That thing I can't get over

When I think about how men I knew in South Korea, or men I dated, wouldn't even glance at me now because of my weight gain in the US, when I think about how I would be stopped in the street and told to loose weight if I was still there, when I think of all the ways society through every sensationalized picture and article derides me for my weight...

There aren't many times anymore that cutting seems like a viable option. I'm pretty much totally against willful self-injury this far out. But, when I think of all those things, I want to take a sharp knife and cut into myself, cut down too the muscle on my arms and legs, stomach, face and back. I want cut until the ugly is cut out of me, because surely being covered in scars is far better than being fat.

*deep sigh*

I've lost weight several times, (hiking often, watching what I eat, doing weights, and running regularly, often for two hours a day, for over a year) down into the 160s, which is still roughly 15 pounds above the max weight I should be at my height and 20 to 30 above what they'd like me to be. So, please explain to me what the fucking point is? I loose weight, work my ass off, forgo relationships just to work out because it requires SO MUCH TIME, embarrass myself at the gym six days a week, by being surrounded by people smaller than me, who look at me with amusement or disgust, only to STILL BE A FAILURE. I mean, really, that's the reality, society says, if you're not a "normal weight" than you're a failure. If you didn't get there than you're actively choosing to be ugly/unhealthy/unattractive/undesirable/worthy of punishment and derision. Don't worry, I got that message loud and fucking clear. Maybe I should have been working out  3 hours a day. Maybe I should have quit my job and just worked out. Maybe I should quit school and quit eating, because I certainly can't work run and do weights two hours a day, eat 1200 calories, and then try to make A's or work (I tried, I would get dizzy and brainless and weak about half way through the day, trembling, tripping, sometimes unable to stand I felt so weak, and I stank). At that point my brain is only capable of the simple math required to count and recount and fucking recount all the calories I've eaten, always rounding up so I don't "underestimate" the calories in something.

I would love to be acceptable in the eyes of others. That's really what it boils down to; the thing I'm incapable of achieving, the thing I can't get over.

I would like to go to a nutritionist for someone to help me make a plan and keep me accountable, and advocate to help me see extreme healthiness as a reward rather than a punishment, but when I think about it I have panic attacks imagining how she/he will tell me I'm killing myself and poke me rudely and and treat me with disgust (this, has, in fact, happened before, so I'm not just imagining some impossible scenario).

Mostly, self-injury doesn't seem like an option, but when I think of those things, it feels like the only one.

The Weight of the World on Us

You know, they say that loosing weight and regaining it is worse for you than simply maintaining a high weight. Funny, then, that the entire world indites you for your weight. I feel...an unending kind of guilt and worthlessness for never being able to reach weight. A kind of constant defamation of my character. I stopped cutting, I changed my entire mindset so that I am free from crippling depression and anxiety, I lived in a foreign country, I completed college, yet I have so little self control that I cannot stop eating enough to loose weight.

In England they call it "The War on Fat," but everyone knows what they mean is "The War on Fat People."

People post on web pages everything from "I don't like to hang around overweight people, it's just so unhealthy, you know. It's gross that they let themselves get like that," (and just "overweight"? I think, what is their definition of overweight, anything higher than a BMI of 25? Do they check people before they'll hang out with them, or are they so convinced of their discerning eye that they can tell .1% more fat on a female body?) to "It's truly disgusting, we should let them die, kill all the fatties and make the world a better place." Whether people want to believe it, whether it's ethical or moral or not, this is the way society thinks, it's how they've been trained. The war on fat across the world hasn't decreased the number of overweight and obese, but it has SEVERELY MARGINALIZED them. Anyone who is bigger, particularly and emphatically women who are larger, can attest to this. It's dehumanizing.

Tell me, when 90% of the population is overweight or obese (we're already pushing 70%), will you still claim it's merely a matter of self-control?

When I was in South Korea I exercised nearly every day. I hiked each week, and ran more than 5 miles in addition to weight training. I worked out about 2 hours 5 to 6 days a week (I say about 2 because some times I went over, sometimes it was only 1:50). I ate healthy Korean dishes and limited my intake of any sweet drink or treat and walked virtually everywhere I went. My lowest weight was 169 lbs. Then, in Europe, where I was despairing and decided to have fun, and ate everything I could get my hands on from beer and ice cream to sandwiches to the local delicacies, I dropped weight. How did I drop weight?

In addition, my lowest weight, and my fittest self, able to run five miles and do two dozen push-ups, endless crunches and squats, I still weighed 163lbs. Which, if I do have big bones, is 8 pounds higher than the highest I should weigh, and still puts me in the category of "overweight and obese" that is the "plague" on today's society. And, if I don't have big bones, is 13 pounds more than the highest weight I ought to weigh. When I was on Crew at Murray State my lowest weight was 169 lbs. ON CREW. How young was I? 18, 19, 20, how much was I working out? 12+ hours a week. Plus, I had no car, so I was also walking. If, at 19, I was not able to reach a "healthy" weight, despite being an NCAA athlete, what hope do I have?

And yet, I will always be indited for my weight. Everyone who sees me will assume my character is visibly and, literally, fatally flawed.

What bothers me more is to see people who are of a "normal" weight eating the things that I should be refusing myself. How come they get to go to the ice cream shop? How come they get to eat cake? How come they get to drink sweet tea? How come they get to wear flattering clothes? Their bodies do not betray them, their bodies to not stigmatize them, but mine does.

I once knew a girl who ate no sugar, just honey. She was fatter than I was. And yet the idea wasn't entirely flawed.

I went off all sugar for lent and lost 7 lbs. I have decided to do this again, but to include exercising.
My present weight is 193 on a good day, but generally 195. Even for me it is not a weight I am comfortable with.

I also go into this despairing, not because I do not think I can be healthy, not because I do not think I have value, but because I do not believe whether I'm "healthy" or not will change how people perceive me. I will always be "overweight" and that is how strangers and health care professionals will see me first; as a disease caused by character failure, as a social problem, and maybe, if I'm lucky, as a person.