this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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My Friends Would Rather Have Their Guts Cut Open Than Be Like Me - [an Essay(ish)] (theestablishment.co)
submitted 2 days ago by Wren@lemmy.today to c/womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone
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I stumbled across this while researching old feminist publications. I can't really explain why I liked it so much.

I don't agree with the author's perspective, but it's a point of view I'd never heard before, and she writes beautifully, with wit and humor and pain.

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[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I used to joke with people that I was my mother’s before picture, in the ubiquitous and devastating tradition of photos taken to reveal dramatic weight loss, the punchline for every ad that sells weight loss to women.

the brutality of this sentence ...

The fat people who become obsessed with counting calories and steps, the ones who try to vacate their bodies a little at a time . . . I don’t worry about them. They’ll never make it. Sooner or later they all come back.

jfc, as someone who is counting calories and fasting to lose weight (and have already lost 40+ lbs), this is so disturbing to read 💀

I mean, she's right - most people do regain the weight, but I have to believe I can be an exception and form healthier long term behaviors, otherwise there is no point in trying (and I wouldn't have lost all the weight I have already lost by trying - even if I have still more to lose).

Honestly, this essay functioned as a kind of advertisement for weight loss surgery, I never seriously considered surgery before but now she has me looking into it, lol

Compared to the other surgeries, it looks like gastric banding is fairly reasonable tbh

anyway - yes, what a great writer, "cautionary whale" is just pure gold

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

She does make a pretty good case for weight loss surgery.

Not to say it's a bad thing, but the one person I know who did it and lost a whole lot of weight, she had to get it undone when she couldn't follow the specific diet. She had a year of miserable thinness before gaining it back.

She seems happier now.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago

yeah, I don't think I will pursue surgery - but I'm much more open to it now than I was before I read that essay, lol

the main reason I wouldn't consider surgery right now is that I have preferable alternatives - counting calories works for me, and I am losing weight just by paying more attention