Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed a quiet shift. Or maybe it’s not so quiet anymore.
It feels like there’s a growing unease — even judgment — around women saying they want to lose weight. Not because they hate their bodies. Not because they’re trying to squeeze into a certain dress size or please anyone else. But because they want to feel better. Stronger. Healthier. I know this, because I’m one of those women.
Let me be clear: I’m not talking about women who are already at a “normal” weight and are pressured to shrink themselves even further by diet culture. That’s a whole other conversation, and it’s valid. But that’s not what this is about.
This is about people like me — women who have been overweight, even morbidly obese, for most of our lives. Women who have known what it’s like to carry the physical and emotional weight of it all. The pain, the fatigue, the quiet background hum of shame, often starting in our teens.
Recently, I’ve been making changes. I’ve been trying to move more. Eat differently. Pay attention to how I feel. And yes, I’ve lost weight. Not through some dramatic overhaul or toxic crash diet, but by trying — finally — to be kind to my body instead of fighting with it. And guess what? I feel better.
I have more energy. Fewer aches and pains. My menopause symptoms have eased. I can move more freely, sleep better, and I don’t dread stairs anymore. My joints thank me every morning.
But here’s the strange part: I almost feel like I’m not allowed to talk about that.
Somewhere along the way, it feels like wanting to lose weight — even for health reasons — has become taboo. As though saying “I feel better now that I’ve lost weight” is a betrayal. As if acknowledging the very real physical improvements I’ve experienced is a threat to body positivity.
But for me, it’s not about aesthetics. It’s not about fitting into society’s narrow definitions of beauty. It’s about not dying young.
Last year, I watched as my dad died — a man in his seventies, fit and active, and seemingly in good health. I mean, he had been skiing six months earlier. It was a wake-up call. A reminder that none of us are promised anything. And that if there are things I can do to reduce my risk, to feel stronger, to live longer — then I want to do them.
That includes losing weight. And that shouldn’t be something I have to whisper about or defend.
Body positivity was meant to be about choice. About liberation. About women being able to live in their bodies — all bodies — without shame. And that includes the choice to change our bodies, if that’s what we want and need.
So here I am, saying it plainly: I am losing weight. Not because I hate my body, but because I finally respect it enough to take care of it.
And if you’re on a similar path, trying to feel better in your own skin — whatever that looks like — you deserve to do it without guilt, without judgment, and without apology.