So I got here, how?!!

Weight loss dieting's compatibility-or not- with fat acceptance is a lot more interesting than it may at first appear.

One of the things that has most surprised me during my FA stint is that people identify so intimately with their dieting, that they feel affronted when people merely cease the standard operational propagandising bullshit about it. I dieted briefly-for about six months- when I was 11. I realised from there that the typical calorie counting diet wasn't it. I switched instead to the Rosetta stone of weight loss through healthist eating instead.

I can't say I didn't identify with it at all, but in essence no, probably because I considered myself a failure-as I did not become slim- even though I stuck with it for 17 years solid and basically everyday woke up thinking about ways I could try and eat less and use up some calories.

And believe me, that is more than long enough to know exactly what a diet is, even if it hasn't passed through the only apparently true human authority on reality in existence.

A human with a penis and a science degree.

Day, after day, year after year. I was only stopped by burning out, something that came as a tremendous shock. I was going to do the same old same old and bam! Like hitting an invisible wall of resistance.

Although I never got back on the daily treadmill again, I tried, but my desire screamed no! Because that would have meant letting go of my dream of thin. There was certain amount of belligerence too. I would not be beaten etc.,

Anyhow, about 5 years later, I got to a turning point, where I pace the floor saying I will never do this to myself again, I promise, on pain of death, I will never diet, full stop.

Instinctively I got into some kind of a chanting frenzy over and over again, I got quite into it. Then, after a while I experienced a sense of release and I knew then, that was more or less that.

Over.

The reason I ended up doing that by the way, is that although I'd stopped dieting, for me, I'd figured out that especially after having spent years threatening my body with diets, it can become like an abused puppy. It's not enough to stop kicking it, you have to win it's trust back and until you do, it will continue to wait for the next ambush to be sprung on it.

That means it can still be mounting defenses against it.

I can't remember how I figured this out. I'm glad I did though.

Even after all this, it still took me a while to get on board with FA. I went to BfB, I realise it must have been not long after it started, I only have a hazy recollection of it. But I distinctly remember just feeling like this was mostly going over my head. I considered that I had the issue, not BfB.

So, a few years later I was ready to check it out again, and see if I was ready, and I blundered in like a bull in a china shop. And so on and so forth.

I don't claim my route to be a template for anyone, but it does helped to explain why I am perplexed by those who are clearly not ready, but insist that is a problem for FA. Now if we were employers or even a service business who's job it is to professionally butt kiss to remove as much of your cash as possible.

I've never understood who is making dieters unwelcome and why dieters would feel able to participate, they certainly do. As long as they don't make an issue of diet blurb that would do weight watchers proud or dealing in the fat hate that maybe supporting their efforts. That latter point is the crucial and interesting point.

Just how far can a dieter go with fat acceptance?