Fat "acceptance" - from the PoV of a fat person

[Prism]

144. Can I give you some honest advice?

And I was where you once were. I was always heavily built, but was athletic in high school and college - more muscle than fat. Once I had a desk job in my 20's, forget it, it was a mess. I think I topped out at 290 at 5'11" at my worst ten years ago. Which, isn't quite morbidly obese, but it's bad enough. I came down to a muscley 190 finally and felt and looked great. (I use past tense, because I just finished a bulk and feel fat as hell. I will do until I trim back down to 180-190).

But I do want to pass along a few things I've learned on my journey.

1. There's no such thing as motivation. There is only discipline. If you wake up and don't feel like doing something, forget it. You'll never get around to do it. Motivation is feeling like doing something. Discipline is doing something even if you really don't want to. If you rely on motivation to save you, you are setting yourself up for failure.

There's a great pair of articles here about it: http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/

2. You keep saying diet and exercise. You say exercise is painful for you. Ok, if that's the case, start with diet. Start somewhere you can control. I think a lot of overweight people decide "I'm going to diet and exercise!" then they bust out chicken and vegetables and try to go jogging. Oh god, no. That sucks. It's absolutely miserable. There's no way on earth you'll stick with it. That's not what changing your life is, making some radical shift your body and mind cannot endure. I just started cutting, and believe me, there's a small bag of doritos in that meal plan. And low carb butter pecan ice cream. If you deny yourself your comforts, you'll fail.

Don't worry about exercise. If you can take evening walks and things, great. But step 1 is calorie counting. If you do no exercise, but still count your calories, you will lose weight. Exercise is important. Weight training and cardio will improve your health and well-being, but if you're not there yet, you're not there yet. Take it one little bit at a time. If you try to change everything at once, it will overwhelm you, and you'll feel like a failure.

3. Find a constructive outlet for depression. A lot of people say, "Fat = lazy" No, fat = depressed most of the time. I can't give overarching advice here. Step One for you might not even be diet and exercise. It might be finding a way to channel your depression so that you're not perpetuating your situation. Diet and exercise will reverse things. But maybe you're at the point where you just need to stop things. So really sit down and try to find ways where, when your weight triggers depression, you can find something to do that makes you happy without exacerbating the problem.

There are definitely times where I'm overstressed, I'm all out of fucks to give, and I'm this close to going, "Hello, Dominoes?!" But then I occupy myself. Cleaning the apartment, running errands, just walking or jogging somewhere. Any activity that carries you away from your impulses.

Anyway, all that said, I wish the best for you. And I'll certainly not judge you. Been there. I remember trying to fly during my "bad times". The tray table doesn't quite come down, and then you feel horrible. But the reward, "Why does this plane seat feel so damn roomy?!" is worth it.

You can get there. Don't let anyone tell you you can't.