Well, it's been a *coughcough*coupleofmonths*cough* while since my last post. Sorry about that; the holiday season starts early in retail, and it will suck the life right out of you. No joke.
Speaking of the holiday season, though, I have some things to say. Nothing, really, that I haven't thought before; but approaching things from a new perspective has--unsurprisingly--led me to think about things that I'd never really taken the time to consider before. I'll divide these into a couple of different posts, since the one topic has to do with the holidays and the other is just something that happened to occur to me during this time.
What I want to talk about here is the realization I had that the holidays are one of the most difficult times to maintain a steady fat-acceptance outlook. Ironically, the reason for this is the very spirit of freedom and overall tendency to throw caution to the winds that makes it seem as though it would be the easiest time of year. This might not make sense yet, but hear me out.
I've lost count of how many times over the past several weeks I heard some sort of variation on how "holiday calories don't count." I even caught myself saying it myself a time or two. Yes, I always said it as a joke; but doesn't everyone? No one actually believes that the food you eat between the middle of November and the beginning of January magically stops impacting your body in any way. But there's a sort of unspoken agreement among most adults to pretend that that's the case, or at least to pretend that for a month and a half everyone stops caring. For that stretch of time, most of society winks an eye at the consumption of foods that would, during most of the year, garner stern disapproval at best. The idea seems to be that during the holidays, that magical, wonderful time of the year, sensual pleasure--fleeting though it may be--is an acceptable goal. Want another cookie? Go ahead! A third piece of fudge? Why not! After all, it's the holidays!
Now, on the surface this all seems well and good. It's one of the few times of the year when a fatty like me can snack and munch and nibble without worrying about disapproving looks or people whispering behind her back. The problem, however, doesn't lie in what's actually said and done; it lies in what's lurking beneath the surface.
You see, every time I found myself saying, "Holiday calories don't count!" I was aware, in a way that I never had been before, of what I wasn't saying. I wasn't saying that calories do count during the rest of the year. I wasn't saying that we shouldn't eat these things for the 46 weeks between New Year's and Thanksgiving. I wasn't saying that once the new year hit I would remember that calories always count and going into overdrive trying to rid myself of the consequences of my excess. I wasn't saying any of those things; but I could hear them hanging in the air nevertheless, all of those implications that almost three decades in Western society have taught me go along with that one simple phrase. Holiday calories don't count during the holidays, but no one really thinks that they don't count at all.
Why is this a bad thing? It's not; at least, it's not absolutely and inherently so. It is, however, perilously close to diet-speak for my comfort. It is, let's say, the gateway phrase. It would be all too easy for me to go from saying, "Holiday calories don't count!" to sliding into a "Calories in, calories out; more calories are BAD" mindset. It's a slippery slope for me, and I'm guessing for quite a few of you out there in Internetland.
The real irony here is that I tend to eat better over the holidays than I do for most of the year. I'm at home with my family, and my mom is cooking and/or preparing most of the food. I'm not running out for something quick (and almost certainly unhealthy). There's usually a lovely selection of fresh fruit, which I almost unfailingly fall upon like a plague of locusts. (This Christmas sadly excepted, as I had a horrible cold start to hit me on Christmas Eve. Those pears were good too, damn it.) And for myself, the worry about extra calories didn't actually cross my mind. But with a mother and a sister who have likely never even heard of fat acceptance (no, I haven't brought it up, as that's a longer conversation than I feel up to having this early on), I was quite aware of that concern.
I came through more or less intact, but with New Year's and the accompanying resolutions yet to come, I know I'm not out of the woods yet. If anyone reading this has any tips to stay positive during this time of year, drop me a comment and let me know!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Fatshion: fun to type, but difficult to say (or, I review my first time at Torrid)
So today, due to work-related madness, I found myself in a position to actually make it out to the one place in my area where they've deigned to put a Torrid store. (Seriously, is it because they think we're all farmers who don't care about fashion, or is it because they think we're all skinny? Perhaps from all the farming we do. Give me more cute clothes that fit me, damn it!)
All in all, I thought it was all right. Bought a pair of dark wash skinny jeans, which was the whole reason for my trip in the first place and therefore more successful than at least 75% of my shopping expeditions. I also managed to score a couple of skinny belts for large-shirt-cinching purposes and two new cardigans, one of which is bright red and has a hood. This last might actually represent everything I could ever want in an article of clothing.
ETA: The only thing that could possibly make this sweater any better is if it had pockets. Torrid, call me. I'm doing you a solid. A gift card would not go unappreciated.
Unfortunately--and I don't know if this at all common for Torrid--the store was fairly small so the selection was rather limited. Also disappointing was the color selection. Now, I like grays and muted tones as much as the next girl, but alas, the feeling isn't mutual. When wearing them I tend to look like a three-day-old corpse, which is not actually the look I'm going for. (Though it would make for an interesting Halloween costume, I suppose.) There was very little in the way of bright colors there, my new red sweater being a notable exception. Now, like I said, I have no idea how much of this is just representative of the vagaries of this particular location. Nor can I really say how much of the color choice is due to current fashion trends vs. business as usual. All in all, though, there wasn't really enough there to make me feel like the hour-and-a-half drive (that's per leg, btw, not round-trip) is worth it more than very occasionally.
That said, their rewards program is quite nice, and I'll probably order jeans from their online store if nothing else. (I've been burned too many times to trust ordering things I've never actually tried on.) It's definitely something to keep an eye on, and a good resource for skinny jeans and the occasional bitchin' red sweater.
All in all, I thought it was all right. Bought a pair of dark wash skinny jeans, which was the whole reason for my trip in the first place and therefore more successful than at least 75% of my shopping expeditions. I also managed to score a couple of skinny belts for large-shirt-cinching purposes and two new cardigans, one of which is bright red and has a hood. This last might actually represent everything I could ever want in an article of clothing.
ETA: The only thing that could possibly make this sweater any better is if it had pockets. Torrid, call me. I'm doing you a solid. A gift card would not go unappreciated.
Unfortunately--and I don't know if this at all common for Torrid--the store was fairly small so the selection was rather limited. Also disappointing was the color selection. Now, I like grays and muted tones as much as the next girl, but alas, the feeling isn't mutual. When wearing them I tend to look like a three-day-old corpse, which is not actually the look I'm going for. (Though it would make for an interesting Halloween costume, I suppose.) There was very little in the way of bright colors there, my new red sweater being a notable exception. Now, like I said, I have no idea how much of this is just representative of the vagaries of this particular location. Nor can I really say how much of the color choice is due to current fashion trends vs. business as usual. All in all, though, there wasn't really enough there to make me feel like the hour-and-a-half drive (that's per leg, btw, not round-trip) is worth it more than very occasionally.
That said, their rewards program is quite nice, and I'll probably order jeans from their online store if nothing else. (I've been burned too many times to trust ordering things I've never actually tried on.) It's definitely something to keep an eye on, and a good resource for skinny jeans and the occasional bitchin' red sweater.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Calling Olsen, calling Memphis, I am calling, can you hear this?
So, as I mentioned, my sister's birthday was Saturday. Since we were going to the mall for pedicures anyway, and my bra was very clearly not fitting anymore, I decided that while she was getting her makeup done I would go to Lane Bryant and get some new bras. (Which I did, and oh dear lord, the difference is MIRACULOUS. I am wearing the one that didn't have to get shipped to me right now. Let me tell you, if it were possible to legally marry a piece of clothing, this bra might be it for me.) On the surface, this sounds like a simple enough thing. In reality, though, I knew before we even left the house what would happen, which was that I would walk into the store and either go, "Ugh, everything in here sucks," or else I'd find fifteen to twenty other things to try on. And since I've gone in one too many times thinking, "Oh, that's cute, I'll come back and try it on later," only to find when I do go back in that it is gone forever. This makes me a sad panda. So going in, I knew there was a good chance I'd be trying on clothes.
Thus, the day was already going to be stressful before the Evening Out even began. Because yes, shopping for clothes can be lots of fun, but it can also be absolutely horrifying. There's nothing quite like standing in a tiny room, all of a foot and a half away from the mirror, and trying on item after item that were clearly not designed with you in mind, to completely wreck your self-confidence. It's entirely too easy to see a shirt that looks absolutely adorable on the hanger, get it on only to find that it makes you look like you're pregnant or makes your arms look like a mad Dr. Frankenstein's mistakenly sewn a pair of legs in their place, and immediately start blaming your body. It was incredibly cute on the mannequin, after all; the problem is clearly you.
When this happens once, it's reasonably easy to push it aside. When it happens twice, it starts getting more difficult. When it happens with everything you try on (and yes, I have gone into a dressing room with three armloads of clothes only to come out with nothing) it's fucking devastating.
This shopping trip, as it turned out, was pretty much ideal. I tried on several things, and enough fit to make me feel good and confident and attractive; enough didn't fit, or didn't fit quite right, to keep me from spending way more money than I actually needed to. When something didn't fit, instead of dwelling on the parts of me it didn't flatter, I shrugged, decided it wasn't for me, and moved on.
It sounds simple, doesn't it? It's not. It was really fucking hard. For example, I tried on a pair of leggings that I pretty much already knew weren't going to work, because I figured "Why not?" They managed to highlight pretty much everything I dislike about my legs, and I barely got them all the way on before whipping them back off again. I got that sinking feeling in my gut that happens whenever a part of my body I particularly dislike is thrown into sharp relief. It would have been incredibly easy to let that feeling take me over, to spend the rest of the time looking at my thighs whenever I tried something else on and knowing that they were there, under my jeans, fat and lumpy and ugly. Instead I took a deep (mostly mental) breath and thought, Okay, maybe super-thin, skin-tight leggings aren't designed to flatter me. I just won't wear them. I moved on, and while I still have that image sort of burned into my brain (I've made progress, but I still have a long way to go, body/fat acceptance-wise) I don't find my eyes automatically drawn to or repelled from my thighs when I look in the mirror.
(Okay, I'm going to derail for a moment here to ask: does anyone else remember, in the eighties/early nineties, when "leggings" meant a pair of pants that were sort of thin and stretchy but not, y'know, TIGHTS? What happened there? Seriously.)
So the first hurdle of the day was cleared, and I got some new clothes, including some bras that make my boobs look FANTASTIC. For real, y'all. It's sort of epic. Plus I had soft feet and toes painted a pretty dark blue, and everything was going rather well.
But I still had to get through the part of the day that was tying my stomach into knots whenever I thought about it.
To explain this, it's first necessary for you to realize that though I love my sister dearly dearly dearly, we are two very different people.
I am, quite literally, a Big Damn Geek. I prefer to read books in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre; I have held discussions on why that entire genre should probably be more accurately titled Speculative Fiction; I play D&D; I am a Trekkie/Trekker/whatever the hell you want to call it, so clearly I'm not as fanatical as some because I really don't give a damn about the word itself; I read and write fanfic. (Shut up.) I also tend to be--and this may be somewhat unexpected, coming from someone who's decided to start her own blog and toss her opinions out into the often uncaring and hostile land of the internet--extremely introverted.
My sister, on the other hand, has always been one of the Popular Girls. She played soccer and was a cheerleader in high school. She was in a sorority in college. She just finished with esthetics school. (She is also a lovely, warm, wonderful person, and the reason why I will lay a heap of righteous vengeance on anyone who wants to categorically slam cheerleaders, sorority girls, and/or estheticians or cosmetologists. Fair warning.) Her friends are the same type of people; traditionally popular, attractive, and outgoing.
I have never had a bad experience with one of my sister's friends. But I have had bad experiences with people who fit into many of the same categories that they do, and my fear of social situations entirely surrounded by people like that borders on instinctive.
I wasn't afraid of being badly treated, or condescended to, or anything like that. What made me nervous was, quite simply, being out with a group of these women and having to eat in front of them.
I want to say that it's a ridiculous fear to have. I really, really want to. But based on my past experiences, I can emphatically say that it's not ridiculous. What it is, is infuriating. I am a human being. I need food to . . . what was that thing called . . . oh right, live. It's infuriating to me that our society conditions people (female-type people, in particular) to see food as dangerous, as an indulgence, as a handy moral yardstick. As a fat girl, I've spent more years than I care to count carefully monitoring not only my own public food consumption, but how it measured compared to that of every other person in the room. I have turned down food when I was hungry because I didn't want to wonder if I was being judged for saying yes. I've waited to get food until someone thinner than me did, and very carefully gotten only as much as they did, maximum. I've lived terrified to put anything in my mouth in public that wasn't a) liquid, b) visibly non/low-fat, or c) such a tiny amount that I thought it couldn't reasonably effect other people's opinions.
One of the most important things that I'm learning from fat acceptance and demand eating is the ability to say the following phrase. Are you paying attention? This is important. Ready? Okay.
FUCK. THAT.
I've already said it above, but I'll say it again in more inclusive language: We need food to live. Food is not a basis for moral judgment. It's fuel, and it's pleasure, and it's just fucking food. One of the hardest things I'm having to learn is how to actually listen to my body, to accept when I'm hungry and try to work out what it is I'm hungry for. And since I've started, guess what? I'm eating lots of fresh fruit. I'm starting to be able to recognize when I need protein, and when I need carbs, and when I need vitamins, and when I need calcium. I'm also enjoying food more. I accept it when I really, really want a bunch of fresh grapes. I also accept it when I really, really want some macaroni and cheese. This doesn't mean that I don't stop and think and question whether these are things I really do want. But if I decide that yes, my interpretation of what my body's trying to tell me is spot-on, I don't then try to talk myself out of what I want on the grounds that it's fatty or mostly carbs or a goddamned sometimes food.
So when I went out with my sister's friends (all of whom, in addition to being lovely and extroverted, are also quite thin, and I believe three of the four are on Weight Watchers right now), I took a careful look at the menu, took the time to think about what sounded good and what I thought would really satisfy me. I ordered a salad (switched from a house to a Caesar at the last minute because it sounded better, and resulted in me eating the whole thing rather than half or less) and an entree and dessert. I only ate a few bites of the latter, not because I was afraid of what people would think but because that was all I really wanted. And, it should be noted, I ordered the exact same amount of food as my sister despite having ordered first.
Now, I'm sure there's someone out there who's remembering the having fat friends makes you fat "study" and is triumphantly calling out, "Aha! See? She was influenced by your ordering ridiculous amounts of food, and now she's going to get fat and miserable and it will be all your fault." I have two main problems with that. First, I believe that my sister is smarter than that. Second, there were four other thin women there. Even assuming that their body type wasn't the one she consciously wanted to emulate, they outnumbered me four to one. (Five, if you count my sister.) The odds were so stacked against my influence that it would be a ridiculous assumption to make. I'm going to assume, therefore, that you're all too smart for that, as well.
The point here, which I seem to have gotten distracted from making, is that I went out, I was confident in my own choices, and I had fun. Granted, this was a very different environment than if these women had all been strangers who hadn't been pre-screened by my sister for non-douchery. Still, it was a step in the right direction.
If there's anyone out there reading, tell me about your own small steps. What have you done lately that's made you proud of yourself?
Thus, the day was already going to be stressful before the Evening Out even began. Because yes, shopping for clothes can be lots of fun, but it can also be absolutely horrifying. There's nothing quite like standing in a tiny room, all of a foot and a half away from the mirror, and trying on item after item that were clearly not designed with you in mind, to completely wreck your self-confidence. It's entirely too easy to see a shirt that looks absolutely adorable on the hanger, get it on only to find that it makes you look like you're pregnant or makes your arms look like a mad Dr. Frankenstein's mistakenly sewn a pair of legs in their place, and immediately start blaming your body. It was incredibly cute on the mannequin, after all; the problem is clearly you.
When this happens once, it's reasonably easy to push it aside. When it happens twice, it starts getting more difficult. When it happens with everything you try on (and yes, I have gone into a dressing room with three armloads of clothes only to come out with nothing) it's fucking devastating.
This shopping trip, as it turned out, was pretty much ideal. I tried on several things, and enough fit to make me feel good and confident and attractive; enough didn't fit, or didn't fit quite right, to keep me from spending way more money than I actually needed to. When something didn't fit, instead of dwelling on the parts of me it didn't flatter, I shrugged, decided it wasn't for me, and moved on.
It sounds simple, doesn't it? It's not. It was really fucking hard. For example, I tried on a pair of leggings that I pretty much already knew weren't going to work, because I figured "Why not?" They managed to highlight pretty much everything I dislike about my legs, and I barely got them all the way on before whipping them back off again. I got that sinking feeling in my gut that happens whenever a part of my body I particularly dislike is thrown into sharp relief. It would have been incredibly easy to let that feeling take me over, to spend the rest of the time looking at my thighs whenever I tried something else on and knowing that they were there, under my jeans, fat and lumpy and ugly. Instead I took a deep (mostly mental) breath and thought, Okay, maybe super-thin, skin-tight leggings aren't designed to flatter me. I just won't wear them. I moved on, and while I still have that image sort of burned into my brain (I've made progress, but I still have a long way to go, body/fat acceptance-wise) I don't find my eyes automatically drawn to or repelled from my thighs when I look in the mirror.
(Okay, I'm going to derail for a moment here to ask: does anyone else remember, in the eighties/early nineties, when "leggings" meant a pair of pants that were sort of thin and stretchy but not, y'know, TIGHTS? What happened there? Seriously.)
So the first hurdle of the day was cleared, and I got some new clothes, including some bras that make my boobs look FANTASTIC. For real, y'all. It's sort of epic. Plus I had soft feet and toes painted a pretty dark blue, and everything was going rather well.
But I still had to get through the part of the day that was tying my stomach into knots whenever I thought about it.
To explain this, it's first necessary for you to realize that though I love my sister dearly dearly dearly, we are two very different people.
I am, quite literally, a Big Damn Geek. I prefer to read books in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre; I have held discussions on why that entire genre should probably be more accurately titled Speculative Fiction; I play D&D; I am a Trekkie/Trekker/whatever the hell you want to call it, so clearly I'm not as fanatical as some because I really don't give a damn about the word itself; I read and write fanfic. (Shut up.) I also tend to be--and this may be somewhat unexpected, coming from someone who's decided to start her own blog and toss her opinions out into the often uncaring and hostile land of the internet--extremely introverted.
My sister, on the other hand, has always been one of the Popular Girls. She played soccer and was a cheerleader in high school. She was in a sorority in college. She just finished with esthetics school. (She is also a lovely, warm, wonderful person, and the reason why I will lay a heap of righteous vengeance on anyone who wants to categorically slam cheerleaders, sorority girls, and/or estheticians or cosmetologists. Fair warning.) Her friends are the same type of people; traditionally popular, attractive, and outgoing.
I have never had a bad experience with one of my sister's friends. But I have had bad experiences with people who fit into many of the same categories that they do, and my fear of social situations entirely surrounded by people like that borders on instinctive.
I wasn't afraid of being badly treated, or condescended to, or anything like that. What made me nervous was, quite simply, being out with a group of these women and having to eat in front of them.
I want to say that it's a ridiculous fear to have. I really, really want to. But based on my past experiences, I can emphatically say that it's not ridiculous. What it is, is infuriating. I am a human being. I need food to . . . what was that thing called . . . oh right, live. It's infuriating to me that our society conditions people (female-type people, in particular) to see food as dangerous, as an indulgence, as a handy moral yardstick. As a fat girl, I've spent more years than I care to count carefully monitoring not only my own public food consumption, but how it measured compared to that of every other person in the room. I have turned down food when I was hungry because I didn't want to wonder if I was being judged for saying yes. I've waited to get food until someone thinner than me did, and very carefully gotten only as much as they did, maximum. I've lived terrified to put anything in my mouth in public that wasn't a) liquid, b) visibly non/low-fat, or c) such a tiny amount that I thought it couldn't reasonably effect other people's opinions.
One of the most important things that I'm learning from fat acceptance and demand eating is the ability to say the following phrase. Are you paying attention? This is important. Ready? Okay.
FUCK. THAT.
I've already said it above, but I'll say it again in more inclusive language: We need food to live. Food is not a basis for moral judgment. It's fuel, and it's pleasure, and it's just fucking food. One of the hardest things I'm having to learn is how to actually listen to my body, to accept when I'm hungry and try to work out what it is I'm hungry for. And since I've started, guess what? I'm eating lots of fresh fruit. I'm starting to be able to recognize when I need protein, and when I need carbs, and when I need vitamins, and when I need calcium. I'm also enjoying food more. I accept it when I really, really want a bunch of fresh grapes. I also accept it when I really, really want some macaroni and cheese. This doesn't mean that I don't stop and think and question whether these are things I really do want. But if I decide that yes, my interpretation of what my body's trying to tell me is spot-on, I don't then try to talk myself out of what I want on the grounds that it's fatty or mostly carbs or a goddamned sometimes food.
So when I went out with my sister's friends (all of whom, in addition to being lovely and extroverted, are also quite thin, and I believe three of the four are on Weight Watchers right now), I took a careful look at the menu, took the time to think about what sounded good and what I thought would really satisfy me. I ordered a salad (switched from a house to a Caesar at the last minute because it sounded better, and resulted in me eating the whole thing rather than half or less) and an entree and dessert. I only ate a few bites of the latter, not because I was afraid of what people would think but because that was all I really wanted. And, it should be noted, I ordered the exact same amount of food as my sister despite having ordered first.
Now, I'm sure there's someone out there who's remembering the having fat friends makes you fat "study" and is triumphantly calling out, "Aha! See? She was influenced by your ordering ridiculous amounts of food, and now she's going to get fat and miserable and it will be all your fault." I have two main problems with that. First, I believe that my sister is smarter than that. Second, there were four other thin women there. Even assuming that their body type wasn't the one she consciously wanted to emulate, they outnumbered me four to one. (Five, if you count my sister.) The odds were so stacked against my influence that it would be a ridiculous assumption to make. I'm going to assume, therefore, that you're all too smart for that, as well.
The point here, which I seem to have gotten distracted from making, is that I went out, I was confident in my own choices, and I had fun. Granted, this was a very different environment than if these women had all been strangers who hadn't been pre-screened by my sister for non-douchery. Still, it was a step in the right direction.
If there's anyone out there reading, tell me about your own small steps. What have you done lately that's made you proud of yourself?
Saturday, October 9, 2010
A day full of challenges
Today is my sister's birthday. Hooray, big sister! ^_^
She and my mom and I are about to head out to get pedicures (because my sister is definitely, unquestionably a girly girl), so I don't quite have time for a full post about all the reasons I'm apprehensive about today. I'll get to that later, probably after the fact, and break it all down for you. For now, I'll just mention my goals for today:
She and my mom and I are about to head out to get pedicures (because my sister is definitely, unquestionably a girly girl), so I don't quite have time for a full post about all the reasons I'm apprehensive about today. I'll get to that later, probably after the fact, and break it all down for you. For now, I'll just mention my goals for today:
- When shopping for clothes (I seriously need a new bra, if nothing else), I will not say things like, "I don't have the legs for that dress" or "My arms don't look good in this top." If something does not fit, or does not flatter me, I will instead say, "That dress does not flatter my legs" or "This top is not right for my arms." It's something I need to be better at: shifting the blame away from my body and onto the real issue, which is clothing that was not specifically designed with me in mind.
- I will not assume that just because my sister and her friends look hot (which I'm certain they will), and I do not look like them, that I am therefore not hot, myself. I will remind myself that there are all different kinds of pretty in the world, and that damn it, I am one of them.
- I will not drink so much that I can not drive us home after dinner.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Fear is only in our minds, but it's taking over all the time
So, first thing, if you haven't already done so, go and read Kate Harding's brilliant piece, "Devouring the World". It's completely and utterly brilliant, and made me choke up a little, and is something I've thought many, many times but not been able to put into words or give much credence because, well, it was probably just me trying to rationalize things, right? Things like eating (OH GOD THE HORROR!) and enjoying food (WHAT AM I, SOME KIND OF MONSTER? TO THINK PEOPLE SHOULD ENJOY FOOD!) and just generally not beating yourself up if you happen to have a goddamned Oreo™.
(Myself, I do not generally buy Oreo™s. I do, however, have a package of double-stuff Kid-Os sitting on my counter right now. I can't tell a difference in taste, and they're ridiculously cheaper. Store-brand FTW!)
(Right. Tangent. Sorry.)
Here at the beginning of my quest for better health and Fat Acceptance, I find myself thinking a lot about diets. For all that I was caught up in the clamor and the clangor of it, I never really stopped to think about the appeal of dieting before. (Not surprising, really; in all likelihood, I needed a certain amount of distance before I could think about it in any rational sort of way.) Considering it recently, I have decided that, for me at least, the main appeal of dieting as opposed to healthy eating and exercise was the privacy.
Whenever I think about this, I think about an episode of Gilmore Girls in which Lorelai pulls something highly unexpected out of her wallet: a gym membership card.
It's played for a laugh (and yeah, it is funny) but . . . well, it's one of those "it's funny because it's true" moments. I can't count the number of times that I thought about going to the gym (long ago, when we had a family membership to one of the local community centers) and decided that no, I couldn't, I was too fat. I'd lose a bit of weight first, and then I'd start working out, and seriously there are so many things wrong with that thought right there I could barely even type it out. And yet I thought that, time and time again.
And why? Because, having been (at least considered) fat all my life, I'd developed a sort of instinctual distrust of any setting where I was expected to be physically active around other people. Even as an adult I couldn't let go of the certainty that every time I moved I was being watched, measured, judged. The threat of insults and catcalls hung over me like the Sword of Damocles, until I was afraid to move at all lest that trigger it to fall. Running and biking and sweating were right out. Might as well hang a sign around my neck saying, "Self esteem dangerously high: please ridicule!"
Diets, on the other hand . . . oh, diets were wonderful things. They took place almost entirely in private, and on the rare occasion they did become public, far from being ridiculed I was lauded! I had such willpower! I was Taking Steps to improve myself! I saved puppies from burning buildings and nut-punched muggers and did it all on half of my recommended caloric intake! Hurrah for me! Added to that was the martyr angle: I was deliberately denying myself things that I enjoyed, things that many people enjoy, and because we've been raised in a culture that encourages a fear of food instead of an understanding of it, what I was doing was Brave and Impressive and Laudable.
Diets, you see, only made me more visible if the viewer so chose and allowed them to frame me in the way that made them most comfortable. They could choose to comment on my eating habits, praise them, or choose to (ostensibly, at least) ignore them. The important thing was that I wasn't getting in their faces with my movement and my sweat and my size 12/14/16/18 body that really, I had no business parading around in public anyway.
Did people actually think any of that? Did anyone actually see me that way? I have no idea. But I also don't know that it really matters. I felt as though they did, and fear of that omnipresent judgment had a profound influence on my actions. Fat shaming doesn't just affect you in the moment; I experienced few overt instances in between elementary school and the end of high school, but that fear never once left me.
I read Kate's article on the tails of all that thinking, and I ended up pondering "devouring the world" and "good foods/bad foods" and "good fatties/bad fatties" when I was at the grocery store this evening.
I had gone for a light bulb and some fruit and ended up with a light bulb, some fruit, a box of tapioca pudding mix, a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, some lettuce, a cucumber, and some deli meat. So I was feeling slightly weak-willed, but still rather proud of myself for making overall healthy choices. (And if resisting tapioca pudding and cornbread muffins is being strong-willed, then fuck it.) When I went to check out I ended up in line behind another woman about my size (I think? I suck at accurately assessing these things.) who seemed to have primarily microwave dinners and other easy-to-prepare things. As I was looking at what she was buying, because I'm a nosy little shit, I noticed that the vast majority of her items were either Weight Watchers-branded, Lean Cuisine, or low-fat/sugar free food.
Now, I've never tried Weight Watchers, or Jenny Craig, or any of the other programs of their ilk. (Not because I didn't think they'd work. After all, I've tried a variety of different diets for years. Usually basic calorie/fat counting, but even though I railed against Atkins as unhealthy and idiotic, I eventually tried a version of the carb-restriction plan. So it wasn't the gimmickyness that turned me off, it was the fact that I simply couldn't afford it.) I've known people who have, though, and I know that the programs are enormously popular. But why are they so popular, when they clearly don't work? Why are things like Slimfast and New Miracle Diet Pill of the Week still selling?
From my standpoint (and no, I have no marketing or business training; but then, neither do most of these companies' customers/consumers), it seems like it comes back to that complex mix of privacy and visibility that comes with all dieting.
See the fat girl at the supermarket. Bad fat girl, bad! Don't you know fatties aren't supposed to eat until they're thin? But wait . . . what's this? Her basket is full of products branded in big, bold letters declaring that they're LOW FAT or LEAN or WEIGHT-LOSS SYSTEM APPROVED! Well, at least she's trying, the poor dear. Keep it up, sweetie, and one day you'll fit into those size 4 jeans!
These products and programs are selling more than just hope: they're selling acceptability. Because as long as you're trying, as long as you're making an effort to be thin, thinner, thinnest, most of society will give you a pass. Keep up the good work, and when you fall off the wagon don't worry, it's okay, it happens to all of us, just climb back on and get going again. Keep making that effort. Listen to that thin person inside of you screaming to get out. Don't, under any circumstances, wholeheartedly accept yourself for who you are and what you look like now.
Those boxes with the recognizable logos say that you're trying. And that's the most important thing. Well, second most important; because really, what people are most concerned about is that you're trying where they can't see you.
(Myself, I do not generally buy Oreo™s. I do, however, have a package of double-stuff Kid-Os sitting on my counter right now. I can't tell a difference in taste, and they're ridiculously cheaper. Store-brand FTW!)
(Right. Tangent. Sorry.)
Here at the beginning of my quest for better health and Fat Acceptance, I find myself thinking a lot about diets. For all that I was caught up in the clamor and the clangor of it, I never really stopped to think about the appeal of dieting before. (Not surprising, really; in all likelihood, I needed a certain amount of distance before I could think about it in any rational sort of way.) Considering it recently, I have decided that, for me at least, the main appeal of dieting as opposed to healthy eating and exercise was the privacy.
Whenever I think about this, I think about an episode of Gilmore Girls in which Lorelai pulls something highly unexpected out of her wallet: a gym membership card.
Luke: You joined a gym?
Lorelai: Yeah.
Luke: When?
Lorelai: After I had Rory, to lose the pregnancy weight.
Luke: Did you go?
Lorelai: God, no. I was way too fat.
It's played for a laugh (and yeah, it is funny) but . . . well, it's one of those "it's funny because it's true" moments. I can't count the number of times that I thought about going to the gym (long ago, when we had a family membership to one of the local community centers) and decided that no, I couldn't, I was too fat. I'd lose a bit of weight first, and then I'd start working out, and seriously there are so many things wrong with that thought right there I could barely even type it out. And yet I thought that, time and time again.
And why? Because, having been (at least considered) fat all my life, I'd developed a sort of instinctual distrust of any setting where I was expected to be physically active around other people. Even as an adult I couldn't let go of the certainty that every time I moved I was being watched, measured, judged. The threat of insults and catcalls hung over me like the Sword of Damocles, until I was afraid to move at all lest that trigger it to fall. Running and biking and sweating were right out. Might as well hang a sign around my neck saying, "Self esteem dangerously high: please ridicule!"
Diets, on the other hand . . . oh, diets were wonderful things. They took place almost entirely in private, and on the rare occasion they did become public, far from being ridiculed I was lauded! I had such willpower! I was Taking Steps to improve myself! I saved puppies from burning buildings and nut-punched muggers and did it all on half of my recommended caloric intake! Hurrah for me! Added to that was the martyr angle: I was deliberately denying myself things that I enjoyed, things that many people enjoy, and because we've been raised in a culture that encourages a fear of food instead of an understanding of it, what I was doing was Brave and Impressive and Laudable.
Diets, you see, only made me more visible if the viewer so chose and allowed them to frame me in the way that made them most comfortable. They could choose to comment on my eating habits, praise them, or choose to (ostensibly, at least) ignore them. The important thing was that I wasn't getting in their faces with my movement and my sweat and my size 12/14/16/18 body that really, I had no business parading around in public anyway.
Did people actually think any of that? Did anyone actually see me that way? I have no idea. But I also don't know that it really matters. I felt as though they did, and fear of that omnipresent judgment had a profound influence on my actions. Fat shaming doesn't just affect you in the moment; I experienced few overt instances in between elementary school and the end of high school, but that fear never once left me.
I read Kate's article on the tails of all that thinking, and I ended up pondering "devouring the world" and "good foods/bad foods" and "good fatties/bad fatties" when I was at the grocery store this evening.
I had gone for a light bulb and some fruit and ended up with a light bulb, some fruit, a box of tapioca pudding mix, a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, some lettuce, a cucumber, and some deli meat. So I was feeling slightly weak-willed, but still rather proud of myself for making overall healthy choices. (And if resisting tapioca pudding and cornbread muffins is being strong-willed, then fuck it.) When I went to check out I ended up in line behind another woman about my size (I think? I suck at accurately assessing these things.) who seemed to have primarily microwave dinners and other easy-to-prepare things. As I was looking at what she was buying, because I'm a nosy little shit, I noticed that the vast majority of her items were either Weight Watchers-branded, Lean Cuisine, or low-fat/sugar free food.
Now, I've never tried Weight Watchers, or Jenny Craig, or any of the other programs of their ilk. (Not because I didn't think they'd work. After all, I've tried a variety of different diets for years. Usually basic calorie/fat counting, but even though I railed against Atkins as unhealthy and idiotic, I eventually tried a version of the carb-restriction plan. So it wasn't the gimmickyness that turned me off, it was the fact that I simply couldn't afford it.) I've known people who have, though, and I know that the programs are enormously popular. But why are they so popular, when they clearly don't work? Why are things like Slimfast and New Miracle Diet Pill of the Week still selling?
From my standpoint (and no, I have no marketing or business training; but then, neither do most of these companies' customers/consumers), it seems like it comes back to that complex mix of privacy and visibility that comes with all dieting.
See the fat girl at the supermarket. Bad fat girl, bad! Don't you know fatties aren't supposed to eat until they're thin? But wait . . . what's this? Her basket is full of products branded in big, bold letters declaring that they're LOW FAT or LEAN or WEIGHT-LOSS SYSTEM APPROVED! Well, at least she's trying, the poor dear. Keep it up, sweetie, and one day you'll fit into those size 4 jeans!
These products and programs are selling more than just hope: they're selling acceptability. Because as long as you're trying, as long as you're making an effort to be thin, thinner, thinnest, most of society will give you a pass. Keep up the good work, and when you fall off the wagon don't worry, it's okay, it happens to all of us, just climb back on and get going again. Keep making that effort. Listen to that thin person inside of you screaming to get out. Don't, under any circumstances, wholeheartedly accept yourself for who you are and what you look like now.
Those boxes with the recognizable logos say that you're trying. And that's the most important thing. Well, second most important; because really, what people are most concerned about is that you're trying where they can't see you.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Assorted hotties
It's time for the first Hottie Roundup. With no further ado, I give you:
Current Celebrity Crushes!
Nikki Blonsky:
Lee Pace:
David Blue:
James Corden:
Crystal Renn:
Amy Lee:
Amy Adams:
Miracle Laurie
Current Celebrity Crushes!
Zachary Quinto:
Lee Pace:
David Blue:
James Corden:
Crystal Renn:
Amy Lee:
Amy Adams:
Miracle Laurie
There's no such thing as a conservation of pretty
I was at breakfast this morning (okay, afternoon, because I was up until past 5 a.m. watching "Huge", which I'll talk about later; don't judge me). Now, I love breakfast with a ridiculous, fiery passion, enough that I will eat alone, in public, on a regular basis in order to indulge. Also, this place in town makes the best breakfast burritos. Just so you know.
The point is, I was out at breakfast with my delicious burrito, reading the Shapely Prose archive on my phone and enjoying the Very Cute Waiter whenever he came by. A lovely time, all in all. After a while, though, when I was about to get up to refill my coffee I glanced over at the VCW again to see him chatting with a very pretty girl sitting a few tables over. Immediately, despite having left the house feeling quite satisfied with how I looked, my self-confidence took a nosedive. The thought process is a familiar one, and goes something like this:
She is thin and pretty --> I do not look like her --> therefore I am not pretty.
It's a problem I frequently encounter when I'm out, just one of the self-esteem pit traps to be navigated. I could feel my shoulders hunching in, my head lowering, the thought going 'round and 'round my head, Keep quiet, keep your head down, don't let anyone notice you. Just getting up from the table, crossing the room to get another cup of coffee felt like a horrifying, daunting prospect. But instead of letting those feelings inform my actions, I squared my shoulders and stood up and crossed the damn room. Because really, the thought process should go something more like this:
She is thin and pretty --> I do not look like her --> so the fuck what?
Here's the thing to understand, and what has taken me far too long to be able to articulate: there is not a finite amount of attractiveness out there.
There is plenty of pretty to go around. If there is a pretty girl in the room, that does not make me less so. One person being pretty does not take away from the rest of us. Insane as it may sound, I only realized today that if I'm pretty, and another pretty girl walks in (even if she's prettier than I am), my level of attractiveness have not changed. Pretty has not suddenly been subtracted from me, or from anyone else to accommodate her presence.
If I don't look like her, what does that matter? If I saw a girl who looked exactly like me, except she had blonde hair, would I think that I couldn't possibly be as pretty because my hair was dark?* So why the hell am I letting myself get hung up on the fact that I don't look like someone else as though it makes me any less pretty?
Because it doesn't.
There are so many different kinds of pretty out there. (And I will compile some of them here, because I like to look at pictures of people I think are pretty.) Sure, maybe not everyone is going to find me attractive. But that's true of anyone; there is absolutely no such thing as an absolutely universal standard of beauty. How much happier would I be if I stopped defining my self-image based on other people?
I think quite a bit.
The point is, I was out at breakfast with my delicious burrito, reading the Shapely Prose archive on my phone and enjoying the Very Cute Waiter whenever he came by. A lovely time, all in all. After a while, though, when I was about to get up to refill my coffee I glanced over at the VCW again to see him chatting with a very pretty girl sitting a few tables over. Immediately, despite having left the house feeling quite satisfied with how I looked, my self-confidence took a nosedive. The thought process is a familiar one, and goes something like this:
She is thin and pretty --> I do not look like her --> therefore I am not pretty.
It's a problem I frequently encounter when I'm out, just one of the self-esteem pit traps to be navigated. I could feel my shoulders hunching in, my head lowering, the thought going 'round and 'round my head, Keep quiet, keep your head down, don't let anyone notice you. Just getting up from the table, crossing the room to get another cup of coffee felt like a horrifying, daunting prospect. But instead of letting those feelings inform my actions, I squared my shoulders and stood up and crossed the damn room. Because really, the thought process should go something more like this:
She is thin and pretty --> I do not look like her --> so the fuck what?
Here's the thing to understand, and what has taken me far too long to be able to articulate: there is not a finite amount of attractiveness out there.
There is plenty of pretty to go around. If there is a pretty girl in the room, that does not make me less so. One person being pretty does not take away from the rest of us. Insane as it may sound, I only realized today that if I'm pretty, and another pretty girl walks in (even if she's prettier than I am), my level of attractiveness have not changed. Pretty has not suddenly been subtracted from me, or from anyone else to accommodate her presence.
If I don't look like her, what does that matter? If I saw a girl who looked exactly like me, except she had blonde hair, would I think that I couldn't possibly be as pretty because my hair was dark?* So why the hell am I letting myself get hung up on the fact that I don't look like someone else as though it makes me any less pretty?
Because it doesn't.
There are so many different kinds of pretty out there. (And I will compile some of them here, because I like to look at pictures of people I think are pretty.) Sure, maybe not everyone is going to find me attractive. But that's true of anyone; there is absolutely no such thing as an absolutely universal standard of beauty. How much happier would I be if I stopped defining my self-image based on other people?
I think quite a bit.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Health Advisory System: Red Alert
Confession: I am unhealthy.
I have stopped, after a ridiculous amount of time, thinking about my health as a symptom of my weight issues. I've thought that way for edging perilously close to thirty years now, and do you know where it has gotten me? Nowhere. I still have the problems that I've always had. Clearly, focusing on the need to lose weight has been ineffective, so say the least. So I started to wonder, what if I just reversed my thinking? What if my fat is a symptom of my being unhealthy?
Now, on the surface these sound like pretty much the same thing. Let me tell you why they're not.
Focusing primarily on weight loss can lead--and has, at least for me--to resorting to unhealthy measures to shed those unwanted pounds. No, I've never been bulimic or anorexic (though much of my thinking about food and weight has been disordered, something that I'll probably address eventually). But I've been guilty of falling into the diet trap time and time again, engaging in eating habits that don't deliver proper nutrition and probably did more damage to my body in the long-run, especially when you consider the way my weight yo-yo'd whenever I'd go on or off of them. Rapid weight gain or loss puts stress on your body that is just plain ol' bad for you. So here's my plan:
Fuck thinking about weight loss.
This is not to say that I think it's good and okay and healthy for me to be my current size. Frankly, I don't. But I also don't think that my lack of health is caused by my size. I've heard a lot of buzz recently (old buzz, but give me a break, I'm new to this) about a book called Rethinking Thin, which as I understand posits the theory that all bodies have a size that is more or less a natural baseline. Proper nutrition and regular exercise will keep you within a reasonable range around that size, and it takes intense and constant effort to maintain a weight very far above or below it. (Makes sense to me so far, but I want to pick up the book to see if I'm understanding it correctly. Hope I don't have to go to a regular bookstore to do so; I might be allergic to paying full price for books these days.) If this is true, then I can be healthy and still be fat. So . . . okay.
That doesn't sound so bad.
The problem is that, right now, I have a lot of bad habits. I mean, a lot. Habits that I'm going to have to change in order to be the kind of healthy I want to be. But the thought of changing them all at once sort of feels like saying, "I've decided to take up mountain climbing. I shall therefore go out and climb Mt. Everest RIGHT NOW." Meep. That's a surefire recipe for failure, right there, which will just lead to backsliding into unhealthy habits all over again. Instead, I'm going to take a marathon-training approach to healthy habits. When I've mastered one stage and it's ingrained as a new, healthier habit, then I'll move on to the next. In the meantime I'll still try to make healthier choices when they're presented. (e.g. I still got a mocha after breakfast today, but ordered it with skim milk and no whipped cream. Baby steps, right?) I will mark these steps off on a Homeland Security Advisory-esque rainbow scale, because I'm a bit of a smartass and because I like rainbows. The idea is to get from red all the way down to green. My first step:
Drink more water.
I have always gotten very easily dehydrated. For those of you who don't have this problem, let me tell you: it SUCKS. In addition to plain old thirst, when I let myself start getting dehydrated I get headaches, feel sluggish and sick, and tend to be in an incredibly pissy mood. None of these are good things! The Mayo Clinic assures me that everyone needs different amounts of water, so I guess I'll start out with the 8x8 rule (8 8oz glasses of water a day) and adjust from there if necessary.
Hooray for hydration! Let's all drink up together. (Just don't try to toast each other with water, okay?)
I have stopped, after a ridiculous amount of time, thinking about my health as a symptom of my weight issues. I've thought that way for edging perilously close to thirty years now, and do you know where it has gotten me? Nowhere. I still have the problems that I've always had. Clearly, focusing on the need to lose weight has been ineffective, so say the least. So I started to wonder, what if I just reversed my thinking? What if my fat is a symptom of my being unhealthy?
Now, on the surface these sound like pretty much the same thing. Let me tell you why they're not.
Focusing primarily on weight loss can lead--and has, at least for me--to resorting to unhealthy measures to shed those unwanted pounds. No, I've never been bulimic or anorexic (though much of my thinking about food and weight has been disordered, something that I'll probably address eventually). But I've been guilty of falling into the diet trap time and time again, engaging in eating habits that don't deliver proper nutrition and probably did more damage to my body in the long-run, especially when you consider the way my weight yo-yo'd whenever I'd go on or off of them. Rapid weight gain or loss puts stress on your body that is just plain ol' bad for you. So here's my plan:
Fuck thinking about weight loss.
This is not to say that I think it's good and okay and healthy for me to be my current size. Frankly, I don't. But I also don't think that my lack of health is caused by my size. I've heard a lot of buzz recently (old buzz, but give me a break, I'm new to this) about a book called Rethinking Thin, which as I understand posits the theory that all bodies have a size that is more or less a natural baseline. Proper nutrition and regular exercise will keep you within a reasonable range around that size, and it takes intense and constant effort to maintain a weight very far above or below it. (Makes sense to me so far, but I want to pick up the book to see if I'm understanding it correctly. Hope I don't have to go to a regular bookstore to do so; I might be allergic to paying full price for books these days.) If this is true, then I can be healthy and still be fat. So . . . okay.
That doesn't sound so bad.
The problem is that, right now, I have a lot of bad habits. I mean, a lot. Habits that I'm going to have to change in order to be the kind of healthy I want to be. But the thought of changing them all at once sort of feels like saying, "I've decided to take up mountain climbing. I shall therefore go out and climb Mt. Everest RIGHT NOW." Meep. That's a surefire recipe for failure, right there, which will just lead to backsliding into unhealthy habits all over again. Instead, I'm going to take a marathon-training approach to healthy habits. When I've mastered one stage and it's ingrained as a new, healthier habit, then I'll move on to the next. In the meantime I'll still try to make healthier choices when they're presented. (e.g. I still got a mocha after breakfast today, but ordered it with skim milk and no whipped cream. Baby steps, right?) I will mark these steps off on a Homeland Security Advisory-esque rainbow scale, because I'm a bit of a smartass and because I like rainbows. The idea is to get from red all the way down to green. My first step:
Drink more water.
I have always gotten very easily dehydrated. For those of you who don't have this problem, let me tell you: it SUCKS. In addition to plain old thirst, when I let myself start getting dehydrated I get headaches, feel sluggish and sick, and tend to be in an incredibly pissy mood. None of these are good things! The Mayo Clinic assures me that everyone needs different amounts of water, so I guess I'll start out with the 8x8 rule (8 8oz glasses of water a day) and adjust from there if necessary.
Hooray for hydration! Let's all drink up together. (Just don't try to toast each other with water, okay?)
Children can be cruel (though they're not the only ones)
As I mentioned earlier, part of this blog's purpose is to help me come to terms with some of my own issues. Sort of like a public therapy session, only without a licensed therapist and really just me talking and okay, so it's really not like a therapy session at all. Erm. Still, I have Things To Say and memories to rehash and work through and this is where I'm gonna do it. This is me checking some of my emotional baggage, so that I can deal with it and move on.
It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to do my best to be open and honest. I encourage you to do the same: if you have a story you want to share, leave a comment. (Or, if I can ever overcome my technology fail and figure out how to add a link to the sidebar, you can email me.)
Today I'm going to talk about elementary school.
I hated it. I mean, absolutely loathed it. Why? You know how most everyone remembers middle school as this two-(or three-)year stretch of unending torture and humiliation? That was elementary school for me. (By contrast, I actually rather enjoyed middle school. What, puberty, you think you can damage my self-esteem any further? You got NOTHIN'. BRING IT.) I theorize that this isn't because people become less cruel as they grow older, but because at that age most children have yet to develop their internal censors that keep them from actually saying what they're thinking out loud.
As a fat child ("Fat"? "Heavy"? Whatever the technically accurate term may have been, I was bigger than my peers and that was what mattered.) I'd always been teased. I hated my school uniform because . . . well, okay, mostly because it was hideous, but partially because the default uniform for girls involved some sort of skirt, and I was ashamed of exposing my legs. To put this in perspective for you: I attended that school through third grade. At younger than nine years old, I was ashamed of letting people see my fat legs.
One more time: I was ashamed of my body before I was nine years old. What the everloving fuck?
And the thing is, because I was ashamed of myself, I moved as little as possible. If you get called Thunder Thighs and hear earthquake and elephant and hippo jokes and people tell you the sight of you makes them sick; if you hear this every time you run, guess what? You stop running. You try to keep yourself still so you don't jiggle, don't draw attention to yourself. I was like some poor defenseless woodland creature, trying to become invisible* in the hopes that those predatory eyes would skate right over me. Of course, in the process, I'd stopped moving. And the longer that went on, the less easily I could move, which made me more inclined to hide, and the cycle continued. When I was little, I would move for the sheer pleasure of it, for the amazement of Look what my body can do! Isn't that cool? It's so cool! Then came shame, and then habit, until now I don't really move any more than absolutely necessary. (Though I do want to go roller skating. How does a college town not have a roller rink? I call shenanigans!)
In any case, things already pretty much sucked but weren't horrible until fourth grade, when we moved. I don't know why; maybe it was the shift from living mid-city to living in a much higher-income suburb. Maybe it was the combination of being fat and the new girl all at once. But for whatever reason, for that entire first year every day felt like running a gauntlet of insults and cruelty and sneering contempt. I had friends, yes, but they were the other childhood outcasts: girls who were smarter than average, or socially awkward, or not as well-off financially. Against the pretty and popular and rich we had no defense. And I was, if you'll pardon the pun, the biggest target of all. After all, I was all of those things and new, and fat. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
The entirety of elementary school was more or less like that, but things started to improve a bit in fifth and sixth grade. Not because my fat became more acceptable--there were still insults, and jokes, and pranks. Mostly, I think, the novelty simply wore off. But one thing that did happen was a shift in my own behavior and attitude. I remember discovering, at some point in the fifth grade, that acting as though I was less made me more socially accepted. I was smart, but if I downplayed that by keeping my hand down more often than not and occasionally playing up not understanding things, my intelligence wasn't threatening. If I made it clear that I didn't expect anyone to find me attractive, my appearance was more likely to get a pass. If I sat down and shut up and did all the work in group projects with a smile and protested that I didn't understand, I didn't expect, I didn't want, then people would allow me to simply exist. And the worst thing about that wasn't that it worked. No, the really, truly horrible thing? I felt like I was getting a good deal. I was grateful.
I shouldn't have been grateful. I should have been furious. It was like I thought I had to compensate for my big body by making the rest of me as small as possible. How much of that was due to things that actually happened, and how much was due to what I thought would happen, what I thought people would think . . . honestly, I have no idea. But I look back now and I'm incensed for the little girl that I was, the one who was never so happy as when she was completely invisible because nothing good could possibly come of being noticed. How much more could I have accomplished if my weight had simply passed without comment? How much more would I have moved? How much healthier would I have been?
I don't know. I'll never know. And maybe it's useless to rehash and wonder about things that you can't change, even if you had a TARDIS because we all saw how that went, right? There's one thing I do know, though: what I went through isn't unique. And sometimes it helps just to know you're not alone. If you want to, tell me your story.
*Looking back on it, I'm surprised at how deep this fantasy went. When I'd daydream about the cute boy in class asking me out (We all did, right? Unless you were into girls, but I imagine there was a correlating fantasy there.) I'd slipped away from a party to be by myself and he'd found me out there. I distinctly remember having one of these daydreams leading up to our sixth grade graduation party. Would I have been allowed to slip off by myself? Hell no. But in my mind I could do it, because no one would notice I was gone. This was an integral part of the fantasy, allowing my crush to see me while remaining invisible and unnoticed by everyone else.
It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to do my best to be open and honest. I encourage you to do the same: if you have a story you want to share, leave a comment. (Or, if I can ever overcome my technology fail and figure out how to add a link to the sidebar, you can email me.)
Today I'm going to talk about elementary school.
I hated it. I mean, absolutely loathed it. Why? You know how most everyone remembers middle school as this two-(or three-)year stretch of unending torture and humiliation? That was elementary school for me. (By contrast, I actually rather enjoyed middle school. What, puberty, you think you can damage my self-esteem any further? You got NOTHIN'. BRING IT.) I theorize that this isn't because people become less cruel as they grow older, but because at that age most children have yet to develop their internal censors that keep them from actually saying what they're thinking out loud.
As a fat child ("Fat"? "Heavy"? Whatever the technically accurate term may have been, I was bigger than my peers and that was what mattered.) I'd always been teased. I hated my school uniform because . . . well, okay, mostly because it was hideous, but partially because the default uniform for girls involved some sort of skirt, and I was ashamed of exposing my legs. To put this in perspective for you: I attended that school through third grade. At younger than nine years old, I was ashamed of letting people see my fat legs.
One more time: I was ashamed of my body before I was nine years old. What the everloving fuck?
And the thing is, because I was ashamed of myself, I moved as little as possible. If you get called Thunder Thighs and hear earthquake and elephant and hippo jokes and people tell you the sight of you makes them sick; if you hear this every time you run, guess what? You stop running. You try to keep yourself still so you don't jiggle, don't draw attention to yourself. I was like some poor defenseless woodland creature, trying to become invisible* in the hopes that those predatory eyes would skate right over me. Of course, in the process, I'd stopped moving. And the longer that went on, the less easily I could move, which made me more inclined to hide, and the cycle continued. When I was little, I would move for the sheer pleasure of it, for the amazement of Look what my body can do! Isn't that cool? It's so cool! Then came shame, and then habit, until now I don't really move any more than absolutely necessary. (Though I do want to go roller skating. How does a college town not have a roller rink? I call shenanigans!)
In any case, things already pretty much sucked but weren't horrible until fourth grade, when we moved. I don't know why; maybe it was the shift from living mid-city to living in a much higher-income suburb. Maybe it was the combination of being fat and the new girl all at once. But for whatever reason, for that entire first year every day felt like running a gauntlet of insults and cruelty and sneering contempt. I had friends, yes, but they were the other childhood outcasts: girls who were smarter than average, or socially awkward, or not as well-off financially. Against the pretty and popular and rich we had no defense. And I was, if you'll pardon the pun, the biggest target of all. After all, I was all of those things and new, and fat. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
The entirety of elementary school was more or less like that, but things started to improve a bit in fifth and sixth grade. Not because my fat became more acceptable--there were still insults, and jokes, and pranks. Mostly, I think, the novelty simply wore off. But one thing that did happen was a shift in my own behavior and attitude. I remember discovering, at some point in the fifth grade, that acting as though I was less made me more socially accepted. I was smart, but if I downplayed that by keeping my hand down more often than not and occasionally playing up not understanding things, my intelligence wasn't threatening. If I made it clear that I didn't expect anyone to find me attractive, my appearance was more likely to get a pass. If I sat down and shut up and did all the work in group projects with a smile and protested that I didn't understand, I didn't expect, I didn't want, then people would allow me to simply exist. And the worst thing about that wasn't that it worked. No, the really, truly horrible thing? I felt like I was getting a good deal. I was grateful.
I shouldn't have been grateful. I should have been furious. It was like I thought I had to compensate for my big body by making the rest of me as small as possible. How much of that was due to things that actually happened, and how much was due to what I thought would happen, what I thought people would think . . . honestly, I have no idea. But I look back now and I'm incensed for the little girl that I was, the one who was never so happy as when she was completely invisible because nothing good could possibly come of being noticed. How much more could I have accomplished if my weight had simply passed without comment? How much more would I have moved? How much healthier would I have been?
I don't know. I'll never know. And maybe it's useless to rehash and wonder about things that you can't change, even if you had a TARDIS because we all saw how that went, right? There's one thing I do know, though: what I went through isn't unique. And sometimes it helps just to know you're not alone. If you want to, tell me your story.
*Looking back on it, I'm surprised at how deep this fantasy went. When I'd daydream about the cute boy in class asking me out (We all did, right? Unless you were into girls, but I imagine there was a correlating fantasy there.) I'd slipped away from a party to be by myself and he'd found me out there. I distinctly remember having one of these daydreams leading up to our sixth grade graduation party. Would I have been allowed to slip off by myself? Hell no. But in my mind I could do it, because no one would notice I was gone. This was an integral part of the fantasy, allowing my crush to see me while remaining invisible and unnoticed by everyone else.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Everything that happens is future history. Weird, huh?
First post of my brand new blog! Exciting, and . . . yeah, not a little scary. I suppose I ought to start things off by explaining who I am, and what this is, and why it's here.
Due to long conditioning on behalf of my mother and Law and Order: SVU (OMG did you know that on the internet you can be anyone you want to be? You could all be axe murderers!) I'm going to refrain from giving too much personal identifying information. Old habits are hard to break. But basically, I am a white(ish) female in her late twenties, who lives in that great expanse of space in the middle of the U.S. I am overweight; actually, according to my BMI, I am morbidly obese. Ah, hell, let's just say it.
I'm fat.
There, I think we all feel a little better now, don't we?
I'm going to use that word, because a big part of what this blog's purpose is to help me come to terms with myself. All of me--and yes, there is a lot--including the parts I don't like so much. So I'm going to call myself fat, because I am, and I'm not going to apologize for it. It's taken me many, many years to realize that it's really nobody's business but my own. That if someone doesn't want to look at me, they can turn away. That I deserve respect, and consideration, and yes, love. Fat is not a moral failing. It's just fat.
Be aware, I'm also probably going to be talking a bit about diet and exercise. However, if I start talking about weight loss specifically you have my permission to give me a good solid Internet Slap. Not because I'm anti-weight loss, but because I've spent far too much of my life focusing on that as the reason and motivation behind anything healthy that I tried, as well as some stuff that probably wasn't healthy. What I need to focus on now is getting healthy, not on dropping pounds. If the one leads to the other, great. If it doesn't, well, I'm getting to be okay with that.
I've had issues with my weight, and with ridiculously low self-esteem, for more or less my entire life. I was a fat baby, and a heavy child, and kids can be vicious. (So can adults; kids just haven't learned to couch things in socially-acceptable terms yet. More on this later, probably.) I grew up being ashamed of what I looked like, and believing deep down that every insult, every slight that I experienced was no more or less than what I deserved. After a while, I didn't even need those; they were so deeply ingrained that I was my own worst, cruelest critic.
This isn't to say that I've been walking around in a deep, dark depression all my life. Most of the time I'm okay. Self-conscious and introverted, but okay. Every so often, though, I have particularly dark periods. This past week I hit one of those low points, and for the first time ever I thought to turn to the internet to see if just maybe there was someone out there who understood, someone who was talking about it, someone who might have had some advice on how to cope.
I found BFD. If you've never been there, go now. It's a wonderful, warm, supportive place run by ladies far smarter and better-informed than I am. And it made me realize that maybe I'm okay just the shape I am. Could I be healthier? Yes, and I should. I should get up, get out, move around because hey, the human body is amazing and can do amazing things. And because when you're healthy, you feel better. But if I'm healthy and fit, if I'm eating right and exercising and I'm still fat?
Well . . . so the fuck what?
This isn't just about me, though. There are other people out there who are feeling or have felt the same things I have. There are things to talk about, stories and opinions to share. We all have our stories of how we got here; how we feel about ourselves; hurts we've had along the way; good things that have happened. And there's a whole world out there full of things to talk about. Body image in the media and society in general, how to deal with and combat prejudice, how to keep from being prejudiced ourselves, how to lace a corset (I have to look this up every time, damn it), etc. I imagine The Patriarchy will probably be discussed. Basically, if you're reading this and you have something you want to talk about, let me know. I'm opinionated, but surely I'll run out of things to talk about eventually.
I hope this helps. You, and me, and all of us.
Due to long conditioning on behalf of my mother and Law and Order: SVU (OMG did you know that on the internet you can be anyone you want to be? You could all be axe murderers!) I'm going to refrain from giving too much personal identifying information. Old habits are hard to break. But basically, I am a white(ish) female in her late twenties, who lives in that great expanse of space in the middle of the U.S. I am overweight; actually, according to my BMI, I am morbidly obese. Ah, hell, let's just say it.
I'm fat.
There, I think we all feel a little better now, don't we?
I'm going to use that word, because a big part of what this blog's purpose is to help me come to terms with myself. All of me--and yes, there is a lot--including the parts I don't like so much. So I'm going to call myself fat, because I am, and I'm not going to apologize for it. It's taken me many, many years to realize that it's really nobody's business but my own. That if someone doesn't want to look at me, they can turn away. That I deserve respect, and consideration, and yes, love. Fat is not a moral failing. It's just fat.
Be aware, I'm also probably going to be talking a bit about diet and exercise. However, if I start talking about weight loss specifically you have my permission to give me a good solid Internet Slap. Not because I'm anti-weight loss, but because I've spent far too much of my life focusing on that as the reason and motivation behind anything healthy that I tried, as well as some stuff that probably wasn't healthy. What I need to focus on now is getting healthy, not on dropping pounds. If the one leads to the other, great. If it doesn't, well, I'm getting to be okay with that.
I've had issues with my weight, and with ridiculously low self-esteem, for more or less my entire life. I was a fat baby, and a heavy child, and kids can be vicious. (So can adults; kids just haven't learned to couch things in socially-acceptable terms yet. More on this later, probably.) I grew up being ashamed of what I looked like, and believing deep down that every insult, every slight that I experienced was no more or less than what I deserved. After a while, I didn't even need those; they were so deeply ingrained that I was my own worst, cruelest critic.
This isn't to say that I've been walking around in a deep, dark depression all my life. Most of the time I'm okay. Self-conscious and introverted, but okay. Every so often, though, I have particularly dark periods. This past week I hit one of those low points, and for the first time ever I thought to turn to the internet to see if just maybe there was someone out there who understood, someone who was talking about it, someone who might have had some advice on how to cope.
I found BFD. If you've never been there, go now. It's a wonderful, warm, supportive place run by ladies far smarter and better-informed than I am. And it made me realize that maybe I'm okay just the shape I am. Could I be healthier? Yes, and I should. I should get up, get out, move around because hey, the human body is amazing and can do amazing things. And because when you're healthy, you feel better. But if I'm healthy and fit, if I'm eating right and exercising and I'm still fat?
Well . . . so the fuck what?
This isn't just about me, though. There are other people out there who are feeling or have felt the same things I have. There are things to talk about, stories and opinions to share. We all have our stories of how we got here; how we feel about ourselves; hurts we've had along the way; good things that have happened. And there's a whole world out there full of things to talk about. Body image in the media and society in general, how to deal with and combat prejudice, how to keep from being prejudiced ourselves, how to lace a corset (I have to look this up every time, damn it), etc. I imagine The Patriarchy will probably be discussed. Basically, if you're reading this and you have something you want to talk about, let me know. I'm opinionated, but surely I'll run out of things to talk about eventually.
I hope this helps. You, and me, and all of us.
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