I have to admit a very silly guilty pleasure: Every so often I find myself skimming through the blogs on the Weightwatchers website. They've got two main bloggers, one called "Shani Weighs In" and the other "Life After Goal." As you might imagine from the names, the former is updated by a woman who is going through the process of losing weight, and the latter is updated by a woman who's been there, done that, and trying to keep it that way. Life After Goal Woman doesn't intrigue me as much. She talks a lot about yoga poses she likes, what it was like to run yet another 5K, getting through the stress of life events (poor thing got engaged recently). You know, normal stuff that any normal person, overweight or no, might experience, just spun in the context of having once been a Big Girl. It's Shani's blog that is my guilty vice. Even though we clearly have plenty in common, she's the WW blogger I love to hate.
She annoys me for all the wrong reasons. It annoys me that she only has X lbs to lose to get to her "ideal weight" and that she was only X lbs to start with, when I have well over that to get to the point where the FDA would recognize me as "healthy." I hate her for complaining about going to the gym and then discovering it really wasn't so bad after all. I mean, duh. Talk about stale ideas. Probably stupidest of all, I hate her for the fact that losing weight is her job, and she still finds ways to screw up. The way I figure, if it was my job to lose weight, I'd be friggin' Mary Kate Olsen by now.
The thing is, I should feel sorry for Shani. Would I really feel professionally fulfilled if all I did all day was write about how bad I felt after eating a donut? No. Would I enjoy pondering each bite I took, wondering which ones would make good blog fodder, or even worse, agonizing over a deadline if (gasp!) nothing particularly blogworthy happened that day? Probably not. Would I want a picture of myself emblazoned across a very public record of my every ounce gained or lost, so that any number of site visitors in New York City could recognize me on the street? Absolutely hell no.
And there are definitely times when I'm not 100% on my game at work, so who's to say that if I were in Shani's shoes I'd do any better?
I suppose we can now safely add "I could lose weight if it was my job" to the Status Quoman's Stupid Excuses for Bad Body Image list.
A response to #FemFuture
11 years ago
2 comments:
That's funny, 'cause I like Shani! I like that ww is showcasing a woman who has already been through the wringer once and re-gained it all, and is taking awhile to lose. I like that she goes down .2 or stays the same or gains quite often, and is still making gradual progress. I derive a lot of comfort from reading her blog.
That's 'cause you're not as bitchy as I am.
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