The Tale of the Incredible Shrinking Pants- WALKING WITH GOD, part3/5

WALKING WITH GOD

(part 3 of 5)

The Tale of the Incredible Shrinking Pants

Life Force, that part of us that ‘always acts on our behalf’ had long been a stranger to me. I distrusted it, shied away from it in fear, and learned from a young age that allowing it expression would result only in pain.

This showed up in every aspect of my life: friendships, romance, work, family. I could not dare to be vulnerable, to risk exposure of the black, noisome core of putrescence that I believed was my true Self. I learned to hide behind a thick mask, so thick I often could not see behind it.

This was an inherent lack of trust in myself, my abilities, my worthiness. When bad things happened to me I deserved them. When good things happened to me they were merely the Universe teasing me, trying to lure me into a state of complacence so that I would be caught unawares when the hammer would come crashing down upon my head.

Dr Z has been pushing me to confront previously unassailable truths of my past. I have noticed an increasing sense of energy moving through me. I believe this is partly responsible for my being able to admit my feelings to Gaia, among other things. I have been learning to trust myself, to be me regardless of the expectations of others.

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I have struggled with my weight for much of my life. Over the 3 decades of my adult life I’ve gone from a skinny kid just out of high school to very heavy and unhealthy husband and father to very fit amateur bicycle racer and now back to somewhere in the middle. The larger struggle, irrespective of my actual physical condition, has always been my perception of myself.

My father despised overweight people. He taught me that obesity was an offensive state of being. I internalised this and, even when I wasn’t overweight, have thought of myself as ‘fat’ my entire life. I abhorred my body as much as I hated any other part of me, perhaps more. I was ugly and gross, and no one could tell me different even though a few tried.

We don’t talk about male body shame in this country like we do for women, but it’s a very real thing. Overweight men are dismissed as weak, simple, unambitious, and lazy. They are the comic foils in sitcoms and are never the hero, always the funny sidekick or evil villain.  As a man I see those rippling, well-oiled muscles in the magazine ads, the square jaws and the piercing blue eyes of the Brad Pitts and Ryan Goslings that women fawn and swoon over, and I feel utterly inadequate and unmanly.

I am in no way attempting to diminish the entire culture and economy that has grown up around telling women that they are imperfect, that they just need to buy Product X or use Diet Y to achieve that perfect bikini body or flawless complexion and until they do they are inadequate and unattractive.  We have institutionalised body shame for women, something that grew out of the long human history of patriarchy, and I see how it impacts all the women in my life.

But we men feel it too; we just don’t talk about it. It’s not ‘manly’ to acknowledge feeling shame.

In November of 1996 I was approximately 375lbs and wearing 48″ pants. Years of an unhappy marriage compounded with chronic shame had resulted in the inexorable increase in volume and diameter of my waistline. I had a moment of clarity that month, truly saw myself for for the first time, and decided to change. This may have been my first recognisable act of self-compassion, perhaps even love, as an adult.

In less than 2.5 years I was fitter than I’d ever been and won the first bicycle race I ever entered by a several minute margin. For the next three years I’d hover at around 195lbs, so skinny you could count my ribs under the awkward cyclist’s tan.  My pants were down to 34″.

Racing and training ended and over the years my activity level fell off. For most of the time since then I’ve been wearing 36″ pants and, though I’d fluctuated within the limits of that pants size, remained fairly steady; until this past January.

I had bought my first house and moved to the Seattle area from Portland in November 2017. Just three weeks later, I received a phone call from my boss telling me that I was laid off.  I was flat broke with a new mortgage, a car and a motorcycle payment, and no idea what to do.

Eating and drinking were once again escapes for me. I was eating a terrible diet: fried foods, high carbs, and all the pizza I could shove down my throat. I was drinking at least a 6-pack of beer a night or a half bottle of whisky, self-medicating to dull the incessant pounding of anxiety against the inside of my skull.

All of this went right to my belly. Soon my jeans were painfully tight and I succumbed to the reality that I’d gained even more weight and started wearing 38″. I was convinced that I was well on my way back to 375lbs and the shame was overwhelming; my father’s voice was back in my head when it had been so quiet for some time.

As all things must, my life changed after a few months…this time for the better.  In March of this year I was able to break out of my rut of triggered anxiety and depression. I not only landed a good job with a good company working with friends I’d known at a previous job, I also had a tremendously healing experience. My medicine journey with my tribe in March did so much more than temporarily change my emotional outlook, it ripped off the scabs of very old woulds and allowed them to begin healing. My life force wriggled and started to wake from its long somnolescence.

Over the past couple years I’d heard several people talk about the ketonic diet and I decided to give it a try. I’d never been very successful with diets but something clicked this time.

Amazingly, keto worked for me. I was able to stick with it almost effortlessly. Within a couple weeks I was able to be aware of my desire to eat and discern if it rose from a physical need for nourishment or if it came from an emotional need or habit. My intake went drastically down, my energy levels stabilised, and I felt incredible.

Within a month I was back in the 36″ I sized out of in January. As the weeks went on, the pounds continued to drop. One day I noticed that the 36″ pants were hanging off of me.

About three years ago I had accidentally bought 2 pairs of 34″ jeans. I had intended to return them but never did. Looking back I realised that this was a way for me to shame myself, a dangling carrot well out of reach to show me how lazy I was. I would occasionally try them on but I could never before pull them all the way up.

I tried them on again a few weeks ago and not only did I get them all the way up but they buttoned! They were still too tight to wear outside of a hipster bar in Portland but they bloody well buttoned!

Within two more weeks they fit and I’m back in 34″ pants for the first time in well over a decade.

—

This has been an amazing boost to my confidence. I feel better about myself even to the point where I’ve caught myself wondering if I might be attractive to the opposite sex. The voice of body shame in my head has been so quiet of late it’s very hard to hear.

This has also been a factor in freeing my life force. I have felt more energy and a desire to be out of the house, away from screens and electronics.  This energy has added to every part of my life and in doing so, liberated even more life force.  It’s a positive feedback loop the likes of which I’ve never felt before.  I’ve started to wonder if I’m beginning to transition from healing to growing, moving past my trauma into the undiscovered country of a life not ruled by woundedness or the desire to escape it.

Of course, I can’t help but notice that a part of the reason I’m feeling better about my weight may not be healthy; some of this is about how I look to others. Isn’t the goal to be happy and confident in myself no matter what? Of course, but this isn’t a strictly binary issue; it’s multi-faceted and emotionally complex. Losing weight is healthier for me, allows me to do more and be more active, but there is also the risk of falling back in the trap of basing my self-worth on the expectations of others.

Being a psychologically complex social animal means I can’t entirely separate myself from the desire to be seen by others in certain ways- it’s evolutionary programming. The best I can do at this point is to be aware of my feelings and be fully present with them; to not fool myself and fall into old patterns.

For now, I’m satisfied.  I’m moving towards a healthier state physically as well as emotionally. The confidence I’ve gained, the increased life force moving in me, is adding value and joy to my life.