No More Baby Carrots: The Scam of Weight Loss

Heather Wyatt

This morning I found myself weeping, well, sobbing quietly while looking out the window as my toddler sat in my lap drinking milk and watching Bluey.

What was it that caused the tears to break the Zoloft barrier this morning? Well, what it always is…the fucking scale.

I have a long history with the subject of my body. I’ve published an entire book about it. I’m typing this and I’m eating cucumber and hummus and I’m pissed because the cucumbers aren’t pita chips and also because I’m only halfway through the bucket of water I’m supposed to drink today.

To give my backstory on weight seems redundant and frankly, irrelevant. Who among us isn’t familiar with the truly heinous, violent mental strain that comes with the never-ending bullshit that is worrying about what shape our body is at any given moment?

The quick and dirty is that I’ve been painfully at odds with my body since I was five years old and people began to let me know it was problematic, or at least in their eyes. Insert bullying and diet yoyoing that began when I was a teenager. Then, insert a large weight gain after a breakup in my 20s.

After this weight gain, I signed up for WW or Weight Watchers or whatever the fuck they are calling it this week. I stepped on the scale, saw a number I’d never seen before and somehow, between a younger metabolism and willpower on my side, I spent the next two to three years losing 115 pounds. I was also running several miles a day, even running in a half marathon.

Spoiler alert: I still hated my body. Heather Wyatt

During this time, I met my now husband, Ian. Several factors lead to my gaining of around 10 pounds a year for the next 7 years. One was that I have diet fatigue. I have been counting food in some capacity for well over a decade and I’m over it. Two is that I exercised (and still do) so much that it was no longer serving the purpose of helping me lose weight, but rather is only helping me not gain as much weight. I had a doctor tell me I have the heart of an athlete, which was both validating and obnoxious. Three is that I’m in a happy, loving relationship and what can I say? We like our lil drinky drinks and treaty treats and little chippy chips.

What I want to talk about though is the last, and arguably most important factor. There is a limitless amount of information on the internet, social media, and the medical industry about weight loss. There is so much, in fact, that the overall goal of wellness is lost.

Body positivity is a movement I am ultimately happy exists. Any issues I have about it as a whole come from my own issues or the fact that it has afforded opportunities for fat shamers to thrive as trolls always ready to attack strangers on the internet.

It’s true that the imagery most of us grew up with would have us believe that fat is bad. It’s also true that this isn’t true. The ultimate goal, albeit seemingly impossible for me, is to be happy with who I am and confident in the skin and body I have. GREAT. Sign me up.

While I’ve told myself this before, believe or not, it hasn’t just attached itself as a mantra I believe. I still look in the mirror in disgust most of the time and consider my weight to be my most aggressive lifelong crisis.

I am one of those people who has “good numbers.” I am not diabetic, despite every doctor really wanting me to be (or at least it seems that way), I have a good heart, and I am someone who gets more than enough exercise and water.

So, when my doctor sent me to a weight management facility to see a dietician and endocrinologist, I made it very clear that I had tried all of the things and that none of those things could a) make me give a shit again or b) help me have the willpower to turn down seconds and thirds of the rice or potatoes or pasta I was having for dinner.

If you go on TikTok you will find any number of “professionals” giving you the “solution” to the “problem” of having a fat body. There are intuitive eating specialists who say FUCK the rules! No food is good or bad! All restrictions are heinous! Eat what you want when you want it your body will figure it out. Then you have your high protein folks, your low or zero carb tribe, your calorie deficit fam, those that say genetics are the sole reason you’re fat, and you have your almond moms who are not doing you any favors. Don’t even get me started on intermittent fasting.

But like, that’s a lot of information and you can’t apply all of those tips and tricks to your life so which fucking one is it? Here’s the thing. I want body positivity. I want to love myself. I’m in therapy for it. I’m actively working on it. I also want to lose weight. There, I said it. I do. I want to have more ease of mobility, and I want to live as long as I can without long-term health issues.

I also know that because I’m 40 and I have a non-working thyroid and an absolute don’t give a shit attitude about dieting, that it’s going to be really hard for me to stick to a plan where I’m measuring a tablespoon of sugar free creamer to go in my coffee.

The endocrinologist I saw was not warm by any means, but I found value in the visit with her as she shared that genetics have a lot to do with why I struggle so much to keep the weight off. It was validating to hear something other than the narrative that I’m a lazy, food-obsessed garbage person. You may think that’s extreme but take a visit to the comments section of a fat influencer and see why they think people are fat. She gave me sheer numbers, which were depressing but the numbers also showed it was clear that I exercised.

Then, in the same appointment, I saw a nutritionist who immediately handed me a flyer with a meal plan that suggested I eat 1200 calories a day. She also gave me the truly revolutionary advice to track my food because “I’d be surprised” how much I ate in a day.

Ma’am. I’m not surprised by shit. I told her that I have been dieting for years. I reiterated things in my chart that if she’d bother to read rather than handing me the same piece of paper she hands everyone else she would have known.

I told her clearly that I didn’t want to track and that 1200 calories wasn’t sustainable for me, nor was having a disgusting sugar-free protein bar every day at 7. I asked her sincerely for help with portion control. She told me that at her house she puts out celery and carrots on the counter so if one of her kids says they are hungry she offers them the vegetable and if they don’t want that she tells them they must not really be hungry. This was her suggestion to a person with a history of binge eating, body dysmorphia and anxiety. I get it, she’s not a psychologist, but good LORD. Also, I kept thinking, “her poor kids.” It led me to discover that many dieticians have their own issues with disordered eating. That’s not to make a blanket statement. That was one person, and in her defense, she is just doing her job. I merely share it to emphasize the point that the “advice” people receive regarding their weight is not only vast but each person has wildly different opinions on what works.

These are medical professionals. Educated individuals trained in a specific field. And yet, though they have all agreed obesity is a problem, an epidemic, a nightmare of astronomical proportions, they can’t agree on how to “fix” it.

In the past two years, the only consistent medical advice I’ve been given is to start weight loss injections. My insurance does not cover these and I’m a teacher, so it is difficult to pay such an astronomical amount each month. When I tell them insurance won’t pay, they basically smack my behind and tell me good luck.

So, what is the person who is striving to both love their body while also achieving a balance of mental and physical health to do? No, seriously. I’m asking. I want to lose weight, but I don’t see me dumping a pile of baby carrots on my kitchen counter anytime soon. I don’t want to be consumed. I want to live my goddam life. I want the hour and ten minutes of exercise I do every day to be enough. I want to not see a number on a scale and immediately go into a self-loathing tirade against my body. I also want to take some of the pressure off my back, hips, knees and feet. I want to chase my toddler around in a way that doesn’t make me ache.

Nothing I’m saying is necessarily unique. I guess what I’m asking is for the medical field to get their shit together. My body has done incredible things. It’s run 13 miles without stopping, it’s grown and delivered a baby, and it’s allowed me to see so many places. But I need to ask more from it. And I’m genuinely seeking help. Stop assuming I have diabetes. Stop asking me if I fucking exercise every single time I go to the doctor. Stop making the presumption that I don’t know what food is nutritious and that I am washing down an entire cake with a large, sweet tea before bed every night. Stop acting like, even if those things were true, that somehow makes me less human.

Can you guys get together on this? Stop encouraging people to starve themselves, hate themselves and in general, run as far away from medical help as they possibly can. 

Heather Wyatt

Heather Wyatt

Heather Wyatt is an English instructor at Jefferson State Community College by day and a food TV junkie by night. She’s obsessed with her two dogs and likes orange flavored drinks. Her first book, My Life Without Ranch, a non-fiction combo of self-help and memoir, is out now from 50/50 Press. Her poetry chapbook Call My Name is available now from The Poetry Box but prior to that her poetry has been featured in numerous journals since 2006. Most recently, her poems have appeared in places like: Jokes Review, Number One: A Literary Journal, and A Walk with Nature: Poetic Encounters that Nourish the Soul. Her short story “A Penny Saved” was published in Perspectives Magazine in 2018. Also in 2018, her essay “Self-Defense” appeared in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review and her essay, “Hot AF” was in the magazine Robot Butt. In 2019, Her essay, “Her?!” was in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review. Most recently, her essay “I didn’t kill my boyfriend last night” was published in The Syndrome Mag and her essay, “A Gross, Happy Proposal” appeared in High Noon in 2020. She received her Bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Alabama and her MFA in Poetry from Spalding University in Louisville, KY.