin-gregor-mortis-pochowek

I like that reframing of eating. I know that much. I don't know how my philosophy of wanting to be stronger and healthier fits into that. My priorities are so different from anything my ancestors would have dreamt was possible. A woman owning her own farm? A woman who has chosen not to marry or have children? A woman who dreams of hiking across the country? 

I sense that if I continue down this path too far, of trying to discern my ancestors' dreams for me, I will only be spinning my wheels in a bog of uncertainty. The best thing I can do, I think, is to live the strongest life I can simply for its own sake --- for my own sake.