Hey friend,
As I am learning, the fight against fatphobia and diet culture is many things, but one of the most critical pieces is realizing that 'losing weight' or 'getting thinner' (or really any body-shaping intent) is not worth settling for as a driver for getting movement into your life.
The way our bodies gain or lose weight are like the tides, coming in and out due to complex intersections of context, circumstance, genetics, and life experience.
But--and this is key--it's not about morality.
Your worth as a person is simply not related to the size of your body. Period.
And since there's nothing separating good people from bad based on their body shape, spending your life (and your savings) on trying to change it into a particular version that matches more closely the kind of body everyone sees on TV is quite simply … not worth it.
Instead, you could spend your energy on:
climbing mountains
seeking out new physical sensations (of strength, pleasure, relaxation, etc)
foraging for or cooking tasty food
building furniture
racing bikes, or pigeons
whatever the HECK you want
See I believe that everyone has their own particular 'raison to move', and that it takes patience and sensitivity to figure it out what it is, for you.
And as you do (and it is a process of uncovering), alll the pieces fit: you find joy and motivation in simply doing the thing, you find connection and meaning with other people who connect with that same physical practice, and your health (also an individual, special blend for each person) magically improves.
Hell, maybe even your body changes shape, but at this point you don't care. You care much more about how you can work with your body to move in your special way than how you can simply alter how it looks.
And ... you'll likely still have days you feel shitty about your body (we all do ), about how you look, how you feel, how capable you perceive yourself to be...
But overshadowing alllll of that, overwhelming you with gratitude about how magical your body is, will be those lovely movement experiences that scratch YOUR particular itch to get moving.
Now here's the rub: you won't ever realize that special intersection of experience, movement, and emotion until you set down the tired (and baseless, and unscientific, and costly) code that says we all need to look like a magazine cover.
Cuz we all need something much, much more important than that; we need our own, personal reason to move.
So…what moves you?
PS: If you're curious about how you could actually work on uncovering your own movement motivation outside of the diet culture paradigm, do me a favor and let me know by replying to this email, k? I'm thinking about running a 5-ish week (online) program specifically focused on this topic in the fall, and would love to know if you'd like to be part of it.