What I go through...

Another fat bigot

This morning I was listening to the radio. The program had two economists discussing income inequality in our country today and what it means. At some point the dicussion turned to how there isn't just income inequality but life expectancy inequality too. And I swear to god, one of those dudes straight up blamed poor people for dying early because they are more likely to be fat. It was pretty early in the morning and I was half awake but it sounded to me like he was saying that poor people don't die sooner because they don't have the same access to health care. They don't die sooner because their lives are more stressful. They don't die sooner because they don't have the time or access to the kinds of recreation choices that make people healthier. No, they die sooner because they are fat and they are fat because they make bad choices. Which is probably why they are poor too.

I fucking hate people sometimes.

Fat, Broke, and Lonely

Someone was telling me about a book called Fat, Broke & Lonely No More!. Amazon has the following description about it:

Do you ever obsess about whether to order dessert, buy those pricey sandals, or be totally honest on a third date?

If so, then you are already acquainted with the fear of being fat, broke & lonely. If only we could eat less, get paid better, and be more outgoing.

Only it's not that simple. Our endless quest to be fit, flush, and partnered (no matter where we fall on the scale) inevitably makes us feel fat, broke & lonely. The symptoms are anxiety, shame, and fear, and the diagnosis is feeling miserable about ourselves. We have two choices: give up, convinced that this is just a lifelong, losing battle, or go toe-to-toe with our negative self-image and take back our lives.

Real-life anecdotes, practical strategies, and a touch of sass make this revolutionary five-step plan a must-read. First, Moran helps us discover the root of the symptoms. Then we learn how to break up with fat, broke & lonely for good. And finally, we learn how to hook up with the life of our dreams—and who doesn't want that?

I havent read this book yet but I am very interested in it. I am curious at what her solutions might be. I hope it is something more that a glorified instruction manual for losing weight, earning more money, and gettin' hitched. Nevertheless, just the title got me thinking. I have to admit that I think it is interesting that the author of this book is addressing all of these things together in one book. At first, I thought it was odd but when I stopped to think about it, it all makes a kind of sense because those things are all connected in a way.

I mean, I am fat. And like it or not, being fat makes it MUCH harder to find a mate. Being single increases loneliness. But it also has financial implications since single women tend to be poorer than married women. In my own case, I have a household income that is just slightly below the mean household income in the USA. But if I were married to someone with the same income, the two of us would have an income in the top 20% of household incomes. That is a difference between having a middle class income and an upper middle class income.

So...Fat, Broke, and Lonely. Here are my thoughts on each of those things.

Re: Fat.

Well, since I *am* fat, I pretty much always feel fat. What I have learned is that being fat is probably outside of my control. Or rather, what it would take for me to be not fat is more than I can do and still be sane and happy. I have also learned that doesnt mean that I am a bad person. Being fat also doesnt mean that I necessarily have to be terribly unhealthy. So I changed my goal away from losing weight and have made new goals that are more attainable. e.g. walking several times a week is a goal. Making sure I eat enough fruits and veggies is a goal. Reducing my sugar intake is a goal. Those are all good things but are not things that cause me to lose a significant amount of weight.

I have put a lot of focus on not internalizing the messages our culture has about fat, especially those messages that arent based in fact. For instance, it isnt laziness on my part that keeps me fat. It isnt a complete lack of willpower that keeps me fat. It is a constant battle though because our culture tends to shame people for being fat. A lot of people consider it a moral failing.

Basically my solution to feeling fat has been to change my outlook on what fat means. It doesnt mean I am unhealthy although since it is a risk factor for certain things, it does mean that I need to monitor my health more closely than others might need to. It doesnt mean that I am a bad person. It doesnt mean that I am ugly. It just means that I have a body shape that is different than most people's.

Re: Broke

I am often broke. Some of that is due to some bad financial management on my part but ironicly some it that is due to good financial management on my part, i.e. I feel broke when I dont have enough money to buy things that I want but not buying them anyways on credit is good financial management.

Lately though, I have been under more financial stress than usual. If I were to lose my job, I dont know what I'll do. Unemployment benefits would not be enough for meto live on. I might need to sell my house in such a situation if I couldnt find a job within a month or so. Almost all of my savings are in my retirement account which I could access but with penalties. I would hate to do that but if push came to shove, I guess I would have to.

What this has taught me more than anything is that I *really* need to work more on getting my financial house in order. I need to spend even less than I am spending now. I might need to try to find a roommate or something. I need to save more money so I can have that six months of salary that everyone recommends saved up so that if I ever find myself in a situation where I might lose my job, I wont be stressed out about it.

Re: Lonely.

I guess there are different types of loneliness.

There is what I consider real lonliness where one finds oneself cut off from the rest of the world. Sometimes in the winter I experience this because I tend to get depressed in the winter. It is a vicious cycle. I get depressed enough that just going to work sucks up most of my energy so I dont make an effort to socialize. Then the lack of social interaction means that I start to feel lonely, which makes me more depressed, which in turn, makes me even less likely to do social things. I often have to make a real effort to socialize even if it is only talking to someone on the phone for a half hour.

Being social and making the emotional connections that prevent loneliness are hard work. But important work. When I feel lonely, I call people and make an effort to see them. I tell people I love them. I hug my friends.

There is also the loneliness of being single. Some of that, though, isnt real loneliness on my part, but rather a response to cultural expectations that people, and especially women, be partnered up. Mostly, I have decided that I am going to be single for the rest of my life and I have come to terms with that. I honestly believe that it is better to be single than to be with the wrong person. If the right person should happen to come along, that is great.

Being single and feeling that particular kind of loneliness is still hard though. I dont meet very many men that I am interested in but when I do, they have (so far) pretty much always rejected me at some point or another. Well, all the men have rejected me except for the ones I rejected first! haha. Seriously though, that is a mind set I fall into occasionally. I will think, "Every man in the world has rejected me" but really that isnt true because there have been men who havent but whom I felt were lacking in one way or another so I actually was the one who rejected them. I guess it is easier to forget the people one rejects as romantic partners than the other ones. And ok, while I am not beating my many suiters off with a stick (although I did recently have a guy camped out on my front lawn), I do have some men who are interested. It just hasnt been anyone in whom I am also interested.




In conclusion, I guess I have to say that I am fat, broke, and lonely at least by many other people's definitions and I dont think it is all that bad really. There are worse things certainly and my life is generally pretty good!

Still Sick!!

So, I have now been sick for nine straight days. NINE DAYS! And it is making me crazy. In fact, I think one of the worst things about this is the death of a favorite lotto fantasy of mine where I win the lotto and then hole up in my house for months. Yeah, not going to happen. It is just like how my fantasy of being a long distance truck driver was ruined by one single solo road trip to California.

I will say this though. I have been clued in to one of the great inventions of the modern world. As previously reported, I lost my voice over the weekend. It started to come back on Monday but at a cost: extreme pain whenever I tried to talk. So, I actually went to see the doctor which anyone who knows me knows is not something I ever do lightly.

I had to see a new doctor because the one I liked has finished her residency and moved on. But the new one made up for it with one simple thing: a potion she calls "magic mouthwash" It is something mixed up at the pharmacy and it contains Viscous Lidocaine (1 part) Maalox (1 part) Benadryl (1 part). It totally and completely numbs the whole mouth for at least an hour with another hour of partial numbness. So that means that half the time, I have no throat pain since I get to use this stuff every four hours.

On a more serious note, my lungs are in bad shape. Apparently, I have symptoms of asthma. I dont have asthma and these symptoms are totally related to this sickness I have but the doctor seems to feel that I might need to have some kind of steroid treatment if the rattling and wheezing in my lungs doesnt go away by friday. I hope I dont need steroids though because she started listing the negative side effects of that particular treatment and it didnt sound too good. There is nothing like hearing that you might have to be put on a medication that can cause psychosis, irritability, some kind of hip disorder that leaves one immobile and WEIGHT GAIN. Ok, I'll admit it . I got a little annoyed when the doctor seemed to have an attitude that the weight gain might be the worst outcome of taking steroids. Cos I guess it is ok to become a raving psychotic bitch with bad hips as long as one doesnt GAIN WEIGHT!! Oh well, I mean it isnt like I want to gain weight or anything but on the list of side effects, that one was really the least scary for me.

Oh well, what can I say. This "magic mouthwash" of hers can make me forgive her anything.

Fat Rant

A kind reader shared the link to this charming video in my comments. I enjoyed it so much that I have decided to post it here. And what can I say. I agree with this woman and it is exactly how I feel. She really gets it.

I particularly like the beginning when she has the "friend" sitting in the car dissing fat people. I cant tell you how many times that has happened to me. And I sit there and wonder, "what the hell is wrong with this person?" I weigh over 300lbs. Do they think I want to sit here and listen to them tell me that so-and-so got fat or that the woman walking by shouldnt be wearing the clothes she is wearing because she "doesnt have the body for it"? I definitely do not want to hear endless monologues about how ugly and fat their ass is. I'll admit that I am always tempted to say, "Yes, your ass is ugly especially when compared to mine. BABY GOT BACK!"

And like the very beautiful woman in this video, I made a decision several years ago that I was not waiting around for my life to begin at some future point when I lost the weight. It wasnt going to happen. It still isnt going to happen. I am fat but the truth is that only one aspect of who I am and to let my body, my healthy body, stop me from living my life NOW would be a tragedy.

A harder thing in my life was accepting that being fat was NOT the cause of every problem. Is it why men dont want to date me? Probably for a lot of them but other fat women get dates all the time. I think there is just something else about me and even though I dont really know what it is, so what!? I like myself the way I am and that is what matters. Does being fat mean I get treated badly sometimes. Yes. Does that mean that there is something wrong with *me*? Hardly. And seriously, when I take an honest look at my faults, being fat is the least of them and there are plenty of people who dislike me who could back me up on that I am sure.

So watch the video. It is worth it, I promise!

She's not just fat, she's a LUSH and a HO!

This morning on the radio, I heard a report about some obesity research at UofM. Basically it was a study that shows that overweight girls enter puberty earlier than thinner girls. Since so many female hormones are tied to leptin and since leptin is tied to body fat, this is not especially surprising research.

But I had to laugh at the news reports. Because it seems that even NPR has to jump onboard the "obesity epidemic" bandwagon and make their news stories sound as scary as possible. In this case, the news people naturally couldnt content themselves with reporting early puberty because that might not be scary enough. So they go on to say that the reason we should all be so worried about all these overweight girls hitting puberty earlier is that apparently girls who go through puberty earlier tend to have sex younger and tend to be more likely to experiment with alcohol. That is right folks, the principle negative effect of allowing your daughter to get fat is that she'll become a BIG FAT LUSH *and* a HO.

I usually laugh at those news reports because they are so obviously designed to scare people into listening to the news for more information. I usually laugh until I remember how so many people will listen to a news story like that and look at their charming but overweight daughter and then start taking that daughter down a road of self-esteem bashing. Or even if the parents dont do that to their kid, maybe the parents will feel a little guilt about having a fat daughter or maybe they will be more worried about her being a slut or a lush. I dont know.

I know that if I had a daughter, I think it would be really cool if she were a slut (as long as that is what she wanted to be) and I wouldnt be especially worried about experimentation with alcohol although I would feel better about experimentation with pot. But not too many folks are like me and they DO worry about such things. I think that the news media are doing the average parent a huge disservice when they air scare stories like that.

The American Dream

I was thinking today about mainstream American culture. I was thinking specifically about our puritanical roots and how they influence us.

For instance, I have noticed that Americans seem to consider suffering to be a virtue. That the suffering somehow makes one deserve the good outcome. I was talking to someone recently about weight loss surgery and they expressed the opinion that weight loss surgery was cheating. Cheating? Why would anyone think that? Because someone doesnt deserve to be thin unless they can will themselves to diet and suffer? (Never mind that weight loss surgery is not walk in the park)

On the other hand, maybe it isnt so much suffering per se but more just plain old hard work. As in maybe someone would consider weight loss surgery to be cheating because they think that by doing that, a fat person avoids the hard work of dieting. The “work hard” ethic is certainly very American. The idea that most problems can be solved simply by hard work is pretty much The American Dream. Too Fat? Work hard and you will be thin. Poor? Work hard and you will raise yourself out of poverty. Bored/Lonely/Depressed? Work hard and you wont have time to be bored or lonely or depressed!

The converse of that, of course, is that people who are fat or poor or bored or lonely or depressed, etc are not hard workers. And that is where Americans get into a lot of trouble. We don’t want to admit that sometimes people can work hard and still not receive the expected benefits of hard work. We don’t want to admit that most of us, in this “land of opportunity” got most of our opportunities from our parents and the social class we were born into. We don’t want to admit that some people work hard but get nowhere because of discrimination or even just bad luck.

We don’t like it when fat people can diet and still be fat but apparently we also don’t like it that fat people can get thin without the hard work. We like to think that most rich people got that way because they are hard workers. We definitely don’t like to think that anyone could be poor in this country and be a hard worker.

Maybe someday we will change our thinking a little and begin to see that not every social problem can be solved by individual hard work. And maybe then we all work hard together to solve those very same problems.

Fatties told, "Put down the cookies or else you will be POOR"

This weekend I read an interesting article in the New York Times that just left me shaking my head at how crazy our culture is about fat people. Basically this was an article that showed several different ways fat people experience discrimination in our culture and how that discrimination often results in fat people having lower incomes and less wealth.

Now, none of this is any great shock to me. Discrimination is part of our culture and as a fat person, I have experienced it.

But one might wonder how a respectable newspaper might approach this issue. Will they present this as a problem with our society? Or will they take a neutral objective stance and just report the facts? As it happens the NYT didn’t take either of the above approaches. The theme of their article seems to be “Health scares haven’t seemed to motivate people to lose weight, let’s give them some extra incentive by telling them that being fat will mean that they will be poorer than they otherwise would be” Here is the opening to their article:

"As you snatch a couple more Christmas cookies or down another eggnog, you might be thinking about what those extra calories will do to your health. But have you considered what they will do to your wealth? The sugar and fat will add pounds, which can lead to heart disease, diabetes and a shortened life span. There is another consequence to packing on extra weight: being fat costs money — tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime."

Surely the only reason anyone is fat is because they don’t have enough information about the consequences of being fat: The health risks, the discrimination, etc. I mean, no one would choose that right? So either fat people are lazy and are staying fat because they are too lazy to get up off their asses to take a walk around the block OR They are ignorant about the effects of being overweight OR being fat isn’t as much of a choice as people might like to think. NYT appears to take the view that if only they told us poor fat people that fat people are discriminated against and that discrimination has an economic impact, we’ll get off our fat asses and put down the Christmas cookies and eggnog. *rolls eyes*

Next the NYT will tell homosexuals that they can go straight and minorities that they should blend more with the mainstream culture.

On the pressure to be pretty...

I was reading a post today written by chicalookate where she writes: "The return of leggings... Why? (If I can see your celulite your pants are too tight.)"

It reminded me of a post I read recently about being pretty*. A post which was inspired by a discussion about leggings.

Erin at A Dress A Day (a fashion blog) writes a post that sums up exactly how I feel whenever discussions about fashion faux pas crop up.

She writes: But what does you-don't-have-to-be-pretty mean in practical, everyday terms? It means that you don't have to apologize for wearing things that are held to be "unflattering" or "unfashionable" -- especially if, in fact, they make you happy on some level deeper than just being pretty does. So what if your favorite color isn't a "good" color on you? So what if you are "too fat" (by some arbitrary measure) for a sleeveless top? If you are clean, are covered enough to avoid a citation for public indecency, and have bandaged any open wounds, you can wear any color or style you please, if it makes you happy.


I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable when discussions come up about how people look and especially discussions about the clothes people wear but never have been able to verbalize well why I feel that way. This post says what I would have said if I had been able to come up with the words. No one owes it to anyone to be pretty or to dress a certain way. The only time I have personally heard such comments directed at me have usually been at the beach when people will sometimes remark that they think that fat people should just stay at home rather than subjecting normal people to the site of our fat rolls (a condition that apparently can ruin some beach goers whole day) and I have always felt that it seemed pretty arrogant of them to assume that I would have any interest in improving their aesthetic appreciation of the beach rather than being there for my own enjoyment.


*hat tip to Body Impolitic for the link.

Battlestar Galactica Character Gets Fat

BattleStar Galactica

I don’t get the Sci Fi channel so I have to download Battlestar Galactica from iTunes. I finally got around to downloading the first four episodes of Season 3 this weekend. It is as good as ever and better in some ways. It is a brilliant show.

But I do have one quibble with the writers. At the beginning of the first episode they apparently wanted to show that one of the main characters had lost his edge and had become weak and “soft” and not as capable of being a leader as he had been previously. The writers wanted to show all of this quickly and apparently didnt want to waste a lot of time. So how did they accomplish this? Why, they made the character gain weight of course!

This character then gets wake up calls as people close to him point out his weight to him and admonish him for “being weak” and for “getting soft” while making it clear that one of the main symptoms of that is his weight. Only one character says anything at all that kind of separates the issue of weight and personality flaw by saying something like “you have gone soft and I am not talking about the weight” but otherwise, it is pretty clear that the weight is being used as a plot device to make it VERY CLEAR to the viewer that this character just doesnt cut the mustard anymore and isnt a leader. He is fat because he is weak (and only weak people get fat). He is fat because he is having trouble making hard decisions and is thus “soft.” Interestingly that term “soft” is pretty much the same as calling a guy a “pussy” and is as much a reference to body fat as it is a reference to femininity but I will excuse the patriarchal language because the show has so many women characters who are portrayed in such strong ways. The point is though that this guy’s character has a major defect that is visually apparent. We might not notice his flaw except that it made him fat. .

Over the course of the first few episodes of the series, this particular character goes though some soul searching and eventually regains his mental edge and his leadership potential. The story arch of this character’s struggle ends with him making a comment about how he has an appointment with a jump rope: the clear message being that now that he has regained his edge and has become a leader capable of making hard choices again, his body will soon follow. Because of course fat people can just lose weight by jumping rope a little bit and because, of course, a person with leadership abilities and good decision making skills wouldnt allow himself to remain fat.

Now, of course I realized that the writers might not have intended any of that as a slight against fat people. And I think that having a character gain weight is a valid way of showing that a character who formally worked out enough to be rather buff has stopped doing that for whatever reason. But in the absence of any fat characters on the show who are shown being strong and good leaders, it makes the use of a weight gain to show weakness particularly stinging to me.

But other than that, HOLY COW is this season shaping up to be amazing. If you havent watched this show yet, get out and rent the first couple of seasons. Do this even if you generally don’t like Science Fiction as a genre because this show is a well written drama that gets into some pretty interesting issues: abortion, election stealing, occupied nations, religion, etc.

Some Thoughts on Feminism

One of the things I have been thinking about a lot lately because of some discussion I have read on various feminist blogs has been about make up and girly things and how those fit into feminism or how they don’t as the case may be. A lot of discussion has been around how such things are not tools of empowerment but rather survival skills in a patriarchy. Many are saying that it is perfectly reasonable for a woman to employ traditional trappings of femininity in order to gain power from men since it is still one way to do it. Some say that since women now have other options, options that result in women actually being seen as capable, they should leave the trappings of femininity behind. Others say that one should just do what one wants to do and should wear makeup and get married or whatever they else they want to do as long as they recognize that when other women chose not to do those things, it is a valid choice. I have to admit that I am in that camp. I simply cannot bring myself to get offended when another woman shaves her legs or puts on lipstick.

The discussion brought up some other thoughts though. One blogger, while talking about her love of things feminine made a comment along the lines of “no one ever accused me of being a feminist because I couldn’t find a man” (I cannot for the life of me remember which of the dozens of feminist bloggers I read who said that so I apologize for not giving credit.). That particular line got me thinking more about feminism than any other thing I read. Because you see, to me…lipstick is just lipstick and shaving one’s legs is something a person either does or doesn’t do and generally I don’t think about it too much unless I feel that I am being judged for not wearing makeup and not often shaving my legs or not having a man in my life as a romantic partner. You see, the thing of it is…I think that I am a feminist because I cant get a man. Seriously. (we will all just forget for a moment as I often do that when I say that I cant get a man, what I really mean is that I cant get a man that I want. I suppose if getting a man were my only concern, I could choose someone I am not interested in)



Ok. So here is the thing. By and large, I have been rejected by the patriarchy. I get no power from men. Men do not generally pay me compliments. Men generally do not ask me out. Sometimes men treat me badly because of how I look. Some women do too but they are usually women who get a lot of positive attention from men. Like it or not, getting a lot of attention from men gives women power in our culture. Less so than in times past but even today a woman can trade her beauty for economic security. It isn’t an accident really that most women’s economic position rises considerably with marriage. Men’s economic positions also rise with marriage but there seems to be less of an effect. There are other less obvious ways that women often find their self worth attached to the attention they get from men. I see this everywhere. From the shelves of books at the bookstore with instructions on how to get a man or how to keep a man to the comments made by single women along the lines of “Lots of men want me, I am single because I want to be” which may be true but still acknowledges that the attention of men is a valuable thing for a woman. (And to be fair, the attention of women can be valuable for a man but it seems different to me somehow and I am sure it is a power differential I am sensing)



Men, for whatever reason, are often attracted to women who take an effort to appear feminine. Now, of course there are all kinds of women who don’t wear make up and dont shave who still find themselves shacked up with some guy. I will just say that if one happens to be very overweight and also chooses not to wear makeup, high heel shoes, feminine clothing, etc that one’s odds of finding a guy drop considerably.

At any rate, at some point in my life, I stopped internalizing the bad messages our patriarchal culture was giving me that I was somehow not deserving because of my body or my choice be somewhat hairy and without lipstick on a regular basis. I stopped being offended by the phrase “women in comfortable shoes” since I generally like to wear comfortable shoes. What is wrong with comfortable shoes? Eventually, I decided that the real problem was outside me and that it was a problem with the culture at large and it was feminists and feminist writing that helped me see that. It was feminists who helped me take all of that self-loathing and put it outside me. And at some point I realized that I could starve myself and spend more time than I wanted to molding myself into a version of myself that was more approved by our culture OR I could just be the me that I have learned to love. I could learn that it is ok for a woman to choose to be herself even if it means not attracting a man. That was a very freeing moment in my life because once my sense of self worth was no longer in any way attached to attention from males, I could stop worrying about the lack of male attention I was getting and I could start paying attention other, more important, things.


And so…I have accepted that I am a single woman. But being a single woman has also made me appreciate feminism all the more. You see, married women do not feel things like the wage gap as much as single women do because their household’s incomes include a man’s income although I imagine that divorced women and especially divorced women with children feel the wage gap even more than single women do. Being single has made me appreciate the advances that have been made by feminists before me. I can have a job that is something other than being a librarian, a nurse, a teacher, or a social worker. I can own property and get a mortgage. I can vote. In short, I can do everything I need to do in order to have a fulfilling life even without a man.

More than just that though, being a single woman has given me a point of view of the outside looking in. There are a lot of amazing women in the world who have been blessed with incredible good looks, who get lots of positive attention from our patriarchal culture who have managed to still see all of the things I see. There are men who have managed to become feminists too. Those men and women are amazing. I don’t think I would have been one of those women though. I suspect that if I were given lots of power by the patriarchy, I would probably have used it for evil instead of for good. I think I needed to be challenged strongly in order to form my views in a way that was different than the patriarchal culture I was brought up in. I needed to be a woman in order to understand male privilege. I needed to be fat in order to understand how unfairly fat people and fat women in particular are treated in our culture. I say this because even with the challenges I have been given, I still accept at least some of the patriarchal notions of our culture. But I am working on it.

I know that is a thought somewhat far away from “is it ok for feminists to wear lipstick” but there you go. Sometimes I start in one place and end up someplace completely different.

Hoggers

I have been reading a number of feminist blogs lately and have found them to be very enlightening. I stumbled upon them while searching the internet for fat positive blogs and it turns out that a lot of the fat liberation stuff is closely tied with the women’s liberation stuff which isn’t all that surprising since even though fat men get their share of hate, fat women get a double whammy. Mostly I think this is because so many men value women mostly on how they look rather than any other qualities they might have.

As a person who has been fat for her entire adult life, I can talk about how this particular cultural value has hurt me. But I don’t really want to talk about that – not because I don’t think my experiences have value but because I am simply not in the mood to remember some of the more painful times in my life. Instead, I want to talk about this cultural value hurts the very people who perpetuate it most: MEN. That is right, our fat phobic patriarchal society hurts MEN too and the men it hurts the most are the very men who seem the most eager to engage in behavior designed to keep women and especially fat women down.

I recently read an article linked on a blog called Fatty McBlog (an excellent blog, btw. I highly recommend it). This article was about a practice that some men engage in that they call ‘hogging’ – having sex with a fat woman in order to humiliate her. Read the article in the link to get a fuller understanding of the practice. Granted, this particular practice is most likely only engaged in by a minority of men. I have been lucky in that none of the men I have ever called friend has never to my knowledge ever engaged in any of the behavior described in the article. Nevertheless, this practice of ‘hogging’ has been on my mind since I have had the misfortune to encounter such men in the past.

After I got over my initial anger towards the men in the article, I found myself feeling a little bit sorry for them. That there are men in the world who honestly view women only as a warm hole for their penis and/or a trophy deeply disturbed me. Because I know that relationships can be so much more than that. Any man who sees women this way, who basically views women with contempt, surely is unable to form the type of emotional attachment with one. Deep emotional attachments are highly rewarding and frankly, these guys are totally missing out. Even if they happen to find a woman who they consider trophy material, they are still missing out. And missing out not on just some small thing but missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures: emotional connection to another human being.

I cant imagine not having that in my life. I would rather die and I am not exaggerating when I say that. It is *worse* that suffering the occasional humiliation at the hands of that sort of person. I can honestly say that I would rather be me (a fat middle aged single woman) than one of them.

Some Fat Related Links

As many of you know, I have been working on dealing with a lot of my crazy feelings about food. It hasnt been easy but I feel I am making progress. At any rate, I dont know how I missed This article in the NYT but I think it really addresses some of the issues people have regarding food and weight especially when it comes to children.

Another article that was brought to my attention via Big Fat Blog is this one from a news paper in England. It isnt hard to feel attacked as a fat person reading things like this especially when so many of the comments support the author's opinion.

I would say that such views are rare and dont represent the way most people actually think if it werent for a couple of recent online conversations I have had HERE and HERE

International No Diet Day

Today is International No Diet Day.

I have been working a lot on coming to terms with my weight and on eating in way that isnt weird and disordered. I am doing this because I believe that dieting has been bad for my mental health and perhaps for my physical health as well although perhaps less so for me than for other people. I actually stopped going on formal diets about five years ago after yet another failure with Weight Watchers. I generally found that I just dont like regimented eating (counting calories, or points, or whatever). But I still had some aspects of disordered eating. I catagorized foods into "good" and "bad" and often felt extreme guilt over eating bad foods.

I also hated my body with a loathing I have never felt for another person on this earth. I often had a hard time looking in the mirror. I am prone to seasonal depression anyways but my hatred of my body and the powerlessness I felt about it seemed to make my seasonal depression much worse. I needed medications just to function.

And then I started reading a lot of writing. Things written by some of the most amazing people in the world. People who write over and over and over that being fat is ok. Being fat isnt a death sentence. Being fat doesnt mean a person is unlovable. Being fat isnt immoral. People who write about how poorly fat people are treated in my culture which allowed me to finally stop internalizing all those messages.

I started to feel a lot better about myself but I didnt do anything to stop my disordered eating. My denying myself of "bad" foods until I was so miserable that I just didnt care anymore so I would overeat those forbidden foods. Finally, I came across a book about eating disorders called The Diet Survivors Handbook. It was just one of those books I picked up in the free book room at work and I almost didnt pick it up because the word "Diet" was in the title and I was pretty clear that I didnt want to go on a diet. What I found in this book though was some pretty practical advice about how to unlearn a lot of bad eating habits. It contains some very practical steps to learn to eat intuitively and to stop overeating.

Have I stopped overeating? Probably not but even in the last few months, I have been kind of amazed at my progress. There have been little milestones. Take today for instance. I decided to take my dogs on a walk to a park which is a little farther than we usually go. I thought I might like to stop at the ice cream store on my way back so I took a couple of bucks and put it in my pocket. My dogs and I walked all over and then on the way home I realized as we were passing the ice cream store that I wasnt hungry and really wasnt in the mood for ice cream. I was able to do this because I know that ice cream store will still be there later on and if I feel like getting some I can always go back. I know that if I do decide to go out later for ice cream, even if I drive the two blocks to the place, I wont feel guilty or bad about having ice cream.

I know that seems like a silly thing to a lot of people. But trust me, in the past, had I given myself permission to have ice cream, I would have gone into that store and had ice cream whether I wanted it or NOT! Because if I had skipped it, I might not have given myself permission later on especially if I had rewarded myself for my self control over avoiding the ice cream. Walking by the ice cream store today was NOT an exercise in self control. I simply chose not to eat something because I didnt want to eat it.

Anyways, like I said, I have a long way to go. I still dont completely love by body. I still have weird food issues sometimes. But I know that I wont be on a diet today or any day.

virtual button by largesse

The Immoral Lifestyle I Lead

The Immoral Lifestyle I Lead
One thing I do find very funny (funny odd rather than funny ha ha) is the way people moralize about fat. I have noticed that often people who are very critical about other people in our culture moralizing about others when it comes to their sex lives or whatever will turn around and do it themselves when it comes to fat people. There is a real puritanical aspect to it.

There is a notion that thin = virtuous. It is more than just a cultural standard of beauty. It is that people believe that thin equals healthy and healthy equals virtuous. People cannot believe that fat people can be healthy. They cannot believe that person who exercises regularly and eats a healthy diet can be fat. They believe that being fat is the fault of the fat person and that if the fat person were more moral (i.e. had virtues of self-control, moderation, etc) they would be thin. People who would never ever think it ok to ask a person to deny their sexual desire by waiting until marriage to have sex or to only have sex with people of the opposite gender even if they are gay, have no problem moralizing to people that they should deny their hunger and starve themselves to fit into a cultural ideal body weight.

This point was really brought home to me recently with the TV show LOST and the character Hurley. Last season, it was really great to have a non-stereotypical fat person on the show. I loved it when he was accused of hoarding food and it turned out that he wasnt. He was just fat. But it turned out that people just couldnt buy it. Fans who were somehow able to suspend their disbelief about such things as polar bears on a tropical island, people having visions of dead people, people surviving that plane crash, crippled people suddenly walking, and a fricking monster in the woods...simply could not believe that a fat guy could land on a tropical island and stay fat. There were thousands of letters to the writers and editorials in entertainment sections of the news. So the writers changed the character to fit the stereotype more. Oh well.

So I realize that probably many people reading this are shaking their heads and thinking that I am crazy and in denial about life and the immoral lifestyle I live. Some people probably think I am lying about the amount of exercise I get because the belief that no one can be fat and exercise regularly is very strong. And some people probably think that the idea of a fat person talking about being healthy but still fat is so funny and delusional that it is worthy of a skit on SNL.

Even so, I'll keep talking about this stuff, because I think that talking about health and our attitudes towards health are ok. I think fat people need to know that they *can* be just as healthy or nearly as healthy as thin people if they make significant lifestyle changes and that those changes are worth while even if they dont lose enough weight to be considered thin.

And if I am wrong and the lifestyle changes cause me to lose all the weight, I will be the first one to admit that I am wrong.