Efficient Body

I am trying to lose weight.

I gained about 30kg since both of my pregnancies. In my second pregnancy, rapid weight gain gave me lots of issues. I was mobile, for sure, but so big that it was hard to be active for long. Once I gave birth, the weight did not drop off like it did the first time round.

Sixteen months later, and my body is still clinging on.

Why, body? Why do you need this extra fat? Are you worried you may starve if it slips off?

I joked to my husband that my body is such that if we were in a famine, and everybody became bags of bones, I would probably put on weight.

My body clings to fat in a most efficient manner. If I go into a calorie deficit, I can lose weight consistently for 3 weeks. After that, my body adjusts to this and I plateau or even start going up in weight!

My research tells me that some bodies are more efficient than others, built to last through seasons of no food, built to carry boulders on low energy. I know this to be true. I ate so little for a month, and yet piled on the weights at the gym, leg pressing up to 150kgs, muscles growing stronger, bigger, more defined – and I could be satiated on so little.

But I want to shed these heavy 20kgs. They feel uncomfortable on me. They make my face look unrecognisable, and my legs feel bulky, and I feel like I am dragging my body around. I want to feel free of it, to run fast across a field like before and not worry too much about uncomfortable jiggles and things falling out of place.

I don’t want to lose weight for looks or because I feel insecure. I want to do it for comfort.

Yet when I mention this, the immediate response is wide eyed surprise, and exclamations that I don’t ‘need’ to lose anything and not to ‘buy into’ our appearance-obsessed culture.

I get it.

But since when does wanting to change how your body looks and feels equate to a bad thing?

Why rush to tell someone they don’t need to do something, when they really want to?

Why assume that one wants to change the shape of their body purely due to insecurity or appearance-obsession?

Is it unhealthy to want to lose weight?

If it is unhealthy for some, why make it so everybody feels weird about trying to lose weight, one way or another? Do we apologise for this desire, and assure the ‘Body-Positive’ community that we aren’t mentally ill, and aren’t harming their agenda, but just want to change something for us?

Every Few Weeks or So

A strange stretch of days

Occurs every few weeks or so

When my body

Doesn’t feel like it belongs to me

It has a wilful mind of its own.

My stomach has a hissy fit,

And demands more chocolate.

When I don’t oblige,

She distends anyway,

Growing twice her usual size,

and sending lightning bolts of pain up my back.

‘Stop it,’ I hiss furiously,

‘We have company.’

She growls in return, then moans

As she crimps herself like an acrobat.

I grimace through the pain.

My joints begin to add to her clamour

Growing stiff

And my muscles bow beneath that pressure.

Am I coming down with the flu?

‘Go to bed,’ my body yowls,

Writhing, cramping, bending, aching.

‘Go

To

Bed.’

I look in the mirror

And my heart sinks.

‘oh,’ I think, ‘I am one

Fat

Piece of work’

Bloated stomach,

Painful chest.

I blubber like a puffed up seal.

But I’ve been working out for three weeks…

Then

It hits me.

Oh.

OH.

I see what’s going on here.

And I recognise this for what it is,

My body just doing her life-y thing.

I have my herbal tea

I cry the hormones into a puddle around my feet

And get on with it,

Like every

other

Female out there.

Soon my body will go back to its rightful state.

My stomach will pull itself together

Smile sheepishly at me

And comply.

My mind will reset itself,

My muscles will yearn for exercise.

My energy will soar through the roof

And all the angst of the days prior,

Will feel illogical, and unfounded.

The body is a wonderful piece of work.