Wow! Ashley what an article. I am much older than you but I have always struggled with my weight. There have been times where I’ve actually gotten skinny (like after my divorce when I lived on coffee & not much else). Over the years, I’ve gone up & down, hating my body along the way. My doctor actually called me to tell me about Ozempic before I had ever heard about it because he knew how hard I struggled. When I questioned him about the risk of thyroid cancer when I already have hypothyroidism, he said Thyroid cancer was one of the easiest to cure!!! I’m still not over that one. And despite that, I tried it. I lost about 8 pounds before I was dealing with GERD and feeling like I couldn’t swallow most of the time. Later found out that’s a side effect. Went off of it in 2 months. It’s very hard to see everyone on tv super skinny all of a sudden, looking terrific for the time being. But like you I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop a few years from now. Just goes against nature to me. So I’m not happy how I look. Hate how my clothes look on me. And at 73, I would just like to learn how to love my body & who I am. Still working on it.
As someone who has been having all of these feelings, thank you for putting them into words. I’m at a time in my life where it feels normal to gain weight, but with weight loss drugs being pushed so heavily (on top of so many brands discontinuing their extended sizings), it’s hard not to be having these thoughts. Just appreciate someone being able to put all these complicated things in one place.
100% feel the same way and agree. I'm a costume designer and it's my job to make sure my actors feel comfortable and confident, no matter what their body looks like. And I am wondering why I can't do the same for myself? I even went through a period of time in my late teens where I was sick and in and out of the hospital for 6 months, couldn't eat fat, and was wasting away down to skin and bone before I had the surgery that saved my life. I promised myself then to never take food for granted because I knew what a life without it was like and it was hell. I need to remember that lesson.
Thanks for this, Ashley. My most fucked-up thought as a widow was something along the lines of, "well maybe I'll be so grief-stricken that I'll lose weight." But when you see your partner's body disappear to cancer, you understand the difference between weight and health.
I honestly don't talk much about how traumatizing it was watching someone with cancer lose so much weight so quickly, but it absolutely has had an impact on my relationship to thinness. I know that losing weight bc of illness and bc of dieting are different, but still.
(Also, we don't talk enough about the fucked drive by thoughts widowhood can trigger but maybe that's best kept between us widows. Civilians need not know about all of them lol)
I felt all of this and Lorde's line in "girl so confusing (remix)". I have started to listen to the podcast "Maintenance Phase" that deep dives on diet culture, fads, and anti-fatness - it helped me get to be more comfortable with how my body will never be magazine-cover-thin.
There's crazy standards out there on all of us, especially on women, and it's not realistic at all. Life is too short to be drilling down on our looks and pushing us to eating disorders. Some of us have different body types and it's okay. There's a lot of industries out there trying to get our money feeding off our insecurities and it's frankly gross. Maintenance Phase talks about a lot of diets and things and how people either gain back the weight over an insane diet because it wasn't meant to be sustainable long-term. I hope to be kind to myself and folks around me because you never know what they're going through - thanks for this!
“Thirding” the recommendation! Sometimes I have to re-listen to ones. After treatment for anorexia (I’m in a definitely fat body), I went back and listened to the one about atypical anorexia. I remember being “so interested” and nodding all along the first time, but never seeing myself. The second time I cried all along, because it was me every step of the way.
I have a hard time reading these. I hate every number on the scale. No number is low enough. I haven’t been on a scale in years and I’m not “allowed” to be. I’m not supposed to be turning every which way in the mirror, either. I’m DEFINITELY not supposed to “diet”. I broke my body by not feeding it enough, and sometimes not at all, for 22 years. It’s trying to get back together, I’m trying to be ok with however it can assemble at this point, and it’s an ongoing professional goat rodeo. I hate it.
I gained weight after starting psychiatric meds in 2020 and while I feel better psychologically, it's hard for me to come to terms with being bigger than I was in my 20s. I lost some of the weight after the Covid lockdowns stopped, by going back to the gym and using Weight Watchers. But I still have these crazy cravings for food. I've been listening to some talks recently about how highly palatable food is a dopamine hit, and how if you have naturally low dopamine production, it can be even more powerful to want to use food to feel better. That's definitely part of it for me.
I'm in my early forties, and coming of age in the 90s truly did a number on me. My weight has spanned a 150 pound range in my adult life, and I'm now at the top of that range. I will not diet again, because of how much damage dieting and disordered eating have wrought in my life.
I was diagnosed with diabetes a year ago, something I anticipated would happen eventually due to a mix of family history, having had gestational diabetes while pregnant, and 15+ years of 100 pound weight cycling. Taking a GLP-2 med has done WONDERS for my blood sugar without requiring me to trigger ED thoughts and behaviors, or pursue modifications that threaten my otherwise solid health markers.
But: I can no longer count on reliable access to the meds I need because of how many people are taking them for recreational weight loss, to pursue an unrealistic ideal of universal thin-ness that damages people with bodies across the size spectrum. I am resentful of the aggressive marketing of these important tools for diabetics, especially those of us whose mental health is well served when using them to manage our condition, towards people who are using them because they can't imagine that a fatter body like mine has any societal value.
Reading this piece and reading the comments makes me realize how deeply ingrained weight insecurities are for us women. No matter what size you are at now, your weight is always somewhere in your mind, and that is simply insane and wrong. What the early 2000s did to us is not ok, and I hope that the next generations won't have the same experience (wishful thinking, I know, but maybe there is hope).
I once read a study that girls start dieting (or even think about dieting) as early as eight or nine. I knew that from then on we were truly failed from the jump.
I recommend Ragen Chastain's Substack to anyone here who could use information about diet industries, diet culture, inaccurate medical claims about weight etc. TLDR: diets don't work; companies make a hell of a lot of money out of making us feel bad so we keep trying them. https://weightandhealthcare.substack.com/
Oh my god are we the same person? (obviously not) but I have always felt bigger than everyone else even when I was smaller than I am now, the way I feel about my body is the same was when i was buying 6's to now buying 12-16 (sizing is sooo....fraught i try my best to not ascribe value to it) so it was never about the objective standard I was or wasn't meeting and I too feel insane looking back at photos where I thought I looked the way I look now (and that's probably not even accurate even if my body image has improved somewhat). And god the Ozempic temptation is too real, like I'm inclined to avoid it for many reasons you mention, but then I'll hear other people talk about how it actually is safe, and then i wonder maybe if i could just use is in a less aggressive way maybe its not as bad (i'm deluding/bargaining with myself i know). And regarding weightloss in general, I know I'm not as healthy as I could be, or even close, I eat very hedonistically and indulgently and neglect nutrients, so I probably do have weight to lose in a way that isn't just about bad body image, but as much as I could tell myself I just want to be healthier (true), I just feel physically uncomfortable with the fat I'm carrying (I hate feeling my body parts touch whether its thick thighs or my stomach rolling over, so that is true), I can't escape that it's also aesthetic, coming from a toxic place.
Am sad to report I just learned about "cortisol face", a hugely misinformed now tik tok-influencer movement proclaiming too much cortisol leads to an abnormally round face. So my facial dysmorphia has been triggered. But as someone who is perimenopausal and older than Ashley, this subject has been on my mind as well. I work out but also indulge in too much snacking. My fellow Gen X women friends and I have been remarking on our weight gains and noticing how fucking hard it is to accept our changing bodies when IG ads (among others) glamorizes certain body types. Rant over. I love your writing, Ashley, and think you're gorgeous but nobody else's opinion on your body matters, just yours :) xo
I've been both skinny and overweight in my life. I'm in my mid Forties now and on the fluffier side. Like yourself, I'm a larger person (I'm tall, I have big feet too) and that has its bonuses as I tend to carry the extra weight quite well. A newish friend of mine who is the same height and weight as me was shocked to find out we matched in that way, as she thought I would be lighter than her and she thought i looked great. She also looks great. It was a very nice moment of sisterhood.
I nearly lost my father at the end of 2022 to cancer- he's pulled back from the brink thank goodness, but I lost about 12lbs in those dark weeks. I had that emotion you describe. 'Wow I reached my target weight! amazing! But my dad is still dying'
When I am stressed and sad I do not eat. In my twenties when I was at my thinnest (10st on a 5'11" body) was an alcoholic, obsessed with staying thin at all costs (hello laxatives and a vodka diet!) In my mid 30s I had a kid, got to my biggest ever, managed to slowly lose 12lb and seem to have plateaued there (Other than major traumatic events)
The realisation that thin=sad for me was major. I'm not supposed to be skinny. It took up so much of my mental space I had little room for anything else. Of course I still have the odd shock when I see a photo of myself and think 'eek' but in not in my 20s anymore. I'm older. I'm reframing my thinking to accept that fact.
My blood pressure and cholesterol is fine. The BMI is bullshit. (seriously go look up the history of that crappy thing) according to it I need to lose 2 stone to be 'perfect' but I know that it's impossible for me to get to that weight without becoming obsessed and sad. I don't need that in my life. I have a child and a partner who love me and my softness, my flesh.
I don't want to be bony anymore. I used to measure how much weight I'd gained/lost by whether I could feel a particular rib. I don't do that anymore.
I don't want my kid to see me trying to change my Self or being negative about my body. I'm their Mother. I want them to know I am self-confident and self-loving, regardless of my weight, and hopefully project that onto how they feel about themselves as they grow up. I never comment negatively on my body when they're around, even on those days where I do feel vulnerable.
I choose to celebrate it instead, as they do when they snuggle into my soft, squashy lap for a cuddle.
This got long! Hang in there sisters, and celebrate yourselves.
I lost 75 pounds with Mounjaro in the last year and it gave me an incredible edge over losing weight. Had its drawbacks of course but I don’t regret any of it. My insurance company stopped covering it for me so I stopped recently and I was shocked how much it zapped my energy.
Please don't take Ozempic. My husband is a type 1 diabetic and was offered it on a trial for medical reasons. He's off it now, but we've only just discovered that his chronic snoring and severe GERD (acid reflux) are a direct result of the Ozempic injections. We are both angry and not sure what the future holds, because medication is not helping control his reflux. The ENT doctor has said the next step isn't pretty (painful surgery), and my husband's only 35. I feel like our lives have been destroyed because of Ozempic, and his quality of life has plummeted. He didn't suffer from either condition previously.
I am a type 1 diabetic & my doctor called me to suggest I take Ozempic. I took it for a few months & I developed GERD as well. It was really an awful time - always felt like something stuck in my throat, couldn’t swallow at times. I was on meds I didn’t want to stay on. I sought some help from a coach. I started researching & watching foods that caused flare ups. But the one thing that really worked for me was taking 2 tbs. of Aloe Vera juice/ day. After a few months, all symptoms disappeared. I hv had a couple of return episodes & I just start back w/ the juice until symptoms subside. I hope it helps for your husband.
I literally just bought him some today!! 😄 He's not impressed with the smell (and it probably tastes disgusting!) but at this stage we're willing to give anything a go! Thank you for commenting, it's given me hope that he can overcome this.
I really appreciated your perspective here. When I first started hearing inklings about Ozempic way back when, it was easy to think “necessary drug being used for weight loss? scary!!” but there is something to be said now that it’s so normalized and the ads are EVERYWHERE. How are normal people not supposed to think about it? I experienced a lot of weight loss a few years ago because of health issues that made eating more difficult because of a constant fullness feeling (ironically similar to what I’ve heard about the effects of Ozempic), and now that I’m healthier, gained it all back and then some. Stupidly, even though I’m so happy that’s all over, I do sometimes miss how I looked and how I was treated by strangers then. It’s hard keeping up a positive attitude about it and ignoring all stimuli begging you to lose weight when you have to keep buying new pants again (and again). Anyway, thanks for writing about a tough subject, will definitely be coming back to this one in the future. -LM
The other week I realized I want to find a happy medium between having skinniness achievement and maintenance as my part-time job and just unmitigated "f it." For all the same reasons!
Wow! Ashley what an article. I am much older than you but I have always struggled with my weight. There have been times where I’ve actually gotten skinny (like after my divorce when I lived on coffee & not much else). Over the years, I’ve gone up & down, hating my body along the way. My doctor actually called me to tell me about Ozempic before I had ever heard about it because he knew how hard I struggled. When I questioned him about the risk of thyroid cancer when I already have hypothyroidism, he said Thyroid cancer was one of the easiest to cure!!! I’m still not over that one. And despite that, I tried it. I lost about 8 pounds before I was dealing with GERD and feeling like I couldn’t swallow most of the time. Later found out that’s a side effect. Went off of it in 2 months. It’s very hard to see everyone on tv super skinny all of a sudden, looking terrific for the time being. But like you I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop a few years from now. Just goes against nature to me. So I’m not happy how I look. Hate how my clothes look on me. And at 73, I would just like to learn how to love my body & who I am. Still working on it.
As someone who has been having all of these feelings, thank you for putting them into words. I’m at a time in my life where it feels normal to gain weight, but with weight loss drugs being pushed so heavily (on top of so many brands discontinuing their extended sizings), it’s hard not to be having these thoughts. Just appreciate someone being able to put all these complicated things in one place.
100% feel the same way and agree. I'm a costume designer and it's my job to make sure my actors feel comfortable and confident, no matter what their body looks like. And I am wondering why I can't do the same for myself? I even went through a period of time in my late teens where I was sick and in and out of the hospital for 6 months, couldn't eat fat, and was wasting away down to skin and bone before I had the surgery that saved my life. I promised myself then to never take food for granted because I knew what a life without it was like and it was hell. I need to remember that lesson.
Thanks for this, Ashley. My most fucked-up thought as a widow was something along the lines of, "well maybe I'll be so grief-stricken that I'll lose weight." But when you see your partner's body disappear to cancer, you understand the difference between weight and health.
I honestly don't talk much about how traumatizing it was watching someone with cancer lose so much weight so quickly, but it absolutely has had an impact on my relationship to thinness. I know that losing weight bc of illness and bc of dieting are different, but still.
(Also, we don't talk enough about the fucked drive by thoughts widowhood can trigger but maybe that's best kept between us widows. Civilians need not know about all of them lol)
I felt all of this and Lorde's line in "girl so confusing (remix)". I have started to listen to the podcast "Maintenance Phase" that deep dives on diet culture, fads, and anti-fatness - it helped me get to be more comfortable with how my body will never be magazine-cover-thin.
There's crazy standards out there on all of us, especially on women, and it's not realistic at all. Life is too short to be drilling down on our looks and pushing us to eating disorders. Some of us have different body types and it's okay. There's a lot of industries out there trying to get our money feeding off our insecurities and it's frankly gross. Maintenance Phase talks about a lot of diets and things and how people either gain back the weight over an insane diet because it wasn't meant to be sustainable long-term. I hope to be kind to myself and folks around me because you never know what they're going through - thanks for this!
I love this podcast so much! Seconding the recommendation- it really helped me reframe my relationship with my body.
“Thirding” the recommendation! Sometimes I have to re-listen to ones. After treatment for anorexia (I’m in a definitely fat body), I went back and listened to the one about atypical anorexia. I remember being “so interested” and nodding all along the first time, but never seeing myself. The second time I cried all along, because it was me every step of the way.
I have a hard time reading these. I hate every number on the scale. No number is low enough. I haven’t been on a scale in years and I’m not “allowed” to be. I’m not supposed to be turning every which way in the mirror, either. I’m DEFINITELY not supposed to “diet”. I broke my body by not feeding it enough, and sometimes not at all, for 22 years. It’s trying to get back together, I’m trying to be ok with however it can assemble at this point, and it’s an ongoing professional goat rodeo. I hate it.
I gained weight after starting psychiatric meds in 2020 and while I feel better psychologically, it's hard for me to come to terms with being bigger than I was in my 20s. I lost some of the weight after the Covid lockdowns stopped, by going back to the gym and using Weight Watchers. But I still have these crazy cravings for food. I've been listening to some talks recently about how highly palatable food is a dopamine hit, and how if you have naturally low dopamine production, it can be even more powerful to want to use food to feel better. That's definitely part of it for me.
...okay I need to look into low dopamine production and food because this is hitting very close to home!
I'm in my early forties, and coming of age in the 90s truly did a number on me. My weight has spanned a 150 pound range in my adult life, and I'm now at the top of that range. I will not diet again, because of how much damage dieting and disordered eating have wrought in my life.
I was diagnosed with diabetes a year ago, something I anticipated would happen eventually due to a mix of family history, having had gestational diabetes while pregnant, and 15+ years of 100 pound weight cycling. Taking a GLP-2 med has done WONDERS for my blood sugar without requiring me to trigger ED thoughts and behaviors, or pursue modifications that threaten my otherwise solid health markers.
But: I can no longer count on reliable access to the meds I need because of how many people are taking them for recreational weight loss, to pursue an unrealistic ideal of universal thin-ness that damages people with bodies across the size spectrum. I am resentful of the aggressive marketing of these important tools for diabetics, especially those of us whose mental health is well served when using them to manage our condition, towards people who are using them because they can't imagine that a fatter body like mine has any societal value.
Reading this piece and reading the comments makes me realize how deeply ingrained weight insecurities are for us women. No matter what size you are at now, your weight is always somewhere in your mind, and that is simply insane and wrong. What the early 2000s did to us is not ok, and I hope that the next generations won't have the same experience (wishful thinking, I know, but maybe there is hope).
I once read a study that girls start dieting (or even think about dieting) as early as eight or nine. I knew that from then on we were truly failed from the jump.
I recommend Ragen Chastain's Substack to anyone here who could use information about diet industries, diet culture, inaccurate medical claims about weight etc. TLDR: diets don't work; companies make a hell of a lot of money out of making us feel bad so we keep trying them. https://weightandhealthcare.substack.com/
Oh my god are we the same person? (obviously not) but I have always felt bigger than everyone else even when I was smaller than I am now, the way I feel about my body is the same was when i was buying 6's to now buying 12-16 (sizing is sooo....fraught i try my best to not ascribe value to it) so it was never about the objective standard I was or wasn't meeting and I too feel insane looking back at photos where I thought I looked the way I look now (and that's probably not even accurate even if my body image has improved somewhat). And god the Ozempic temptation is too real, like I'm inclined to avoid it for many reasons you mention, but then I'll hear other people talk about how it actually is safe, and then i wonder maybe if i could just use is in a less aggressive way maybe its not as bad (i'm deluding/bargaining with myself i know). And regarding weightloss in general, I know I'm not as healthy as I could be, or even close, I eat very hedonistically and indulgently and neglect nutrients, so I probably do have weight to lose in a way that isn't just about bad body image, but as much as I could tell myself I just want to be healthier (true), I just feel physically uncomfortable with the fat I'm carrying (I hate feeling my body parts touch whether its thick thighs or my stomach rolling over, so that is true), I can't escape that it's also aesthetic, coming from a toxic place.
I relate to these feelings on so many levels. So many.
Am sad to report I just learned about "cortisol face", a hugely misinformed now tik tok-influencer movement proclaiming too much cortisol leads to an abnormally round face. So my facial dysmorphia has been triggered. But as someone who is perimenopausal and older than Ashley, this subject has been on my mind as well. I work out but also indulge in too much snacking. My fellow Gen X women friends and I have been remarking on our weight gains and noticing how fucking hard it is to accept our changing bodies when IG ads (among others) glamorizes certain body types. Rant over. I love your writing, Ashley, and think you're gorgeous but nobody else's opinion on your body matters, just yours :) xo
I've been both skinny and overweight in my life. I'm in my mid Forties now and on the fluffier side. Like yourself, I'm a larger person (I'm tall, I have big feet too) and that has its bonuses as I tend to carry the extra weight quite well. A newish friend of mine who is the same height and weight as me was shocked to find out we matched in that way, as she thought I would be lighter than her and she thought i looked great. She also looks great. It was a very nice moment of sisterhood.
I nearly lost my father at the end of 2022 to cancer- he's pulled back from the brink thank goodness, but I lost about 12lbs in those dark weeks. I had that emotion you describe. 'Wow I reached my target weight! amazing! But my dad is still dying'
When I am stressed and sad I do not eat. In my twenties when I was at my thinnest (10st on a 5'11" body) was an alcoholic, obsessed with staying thin at all costs (hello laxatives and a vodka diet!) In my mid 30s I had a kid, got to my biggest ever, managed to slowly lose 12lb and seem to have plateaued there (Other than major traumatic events)
The realisation that thin=sad for me was major. I'm not supposed to be skinny. It took up so much of my mental space I had little room for anything else. Of course I still have the odd shock when I see a photo of myself and think 'eek' but in not in my 20s anymore. I'm older. I'm reframing my thinking to accept that fact.
My blood pressure and cholesterol is fine. The BMI is bullshit. (seriously go look up the history of that crappy thing) according to it I need to lose 2 stone to be 'perfect' but I know that it's impossible for me to get to that weight without becoming obsessed and sad. I don't need that in my life. I have a child and a partner who love me and my softness, my flesh.
I don't want to be bony anymore. I used to measure how much weight I'd gained/lost by whether I could feel a particular rib. I don't do that anymore.
I don't want my kid to see me trying to change my Self or being negative about my body. I'm their Mother. I want them to know I am self-confident and self-loving, regardless of my weight, and hopefully project that onto how they feel about themselves as they grow up. I never comment negatively on my body when they're around, even on those days where I do feel vulnerable.
I choose to celebrate it instead, as they do when they snuggle into my soft, squashy lap for a cuddle.
This got long! Hang in there sisters, and celebrate yourselves.
I lost 75 pounds with Mounjaro in the last year and it gave me an incredible edge over losing weight. Had its drawbacks of course but I don’t regret any of it. My insurance company stopped covering it for me so I stopped recently and I was shocked how much it zapped my energy.
Please don't take Ozempic. My husband is a type 1 diabetic and was offered it on a trial for medical reasons. He's off it now, but we've only just discovered that his chronic snoring and severe GERD (acid reflux) are a direct result of the Ozempic injections. We are both angry and not sure what the future holds, because medication is not helping control his reflux. The ENT doctor has said the next step isn't pretty (painful surgery), and my husband's only 35. I feel like our lives have been destroyed because of Ozempic, and his quality of life has plummeted. He didn't suffer from either condition previously.
I am a type 1 diabetic & my doctor called me to suggest I take Ozempic. I took it for a few months & I developed GERD as well. It was really an awful time - always felt like something stuck in my throat, couldn’t swallow at times. I was on meds I didn’t want to stay on. I sought some help from a coach. I started researching & watching foods that caused flare ups. But the one thing that really worked for me was taking 2 tbs. of Aloe Vera juice/ day. After a few months, all symptoms disappeared. I hv had a couple of return episodes & I just start back w/ the juice until symptoms subside. I hope it helps for your husband.
I literally just bought him some today!! 😄 He's not impressed with the smell (and it probably tastes disgusting!) but at this stage we're willing to give anything a go! Thank you for commenting, it's given me hope that he can overcome this.
I really appreciated your perspective here. When I first started hearing inklings about Ozempic way back when, it was easy to think “necessary drug being used for weight loss? scary!!” but there is something to be said now that it’s so normalized and the ads are EVERYWHERE. How are normal people not supposed to think about it? I experienced a lot of weight loss a few years ago because of health issues that made eating more difficult because of a constant fullness feeling (ironically similar to what I’ve heard about the effects of Ozempic), and now that I’m healthier, gained it all back and then some. Stupidly, even though I’m so happy that’s all over, I do sometimes miss how I looked and how I was treated by strangers then. It’s hard keeping up a positive attitude about it and ignoring all stimuli begging you to lose weight when you have to keep buying new pants again (and again). Anyway, thanks for writing about a tough subject, will definitely be coming back to this one in the future. -LM
The other week I realized I want to find a happy medium between having skinniness achievement and maintenance as my part-time job and just unmitigated "f it." For all the same reasons!