Height, Weight and Being Me

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you someone else is the greatest accomplishment -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The idea of owning Who I Am has been a bit of a theme the past few days.  Considering I'm still learning all kinds of things about my own self, this is a bit of a challenge, and in talking to other people, I'm not alone in this.

This week I met with a local plastic surgeon to get an idea of what it would take to get all this excess skin removed.  Being a cheapskate at heart, I was hoping to avoid this surgery, but frankly, it is a source of daily aggravation.

My body has paid the price of my dysfunction my entire life.  I have mentally and emotionally moved on from the various events that shaped so much of my attitude toward my body and my life, and darn it, my body deserves the chance to move on, too.  My resilient body has survived every attempt I made to quash it.  I am so grateful for that today.

As the surgeon and I began to chat (while I was fully clothed) he calculated my BMI and according to the standard BMI chart, I am still considered "obese."  Then he said I would have to lose 100 pounds to be at my ideal weight, according to the chart.  I looked at him and asked where he expected that hundred pounds to be lost -I wasn't willing to amputate my limbs. 

The next part required him to take a look at me naked.  This visit was combining every possible trigger for a meltdown I have -being seen naked by someone I don't know, being touched intimately by someone I don't know, tiny exam room and just plain anxiety about the analysis of the situation.

I could have stopped the discussion at that point, but damn it, if it took stripping naked to prove the BMI charts wrong, by all that is HOLY, I would do it.  After he got a good look at me (including pinching all the chubby parts!) EVEN HE conceded that my body fat percentage seems rather lower than my BMI would suggest, yet he insisted we ought to follow the chart. As you may or may not know, BMI does not actually have anything to do with body fat and isn't a good tool for measuring health or fitness and the chart itself concedes that it is not at all accurate when it comes to people who exercise a lot.  BUT it is easy, so people like it.

I confess that after I left I spent a few minutes agonizing over being the large economy size.  I will never fit into standard height-weight charts.  I honestly plotted out a bit of a plan to get down to the weight the chart insists I be.  This included stopping lifting weights because muscle weighs too much.  I had to stomp flat a few self-destructive thoughts I had along the way.

As I came to my senses, I realized that since I had freed myself from the tyranny of the scale, I've been healthier and happier and I just don't WANT to buy into the idea that I ought to fit into some cookie cutter idea of what weight I "ought" to be. And that doctor is an idiot.  I can dead-lift HIM.  He can suck it.

I am just me.  I spent an adulthood in therapy and the last two years of my life learning how to love myself and treat my body with loving care.  I am healthy and strong and mostly stable and more fit than many people I know, and it just keeps getting better.

Chart THAT, jackass.