Being present in a changing body
CW: Talk of weight and weight loss. If this is a trigger for you, please skip this one and take care of yourself. <3
Hello, friends! Today I have something a little different than my usual fare. I want to talk to you about my body. There’s a whole slew of issues that intersect in this conversation — medicine, fat-phobia, disability, neurodivergence, autonomy, self-love, etc. But where I experience all of those things, and where I can share about all of those things is in and through my own, soft, warm flesh. So that’s where I start, and that’s where I’ll end.
The purpose of your body is relationship, not perfection.
~Amanda Martinez Beck
I recently made a chart for my doctor, in preparation for an appointment to talk about going on a GLP-1. I wanted to show her how much my weight has fluctuated over my whole life, especially recently. The chart shows arcs like mountains. I lose weight, and then I gain it. I gain and then I lose. The gaining is inevitable, but the losing is, too. For a variety of reasons (which my doctor and I discussed) I am rarely in stasis.
The most recent upward arc, in 2018-2021, brought me up to 305 lbs, and rearranged the composition of my body. I’d never had a apron belly (when your belly sags down) before, even at high weights, and I had never had much weight around my middle before, being a pear shape. It was disorienting to have my body change like that, and I experienced a lot of dysmorphia, not recognizing myself in the mirror and in photos.
The weight gain also came at a time when I had foot, knee, and hip injuries, there was a world-wide pandemic, I was living alone in a third floor apartment with SO many stairs, and I was realizing that I was autistic and probably also ADHD. So needless to say, there was a lot going on, a lot to reexamine about my life, and a lot of hours on my own to do it.
In November of 2024, I had hip surgery and was able to exercise again, and started losing weight. I lost 48 lbs on my own, but I was concerned about what would happen when my body went back into gain mode. My question for my doctor was, could a GLP-1 help me — not just to lose weight, because I know how to do that on my own — but to keep my body from switching into gain mode a few months or years later. She said yes, and for the past few weeks I have been on a low dose of Zepbound, a compound of a GLP-1 and GIP.
A pause here to request that you not give me any advice, either about the meds or about losing weight. I have done all the research myself, and am under the care of medical professionals, and there are a lot of factors I am not sharing here. Likewise, this is my story, and it is not meant as advice for anyone else. Thank you. <3
It’s a strange time to be on, as the expression goes, a “weight loss journey.” A strange time culturally, when everyone from doctors, to nutritionists, to trainers, to activists is having to readjust to the new landscape, and when the meager decades-long progress of body-positivity and acceptance is challenged by a new era of before and after photos.
And it is a strange time for me, personally, at 51 years old. Always before when I’ve lost weight, it was with a sense of having a goal, an arrival. I would lose X amount, get to X weight, and then my life would be good, my real life would begin. But now, I’ve lived half of my life already. And I’m living it now. It makes less sense to think of a thinner me as the goal, as if everything I’m doing now doesn’t count. All the dreaming, all the writing and creating, all the time spent with my partner, my friends, my family, all the astonishing walks in New England’s fall foliage, feeding the birds, petting cats and dogs, playing with children. If this doesn’t count, what does?
The body is the soul’s chance to live in this world. ~ Meggan Watterson
And so I am learning to reconcile a body in flux with the spiritual practice of being in the present. I am learning to accept the paradox of recognizing my face in the mirror again, while deeply acknowledging and honoring the rounder version of me, as well as the thinner version I’ve been at different times in my life. I am learning about neurodivergence and honoring my own coping mechanisms that kept me alive at the time, and learning, also, to give myself what I need, even if that looks different than for other people.
Yesterday I posted this picture on Instagram of me with my boyfriend’s mom and sister, and afterwards noticed that it highlighted my belly. And I looked at those curves, and, to my surprise, thought, oh, how cute! Look at that little belly. She’s me, and I’m her. This body now, as much as my body ten years ago or ten years from now, is me. This is my great opportunity to be here, with loved ones, to be physically present, to be embodied, to be whole.
I’m so grateful.
Yours in love and hope,
Jessica