2002-06-30
body image, posted at 11:04 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I've actually been away from the computer for a bit this weekend. It's been nice. The weather has been beautiful, and I've done things like mow the lawn and take Holden for runs. And I've gone alone, in my continuing hopes to run the Baltimore Marathon. Yesterday, I ran six miles in sixty-three minutes, and felt pretty good about it, then realized that a marathon is four times that distance. Four times! Oh my lord.Other highlights of the weekend included cooking myself some tofu pad thai on Friday night, and seeing Y Tu Mama Tambien on Saturday night with Teri and her friend Lisa. Most of my friends are out of town, so it's been a "chill" weekend. The movie was good. I'm still digesting it a bit, which I guess is a very good sign for a movie.
Also, I got my first ever request for an entry in my guestbook, from the lovely RaeAnn. I decided to write on it, since I found her entry interesting. For the record, I'm pretty awful about making this diary an interactive place. I read all the guestbook entries and usually have time eventually to go see the diaries (and a number have become my favorites), but am not good at responding. My apologies. I'll try to do better. Anyhow, here's RaeAnn's question:
Your weightloss prompts me to ask a question; maybe you could do an entry on it. I've noticed that the only men willing to date overweight women are overweight themselves. Men who are thin or men who have become thin usually say, "I prefer a woman who is conscious about her health." So, now that you have crossed the threshhold from "fat" to "thin", I can ask you. Would you date overweight women, now that you have a choice between thin and not-thin? Or do you subscribe to the cliche of "I want a woman who is conscious of her health" when avoiding dates with overweight women? (For the record, it's not as easy for a woman to lose weight as it is a man. A woman can be health conscious and still be overweight because it can take three times as long to lose the weight.) If you don't want to do an entry, you can just sign my guestbook, but I'm really curious. And please be honest!
First of all, there is one thing I need to get off my chest. RaeAnn, you're cool, but I'm hoping you were kidding about it being easier for women than men to lose weight. I'm a health nut, I read almost every health magazine on the market, and I've never heard that before. I'm sure there's no evidence to that effect. What is true is that it's easier for some people to lose weight than others, but that difference is genetically-related, not gender-related. I actually found that part to be a little offensive, because it's definitely not easy for me to lose weight. I've had to work my ass off to go from obese to now, merely, overweight (not thin), and I'm still struggling to get to a normal weight. Last night, I found this formula in Men's Health that asked you to take your weight, divide it by your height in inches, then divide it by your height in inches again, then multiply by 703. It's called your Body-Mass Index. A score between 19 and 24.9 is ideal, scores between 25 and 30 are overweight, and over 30 is obese. At my fattest, I was a 43. I'm now around a 28, which is still overweight. That pissed me off (I did the formula like 5 times to make sure what I was seeing was accurate), but it's true - I still need to lose some weight. (I wonder if the test takes muscle mass into account, though, because I have a feeling it doesn't.) Anyhow, I wish I had a normal metabolism, or the ability to keep weight off without going to the lengths that I do (although, most of the time, I have come to enjoy it), but I don't. I come from a family of overweight people. Gender doesn�t qualify in the equation.
RaeAnn's comment will also get me off on a little bit more of a tangent. I got an e-mail from an old friend a couple of weeks ago that congratulated me on my weight loss, then talked about what pressure there is for women to conform to the pressures of losing weight to get that perfect body structure. She mentioned all the women magazines.
You know what? I hate to hear that. Men go through the same thing. Look at the magazine shelves. How many cut muscular guys do you see on the cover of health magazines? Every one of them. How many good-looking, built guys do you see on the cover of men's fashion magazines like Details? For every Cosmo, there is a GQ. For every Health & Beauty, there is a Men's Fitness or Men's Health or a Total Body Fitness. I'm sorry, but men feel it, too. Look at Hollywood. Has any woman gotten as much grief for weight gain as John Travolta got in recent years? And, articles like this one about Adam Sandler�s weight gain wouldn�t be acceptable to write about a woman. The pendulum has swung back, but too far.
There is still a lot of unequality out there, I know this. But let�s face it. Men and women both have undue pressure from Hollywood and magazines and models to achieve the perfect body. I don�t think separating it by gender does anyone any good. To do so, it basically makes women look like victims � which they�re not. This is the same type of sentiment that has given us a National Institute for Women�s Health and no National Institute for Men�s Health, despite the fact that prostate cancer kills more people than breast cancer and ovary cancer combined.
Don�t misread me. I�m certainly not for the elimination of a National Institute for Women�s Health. But not having a Men�s Health consortium seems like an egregious error to me � and it�s the same sort of thing with women�s body image problems. Men have shitty diseases too. They deserve a stamp and a national campaign. And men struggle with weight, too. Men have to look at Brad Pitt�s abs and feel inadequate, too. It happens. I don�t think this is the former fat person in me talking, but, rather, just as a regular guy.
Okay, phew. Got that off my chest. Back to Rae Ann�s question. First off, I�m not generally attracted to a body type, but more to a personality. If any part of a woman really stuck out, it would be the eyes. There was a woman at the gym the other day who had strikingly gray eyes � almost silver. I was just put aback by them. I probably was staring. I watched for a bit in between my sets (you can get away with that in the gym, because everyone has to stare off into a space somewhere), and was enthralled. Then, I convinced myself she was too old for me (probably 30 or so), and that the eyes were probably just color contacts. But the eyes definitely do me in.
As for guys who use the line, �I prefer women who are health-conscious�� Well, I�m not so sure it�s a clich�. I do prefer women who are health-conscious. But I�m not going to fall into the trap of believing that all thin women are health-conscious, or that all larger women are not.
Let me explain. Last year, while working out at Gold�s Gym in East Lansing at 5am every morning, there was this couple there. There were only about fifteen people in the gym at that time, and we were all �regulars.� I never spoke with anyone, because I am not a morning person, but we all engaged in nods of recognition. Once, I saw one of them away from the gym, and we had an actual conversation. It�s a weird relationship you get into with these people.
Anyhow, there was always a couple there. Both college students, one was obviously a wrestler (had the body type) at one point in his life, and his girlfriend always came in dumpy gray sweatsuit. They had both obviously had just woken up, and came in every morning. I would watch them. They traded off sets. He would do some bench presses, then he would get up, take his weights off, and put her weights on. She would do her bench presses, and she would repeat the process of putting his weights back on for him. They had a whole system down, for every exercise.
And I thought they were hot. Neither of them was attractive in the classical sense � he was short and almost albino-pale; she was shorter and a little stocky. However, not knowing anything about them, I thought their relationship was perfect. They complimented each other. They liked spending time together. They worked out together.
That�s what I want, whenever a relationship does happen for me (and I�m not feeling all that anxious at the moment for one). A woman who will go running with me. A woman who will go to the gym with me. A woman who will help me remain on this path that I�m on. I don�t think that�s a bad thing. An ex-smoker might not want to date a smoker, and I can understand that. An alcoholic may not want to date someone who still drinks a lot. It�s the same thing to me. If that�s wrong, if that�s a clich� for wanting a woman who is health-conscious, so be it.