Tiny Tummy Dispatch Month 6: The Easier Way Out

Photo credit: Flickr | gigiibrahim

I said before that anyone who thinks weight loss surgery is the “easy way out” has no idea what they are talking about. There is nothing easy about weight loss after surgery - you still have to go through all the same motions of watching your diet, exercising, drinking water, etc., to be healthy. Truth is, however, while not easy, it is easier than losing weight without surgery. At least that has been the case for me.

And so the fuck what? 

I don’t know where along the way we got it stuck in our heads that we had to struggle for the battle to be worthwhile. Is it because fat people “dared” to get fat that they should now pay penance when daring to get healthy? I call bullshit.

Say I want to hike the Pacific Coast Trail. (Bear with me, I just watched Wild and that shit is intriguing to me…) I need to get to California as a starting point. Now, I could get to California from Michigan over the course of many, many months on foot - or I can hop on a plane and be there tonight.

There is still an element of risk in said journey (as every nervous flier - myself included - can attest to), but the risk is worth it because the plane ride would certainly be easier and it would get me where I needed to be much quicker. I would argue, in fact, that the risk is probably only one millionth of what trekking from Detroit to California for months across unknown territory would be. And most of you wouldn’t shame me for utilizing this particular technology - the easy way out, if you will - because it is an accepted norm.

Of course, the trek on foot to California would be monumental and epic - a story for the ages. It would also take fucking forever and use up all the energy I had saved for my hike up the coast. In fact, let’s be perfectly honest, there’s a real good chance I’d wither up and die before I ever made it to California.

The journey to California is not the journey I choose to be epic and monumental. It is not the “story” I am really interested in expending all my energy to create. It is also not the story that I choose to define me - it is the story that will launch the story that will define me.

My precious snowflakes, I pray you understand that metaphor but just in case it is 5:00 a.m. when you are reading this and you have not yet had your first cup of coffee… the epic battle to lose weight and get healthy is not the journey where I choose to expend all my valiant energy. I will use every tool at my disposal to make it quicker, easier and more effective because there are much greater journeys on the horizon to be had.

And because I deserve it.

Even if there was no other epic anything on the other side of losing weight, I DESERVE the “easier way out.” Getting fat wasn’t a bucket-full of fucking fun - staying fat certainly was not either. It was near-40 years of trauma, shame, self-loathing and imbalance fucking with my psyche and self-worth - not to mention the physical toll on my health. I paid my dues and did my time -  surviving “in spite” of being fat. Martyrdom no longer served me well - it wasn’t going to cure diabetes… or sleep apnea… or high blood pressure… or a broken little girl that was done being defined by a body - and a story - that had been created long, long ago before she had any control over either.

You need no one’s permission to “do you,” but if you want it - consider it given. (And y’all know I’m talking to myself just as much as you here, right?)

You have all the permission in the world to use any safe and known technology at your disposal to make whatever battle that lies at your feet easier. Period. Make the struggle less… pamper yourself… give yourself grace… go to extraordinary lengths to be as kind and as accommodating to you as you would be to a stranger.

And, for fuck’s sake, don’t let martyrdom be your defining moment. There is no glory in going to the grave having made your life harder than it had to be. Live the shit out of this life, my precious snowflakes... by any means necessary.