It helps to have a goal life and not a goal weight. All these magic numbers, what do they mean to you? How do they make you feel in your story about them? Go for that feeling directly. The number itself means nothing. You can achieve it and still not be at all happy or confident, especially if you treated yourself badly to get there. If you want to feel fit, healthy, happy, confident, powerful, peaceful, free, whatever it may be, engage in the thoughts and behaviors that actually produce that. It's not a diet. It's not a number or a size.
When I first started strength training and building significant muscle, I found myself twenty pounds heavier than my old "goal" weight and fitting in the same jeans. I was heaver but no bigger. I've also experienced the opposite, starving myself to some magical weight and still not feeling good or fitting in the clothes I had imagined wearing. In the last few years, any push to keep my scale weight as low as possible only depletes me and leaves me obsessed and disappointed. Plus it's temporary and generally unsustainable. If I focus on how I want to feel, I may weigh more on the scale but I don't flippin' care because I'm happy in my skin, happy with my life, and happy with the way I eat. That happiness and confidence is what we're all going for, but fixating on a scale number doesn't produce it.
I treat myself with kindness and respect and eat to feel my best. What I weigh as a result of that is my body's business. The more I stay out of it, the better.
That was directed to @melissa.stokes 😁
I wanted to come back to this post, because the title completely resonates with me. A while back I had dinner with a friend and her friend who was visiting from out of town. Said visiting-friend had struggled with an eating disorder and alcoholism and currently works in a a residential eating disorder center. It was a wonderful discussion for me and very enlightening, but @skwigg she said exactly the same thing you did - "what we weigh is not our business." I struggled so hard with her words and still, to some degree (obviously, if you read my journal) struggle with it. Your explanation helps though and I so appreciate your thoughts on this.
"If you can't do it wrong, there's nothing to worry about" That is so true and such a freeing concept!
Your comment about the badass old person is literally a woman I know. She’s 80, lives on a farm on the side of a mountain and keeps pet goats. She’s tough and robust and leads the most active and independent life. Pretty much every one in the town knows and loves her. A pretty cool woman to be when you grow up. I love how eating huge meals now just means I’ll feel like eating a small meal later. Or if I have a small meal, I’ll want a big meal or lots of snacks later.
My primary fitness objective is to be a badass old person. I want to be strong and energetic. I want to be able to carry a goat up a hill when I'm eighty. I don't want to be a frail little thing who sneezes and breaks ribs. The mindset of always trying to be dainty and hungry, always trying to please and impress everyone just pisses me off now. No. I won't.
I have been eating a truly hilarious amount of food lately. It seems like I'm always eating. Meals have several parts, and then I put snacks in my pockets just in case I might want one. Then, an amazing thing happens. If I'm hungry I'll eat the snacks, and if I'm not I'll find them still in my coat or purse at the end of the day, or a week later. It's not that clock-watching "plan" thing where I'm going to have this food at this time, or have this much if I do that, and then think about it all day until my brain melts. If you can't do it wrong, there's nothing to worry about. The idea that you can "blow it" somehow or make some irreversible eating mistake comes from lame-ass diet thinking. Without that false construct, there's just eating. There's just, hungry now? Eat. Not hungry now? Meh, maybe later. There is none of the moral drama. Diet thinking was so seared into my soul, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to turn it off or get rid of it, but it's possible. Losing the weight focus does wonders for the ability to listen to your body and really tune in to what makes you feel happy and healthy.