I’ve been thinking a lot about Health At Every Size lately, and why it’s so crucial to me, especially as someone with a chronic illness that causes my weight to fluctuate a lot.
First of, I think I’ve come to find that my take on HAES is very different than what the anti-HAES people seem to think it is.
My simple take on the movement: Focusing on living a healthy lifestyle without the main goal being weight loss. Meaning eating responsibly, and as healthily as possible while being accountable for what I put in my body. Being as physically active as is safe for me at the time, and pushing my limits when I’m able to. Using exercise and physical activity to help with mental health as well. A good ballet class is far more effective than any therapy session in my book.
It is absolutely not anti weight loss. Over the past year and a half I managed to lose 50 pounds, but now that I’m having heart issues gain, I’m having issues with fluid retention. Before anyone chimes in saying my problems are from clogged arteries from a crappy diet, I’m so sorry to disappoint but my latest cardiac work up showed no blockages, no calcifications, no plaque, no coronary artery disease whatsoever. It’s all arrhythmia problems from autonomic nervous system dysfunction. (and believe me, cardiologists do not sugar coat ANYTHING, as it should be.)
In the past two months I’ve probably gained and lost 15 pounds 3-4 times. Somehow my overall weight trend is down, but daily, even weekly it’s all over the place. I *have* to weigh myself daily to keep track of it. And damn if it doesn’t drive me crazy. And while I know it’s physically impossible to gain 5 pounds of fat overnight, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t mess with me. If I could walk away from the scale forever I would, but I know it’s necessary to keep track of things. It’s enough to make me want to give up some times.
But I can’t. I know I can’t. If I gave up on trying to be as healthy as possible, it would be a death sentence. I’m completely convinced that the reason I’ve managed to tolerate my heart issues as well as I have is because I’ve done my best to be as physically active as I have.
If the *only* measure of success I used to measure my habits was weight loss, I would have given up a long time ago.
You cannot give up on healthy habits just because you’re not losing the weight quickly.You cannot give up because you gain a few pounds. You cannot give up because your body is not acting the way you think it should.
This idea of treating weight loss as the ultimate reward for being healthy is one that has to change. A healthy lifestyle is its own reward, nothing more, nothing less. The benefits of attempting to be as healthy as possible still show in your body whether or not you lose weight.
That’s not to say that you won’t lose weight or that losing weight is bad, but it should absolutely not be the penultimate measure of one’s health.
The tldr version: My version of Health At Every Size simply means attempting to live as healthy a lifestyle of possible without using weight loss as the sole measure of health.
It really is as simple as that.