I Apologize.

To all those who ever had to listen to me wax on poetically about the benefits of my latest weight loss scheme. 

To everyone who ever had to suffer through me droning on about what foods I was cutting out or what crazy food I was eating obsessively in order to lose weight .

To every family member, friend, co-worker, who had to repeatedly praise the effects of my self-starvation in order to encourage me to get “healthy” by getting thinner. 

To every co-worker that I’ve ever rambled to incessantly and in excruciating detail, about my coming meals for the day; hours before breakfast had even begun digesting. 

To anyone and everyone who has ever had to nod along as I recite my calories for the day, or bemoan eating a piece of chocolate, or try to convince them and myself that an extra hour of cardio will “burn off” something I’ve eaten.

To those who had to hear me, or may have even talked along with me, when I was explaining how so and so could drop X pounds if they just stopped eating X item or started doing X exercise.

To anyone who has ever had to hear me proselytize about my newest diet or “amazing” weight loss or how hard it is to keep my will-power; yet I struggle and succeed through sheer force of self-control.

For every one of those moments that I was a “stage 2” concern troll.

To my body, which suffered through so much to get me to love it: Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins, Calorie Counting websites, Weight Tracking Goal rewards schemes, Frantic Exercise regimes, “lifestyle changes”, energy bars, and combinations of all of the above all in the name of “Health” and a carefully media-reinforced vanity. 

I’m sorry. 

I can not even fully express how sorry I am for having put all of us through the horrors of my dieting throughout my life.  The ups and downs.  The awful cycle of self-loathing alternated with self-righteous dieting fervor.  The absolute BOREDOM I spread with my talk of what I was or wasn’t eating. 

All of those times I thought I was BETTER than someone else who didn’t have the “will-power” to force their bodies into society-acceptable thinness.  Each and every time that I uttered the phrases “Well if I can do it, anyone can”; “It’s better for my health to lose weight”; “If I could just drop X more pounds, I’d be happier/healthier/more fit/more acceptable/able to buy cute clothes”. 

For all those times when I would just NOT SHUT UP about how great I feel to deny my body food and force it to exercise in my vain attempts to approach a cultural ideal of “acceptable size”: I’m so very sorry.

For the sake of all that is holy; please forgive me for the way I have behaved towards you and towards myself.  None of us deserved my greedy manner of forcing my self-hatred into every sphere of my life and interactions with others and I’m sorry. 

I am trying to learn to accept my body and my life the way it is.  To that affect, there are now things for which I WILL NOT apologize; ever again.

I WILL NOT Apologize.

For no longer fawning over the latest diet craze; be it a pill, a surgery or even a “lifestyle change”. 

For trying to accept my body’s natural size and shape; regardless of what the media or fashion or the health industry (read: Pharmaceutical companies) tell me I should feel.

For turning down your offer to “join you” on your newest little diet/exercise plan or “lifestyle change”.

For no longer “justifying” my food choices for anyone.  Food is amoral.  This piece of chocolate and this bag of lettuce are neither one nor the other intrinsically BETTER/GOOD. Besides which, I am fueling my own body.  Concern yourself with yours and leave mine alone.

For rejecting the claim that weight loss is “for your health” and refusing to feel bad or apologize when I tell you that as a way to halt the incessant diet talk.

For having FUN while I exercise.  My body is ALLOWED to enjoy physical activity; with no regard for how many calories it may “burn away”.

For daring to feel that I deserve basic human respect and decent treatment; irregardless of my race, gender, class, beliefs, origin, ability, sexuality, size or shape.

For existing and being happy with who, what and why I am who I am; AS I already am; and not as someone I SHOULD become.

This is my life and I have finally taken back control over what I have control and let go of the belief that I have control over my god-given body’s size/shape.  And there will be NO apologies forthcoming for that.