The Belly That is Always There

It’s there when I wake up.  It’s there when I get in the car.  It’s there when I’m playing with Boy, or watching TV, or running on the treadmill. It’s there when I’m 190 pounds and when I’m 140 pounds.  It’s always there.

Over the years, I have certainly made no secret of my struggle with weight, sometimes with great success, and sometimes with very little success. I also come and go with being extremely into fitness, usually getting extremely fit and then backsliding for a year or so.  Although this time around, I really do have a feeling that my love of fitness is here to stay.  If I can stop getting injured.

Right now, I’m at a pretty good size.  Not quite at my goal weight, but awfully close, and my double chin, love handles, and man boobs are all-but totally gone.  All that being said, something still isn’t quite right. Something is never quite right. When I walk past a large glass window, I can’t help but scrutinize myself.  I run my hands down my body, and watch as they bow out a little bit at my midsection. The belly. The tummy. The stomach. Whatever you want to call it, the gut. I cannot stop thinking about it. And no matter how big or how small I have been, I haven’t stopped thinking about it for probably eight years.

Granted, when I’m at my bigger sizes, I don’t obsess about my belly, because I’m generally sorrowful for the whole damn thing that’s happening to me when I’m fat. But when I’m smaller, the problem comes more into focus. I have a little tiny belly, and no matter how much weight I lose, it just seems to be there. Even at my absolute smallest, if I took my shirt off, there would be a little belly there, and even though the rest of the world might not even know it is there, it would be one of the first things I would think about upon waking up.  I would run my hands down my chest, making sure there was no “rise”, that the belly sunk down immediately following my ribcage.

I must think about my belly a hundred times a day, if not more. Every day. Every time I pass a mirror, I scrutinize myself. First I make sure that my jowls look OK. How is my chin ? I like to see my full jaw line. Then I will look at my pecs. Do I have visible man boobs?  But ultimately it comes down to the gut. I look at it from profile, I look at it straight on, I see how successfully I can suck it in and have no gut. If I can successfully suck it in and have no gut, that means I’m always close to where I need to be. A lot of times, I find myself looking at the midsections of other men, in comparison. When I see a very slender man walk past me, a man whose profile is sleek and perfectly straight from head to toe,  I’ve become intensely envious. Likewise, when I see men with a gut larger than mine, I compare myself, and feel better about myself. Sometimes I notice that those men seem fine, they don’t seem to worry about it, and they might even seem attractive. Sometimes they wear shirts that don’t even hide their gut! That gives me hope. Men can walk through this world with little tiny guts, and the planet doesn’t stop spinning. They still are respected, admired, sometimes attractive men. In the back of my brain, however, I can’t help but think I’m not quite the perfect version of myself as long as I have this gut. Granted, I am a confident, capable, overall ludicrously happy man, but inside, there will be a constant nagging as long as that belly is there.

It turns out, there is a term for what’s happening to me. It’s called body dysmorphia syndrome, and I’m sorry if you’re one of those people who gets all riled up whenever people give names to what is ailing them, but having read about this a couple times, it perfectly describes what I’m going through. Now, BDS does come in many different levels of severity. I think we’ve all heard of the super skinny people, anorexics you were upon their deathbed, weighing 70 pounds, yet still think they are fat. That is a version of this. There are people who literally have phantom ideas of the way they look, can’t reconcile what they see in the mirror with reality. But a less severe version of it does exist. I do in fact have a tummy, I am not inventing that, but my brain blows up the significance and severity of it.  In a small fashion, I also don’t see it quite properly.  I see the real version of my belly, but my brain won’t let me put it into proper context.

I also try to rationalize my belly hatred by saying it is only because I am short that I hate it so much–that I think the gut looks ridiculous on a short man; big men can get away with carrying around fat because it (somehow) seems to denote masculinity in our culture.  I do not think this is entirely untrue.  If I was a full foot taller, having a belly might seem more proportional and aesthetically proper.  But on a 5’2″ frame, to me, it looks as glaring as a road flare.

So, why post a public blog about such an intensely personal issue?  Well, part of it is therapy for me.  Every method I have tried to calm my obsession, short of seeking professional help, has not stopped the nagging in my brain.  Writing about things ALWAYS helps, and often just journaling in a private journal is enough, but for me, putting things out to the world has always been therapeutic.  Something about letting the light into places most people usually don’t–you’d be surprised what a little light can do.  And also, I want to continue to highlight the fact that body issues are not exclusive to women in our culture.  Yes, women have it much harder than men when it comes to cultural norms making them feel shamed or pressured in a multitude of ways regarding their body, but please don’t assume that the men in your life are just always ok with how they look.  Be kind to everybody about their body and their appearance. But you don’t have to be kind to them about everything.  You can bitch at people for not using a turn signal or talking in a movie theater.

Just sayin’.