I was half paying attention to the Zoom lecture I was attending, as I tended to do with nearly every online class. But then my psych professor, in the middle of talking about eating disorders, said something about feeling like you had to earn your meals by working out. When those words registered, I remember looking up from my phone and directing my focus towards the computer screen in front of me for the first time that afternoon. Because that exact phrase had run through my head while trying to get in shape in high school. Except there was no way that I had an eating disorder now, or even had one back then. I’d never once heard about a guy dealing with one. My sister’s friend? Yes. My friend’s sister? Yes. Me, or any other guy my age? Never. But alternatives dwindled as I sat there, phone forgotten in my hand, stomach dropping even further each time my professor mentioned phrases and habits that sounded eerily similar. Skipping meals? I’d done that. Weighing yourself obsessively? I’d done that. Refusing to eat things you used to like because they weren’t healthy? I’d done that too.

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Sitting in my desk chair, alone in my room, I tried to confront the realization that describing to someone how exactly I lost forty pounds throughout my junior year of high school would likely make them think of an eating disorder, not getting in shape. My psychology professor might as well have picked all of her examples straight out of my brain. Later that day, lying in bed at night and keeping myself awake with my thoughts, I couldn’t wrap my head around the issue. Evidence that I had formed unhealthy habits about weight loss, eating, and going to the gym throughout my last years of high school was staring me in the face. With hindsight, I could accept that some of the things I’d done hadn’t been healthy for me, and that calling my dedication to weight loss an eating disorder wasn’t an inaccurate description at all. And yet I knew that if I could go back to the moment where I first decided to start going to the gym, or where first I decided to skip breakfast… I wouldn't have changed a thing. 

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Because even with the nearly nauseating revelation I’d had that day, I was still proud of what I’d done. Proud of how far I’d come. And I didn’t know what was wrong with me, because I was proud of something horrible. The why behind my pride eluded me, mostly because I banished all thoughts of the problem from consideration. It was easier not to think about it, because acknowledging that aspect of myself felt like giving life to a flaw. So I didn’t, until I sat down to write this essay. And the working answer I’ve come up with, that very well could change in any number of ways, is that I was proud of what I’d done for different reasons – reasons developed because of both outer and inner influences. 

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The first reason I was proud, and one driven by outside influences, arose because losing weight meant I started to look more and more like every single male role model I’d ever had. Athletes, who performed at the peak of their abilities in their sport, superheroes, who triumphantly overcame adversity, and bodybuilders, who dedicated themselves to looking like Greek gods walking the Earth. I’d dream about being them about living their lives, but in the case of athletes and superheroes, that dream was very far from attainable. But I also dreamed about looking like them, which seemed much more realistic. And that dream was what hooked me. Because about a month after I started my weight loss journey, unhealthy habits and all, I saw the beginnings of muscle definition, the kind athletes, superheroes, and bodybuilders had. I saw my jawline getting sharper, something every one of my role models’ faces boasted. But I shouldn’t have taken pride in the potential I had to resemble those types of people. Because for a normal person, looking like an athlete, a superhero, or a bodybuilder isn’t at all attainable. An athlete’s livelihood depends on the shape and fitness of their body, and so they devote dizzying amounts of time and resources to it. When drawn on a comic book page a superhero isn’t constrained to the conventions of anatomy, or required to maintain an impossible physique throughout the normality of everyday life. And bodybuilders, who are like athletes in terms of time and resources devoted to their bodies, have an additional option – steroids. Not every bodybuilder uses them, but enough do to make you ask questions of every hulking, shredded physique you see on Instagram. So as much as all of my role models inspired me, and as much gratitude I have to them for doing so, taking pride in how I measured up to an impossible standard is not something I want to keep doing.

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The second reason motivating my pride, another one driven by outside influence, centered around the ideas that anything worth doing is hard, and that anything achieved through hard work has value. Both are very "manly" statements, the type pickup truck commercials might spout at you. But it’s hard not to be affected by them, especially as you’re trying to figure out what being a man is supposed to be like. And when it came to how I thought about losing weight, those ideas served as support. Because the habits I’d developed weren’t easy. Skipping meals sucked. Watching my family eat dessert each night was the same. There were days I forced myself to go to the gym. I endured both going to bed hungry and listening to my stomach complain while I was sitting on the bus to school. But since hard work meant value, and nothing worth doing was easy, I didn’t think any of my habits were wrong. They were difficult, yes, but not wrong. I took pride in the fact that I had the self-discipline to stick with something that others might have quit. But none of that reasoning has stood the test of time. Now, looking back, the difficulty of the unhealthy habits I developed in no way justifies them. Whatsoever. It’s true that things which require hard work often have value. It’s true that things worth doing aren’t usually easy. But what I did to lose weight should never have been justified by those statements. Now I no longer take pride in every aspect of the hard work of my weight loss, because doing so blinded me to the damaging nature of what exactly I was doing.

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The third reason differs from the other two in that it’s an inner reason, and why I still take pride in how far I’ve come. It’s not how I thought about figures I admired, or how outside wisdom applied to my journey. Instead, the reason why I wouldn’t go back and change anything, even if I could, is because what was unhealthy for my body was anything but for my self-confidence and perception. After losing weight, I went to school feeling good about how I looked. I liked seeing myself in the mirror. Clothes fit me in the way I wanted them to. I could take my shirt off at the beach. Improving my body, even through unhealthy means, improved my outlook on life. I was so much happier, which is the bottom line. That’s why, to this day, I continue to go to the gym. I continue to watch how much sugar I eat. Those things make me feel better about myself, which has become the rule I try to follow above all else. If I’m hungry before bed, then a midnight snack is what I need to feel good. If I’m tired after a long day, then I won’t beat myself up about going to the gym, because couch potatoing with a show is more important for my happiness. And sometimes I’ll fall back into old habits. I’ll intentionally skip breakfast, or feel anxious after eating something unhealthy. But I don’t berate myself when that happens either. How my body looks will be something I think about, and worry about, and stress over for the rest of my life. I try to remember that what my body looks like does me no good if I’m unhappy living in it.

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A part of me wanted to end this essay with that line, but leaving off on that note felt too quaint. Honestly, I’m still a mess whenever it comes to body image. I don’t have things figured out. Reminders like the one at the end of the previous paragraph help, but at the end of the day they’re just coping mechanisms. I don’t have a solution, and I doubt there truly is one. But I still struggled to put all of my thoughts into words because of the hope that someone like me, junior year of high school, might read them. Not even listen, because I know I probably wouldn’t have if I’d read someone’s words on a page in the middle of my obsessive weight loss. But hearing what I have to say is a start. And maybe you’re not like me in high school, but me now, having gone through something similar. In that case, let me know what you think. Maybe we can figure everything out together.

 

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