So. This blog is about my health. And right now, maintaining my health requires me to do some pretty intense exercising (which I started back in November). I’d say that I do about two hours a day of physical therapy exercises of one kind and another (less some days), and when I can I also throw in a forty-five minute walk, just because I like to.

As you might imagine, this regimen has led to some pretty dramatic changes in my body beyond the reduced pain I was actually trying to achieve. Muscle started popping out all over in my upper back. I dropped a size and a half or so. Not to mention my improved posture has me feeling (and looking) better than ever.

But I find myself uncomfortable, not with my altered physique, but with the tacit cultural message it conveys. I feel like I want to wear a disclaimer, “I wasn’t trying to lose weight, honest!” Because due to a particular constellation of forces, including going to a women’s college and living for many years with a couple of fabulous fat-positive women, I was happy with my body the way it was. And I don’t immediately understand how to properly support my fat brothers and sisters in their ongoing struggle looking the way I now do. And I find myself rather at a loss when I’m on the receiving end of compliments on my new physique. Because I deserve them, surely, for all of the hard work I am doing and continue to do. But not for more closely resembling our collective cultural beauty norms.

All I can offer is this: I love my body, then, now, and always. I hope you can say the same, or learn to.