Some days are less awesome than other days.

I feel like I'm failing myself this week - I am in a financially not great place, so whenever I don't bring my lunch (so it is "free"), I am punishing myself by not eating lunch.  Today, it is 4:12pm and I have eaten... a KitKat bar.  In fact, I haven't eaten before 5pm any day this week save Wednesday, when I ate lunch, but no dinner.

And my inner voice is thinking "serves you right" and also "maybe I can drop a few pounds this way", even while my body is really just screaming for a fucking sandwich, or a slice of pizza.  ANYTHING.

My relationship with myself might seem fierce in the good way, but I have bad weeks as often as not.

Next week - three squares a day, for which I will gladly pay (10 points if you know from what movie musical I bastardized that line).

Baby steps, people.

Photo by johnwilliamsphd on flickr.

I do not want to look like a couch!

I am not a Project Runway fan, mostly because my knowledge of and interest in fashion has always been nil.  But I do love me some Tim Gunn.  And now, I love him even more!  From an interview with Perez:

If I were to do a clothing line, it would be for sizes 16 and higher. Because I really believe that those women are truly a neglected population, and when I visit department stores and I go to the shop that’s called “woman,” I am horrified! Horrified by the awful, degrading, disrespectful choices that women have. It is mind boggling. I mean, selecting these gigantic prints, and it’s… I mean, who wants to look like a couch?

AMEN AND HALLELUJAH.  I would buy your clothes in a white-hot second, Mr. Gunn.

Thanks to BDFblog!

Credit where credit is due

So, yesterday I went to the doctor for my annual checkup.  I do this because I am concerned about my health, and because I was raised to be a mild hypochondriac.  I do this because while I know when I feel okay, I also know that I don't know what is going on INSIDE my body and I want to make sure everything is going well.  I do this because a friend of a friend who was in her 30's died last month completely out of the blue, and it was shocking, and I don't ever want to shock the people I love like that.

Here is the deal:

• I want to make sure my heart is healthy.  This means checking my cholesterol, good and bad.
• I want to make sure my thyroid is on track, which means making sure my levels are good, and my meds are working.
• I want to make sure my blood sugar is normal - it always has been, but I don't want to screw around with it, especially with a family history.

Here is what I walked out with:

• A referral to an allergist, because after years of treating me for chronic ear, sinus and chest infections, my doctor thinks this is getting ridiculous.
• A referral to a cool new OB-GYN.
• A flu shot.
• A lecture about weight loss.

Here is what I did NOT walk out with:

• Any credit at all for being a healthy person, regardless of my weight.

I like my doctor.  She is cool and smart and always has time for me.  She is competent.  I believe she truly has my best interest at heart.  And if any of those tests come back with red flags, you can bet your ass that I will work with her on ways to combat any future health risks.  Problem is, she looks at me and thinks my very existence as a fat person is a health risk.  Now, you're thinking, "but hey, she is your doctor, she might know better here."  But this lecture came before her having any evidence in front of her that my weight is affecting my health.  (We'll leave aside arguments about correlation vs causation here, even though those are completely relevant also.)  Her weight loss lecture consisted entirely of "well, I don't like seeing you this heavy, and in the long run it might help you avoid joint issues."

So what she is saying is: I am pretty healthy overall.  She has no idea if there is anything wrong with me, other than hayfever and mild acid reflux (a health issue that plagues friends of mine both fat and thin).  I should put my body through the physical and emotional stress of a weight loss regimen because... just because.  Because she looks at me and sees FAT and her brain translates that to UNHEALTHY.

I would like, for once, to be given some credit for being a generally healthy person who likes walking (even if she hates the gym), enjoys foods (of all sorts, even green), and goes to the doctor regularly.  Setting aside the issue that it's my body, and my business what I do with it, I like to think I DO treat my body with some modicum of respect, and the fact that my outward appearance makes people (including my doctor) assume that I do not is just frustrating as all hell.

You know what they say about people who assume, after all.

Fat and feminism

I feel like this is a point that feminists would mull over–does a body, merely by being a body, signal anything? If my having big boobs tells you nothing about whether I’m a slut, why are you so sure it tells you anything about whether I’ve had too many donuts?

Are we sure we’ve actually given up the desire to scrutinize women’s bodies and tell them what to do with them?

Because these discussions make me feel like some folks need to think more about why they’re so excited to jump into these discussions in order to tell people how unhealthy they are.

Oh, Aunt B.

I think we're going to get along just fine.

Isn't it delightful, indeed.

There are lots of other words people use [to describe larger body types]. Curvy, chubby, stout, voluptuous, zaftig, fluffy, big-boned, thick, and so on. But they don’t really describe my body in a meaningful way when I want to talk about my particular body experience.

...

There are plenty of other words that have been thrown my way over the years. But, for my linguistic energy, fat is still the best thing out there. It’s not a fancy word but I don’t need it to be. It’s one of the first words we learn to read; it’s basic. It’s as basic as “This is my body.” My body is many things. My body is fat.

The objection, of course, is that fat is used as an insult, is used to tear people down. It’s a successful insult because of the cultural perception that fat is bad.

I tell you what, my fat is not bad. It isn’t morally wrong, nor is it poorly behaved. It simply is. I’m not afraid of my fat and so I am not afraid of the word. “You’re fat,” (or, more commonly from trolls, “Your fat”) is a statement of fact, not an insult. Why, yes, yes, I am fat. Isn’t it delightful?

- From the always delightful and amazing Marianne Kirby at The Rotund.


In case you were wondering, I enjoy the word 'zaftig' a lot, but I am, at my core, just plain-old fat. It's not a revelation to say that about myself - I've been calling myself fat for years. What is new is the fact that I am saying it without judging myself. Fat as a descriptive word with no moral weight attached to it - THAT is a revelation.


In related news, I think I am addicted to Alight. Mmmmmm clothes!

I want to be Joy when I grow up.

Ha!  I wrote that whole post yesterday, and then remember that Joy Nash says it all better than I could, while looking fabulous:



If you like that, check out Joy's blog.

Big Girls Shouldn't Cry, especially on the subway.

So, I guess I have to face the fact that my life is NOT BORING.  It's busy and expensive and complicated and amazing and hard, but it is never boring.  So this blog will happen when it happens, and when I have something to share.  Which I do.

I'm reading a book right now - Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby - and it's one of those potentially life-changing books.  Like, I'm reading it and thinking "if I can do this, if I can be okay in my own skin, my life might become something else, something better." It's a book about Fat Acceptance, and more than that it's a book about learning how to stop hating yourself, how to stop judging people around you, how to let go of guilt and stop making unattainable promises to yourself.  It's about learning to be critical of medical and media reports about health and body size - who is funding them?  Has something pretty benign been sensationalized? Has there been any fact-checking at all?  (For example - what is the percentage growth in obesity rates among women since 1999?  Answer, according to many medical sources: ZERO.  Bet your Marie Claire cover story on how to lose those extra 10 pounds doesn't let you know that, though.)

Here's a story about me and this book:

I live in New York City.  NYC has a lot of skinny girls in it, at least on TV.  I read on the subway, mainly because I spend a good deal of my time there, and it's easy and fun and keeps me entertained.  (I try not to read books that make me cry, but sometimes, like with this one, I do anyway.)  When I started reading this book, I did that thing that book lovers hate, and folded the paperback cover over so no one could see the cover.  Or I held the book in my lap, so no one would guess what I was reading.  I was ASHAMED to be reading a book about Fat Acceptance.  I was GUILTY, thinking that someone, one of these NYC Beautiful People I see on TV, or hanging out at NYU in the latest H&M clothes that would never fit me, would look at me, standing there in my size 18 glory, and look at the cover of this book, and think to themselves "of course you want to stop dieting, you Fatty Fatson. You just don't have the willpower, you're lazy, you can't do it and you want someone to tell you that you don't have to."  And you know what?  No one was thinking that.  No one gives a good god damn what I read on the subway.  I was the one who thought that.  I was the one who was hating on myself for reading this book in public, where other people could see.  Guess what?  Those other people could see me without the book.  They weren't going to magically look at the cover of a book and then realize I was fat.  I'm fat.  Any sighted person would know that.

About three chapters in, I sort of... stopped folding the cover over.  And when I glanced up, no one was looking.  But I was.  I was seeing all sorts of lovely people of all sorts of sizes and genders and ethnicities all over the place.  And none of them cared about my fat book.  No one was judging me but me, and man.  That was a startling thought.

This book is not crazy.  But sometimes the things it says are radical in their simplicity, like:

• If you want to eat a cookie right now, eat a cookie. If you want a salad for dinner, have a salad.  Listen to your body, eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full.
• There is no such thing as "bad food".  Food is food is food and has no morality attached to it.
• Don't give money to stores that don't deign to carry your size.
• If clothes don't fit right, it's the clothes fault, not yours.
• Don't be friends with people who criticize your weight, or make you feel belittled because of it.

My biggest worry as I tackle the things Kate and Marianne are teaching me is that I am a) going to be accused of using this as an excuse for not being healthy and b) that those people will be right.  I'm not a dieter.  I don't own a scale.  I tend to take a "it's not going to work anyway" attitude about weightloss because I knew it would be hard and probably wouldn't work and I don't like to do things I'm not good at.  That doesn't mean I don't judge myself, and my weight, every day.  That just means that I put up a facade of "Take me as I am", when really I believe that this is all I will ever be, and not in the good way.  I am fat, and that is that, but without the empowerment of "SO WHAT?" that this book is screaming at me.  I'm a woman who believes my body is my own, end of story, and what I do with it is my business.  Somehow, these women have (RADICALLY!) expanded this idea to include what I eat, where I do, what I wear.  I'm fat, SO WHAT?  What does that say about me as a person? 

Answer: Not very much.  It doesn't come close to describing me, or describing ANYONE.  My weight has no morality attached to it.  It doesn't make me lazy or stupid or unmotivated or sexless.  In fact, I am most certainly NONE of those things.  And I would be who I am at whatever weight I was.  Being fat doesn't define me, but it is part of who I am in this society, and if I can find a way to balance that... who boy, look out!

I need to take a long, hard look at myself (not in the mirror, just metaphorically) and know that in order to stop the cycle of "why even bother" that has always existed in my (non-)weight-loss thoughts, I need to know that I SHOULD bother to eat right for me, whatever that means.  I SHOULD bother to find some physical activity that makes me happy.  I SHOULD go dancing and lift weights and eat potato chips when I get the urge or take the night off and watch White Collar because it makes me clap with glee.  I should listen to my body because it's MY BODY and we should be best friends forever.  I should bother because I should love myself enough - not to lose weight, but to be healthy and happy at whatever pants size I may be. 

It's a great book, and an easy read, and a hard thing to really internalize.  I might read it twice.

Then, it's on to Health At Every Size, the foundation of the HAES movement. 

And maybe I'll buy some free weights.  They won't make me thin, but man, they might make me happy.