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Home » How to lose weight safely » Heavy issues: ‘I’d think there was something wrong with anyone who found me attractive’ – The Guardian

I am 45, 165kg and lonely. I am struggling to lose weight despite the adverse impact on my health. I desperately want to have the confidence to meet someone, but loathe myself so much, I would think there was something deeply wrong with anyone who found me attractive.

I have never developed a sexual or fantasy life, largely due to my weight, but intermittently go on dating apps which help only briefly. I sometimes end up having explicit conversations with men I have no intention of meeting or pursuing in any meaningful way. This often feels overwhelming but has been the case for so long (nearly 20 years) that any route out feels impossible. I otherwise have a good life, a great job and lovely friends, but this feeling of loneliness pervades and keeps me stuck. Id love to think things can change but then remember my limits each day, keeping me in this place. Any thoughtful ideas would be much appreciated.

I go to a gym populated by a lot of very type A people, the type who prop briefing papers on the elliptical so they can do two things at once to fill the void. The gym managers are the same and every holiday they put up a sign for a Maintain your weight! challenge.

Valentines Day, Christmas, Easter: weigh yourself on the gyms double-decimal scale before the holiday and if you come back weighing the same amount you win a prize. Extra points if you weigh less.

Its ghoulishly emblematic of the moralising we do around food and weight, as though weighing more is so capital-B Bad that theres no question of it being justified by sharing cake with your family or chocolates with your partner. Its a bizarre dissonance: so many of lifes joys are structured around food, and we are so angry when we look like we might have enjoyed it.

Nobody is more brutalised by this than people whose bodies read like signs of indulgence.

What breaks my heart most about your letter is that you seem to believe this conflation between weight and moral worth. You seem to really think that youll deserve love only when you weigh a particular number.

I could say the thing thats obvious, which is that you do not deserve the loathing you have dealt yourself, and you can ask the friends youre rightly proud of if you dont believe me.

But I want you to hear something slightly less obvious: beware of stories that begin with Ill deserve love when Often theyre just dressed up stories about why well never get it. The when gets more and more specific and harder to satisfy until it serves as a perpetual justification for the sentence of unlovability weve already passed on ourselves. This is true for all sorts of things: people who think theyll deserve love once they make money become restlessly unsatisfied with hundreds of thousands of dollars; people who think worth hinges on dressing well become endlessly critical of the clothes they already own.

But its especially, acutely true when it comes to bodies. Every pound lost can be a reminder of the ones still left; every hour in the gym is a reminder that we could do another if we really tried. Whatever weight you are, however your body looks, heres the problem: if you think you deserve love only because you weigh a particular number, and weighing that particular number didnt come easy to you, then its likely to feel like being loved doesnt come naturally to you either.

Keep losing the weight if you want to and if it makes you feel good. But separate this from the mission of finding love, and keep your eyes on the fact that your goal weight is whatever weight youre at when youre living the life you love.

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Do you have a conflict, crossroads or dilemma you need help with? Eleanor Gordon-Smith will help you think through lifes questions and puzzles, big and small. Questions can be anonymous.

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Heavy issues: 'I'd think there was something wrong with anyone who found me attractive' - The Guardian

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Home » How to lose weight safely » Heavy issues: ‘I’d think there was something wrong with anyone who found me attractive’ – The Guardian