Mary Madigan is moving away from diet culture in 2023. Photo / Instagram
Opinion:
I am not thin and I have no plans to lose weight in 2023. Yes, radical, I know.
Cue various messages from men on the internet calling me a fat pig. Sorry, guys, even your fatphobia isn’t forcing me back into diet culture. So, pass me the bread and leave me alone. Cheers.
I know that society would love me to lose weight because you only need to look at the applause that women such as Adele and Khloe Kardashian have been given for losing weight to know that women who shrink themselves are always rewarded.
I also know society desperately wants me to feel like I should lose weight because then I can buy into the billion-dollar diet culture business that is currently thriving.
God, you only had to pick up a women’s magazine in the early 2000s and stare at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos to realise that ‘before’ should have been called fatter and ‘after’ should have been called thinner. A glow-up is always only about women making themselves smaller.
Recently while looking at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos of celebrities I’ve realised they looked bloody good either way. So, why am I so hard on myself?
There’s always been this cultural lie that tells women if they lose weight, they’ll be the better version of themselves, as if the old version of themselves is out of fashion, like a slogan T-shirt from Supre.
It is a lie I happily swallowed, because it was calorie-free, right? So, I had no guilt about eating it.
I used to fall for it because who doesn’t want to be the best version of themselves? Who doesn’t want society to enforce to them that their body is desirable? That is a pretty human response. So, every January and February, I’d dedicate myself to trying to shred the kilos.
Usually, I’d find some utterly ridiculous fad diet, and by March, I would have given up and hate myself. Please, a moment for silence for the time that I tried skinny tea and just ended up not being able to go to work because I couldn’t stop sh*tting.
I’m currently in an era where I’m trying to love myself for who I am now. Not the version of myself that I aspire to be. You know, the version of myself that actually remembers to bring a reusable bag to the supermarket instead of guiltily having to buy a plastic bag, or the version of myself that doesn’t have cellulite on my thighs.
I’m trying to embrace myself as I am, including my weight. I’m desperately trying to march into the New Year without any plans to change or alter my body. You know what! With all its faults, this body got me through 2022 just fine, and why should I spend the beginning of 2023 punishing it?
This isn’t anything to do with the health choices I make. I know, people love to confuse weight with health, so to clarify; currently, I’m dedicated to achieving 10,000 steps a day, and I am keen to get back into pilates, and I really want to get back into making sure I eat breakfast every morning. I have a habit of skipping it and living off coffee until I’m starved by lunch.
I refuse for any of the choices I make around food and exercise to be motivated by losing weight. Instead, I’m going with what actually makes me feel better. Radical right?
So, in 2023 I’m taking the Marie Antoinette approach to life. Let me eat cake!
Mary Madigan is a freelance writer.