My Body Image Journey

Note: This article deals with issues of body image.  I know that this can be a sensitive topic for some, so I wanted to give you a warning in case this is a triggering topic for you.

I have, for the past seven months, been going to the gym with an almost shocking consistency.  My relationship with exercise has been unusual, to say the least.  When I was in high school, I was almost comically underweight, and while I swam several miles most weeks, I was scrawny and could be best be classified as a textbook "Twink" (if you don't know what that means, ask your gay friends).  In college, like most, I gained weight.  In fact, I gained close to 60 pounds by the end run of college, and part of that was not exercising.  Despite desperately wanting exercise to be a part of my life, I didn't really get into it consistently until I hired my (fourth) personal trainer.  Even then, it was honestly more about very small gains, slightly bigger arms, slightly broader shoulders.  We all have different body types, and one of the advantages of mine is that I put on muscle in the "glamorous" areas (back, shoulders, chest, & arms) easier than your average person does.

But what finally got me to actually take exercise seriously was that my friends wanted to go with me.  I am very introverted in real life, but that should never be confused with not being talkative or liking people, and the prospect of getting to see two people I genuinely care about (and having them know I'm coming) every morning...this was the perfect combination of incentive, responsibility, and determination for me to get into the gym each morning.  Slowly, though, I realized that something was happening with doing strength workouts 4-5 times a week...I started to get kind of jacked.

I would argue, and have prodded some friends/family for confirmation, but I believe this is almost certainly the most muscular I have ever been, if not precisely the best shape I've been in (more on that in a second). I now regularly knock out what would've been an out-of-reach bench goal even at my most push-to-the-limit a year ago, and that's true of most of my weights.  I keep track of what I do on each machine, what reps & pounds I am working toward, and something bizarre has happened-I kind of like it.  I once had an aunt who said "I'd exercise if I got the body that I wanted after one session" which of course is true of all of us...but seven months in, I've now hit a point where I generally like certain aspects of my body, and that's because I hit the gym so often.  I'm proud of it...

...but I can't change the way I look at myself in my mind.  Part of that is to do with the actual weight number.  I am overweight, probably medically obese if we use the BMI, but definitely overweight.  On some level, I now understand what my personal trainer many years ago said about the BMI calculator being "bullshit" because, at least in terms of my body-fat percentage, it's definitely gone down even if the scale isn't what I want it to say.  I have been my current weight before (this is not my peak weight, though it's close enough to it that I don't like this about myself), but I look decidedly different than what I looked the last time I weighed this much, even if my mind when I step on a scale doesn't always comprehend that difference.

Our own perception of what is and isn't beautiful for ourselves is highly subjective.  I think, generally, the body positivity movement has been a good idea.  Mental health is important, and while a conversation about your weight is an appropriate conversation to have with your doctor or nutritionist, I like the idea that it's become taboo or inappropriate for people you know (or strangers on the internet) to comment on your physical appearance or make armchair health diagnoses.  But what sometimes gets lost in those conversations is that it's okay to have a viewpoint on yourself, as along as you give yourself some room for grace, and I will be honest-despite the fact that I probably don't fit most people's definition of the term "fat" anymore, I still feel that way in my mind.

Part of that is related to my eating habits, which have not improved in the same way that my exercise habits have, despite every effort.  This relates to three things: a love of food, expense, and living alone.  The first is easy-I think people who "eat to live, rather than live to eat" are fools.  Food is one of the great joys in life, cooking is one of my absolute passions, and I love meal-planning, meal-eating, & everything associated with the concept of getting food on your table (it is frequently my favorite part of the day).  Secondly, eating well is expensive.  Particularly since I am a single-income household (and with inflation) trying to stick to a diet of expensive lean proteins & veggies rather than packaged items that keep for days is hard.  

And third, being single has an impact.  While this isn't true from an expense perspective (you eat the same amount of food, in theory, whether you're alone or together), it does impact how long food will keep.  If a friend of mine makes chicken & broccoli for he & his wife, they'll have maybe that evening's food and leftovers the next day.  But if I make that, I have to live off of it for four days or drastically readjust the recipe (which is hard to do, or feels absurd in some cases).  By Day 4, that broccoli is getting pretty spongy, and so meal prep becomes increasingly a challenge unless I can hyper-cater (or freeze) the menu.

All of this is to say that, while I'm working on eating better, I don't eat clean, and I will honestly never eat clean.  Pasta is my favorite food, and I'll never totally cut it out (damn the consequences).  But in the process, I have never gotten the flat stomach or washboard abs that you see on every Instagay's page, glowing & tanned & serving as an example of the "ideal man."  I have a body with large arms, shoulders, and traps, but with a belly (smaller than it was three years ago, smaller even than it was 8 months ago, but it's there).  I think there's room for this to be attractive, even in the hyper-critical world of dating gay men, but after years of men treating me pretty badly (I have been called "fat" to my face multiple times, including a guy who once said, while breaking up to me "you're too fat to date"), I can't kick the idea that when I show up to a date, I'm not an instant visual disappointment.  I am not someone who claims to have body dysmorphia (which feels a bit too self-diagnosed on the internet for me to be comfortable with, truth-be-told), but while I can see angles and occasionally feel out my looks in the mirror, it genuinely shocks me when someone compliments my appearance from the neck-down, because I'm so used to that being a source of personal shame, of something I'm trying to correct or compensate for.

This is a fight I've gotten in with pretty much every friend I have.  There are a lot of good things about being friends with me (I hope), but I'm confident that one of the worst is that, occasionally, you have to put up with me disparaging my appearance.  It comes from a place of insecurity, surely.  Watching gorgeous men be lusted after on Instagram simply for having visible obliques while mine only show up when I'm exercising, combined with a dating life that has been blunt & has made it so that, even after seven months of working out and people pointing out "you look so good!" I still struggle to believe it.  I'm getting more comfortable trying to live in the grey in all aspects of life, not making rash decisions or forming opinions before I know myself, and this is one of those areas I'm pushing myself to do that in even if it's not something I'm comfortable with (I'm the most Type A person you'll ever meet).  I'm getting better, I'm working out more...but I still don't know what the end game looks for me, and exactly what it'll take for me to consistently admit "I like the way I look."