How many chins do you have?
How much time do you spend
Thinking
About chins?
Or folds?
Angles?
Bulges?
Or how your ankles look in flats?
And whether they're cankles?
Do you avoid photos?
Do you gaze wistfully at old shots?
Do you wish you hadn't been so critical?
Taken it for granted?
How much more were you worth
When your waist was two inches smaller?
Or ten? Or twenty-five?
Were you more valuable then?
Will you be more valuable for attaining a
Smaller frame
In the future?
Is this the measure of a person:
Inversely proportional to their mass?
It seems silly, put like that,
Doesn't it?
It's not silly.
It's harmful.
Shameful.
Depressing.
Dangerous.
If you disassociate
Your chins
Your moon face
Your belly
Your thighs.
If you see chunks of yourself
As not yourself
But defects attached to your body
You will never
Stop objectifying bodies.
Not just your own.
And everyone loses.
So do the hard work
Not the work-outs, necessarily;
The dismantling.
Of fat-phobia.
Of an ideal rooted in white supremacy
And patriarchy.
Of a self-loathing
That keeps you focused
On yourself.
Free yourself
So you can seek justice for all bodies.
We're all worth more than this.
Showing posts with label fatphobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fatphobia. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2020
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Rebel Eaters, Episode 1 Journaling Prompt
Virgie Tovar has a new podcast, Rebel Eaters Club. She has a journaling prompt at the end of each episode, and I thought the first one was interesting.
This week, she asked to think about a food that we associate with our family of origin, with growing up, and our relationship with that food over time.
Almost immediately, I thought of freshly-baked bread.
We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up, and bread was a cheap staple we always had on hand. Sandwiches, cinnamon toast, filler for other meals. I've always enjoyed eating bread.
That's what struck me: With all of my disordered eating and exercising to "earn" food, I never stopped eating bread. This might be because, back in the '90s, carbs weren't the "enemy." Fat and calories were. So while I'd NEVER eat a fat- or calorie-dense bread like a bagel (the subject of the first podcast, and a favorite chewy way to start the day for me now) or a croissant (ditto the "fave" part), I could always do toast (with fat-free butter substitute and sugar-free fruit spread, naturally) or a warm roll.
In fact, when I was in my least healthy phase of dieting, I had Little Caesar's Crazy Bread at least two or three days a week for lunch. That meant I had to skip breakfast, but it was worth it. Man, I love that stuff; no other pizza place has anything comparable and I don't know why.
Further, I cannot remember ever feeling guilty for eating bread. I've always been able to enjoy it without any negativity. I do remember being shocked when I learned that Texas Roadhouse's yeast rolls have more than 200 calories each, but... I don't think about that anymore and they're amazing.
An interesting note about this that I made, and that may or may not be related, was this:
First, I am fortunate in that neither of my parents was the food or body police. Neither of them ever told me that I needed to eat or to look different. My food intake was controlled only inasmuch as my mom thought we could "wait until dinner" rather than snack 45 minutes early, and if we had a rare bag of Oreos in the house, we could only have a couple at a time. I feel like this was more a resource thing than a restriction thing.
However, my mom was often, if not on a diet, "being careful." One year, I purchased from the Christmas bazaar at our school, a light-sensitive pig that you'd put in the fridge or cabinet, and it would oink when the door was open. I didn't see this as being rude, and it was in no way mean-spirited. I saw it as a funny way to help my mom remember her priorities.
But my dad... I think my dad gave me permission to LOVE food. He cooked, baked, and grilled a lot (my mom cooked almost every night, and the unfortunate reality is that all of those common meals of spaghetti, meatloaf, and hot dogs just blend into one generic memory). He loved trying new things. He really REALLY experienced food. He ate slowly. He paid attention to flavors. Food wasn't the enemy. It was a comfort. An indulgence. An adventure.
I have a vivid memory of being upper-elementary aged and kind of recognizing somewhat our financial situation. We were on a road trip and had stopped at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo. Someone was attempting their challenge to eat a 72-ounce steak and all of the fixings in under an hour in order to get it for free. I was crying, because I'd seen that the cheapest menu item (this was in the early 1980s) was an $8 hamburger. It was *so* expensive!
My dad came over and hugged me and said, "It's okay. We're on vacation! We can't eat like this at home, but we have a budget for vacation, and that is fine! Order whatever you want."
Many years later, my mom told me that the cycle was that they'd have a thousand dollars or so in credit card debt that they'd pay off right as we went on another vacation, and it would start over again.
But for my dad, those experiences (which were, still, fairly modest things like visiting Laura Ingalls Wilder's or Mark Twain's homes, or the St. Louis arch, or the Huntsville Space Center) were worth the price. They were a necessary getaway, and food was a welcomed part of it.
That might also be why, no matter what stage of eating disorder I was in, I have never "watched it" on vacation. Vacations have always been guilt- and stress-free times to enjoy whatever food I could find.
And to this day, I'm one of those people who will happily fill up on fresh bread at a restaurant and bring my entree home. I try to find good bakeries wherever we go. I love bread, and it's a lifelong relationship.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Some Things Never Change
As we've mentioned ad infinitum in the past, I have a history of weight fluctuations, AKA yo-yo dieting, though the peaks and valleys have been so spaced out, it didn't feel so much like a yo-yo as a sloth climbing several mountains.
To review, here are some pictures from various times in my adult life, in chronological order:
After that, my first ex-husband indicated that I was fat and he'd never liked it but didn't say anything because he thought I wouldn't marry him (sadly, he was mistaken; my self-esteem wouldn't have let me walk away).
To review, here are some pictures from various times in my adult life, in chronological order:
 |
| 1992, about my "normal" size. |
 |
| 1993/1994 |
 |
| June 2001, a few months before D was born. |
 |
| November 2002, just before my second ex-husband told me I was too fat. |
 |
| November 2004, after I'd lost some weight and put some more weight back on. |
 |
| October 2005, after I'd lost a lot more weight. |
Basically, it's been about 15 years since the last time I seriously tried to lose weight. It "worked" and I kept the weight off for about 7ish years? But once I got bored with constantly working out (more and more as my metabolism slowed) and "being careful" with what I ate (read: bordering disordered eating behavior), weight started creeping back on.
Here's what I look like now.
 |
| Well, in December 2019 |
Okay, that was fun. So what?
So, there are a lot of things people assume about health and weight that are garbage. I wanted first to demonstrate that I understand the concept of "calories in/calories out," working out, etc. blah blah blah. And I wanted to tell you several things that have been true whether I weighed 148 pounds (at 5'7") or... a lot more than that. I have basically not had scales for the past 15 years, and so except for when I've been pregnant, I've been blissfully unaware.
Anyway, no matter what I have weighed:
1) I drink copious amounts of diet soda. My mom made me a Diet Coke cake for my 16th birthday, so we can safely assume my passion goes back at least 31 years. #consistency
2) My blood pressure is low. I'm 47 years old, and a big person, and when I was discharged from the E/R a couple of weeks ago, my blood pressure was 106/68. It's usually around 112/70ish.
3) I love sweets. You can eat a lot of candy corn on a 1500-calorie-per-day diet, and it's fat free! (This is not health advice; I feel a little nauseated thinking about it, actually.)
4) I hate running.
5) I can walk from sun-up until sun-down. Very enjoyable. A 12-mile Disney day? Bring it on!
6) I eat a mostly vegetarian diet.
7) My body does what I want it to do.
8) I despise clothes-shopping.
9) I am worth the same amount. I wasn't worth more when I had less mass nor am I worth less with more mass. This is a ridiculous calculus that serves no one.
10) My actual "health" level has remained the same. When I was at my smallest, I was no "healthier" in terms of eating or exercise than I am at my largest. I can say this because I know what food goes into my gullet. When I was depriving myself of calories and fat, I made up for it by making those few calories things I'd LOVE, which wasn't always nutrient-rich, minimally-processed food. I eat more now, and that gives me room to eat nutritious food I love as well as things like pizza and ice cream. It isn't either/or. In that battle, I'm going to pick what I prefer to have every time... even if I look totes skinny doing it. You cannot tell what my personal habits are just by looking at how thick my upper arms might be. To think that you can is fatphobic.
11) I have asthma. I had asthma when I was running 5 miles a day (and, yeah, HATING every minute of it). Against all odds, I have asthma with a house full of cats, to which I am allergic. It's ponderous.
12) I eat carbs. Lots and lots of carbs. When I was at my skinniest, just after college, and DURING an actual eating/exercise disorder, I ate Little Caesar's Crazy Bread at least three days a week. I still love those things, though they're not quite the dietary staple they used to be.
13) I love cooking good, beautiful food. Let's end with that, and a few pictures of our home dinners.
 |
| Roasted cauliflower risotto with a side salad. |
 |
| Goat cheese veggie burger with arugula and cranberry sauce, side of roasted green beans. |
 |
| Salad with broiled brie and roasted cauliflower. |
 |
| Veggie "chicken" broccoli homemade hot pocket and feta salad. |
 |
| Peanut stir fry. |
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Resolve isn't all it's cracked up to be
At about this time in 1992, I had resolved to drop some significant weight. I did this because, after a Christmas weekend with my maternal family, my husband at the time seemed to have an issue with how the women in my family aged, in terms of body size, and even though he swore he never would have said anything to me about it, he finally did after I pressed him and wouldn't let him keep shrugging off the disdain that he was unsuccessfully trying to hide.
Side note: When I asked him why he never mentioned his problem with my weight/shape earlier, he said, "Because I was afraid you wouldn't marry me." At some point during this whole discussion, he pulled the car over and, crying, begged me not to leave him. I told him I wouldn't. And I didn't. For more than 5 years. But, honestly, now I see that it's really difficult to come back from the knowledge that your partner has a fundamental problem with something about you that is ingrained in your DNA.
I specifically wanted to share an incident I've been remembering lately.
For Christmas, one of the things James got me was a one pound Reese's Peanut Butter Cup package. Each cup weighs 8 ounces and is multiple servings. It's lasted me a week and I just ate the final bite. I've had it for dessert for most meals since Christmas, and I'm not tired of it yet. Perfect gift.
26 years ago, I swore off of most of the food that I loved. I limited myself to 1500 calories and 7 grams of fat per day. I also committed to exercising every other day no matter what. If you think about it, this is how many people's New Year's Resolutions shape up. I wasn't doing it for the calendar; I was doing it to "save my marriage." Actually, I was doing it to keep my partner from being disgusted by me, which, again, in hindsight, was his shallow problem and not mine. He expressed displeasure, and I had to do all of the "work" to assuage it. How effed up is that? Plus the fact that it lead to years of my feeling like crap about myself. And it probably barely registered on his radar. In fact, he probably felt like he'd done something constructive.
We'd gone to visit my parents one weekend, and I remembered a really good chocolate shop near where I'd worked at a daycare when I lived in town. We all visited, and everyone got chocolates except me. It wasn't my "cheat day." I distinctly remember asking to see my then-husband's white bag, with three perfect candies nestled into paper cups at the bottom. I stuck my nose into the bag and inhaled. I can still smell the rich chocolate smell of those bonbons.
My mom asked me if I was going to eat one, and I said no, that smelling them like that was just as satisfying.
Which, of course, it wasn't. But that's where my brain was at the time.
Now, I did lose a bunch of weight. I got a lot of kudos for my efforts. I was praised for having discipline and self-control, for being "healthy" and for approaching the culture's version of attractiveness.
It was all bull, of course, because I was not healthy. I was obsessed with food, obsessed with maintaining a lifestyle within a hamster wheel, running to retain the supposed love I'd earned with my efforts.
Worst of all was this: Anyone who knows me knows I adore chocolate. It and pizza are the foods I could eat for the rest of my life and not get sick of them for at least a couple of years. You guys know that. James knows it. I'm certain my ex-husband knew it. But he was okay indulging in something I would have very much enjoyed while I abstained out of loyalty to his desire for how I should look.
Do you see how messed up that is?
Every time we went out to a restaurant when he got off of work and he ordered steak and potatoes while I ordered nothing because it was after 6 PM, and the waitress asked repeatedly if I was sure I didn't want anything at all... he never encouraged me to eat if I were hungry. He knew my rules and enforced them with his quiet approval.
He was allowed access to things that would have brought me joy because his body was naturally smaller than mine. And he never once advocated for my pleasure as a whole person. He was more invested in his own social currency, having a trim wife.
MESSED UP.
As we launch this new year, if you feel the motivation to make life changes based on the very arbitrary changing of the calendar, then I urge you to examine your motivation for doing so. Trying to become the best version of yourself possible is admirable, and it's hard work. I'll never believe that shrinking is tantamount to "better" nor will I ever again buy into the notion that making fundamental changes to oneself in order to obtain or hold on to the affections of another person is a productive goal.
In 2019, be kind to each other and be kind to yourself. And if you encounter someone who is not extending you the same respect, it might be a good exercise to look into that, to have difficult conversations, and to set boundaries. Best wishes to all.
Side note: When I asked him why he never mentioned his problem with my weight/shape earlier, he said, "Because I was afraid you wouldn't marry me." At some point during this whole discussion, he pulled the car over and, crying, begged me not to leave him. I told him I wouldn't. And I didn't. For more than 5 years. But, honestly, now I see that it's really difficult to come back from the knowledge that your partner has a fundamental problem with something about you that is ingrained in your DNA.
I specifically wanted to share an incident I've been remembering lately.
For Christmas, one of the things James got me was a one pound Reese's Peanut Butter Cup package. Each cup weighs 8 ounces and is multiple servings. It's lasted me a week and I just ate the final bite. I've had it for dessert for most meals since Christmas, and I'm not tired of it yet. Perfect gift.
26 years ago, I swore off of most of the food that I loved. I limited myself to 1500 calories and 7 grams of fat per day. I also committed to exercising every other day no matter what. If you think about it, this is how many people's New Year's Resolutions shape up. I wasn't doing it for the calendar; I was doing it to "save my marriage." Actually, I was doing it to keep my partner from being disgusted by me, which, again, in hindsight, was his shallow problem and not mine. He expressed displeasure, and I had to do all of the "work" to assuage it. How effed up is that? Plus the fact that it lead to years of my feeling like crap about myself. And it probably barely registered on his radar. In fact, he probably felt like he'd done something constructive.
We'd gone to visit my parents one weekend, and I remembered a really good chocolate shop near where I'd worked at a daycare when I lived in town. We all visited, and everyone got chocolates except me. It wasn't my "cheat day." I distinctly remember asking to see my then-husband's white bag, with three perfect candies nestled into paper cups at the bottom. I stuck my nose into the bag and inhaled. I can still smell the rich chocolate smell of those bonbons.
My mom asked me if I was going to eat one, and I said no, that smelling them like that was just as satisfying.
Which, of course, it wasn't. But that's where my brain was at the time.
Now, I did lose a bunch of weight. I got a lot of kudos for my efforts. I was praised for having discipline and self-control, for being "healthy" and for approaching the culture's version of attractiveness.
It was all bull, of course, because I was not healthy. I was obsessed with food, obsessed with maintaining a lifestyle within a hamster wheel, running to retain the supposed love I'd earned with my efforts.
Worst of all was this: Anyone who knows me knows I adore chocolate. It and pizza are the foods I could eat for the rest of my life and not get sick of them for at least a couple of years. You guys know that. James knows it. I'm certain my ex-husband knew it. But he was okay indulging in something I would have very much enjoyed while I abstained out of loyalty to his desire for how I should look.
Do you see how messed up that is?
Every time we went out to a restaurant when he got off of work and he ordered steak and potatoes while I ordered nothing because it was after 6 PM, and the waitress asked repeatedly if I was sure I didn't want anything at all... he never encouraged me to eat if I were hungry. He knew my rules and enforced them with his quiet approval.
He was allowed access to things that would have brought me joy because his body was naturally smaller than mine. And he never once advocated for my pleasure as a whole person. He was more invested in his own social currency, having a trim wife.
MESSED UP.
As we launch this new year, if you feel the motivation to make life changes based on the very arbitrary changing of the calendar, then I urge you to examine your motivation for doing so. Trying to become the best version of yourself possible is admirable, and it's hard work. I'll never believe that shrinking is tantamount to "better" nor will I ever again buy into the notion that making fundamental changes to oneself in order to obtain or hold on to the affections of another person is a productive goal.
In 2019, be kind to each other and be kind to yourself. And if you encounter someone who is not extending you the same respect, it might be a good exercise to look into that, to have difficult conversations, and to set boundaries. Best wishes to all.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Quick Thought About "Dumplin'" the Movie, a personal note
If you haven't watched Netflix's recent movie "Dumplin'", do yourself a favor and do. The most negative feedback I've read is that it's not as good as the book, and movies never are, so I waited to read it until I'd seen the film.
There is a lot to love about it. For me, the lion's share involved the portrayal of female friendships (mostly among high-schoolers). In almost every movie where you have an "outcast" (fat, nerd, jock girl, etc.) and then "normals," one or the other will be framed as basically evil, and one or the other will spend much of the movie plotting revenge or hating the other.
None of that in this movie. The main tension is between the title character and her mom, though there is some cursory idiot teen guy bullying (there are plenty of great guys in the movie, though; the jerks don't get much screen time or character development).
The young women in this movie are kind and supportive of each other. They might disagree, and even argue, but there is an underlying good will that pervades. I feel like this is a much more genuine picture of my experience with girlfriends.
But here is one thing that really struck me about the movie:
One of the story lines (not the main one) is of a male co-worker who is interested in the title character. He is conventionally good-looking, and straight-sized. The main character is also attractive, and is fat.
When it becomes obvious that he likes her and she sees a beauty-queen-type flirting with him, she becomes upset and tells him that they don't work "in the real world." She tells him that he should reasonably be with someone like the pageant staple girl (who, by the way, is an absolutely guileless character; not demonized at all, which, have I mentioned, I LOVE?!).
This was NOT my experience in high school.
I blame my lack of a real high school boyfriend on two things: I was fat (and, really, I wasn't *that* fat). I was not having sex. Maybe also that I'm a dork, but whatever.
I was never flummoxed when a guy liked me. I was always thrown off when a guy DIDN'T. No matter how many times it happened. No matter how consistent it was, and how much self-esteem-damage I had, and how much I hated my body. I was repeatedly crushed and incredulous when a guy in whom I was interested wasn't having it.
I seriously thought, "Do you KNOW me?! I'm super cool, and fun, and funny, and smart, and you'd love hanging out with me!" I might have felt like a flabby monster compared to my closest friends, but I KNEW I could hold my own in terms of personality and having so much to offer a relationship.
I am sure there are plenty of people who feel like Willowdean did: That if you look a certain way, you don't get the "Patriarchy Prizes" (h/t to Virgie Tovar). I'm very sad for those people, and am ready to build a world where this isn't the case. But for me, it never was. I always assumed I was worthy of love and respect and companionship. I'm going to credit my parents for that.
I've still spend a stupid amount of time in my life trying to diminish my body to fit into the ridiculously tiny box considered "desirable" by people who truly don't deserve my efforts. But somehow I've always seen that part of my struggle as separate from the person I am, who deserves good things just as much as my birthday twin, Cameron Diaz.
There is a lot to love about it. For me, the lion's share involved the portrayal of female friendships (mostly among high-schoolers). In almost every movie where you have an "outcast" (fat, nerd, jock girl, etc.) and then "normals," one or the other will be framed as basically evil, and one or the other will spend much of the movie plotting revenge or hating the other.
None of that in this movie. The main tension is between the title character and her mom, though there is some cursory idiot teen guy bullying (there are plenty of great guys in the movie, though; the jerks don't get much screen time or character development).
The young women in this movie are kind and supportive of each other. They might disagree, and even argue, but there is an underlying good will that pervades. I feel like this is a much more genuine picture of my experience with girlfriends.
But here is one thing that really struck me about the movie:
One of the story lines (not the main one) is of a male co-worker who is interested in the title character. He is conventionally good-looking, and straight-sized. The main character is also attractive, and is fat.
When it becomes obvious that he likes her and she sees a beauty-queen-type flirting with him, she becomes upset and tells him that they don't work "in the real world." She tells him that he should reasonably be with someone like the pageant staple girl (who, by the way, is an absolutely guileless character; not demonized at all, which, have I mentioned, I LOVE?!).
This was NOT my experience in high school.
I blame my lack of a real high school boyfriend on two things: I was fat (and, really, I wasn't *that* fat). I was not having sex. Maybe also that I'm a dork, but whatever.
I was never flummoxed when a guy liked me. I was always thrown off when a guy DIDN'T. No matter how many times it happened. No matter how consistent it was, and how much self-esteem-damage I had, and how much I hated my body. I was repeatedly crushed and incredulous when a guy in whom I was interested wasn't having it.
I seriously thought, "Do you KNOW me?! I'm super cool, and fun, and funny, and smart, and you'd love hanging out with me!" I might have felt like a flabby monster compared to my closest friends, but I KNEW I could hold my own in terms of personality and having so much to offer a relationship.
I am sure there are plenty of people who feel like Willowdean did: That if you look a certain way, you don't get the "Patriarchy Prizes" (h/t to Virgie Tovar). I'm very sad for those people, and am ready to build a world where this isn't the case. But for me, it never was. I always assumed I was worthy of love and respect and companionship. I'm going to credit my parents for that.
I've still spend a stupid amount of time in my life trying to diminish my body to fit into the ridiculously tiny box considered "desirable" by people who truly don't deserve my efforts. But somehow I've always seen that part of my struggle as separate from the person I am, who deserves good things just as much as my birthday twin, Cameron Diaz.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Dear 15-year-old me...
Hey, you. I know you're upset right now. Your first experience with a boyfriend just ended, and you're disappointed. I'm sorry. It really does suck. But before you start high school and before you begin a journey that will eat up so much of the next three decades of your life, I want to intervene. I want to assure you that there is another way. And, mostly, I want you to understand how much you can accomplish if you are willing to try to throw off the false messages with which our culture has been bombarding you since the day you were born.
I know something about you that maybe no one else knows. You hate your body. You feel monstrous and huge, completely "other" from even your closest friends. When you sit on the floor, cross-legged, reading notes at a sleepover, you notice how the flesh on your friend's leg doesn't round up at the calves like yours does. You see another friend wearing clothes that you think would look like a clown costume on you, and you're jealous that she can get away with picking anything from the thrift store shelves and it will look nice. You stand in front of your parents' vanity mirror and extend your belly as far as it will go. "I hate you," you tell yourself. "You're disgusting."
That, you will learn, many, MANY years from now, is called "internalized fatphobia." You have bought into the idea that fat people are lazy and gross. You are neither. Your self-talk is making it worse. First of all, isn't true; your future self will look at pictures of you at this time and be shocked at how someone so beautiful could feel so ugly. Secondly, even if it were true that you were exceptionally corpulent, science will bear out that genetics and puberty are the culprits and not your lack of motivation or appreciation of good food or any moral failure on your own part.
But every time you reinforce to yourself the message that you are somehow "less" because you do not meet some arbitrary standard of beauty, you make life worse for yourself.
You do not owe thinness to anyone. Not even yourself. You have believed a lie, and you will waste so much time and emotional energy powering this machine. Please don't. Please try to find the better way.
You don't realize it, but every time you indulge in self-hating fatphobia, you also make life worse for other women. Every time you judge yourself, you judge them, too. Either they're "thinner" than you and therefore an object of envy and resentment, or they're "fatter" than you and a source of judgmental feelings of relief and maybe even superiority.
Other women are not your competition. You don't have competition. This isn't a race or a game to be won. Living that way is isolating. Other women are your comrades. Don't you see how damaging this is to you all? You should all be on the same side. You should be about dismantling this world view, not continuing to prop it up.
Let me give this to you straight: Purposeful weight loss (through dieting and/or exercise) does not work in the long-term. Science has borne this out time and time again. Any program or study that promises or shows weight-loss only follows participants for two years. Within 5 years, 95% of people who lose weight have gained most if not all of it back. I'd cite multiple sources, but you do not have the internet like we do yet. Trust me, the future is great in this regard. You'll have access to so much information and so much validation. I just wish you could believe me in 1987.
Not only does purposeful weight loss not work, it backfires. Your body's metabolism slows down when you lose weight, and it stays slower. This means that the ultra-low-fat diet you will engage in from the time you're 20 until you're 23 will affect your ability to manage weight for the rest of your life. And again when you're 30 and lose weight "healthier." And 33. Every time, it will be harder. Every time, it will require more work. Every time, you'll have to expend more energy to work out and eat fewer and fewer calories. And you'll always gain it back. Always. Even when you keep it off for almost 7 years.
Health-wise, weight cycling like this puts a huge burden on your cardiovascular system. And repeated dieting interferes with your ability to listen to your body's hunger and satiety signals. It will further separate you from your social contacts, when you don't allow yourself to eat after a certain time of day, or when you check out of a conversation early because you cannot miss a workout or terror will ensue.
You're not going to believe this, but this is the most important thing: The best thing you can do for yourself at 15 is to rid yourself of the fatphobic attitudes the culture has given you, and then work on helping everyone else do it, too.
This is actually easier, and much more fulfilling, than hating and berating yourself. It's more productive than engaging in a mental and physical illness to make your body more appealing to yourself and others.
So... what if you do it? What if you manage to chip away at every lie you've ever believed about yourself and your body and decide to dedicate your energy to things like pursuing your passions? There is a two-pronged problem here, and you'll have addressed only one.
The second part is that, yeah, pretty much everyone in our culture has co-opted bigotry toward fat people. This will include men in whom you are interested, and who you want to be interested in you.
I wish you could just forget about dating for the next ten years, but I know you won't, so maybe you'll just take this to heart:
If any man claims to care about you but shows disdain toward your body, HE DOES NOT LOVE YOU. Love is not conditional. He might like your personality. He might find you humorous or think you have a beautiful face or feel like you might make a good partner. However, ultimately, he is selfish and foolish.
Your body is not a shell that holds you. Your body IS you. You are your body. Everything you do -- sleeping, talking, walking, laughing, watching a movie, singing -- EVERYTHING you do is enabled by your amazing body. It's not a shirt you can change to please someone else (though, for what it's worth, if someone doesn't like your shirt and thinks he can tell you to change it, he's probably not great for you, either).
If someone shows disdain for your body, END THE RELATIONSHIP. That might sound drastic, but it is absolutely necessary. There is no getting around or over it. If someone's feelings of affection for you are predicated on your body looking a certain way, that is not unconditional love, and you need to remove yourself from it.
I heard a podcast once (kind of like a radio program) where a woman was saying that she'd realized something about a man she was living with when she was engaging in disordered eating and exercise: He was probably the only person who knew how unraveled her life was, and not only did he not stop it, he encouraged her. He encouraged a woman he alleged to love to continually sacrifice her pleasure and ease (by passing up food she liked, by spending hours doing work-outs she hated, etc.) because her thinness was social currency to him. To put a finer point on it: He shows up with a hottie on his arm, and it make him look like a big deal. So she's doing all of this horrible labor just for him to glean the benefits. That's definitely not love. It's dysfunctional.
And if any man says, "I can't help it; I'm just not attracted to bigger women," then whatever. Good luck to him. He is a bigot, and you don't need that kind of person in your life.
Not at all incidentally, you, too, have that bigotry. It is death, and you need to cut it out immediately. Everyone, including yourself, yes, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON, deserves respect and the freedom to move and exist in the world without harassment regardless of how they look, of their size, of their abilities, of their health, or of anything. Every single person deserves to eat what they want, go where they want, wear what they want, and be who they are without anyone else's opinions being foisted on them. You have to take your thoughts captive and excise them. The phrase, "Do they even own a mirror?" should die on the vine long before it becomes a conscious thought. No one should do this to you. You cannot do it to others. Or yourself.
I'm writing you because I don't want you to look around at the great life you have 30 years from now and wonder how much further along you might be if you could trade those 300,000+ minutes (that's more than half a year!) you spent working out and the countless hours you meal-planned and obsessed over what you were going to eat, and how many calories it had, and how much fat, and when was your next free day, and how many candy corn could you manage in one day when you otherwise ate only dry spinach for doing something that would have made your life or the world at large a better place.
You will get to this place of freedom. It will be a hard-won battle, and, actually, it will be ongoing, as some of these dogmas die more slowly than others. But if you could just start on it now instead of after your second divorce (*wince* I KNOW), you could save yourself a lot of heartache and wasted time.
I know you don't cuss. I wish, just a little bit, that you did. Because instead of responding with silent and hidden hurt when someone judges you as unworthy due to your body type, I really wish you could just happily respond, "F*(4 that" and get on with your life without a second thought. Before you're middle-aged.
In retrospect,
46-year-old me
I know something about you that maybe no one else knows. You hate your body. You feel monstrous and huge, completely "other" from even your closest friends. When you sit on the floor, cross-legged, reading notes at a sleepover, you notice how the flesh on your friend's leg doesn't round up at the calves like yours does. You see another friend wearing clothes that you think would look like a clown costume on you, and you're jealous that she can get away with picking anything from the thrift store shelves and it will look nice. You stand in front of your parents' vanity mirror and extend your belly as far as it will go. "I hate you," you tell yourself. "You're disgusting."
That, you will learn, many, MANY years from now, is called "internalized fatphobia." You have bought into the idea that fat people are lazy and gross. You are neither. Your self-talk is making it worse. First of all, isn't true; your future self will look at pictures of you at this time and be shocked at how someone so beautiful could feel so ugly. Secondly, even if it were true that you were exceptionally corpulent, science will bear out that genetics and puberty are the culprits and not your lack of motivation or appreciation of good food or any moral failure on your own part.
But every time you reinforce to yourself the message that you are somehow "less" because you do not meet some arbitrary standard of beauty, you make life worse for yourself.
You do not owe thinness to anyone. Not even yourself. You have believed a lie, and you will waste so much time and emotional energy powering this machine. Please don't. Please try to find the better way.
You don't realize it, but every time you indulge in self-hating fatphobia, you also make life worse for other women. Every time you judge yourself, you judge them, too. Either they're "thinner" than you and therefore an object of envy and resentment, or they're "fatter" than you and a source of judgmental feelings of relief and maybe even superiority.
Other women are not your competition. You don't have competition. This isn't a race or a game to be won. Living that way is isolating. Other women are your comrades. Don't you see how damaging this is to you all? You should all be on the same side. You should be about dismantling this world view, not continuing to prop it up.
Let me give this to you straight: Purposeful weight loss (through dieting and/or exercise) does not work in the long-term. Science has borne this out time and time again. Any program or study that promises or shows weight-loss only follows participants for two years. Within 5 years, 95% of people who lose weight have gained most if not all of it back. I'd cite multiple sources, but you do not have the internet like we do yet. Trust me, the future is great in this regard. You'll have access to so much information and so much validation. I just wish you could believe me in 1987.
Not only does purposeful weight loss not work, it backfires. Your body's metabolism slows down when you lose weight, and it stays slower. This means that the ultra-low-fat diet you will engage in from the time you're 20 until you're 23 will affect your ability to manage weight for the rest of your life. And again when you're 30 and lose weight "healthier." And 33. Every time, it will be harder. Every time, it will require more work. Every time, you'll have to expend more energy to work out and eat fewer and fewer calories. And you'll always gain it back. Always. Even when you keep it off for almost 7 years.
Health-wise, weight cycling like this puts a huge burden on your cardiovascular system. And repeated dieting interferes with your ability to listen to your body's hunger and satiety signals. It will further separate you from your social contacts, when you don't allow yourself to eat after a certain time of day, or when you check out of a conversation early because you cannot miss a workout or terror will ensue.
You're not going to believe this, but this is the most important thing: The best thing you can do for yourself at 15 is to rid yourself of the fatphobic attitudes the culture has given you, and then work on helping everyone else do it, too.
This is actually easier, and much more fulfilling, than hating and berating yourself. It's more productive than engaging in a mental and physical illness to make your body more appealing to yourself and others.
So... what if you do it? What if you manage to chip away at every lie you've ever believed about yourself and your body and decide to dedicate your energy to things like pursuing your passions? There is a two-pronged problem here, and you'll have addressed only one.
The second part is that, yeah, pretty much everyone in our culture has co-opted bigotry toward fat people. This will include men in whom you are interested, and who you want to be interested in you.
I wish you could just forget about dating for the next ten years, but I know you won't, so maybe you'll just take this to heart:
If any man claims to care about you but shows disdain toward your body, HE DOES NOT LOVE YOU. Love is not conditional. He might like your personality. He might find you humorous or think you have a beautiful face or feel like you might make a good partner. However, ultimately, he is selfish and foolish.
Your body is not a shell that holds you. Your body IS you. You are your body. Everything you do -- sleeping, talking, walking, laughing, watching a movie, singing -- EVERYTHING you do is enabled by your amazing body. It's not a shirt you can change to please someone else (though, for what it's worth, if someone doesn't like your shirt and thinks he can tell you to change it, he's probably not great for you, either).
If someone shows disdain for your body, END THE RELATIONSHIP. That might sound drastic, but it is absolutely necessary. There is no getting around or over it. If someone's feelings of affection for you are predicated on your body looking a certain way, that is not unconditional love, and you need to remove yourself from it.
I heard a podcast once (kind of like a radio program) where a woman was saying that she'd realized something about a man she was living with when she was engaging in disordered eating and exercise: He was probably the only person who knew how unraveled her life was, and not only did he not stop it, he encouraged her. He encouraged a woman he alleged to love to continually sacrifice her pleasure and ease (by passing up food she liked, by spending hours doing work-outs she hated, etc.) because her thinness was social currency to him. To put a finer point on it: He shows up with a hottie on his arm, and it make him look like a big deal. So she's doing all of this horrible labor just for him to glean the benefits. That's definitely not love. It's dysfunctional.
And if any man says, "I can't help it; I'm just not attracted to bigger women," then whatever. Good luck to him. He is a bigot, and you don't need that kind of person in your life.
Not at all incidentally, you, too, have that bigotry. It is death, and you need to cut it out immediately. Everyone, including yourself, yes, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON, deserves respect and the freedom to move and exist in the world without harassment regardless of how they look, of their size, of their abilities, of their health, or of anything. Every single person deserves to eat what they want, go where they want, wear what they want, and be who they are without anyone else's opinions being foisted on them. You have to take your thoughts captive and excise them. The phrase, "Do they even own a mirror?" should die on the vine long before it becomes a conscious thought. No one should do this to you. You cannot do it to others. Or yourself.
I'm writing you because I don't want you to look around at the great life you have 30 years from now and wonder how much further along you might be if you could trade those 300,000+ minutes (that's more than half a year!) you spent working out and the countless hours you meal-planned and obsessed over what you were going to eat, and how many calories it had, and how much fat, and when was your next free day, and how many candy corn could you manage in one day when you otherwise ate only dry spinach for doing something that would have made your life or the world at large a better place.
You will get to this place of freedom. It will be a hard-won battle, and, actually, it will be ongoing, as some of these dogmas die more slowly than others. But if you could just start on it now instead of after your second divorce (*wince* I KNOW), you could save yourself a lot of heartache and wasted time.
I know you don't cuss. I wish, just a little bit, that you did. Because instead of responding with silent and hidden hurt when someone judges you as unworthy due to your body type, I really wish you could just happily respond, "F*(4 that" and get on with your life without a second thought. Before you're middle-aged.
In retrospect,
46-year-old me
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
"...like a fat kid loves cake"
The other day, Mal wanted to go to Altitude Trampoline Park. It's almost an hour from where we live, and it's a bear to drive down, but we'd had kind of a weird morning, so I thought it'd be a fun thing to do. As much as Mal likes Jump Street, which is considerably closer, they have only one area where kids under 4 are allowed to jump. It has 3 long trampolines, a bouncy slide, and a bouncy obstacle course. It's fun, but at Altitude, he can go everywhere. It's also considerably more expensive, except when they have open toddler jump, and we can't seem to get a straight word from them on when they're going to start doing that again.
Anyway, none of this is really about that. It's about something I noticed during the hour we were there.
There were more kids there than I was expecting, but I guess it's possible a lot of them were homeschoolers, or that some schools start later than AISD. I was amused by this one pair of middle-school-aged girls who just hopped around to places to sit and gab most of the time. Like: jump jump jump, sit on the stand for 10 minutes; jump, jump, walk, sit in the corner against the wall for 15 minutes; repeat variations on that theme. I know how much it costs per hour for kids to jump there. I'd just drop them off at the mall. But they were having a good time, regardless.
Mal had seem someone with popcorn and wanted some, so we went to buy a box. Making our way to the snack area, I saw those girls sitting out in the lounge. The smaller of the girls had an Icee. The larger one had a straw, and every now and then would take a drink, but it was obviously the smaller girl's, and she never handed it over.
Something in my head said, "That big girl doesn't think she's allowed to have a slushie in public." Then I decided I was projecting, and went on.
When Mal was ready to go, we packed everything up and I was throwing our trash away when I saw the girls again. This time, the smaller girl had a cup of Dippin' Dots ice cream. The bigger girl was, again, not eating anything.
Now, it's entirely possible that one girl just had money where the other girl didn't. Maybe the second girl's parents just thought they'd spent enough on the admission and that she could drink out of the water fountain. I realize that.
But it made me remember of a friend of mine who said it used to make her cry when she'd see a fat kid eating a hot dog. She said she wanted to yell at the parents not to let their kid eat that way. I didn't realize at the time how fatphobic and wrong-headed that "concern" (judgment) was.
This girl, the one who had an Icee and ice cream, can eat whatever she wants in public and no one will ever say a word to her. But the eyebrows fly when a bigger girl might want to enjoy the same foods. And this food policing is a breeding ground for private binging.
The double-standard -- like, the Gilmore Girls eat two large pizzas between them and it's adorable, but if a real life fat person ate half a pizza, throngs would chime in "that's why you are the way you are!" even though EVERYBODY has times they overeat, or eat non-nutritive foods, and not everybody's bodies look the same.
That double standard is troubling enough lobbed at adults. But, man, it's particularly infuriating and damaging when a kid feels like they can't have a treat because they've been taught they don't "deserve" it; that there is something wrong with them and it's their life's work to fix it so people will treat them with at least some respect for being a "good far person" and trying, even if they aren't ever able to make their bodies into lithe forms pleasing to the fickle eyes of our culture.
This made me ponder the phrase I used in the title. Something like "I love you like a fat kid loves cake." How dumb is it? I mean, most people love cake. Why wouldn't you love cake? (Or at least icing.) And my guess is that, for a fat kid, eating cake can be particularly fraught: This tastes good. It's so bad for me. I want to eat it. I shouldn't eat it because it'll make me fatter.
I hope those girls had a great day. I hope I just read a lot of my own feelings into that situation, and maybe that bigger girl had just come from IHOP and couldn't have eaten another bite, anyway. And I look forward to the day that I don't have to worry about a little girl's self-image at the hands of a cruel diet culture.
Anyway, none of this is really about that. It's about something I noticed during the hour we were there.
There were more kids there than I was expecting, but I guess it's possible a lot of them were homeschoolers, or that some schools start later than AISD. I was amused by this one pair of middle-school-aged girls who just hopped around to places to sit and gab most of the time. Like: jump jump jump, sit on the stand for 10 minutes; jump, jump, walk, sit in the corner against the wall for 15 minutes; repeat variations on that theme. I know how much it costs per hour for kids to jump there. I'd just drop them off at the mall. But they were having a good time, regardless.
Mal had seem someone with popcorn and wanted some, so we went to buy a box. Making our way to the snack area, I saw those girls sitting out in the lounge. The smaller of the girls had an Icee. The larger one had a straw, and every now and then would take a drink, but it was obviously the smaller girl's, and she never handed it over.
Something in my head said, "That big girl doesn't think she's allowed to have a slushie in public." Then I decided I was projecting, and went on.
When Mal was ready to go, we packed everything up and I was throwing our trash away when I saw the girls again. This time, the smaller girl had a cup of Dippin' Dots ice cream. The bigger girl was, again, not eating anything.
Now, it's entirely possible that one girl just had money where the other girl didn't. Maybe the second girl's parents just thought they'd spent enough on the admission and that she could drink out of the water fountain. I realize that.
But it made me remember of a friend of mine who said it used to make her cry when she'd see a fat kid eating a hot dog. She said she wanted to yell at the parents not to let their kid eat that way. I didn't realize at the time how fatphobic and wrong-headed that "concern" (judgment) was.
This girl, the one who had an Icee and ice cream, can eat whatever she wants in public and no one will ever say a word to her. But the eyebrows fly when a bigger girl might want to enjoy the same foods. And this food policing is a breeding ground for private binging.
The double-standard -- like, the Gilmore Girls eat two large pizzas between them and it's adorable, but if a real life fat person ate half a pizza, throngs would chime in "that's why you are the way you are!" even though EVERYBODY has times they overeat, or eat non-nutritive foods, and not everybody's bodies look the same.
That double standard is troubling enough lobbed at adults. But, man, it's particularly infuriating and damaging when a kid feels like they can't have a treat because they've been taught they don't "deserve" it; that there is something wrong with them and it's their life's work to fix it so people will treat them with at least some respect for being a "good far person" and trying, even if they aren't ever able to make their bodies into lithe forms pleasing to the fickle eyes of our culture.
This made me ponder the phrase I used in the title. Something like "I love you like a fat kid loves cake." How dumb is it? I mean, most people love cake. Why wouldn't you love cake? (Or at least icing.) And my guess is that, for a fat kid, eating cake can be particularly fraught: This tastes good. It's so bad for me. I want to eat it. I shouldn't eat it because it'll make me fatter.
I hope those girls had a great day. I hope I just read a lot of my own feelings into that situation, and maybe that bigger girl had just come from IHOP and couldn't have eaten another bite, anyway. And I look forward to the day that I don't have to worry about a little girl's self-image at the hands of a cruel diet culture.
Friday, August 17, 2018
Wrapping Up Babecamp
This week, Virgie Tovar's book "You Have the Right to Remain Fat" came out, just as we were finishing up the online Babecamp. It has all been great fun, lots to think about, and tons of reinforcement.
One thing I realized is that I'm probably about 2.5-3 years past the target demo for Babecamp... Not age-wise, but body-ownership-wise. Which is a cool, comfortable place to be.
I listened to a lot of podcasts as Tovar did media for the book release. It really made me wonder what I might have thought about what she had to say when I was involved in previous relationships.
At one point in a podcast, the host said something like, "What does it say about your relationship when your partner is okay with your being hungry, dedicating hours to something you don't love doing, and denying yourself things you really like simply because of the social currency it conveys to them?"
:::blink:::
I had an active and overt eating disorder during my first marriage. Also, exercise bulimia. It was all set off by my husband telling me that I was overweight, and my trying to "fix" it. He was a witness to all of this. My appearance pleased him, and he obviously did not care what I did to acquire or maintain that appearance.
I had a more "healthy"-looking eating disorder and commitment to working out in a way that I clearly hated during my second marriage. I had gotten past most of the stuff from my 20s until my second husband also told me I was 50-60 pounds overweight and needed to lose it. He treated me with disgust and disapproval until I lost the weight, all while still expecting me to perform in the bedroom, knowing I was not physically appealing to my partner.
And I lost a LOT of weight due to what Tovar calls "internalized inferiority." I believed that my husband had the right to hate me for being fat "and disgusting," which was a moral failing on my part that showed all over my body. He was able to wield this, using my desire for his affection and approval, into a tool of control.
Over and over, as I've read about women who believe, due to their life experiences, that in order to live a full and free life, they will likely have to abandon their dreams of being in a lifelong relationship with a man, I recognize that I am married to the perfect man for me. He's the perfect match for where I am in my life right now, and the perfect partner to cheer me on as I learn and grow and come to find the woman I'm meant to be, who I didn't have the chance to find as I was spending so much time and energy on artificially maintaining a body type to remain pleasing to a critical male eye.
Furthermore, I'm grateful to be middle aged. It's so much easier to be confident in who I am and not really give a single stinking rodent's hindquarters what anyone else thinks about me.
Finally, Tovar said something I loved during an interview where the host "concern-trolled" her (which is when someone says, when speaking of fat acceptance, something to the extent of "but what about health..."). Paraphrasing: There is no minimum weight someone has to be to deserve respect and freedom from bigotry.
This applies in so many realms, I want to keep it, most of all, at the forefront of my mind. There is no minimum of ability, health, intelligence, accomplishment, drive, etc. that someone needs to possess. Everybody deserves to expect to be treated as fully human because they are. And that's my favorite takeaway.
One thing I realized is that I'm probably about 2.5-3 years past the target demo for Babecamp... Not age-wise, but body-ownership-wise. Which is a cool, comfortable place to be.
I listened to a lot of podcasts as Tovar did media for the book release. It really made me wonder what I might have thought about what she had to say when I was involved in previous relationships.
At one point in a podcast, the host said something like, "What does it say about your relationship when your partner is okay with your being hungry, dedicating hours to something you don't love doing, and denying yourself things you really like simply because of the social currency it conveys to them?"
:::blink:::
I had an active and overt eating disorder during my first marriage. Also, exercise bulimia. It was all set off by my husband telling me that I was overweight, and my trying to "fix" it. He was a witness to all of this. My appearance pleased him, and he obviously did not care what I did to acquire or maintain that appearance.
I had a more "healthy"-looking eating disorder and commitment to working out in a way that I clearly hated during my second marriage. I had gotten past most of the stuff from my 20s until my second husband also told me I was 50-60 pounds overweight and needed to lose it. He treated me with disgust and disapproval until I lost the weight, all while still expecting me to perform in the bedroom, knowing I was not physically appealing to my partner.
And I lost a LOT of weight due to what Tovar calls "internalized inferiority." I believed that my husband had the right to hate me for being fat "and disgusting," which was a moral failing on my part that showed all over my body. He was able to wield this, using my desire for his affection and approval, into a tool of control.
Over and over, as I've read about women who believe, due to their life experiences, that in order to live a full and free life, they will likely have to abandon their dreams of being in a lifelong relationship with a man, I recognize that I am married to the perfect man for me. He's the perfect match for where I am in my life right now, and the perfect partner to cheer me on as I learn and grow and come to find the woman I'm meant to be, who I didn't have the chance to find as I was spending so much time and energy on artificially maintaining a body type to remain pleasing to a critical male eye.
Furthermore, I'm grateful to be middle aged. It's so much easier to be confident in who I am and not really give a single stinking rodent's hindquarters what anyone else thinks about me.
Finally, Tovar said something I loved during an interview where the host "concern-trolled" her (which is when someone says, when speaking of fat acceptance, something to the extent of "but what about health..."). Paraphrasing: There is no minimum weight someone has to be to deserve respect and freedom from bigotry.
This applies in so many realms, I want to keep it, most of all, at the forefront of my mind. There is no minimum of ability, health, intelligence, accomplishment, drive, etc. that someone needs to possess. Everybody deserves to expect to be treated as fully human because they are. And that's my favorite takeaway.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Happy Birthday to Me!
All right, fine. If you're keeping track, it's still more than two months until my birthday.
But James already got my present for me, even though I still have to wait a few weeks for it.
Something hit me the other day: I cannot remember the last time I went to bed feeling cruddy and thinking, "Well, I ate like a garbage person today. I'll do better tomorrow."
If you've never done this, then I don't know how to explain the feelings of shame, failure fatigue, and physical illness that accompany that little bit of self-demoralizing.
There have been many times in my life when I've tried, with varying levels of success, to appreciate my body in its natural form (i.e. when not being manipulated by food restriction and exercise for the sole purpose of body-taming), with varying success.
I remember when I was training for the LVMPD entry test, I was able to run 5 miles and felt like a total bad ass. When I was weighed as part of the physical, I was surprised to see 195. That was up significantly from my lowest weight, due to a years-long eating disorder, when I spent some time at about 148 pounds.
Incidentally, the GNC scale still told me I was 7 pounds overweight here, so while I felt pretty okay about how I looked, the numbers taunted me.
However, a few years later, I was nearly 50 pounds heavier and significantly more healthy. And I didn't feel much self-consciousness about how I looked.
Still, what I didn't realize was that Diet Culture was pervasive in my thought processes and self-esteem.
I had so many "rules" about how I ate, even while giving myself permission, kind of, to eat as I pleased. I still saw foods as "naughty" indulgences or "healthy" choices. If I did too much of the former, I felt really bad.
Even after James and I got married and I was looking in the rear-view mirror of those miserable forced workouts (even while loving riding my bike challenging places, walking all over, dancing, etc.), I would still often look back on my day with a sense of backward-facing dread, and feel ill at the thought of the "bad" food I'd put in my body.
Or I'd remember that I'd forgotten I'd had a snack and then still eaten as much as dinner as I would have if I'd not eaten a snack. And I'd be frustrated with myself.
So, that's a long way of saying: I don't do that anymore. At some point in this work I'm doing to listen to my body, to move as I please, and to eat as I will without any of this becoming an energy-draining focus from my very full life, I've managed to throw off the go-to guilt that has gone hand-in-hand with food choices for as long as I can remember.
I no longer linger over glances at myself in mirrors or storefront windows as I walk past. I don't feel self-conscious about what other people looking at me might think. I buy and wear clothes that I enjoy, that allow me to move, and that I don't have to think about, regardless of the "rules" of what might or might not be "flattering."
There is, however, one area in which I still struggle: Pictures.
I LOVE pictures. I often hand my camera to James (and cringe, because, frankly, for as brilliant as that man is, he cannot take a dang photograph... and now that I think about it, it might have to do with how overstimulated he gets in loud/busy situations in that he cannot filter out superfluous information, and that's exactly what his pictures look like) or someone else and ask them to get a picture of me doing whatever we're doing, because I tend to be the recorder of memories.
However, my tendency still is to be hyper-critical of snaps of me, because... I guess I'm seeing myself from someone else's angle, and I'm not used to it, so it reveals things about me I don't see in the mirror, even though my son has fully mirrored closet doors, and we're in his floor about 10 hours a day, so I've likely glanced at myself at almost every possible angle in the past year and a half.
I'll give you an example from a couple of years ago. My friend Jana, of Jana Gross Photography, had brought her girls to our apartment to swim. She snapped this candid shot of Mal and me.
This picture is pure joy. But at first blush, my reaction to it was, "Holy crap, that arm! Those bulges! Ugh!" I had to look away from myself because I couldn't take it (it was a couple of months after this that I did my last-ditch effort to drop a few pounds, and after calorie-restricting for two months, decided I'd rather try to be happy than thinner). In the past, I'd delete pictures of myself that I did not like but knew, absolutely, that some day I would adore this picture and the moment in time that it captures with such buoyant energy.
(Incidentally, this kind of "documentary photography" is Jana's milieu, so if you need pictures that are absolutely YOU and not the same poses that are trending with every other photographer on earth, you should absolutely book her.)
And now we get to James's birthday present for me! He purchased admission to Virgie Tovar's Babecamp, It's a four-week online course to learn how to have a peaceful relationship with your body, first by examining how we got to where we are now, and then by working on tools for self-love.
If this sounds horribly self-indulgent to you, especially given that there is so much real trouble on earth, then let me assure you that dissatisfaction with my body has been an incredibly time-. energy-, money-, and talent-consuming function of my life for as long as I can remember. Ridding myself of its last vestiges frees me up to be fully present for the people and causes that mean most to me.
As an ancient example: When D was smaller, we had an absolute bedtime of 7:00 PM (which is funny; Mal just finally conked out at 11 tonight). D could read or play in bed, but had to stay there. There were countless times D would call down the hall with a random question, clearly just wanting to chat, desiring company. And I'd yell back to "go to sleep!" Because I "needed" to work out. Not because I enjoyed it. Not because the exercise brought me peace and life. Because I did not want to be as fat as I'd been in the past.
Time and time again, I chose attempting to alter the natural size of my body over building a relationship with my older child.
I'm not ever going to do that again.
Babecamp will end about a month before we go on our family vacation. I look forward to taking, and being in, a ton of pictures. Without obsessing over myself in any of them.
And many more.
But James already got my present for me, even though I still have to wait a few weeks for it.
Something hit me the other day: I cannot remember the last time I went to bed feeling cruddy and thinking, "Well, I ate like a garbage person today. I'll do better tomorrow."
If you've never done this, then I don't know how to explain the feelings of shame, failure fatigue, and physical illness that accompany that little bit of self-demoralizing.
There have been many times in my life when I've tried, with varying levels of success, to appreciate my body in its natural form (i.e. when not being manipulated by food restriction and exercise for the sole purpose of body-taming), with varying success.
I remember when I was training for the LVMPD entry test, I was able to run 5 miles and felt like a total bad ass. When I was weighed as part of the physical, I was surprised to see 195. That was up significantly from my lowest weight, due to a years-long eating disorder, when I spent some time at about 148 pounds.
Incidentally, the GNC scale still told me I was 7 pounds overweight here, so while I felt pretty okay about how I looked, the numbers taunted me.
However, a few years later, I was nearly 50 pounds heavier and significantly more healthy. And I didn't feel much self-consciousness about how I looked.
Still, what I didn't realize was that Diet Culture was pervasive in my thought processes and self-esteem.
I had so many "rules" about how I ate, even while giving myself permission, kind of, to eat as I pleased. I still saw foods as "naughty" indulgences or "healthy" choices. If I did too much of the former, I felt really bad.
Even after James and I got married and I was looking in the rear-view mirror of those miserable forced workouts (even while loving riding my bike challenging places, walking all over, dancing, etc.), I would still often look back on my day with a sense of backward-facing dread, and feel ill at the thought of the "bad" food I'd put in my body.
Or I'd remember that I'd forgotten I'd had a snack and then still eaten as much as dinner as I would have if I'd not eaten a snack. And I'd be frustrated with myself.
So, that's a long way of saying: I don't do that anymore. At some point in this work I'm doing to listen to my body, to move as I please, and to eat as I will without any of this becoming an energy-draining focus from my very full life, I've managed to throw off the go-to guilt that has gone hand-in-hand with food choices for as long as I can remember.
I no longer linger over glances at myself in mirrors or storefront windows as I walk past. I don't feel self-conscious about what other people looking at me might think. I buy and wear clothes that I enjoy, that allow me to move, and that I don't have to think about, regardless of the "rules" of what might or might not be "flattering."
There is, however, one area in which I still struggle: Pictures.
I LOVE pictures. I often hand my camera to James (and cringe, because, frankly, for as brilliant as that man is, he cannot take a dang photograph... and now that I think about it, it might have to do with how overstimulated he gets in loud/busy situations in that he cannot filter out superfluous information, and that's exactly what his pictures look like) or someone else and ask them to get a picture of me doing whatever we're doing, because I tend to be the recorder of memories.
However, my tendency still is to be hyper-critical of snaps of me, because... I guess I'm seeing myself from someone else's angle, and I'm not used to it, so it reveals things about me I don't see in the mirror, even though my son has fully mirrored closet doors, and we're in his floor about 10 hours a day, so I've likely glanced at myself at almost every possible angle in the past year and a half.
I'll give you an example from a couple of years ago. My friend Jana, of Jana Gross Photography, had brought her girls to our apartment to swim. She snapped this candid shot of Mal and me.
This picture is pure joy. But at first blush, my reaction to it was, "Holy crap, that arm! Those bulges! Ugh!" I had to look away from myself because I couldn't take it (it was a couple of months after this that I did my last-ditch effort to drop a few pounds, and after calorie-restricting for two months, decided I'd rather try to be happy than thinner). In the past, I'd delete pictures of myself that I did not like but knew, absolutely, that some day I would adore this picture and the moment in time that it captures with such buoyant energy.
(Incidentally, this kind of "documentary photography" is Jana's milieu, so if you need pictures that are absolutely YOU and not the same poses that are trending with every other photographer on earth, you should absolutely book her.)
And now we get to James's birthday present for me! He purchased admission to Virgie Tovar's Babecamp, It's a four-week online course to learn how to have a peaceful relationship with your body, first by examining how we got to where we are now, and then by working on tools for self-love.
If this sounds horribly self-indulgent to you, especially given that there is so much real trouble on earth, then let me assure you that dissatisfaction with my body has been an incredibly time-. energy-, money-, and talent-consuming function of my life for as long as I can remember. Ridding myself of its last vestiges frees me up to be fully present for the people and causes that mean most to me.
As an ancient example: When D was smaller, we had an absolute bedtime of 7:00 PM (which is funny; Mal just finally conked out at 11 tonight). D could read or play in bed, but had to stay there. There were countless times D would call down the hall with a random question, clearly just wanting to chat, desiring company. And I'd yell back to "go to sleep!" Because I "needed" to work out. Not because I enjoyed it. Not because the exercise brought me peace and life. Because I did not want to be as fat as I'd been in the past.
Time and time again, I chose attempting to alter the natural size of my body over building a relationship with my older child.
I'm not ever going to do that again.
Babecamp will end about a month before we go on our family vacation. I look forward to taking, and being in, a ton of pictures. Without obsessing over myself in any of them.
And many more.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Hey, Friend Who Lost Weight and Gained It Back... You Look Amazing!
Friend, I've wanted to affirm you for months, but wasn't sure how to bring this up. It's an awkward subject in our society because Diet Culture has so brainwashed us with the ideas of what is "good" and what is "bad." What is "virtuous" and what is "shameful." I don't buy into any of that anymore, but most people still do.
So how to tell you that I see you, and I am super proud of you?
I'll bet back when you were losing weight, you got a lot of positive feedback. "Looking good!" "Wow, you're so dedicated!" "Your hard work is paying off!"
An aside -- "paying off"? How? Because you're thinner than you used to be? Is that a reward? Being skinnier is the payment you get for obsessing over food and exercise? Um. Pass. Anyway...
It seems like such a big, loud deal when you lose weight. It's full of accolades and appreciation and maybe even some jealousy thrown your way. Then, over time, you realize something. Maybe it's a year or two. Maybe it's more than five. My longest was more than seven years (and, yes, I've had at least three major weight cycling events, with other fits and starts in the midst).
But eventually, you realize that one of the biggest lies of Diet Culture is the "maintenance phase." Dieting to lose weight isn't easy, no. But it is a walk in the park compared to maintaining an artificially low body weight. Once you hit your goal weight, you have to eat less and/or exercise more to keep the weight off. Not for a while. For the rest of your life.
Maybe you didn't realize it until the weight started slowly creeping back on. Maybe you realized it when you hit a plateau from which your body would not budge. Maybe it's just dawning on you.
And whereas your weight came off with visible work and "discipline" and praise, it can creep back on in silence and shame. Maybe you think people are wondering why you would "let yourself go" after working so hard. Maybe you feel like a failure. Maybe you're just waiting for a life season to pass before you buckle down and have another go at taking the weight back off.
Might I encourage you not to do that? Any of it?
Unless there is a 1-to-1 medical reason for you to lose weight, fighting your body's "natural" weight is not a battle you can win unless you're willing to wrestle mightily with it for the rest of your life. So, seriously, if imminent death or disease is not on the line, maybe think about why you're willing to devote such a large chunk of your emotional and physical energy to the pursuit.
(And, to me, even if you're a "yeah, but my knees" person... I'd encourage you to find out what you can do to build strength in your legs. Go positive and strong instead of negative and "less.")
I just wanted you to know that I see you, and I'm proud of you, and I am cheering you on.
I'm so thrilled that you can go to Texas Roadhouse with your family without having to spend half an hour perusing the menu online first to see what is "safe" for you to order. I'm ecstatic that you don't have to write down everything you eat, or to measure every portion before you can sit down to a meal. I'm happy that you have the time you used to devote to a specific, repeatable, boring gym routine to do things you love and that make your body happy.
I'm glad you're not fighting your body. I'm glad you're not sucked into the trap of spending valuable time, talent, energy, and money on something as vapid as "thinness" and are instead able to channel those amazing resources to bigger and better things. It looks amazing on you.
So how to tell you that I see you, and I am super proud of you?
I'll bet back when you were losing weight, you got a lot of positive feedback. "Looking good!" "Wow, you're so dedicated!" "Your hard work is paying off!"
An aside -- "paying off"? How? Because you're thinner than you used to be? Is that a reward? Being skinnier is the payment you get for obsessing over food and exercise? Um. Pass. Anyway...
It seems like such a big, loud deal when you lose weight. It's full of accolades and appreciation and maybe even some jealousy thrown your way. Then, over time, you realize something. Maybe it's a year or two. Maybe it's more than five. My longest was more than seven years (and, yes, I've had at least three major weight cycling events, with other fits and starts in the midst).
But eventually, you realize that one of the biggest lies of Diet Culture is the "maintenance phase." Dieting to lose weight isn't easy, no. But it is a walk in the park compared to maintaining an artificially low body weight. Once you hit your goal weight, you have to eat less and/or exercise more to keep the weight off. Not for a while. For the rest of your life.
Maybe you didn't realize it until the weight started slowly creeping back on. Maybe you realized it when you hit a plateau from which your body would not budge. Maybe it's just dawning on you.
And whereas your weight came off with visible work and "discipline" and praise, it can creep back on in silence and shame. Maybe you think people are wondering why you would "let yourself go" after working so hard. Maybe you feel like a failure. Maybe you're just waiting for a life season to pass before you buckle down and have another go at taking the weight back off.
Might I encourage you not to do that? Any of it?
Unless there is a 1-to-1 medical reason for you to lose weight, fighting your body's "natural" weight is not a battle you can win unless you're willing to wrestle mightily with it for the rest of your life. So, seriously, if imminent death or disease is not on the line, maybe think about why you're willing to devote such a large chunk of your emotional and physical energy to the pursuit.
(And, to me, even if you're a "yeah, but my knees" person... I'd encourage you to find out what you can do to build strength in your legs. Go positive and strong instead of negative and "less.")
I just wanted you to know that I see you, and I'm proud of you, and I am cheering you on.
I'm so thrilled that you can go to Texas Roadhouse with your family without having to spend half an hour perusing the menu online first to see what is "safe" for you to order. I'm ecstatic that you don't have to write down everything you eat, or to measure every portion before you can sit down to a meal. I'm happy that you have the time you used to devote to a specific, repeatable, boring gym routine to do things you love and that make your body happy.
I'm glad you're not fighting your body. I'm glad you're not sucked into the trap of spending valuable time, talent, energy, and money on something as vapid as "thinness" and are instead able to channel those amazing resources to bigger and better things. It looks amazing on you.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Stupid Things I Did to Change My Body, Entry 2
From January 1993 until Octoberish 1996, except for one cheat day a week, I only allowed myself to consume 7 grams of fat (with no differentiation between types of fat; this is just any fat, period) per day.
To put that in context, the general recommendation for daily intake of fat for an adult is 70 grams. I was eating 1/10 of the daily recommended intake of fat, back when fat was super demonized, and no one was talking about how important adequate fat consumption was.
To my black and white brain, fat=bad and no fat=great.
Obviously, I wasn't eating any meat. Or eggs. Or peanut butter. Or nuts. Or omega-3-rich fish. Or avocados. I was eating candy corn. Jelly beans. Fat free bread with fat free "butter" and fruit spread. I could have chosen fruits and vegetables, but usually didn't. I felt so deprived from food I loved (pizza, French fries, anything robust and hearty) that I ate for comfort and for what a food DIDN'T have (fat) instead of what it DID have (any nutritive quality whatsoever).
Oh, and I was instinctively doing what I learned manufacturers do when they remove "excess" fat from a food product: Add sugar to make it more palatable. I was eating a LOT of sugar (no more than 1500 calories a day, but we'll get to that in another post) to make up for the fact that was I was eating was empty garbage and mostly tasted that way.
Why do our bodies need fat? It helps up absorb many vitamins, including A, D, E, and K. Fats also help the brain to produce serotonin and dopamine. In fact, extremely low fat diets have been shown to contribute to suicidal tendencies, but even without being that serious, a fat deficiency can contribute to anxiety and low self-esteem... Which might explain why I still felt like a big fat failure at 148 pounds (5'8") because the scale at GNC still considered my skinny butt 8 pounds overweight.
In addition to the sugar I was eating to make up for a more well-rounded fat profile, there's an item that really bothers me about our "food as fuel" or, worse, "food as medicine" mentality pervasive in diet culture. It says that as long as we meet the micro- and macro-nutrient goals for our weight and exercise levels, we're "healthy." This completely discounts our mental and emotional health. There are demonstrably food that makes us FEEL better, and a reason they're called "comfort foods."
"Comfort foods" need to be un-demonized. Meeting our emotional needs is every bit as important as making sure our nutritional needs are met. And I was just in an endless cycle of deprivation, totally ignoring my desire to eat something satisfying because I believed that all of the "sacrifice" would yield a look that would make me... more worthy? More admired? More desired? A more virtuous appearance?
Ugh. It was dumb and unhealthy. No more. Never again.
To put that in context, the general recommendation for daily intake of fat for an adult is 70 grams. I was eating 1/10 of the daily recommended intake of fat, back when fat was super demonized, and no one was talking about how important adequate fat consumption was.
To my black and white brain, fat=bad and no fat=great.
Obviously, I wasn't eating any meat. Or eggs. Or peanut butter. Or nuts. Or omega-3-rich fish. Or avocados. I was eating candy corn. Jelly beans. Fat free bread with fat free "butter" and fruit spread. I could have chosen fruits and vegetables, but usually didn't. I felt so deprived from food I loved (pizza, French fries, anything robust and hearty) that I ate for comfort and for what a food DIDN'T have (fat) instead of what it DID have (any nutritive quality whatsoever).
Oh, and I was instinctively doing what I learned manufacturers do when they remove "excess" fat from a food product: Add sugar to make it more palatable. I was eating a LOT of sugar (no more than 1500 calories a day, but we'll get to that in another post) to make up for the fact that was I was eating was empty garbage and mostly tasted that way.
Why do our bodies need fat? It helps up absorb many vitamins, including A, D, E, and K. Fats also help the brain to produce serotonin and dopamine. In fact, extremely low fat diets have been shown to contribute to suicidal tendencies, but even without being that serious, a fat deficiency can contribute to anxiety and low self-esteem... Which might explain why I still felt like a big fat failure at 148 pounds (5'8") because the scale at GNC still considered my skinny butt 8 pounds overweight.
In addition to the sugar I was eating to make up for a more well-rounded fat profile, there's an item that really bothers me about our "food as fuel" or, worse, "food as medicine" mentality pervasive in diet culture. It says that as long as we meet the micro- and macro-nutrient goals for our weight and exercise levels, we're "healthy." This completely discounts our mental and emotional health. There are demonstrably food that makes us FEEL better, and a reason they're called "comfort foods."
"Comfort foods" need to be un-demonized. Meeting our emotional needs is every bit as important as making sure our nutritional needs are met. And I was just in an endless cycle of deprivation, totally ignoring my desire to eat something satisfying because I believed that all of the "sacrifice" would yield a look that would make me... more worthy? More admired? More desired? A more virtuous appearance?
Ugh. It was dumb and unhealthy. No more. Never again.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Stupid Things I Did to Change My Body, Entry 1
Laura Hattaway
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:25pm CDT
Last night, I bought these vouchers for laser lipo, so we'll see what that is. Whether it works or not, it's an experience.
James Ashley
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:27pm CDT
Sometimes, just having an experience is a victory.
Laura Hattaway
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:27pm CDT
Right.
In March 2012, I had been living in an RV for just under a year. I was working 3.5 days a week, bringing in about $9000 a year. Child support paid for D's gymnastics. I could mostly cover rent and utilities. But I was taking about $100-300 a month out of the savings from having sold our house in order to cover expenses like groceries and entertainment.
Yet I had spent close to $500 on what was billed as 80 percent off of three or four treatments of this thing where they focus lasers on "problem areas" of your body and in 15 minutes, it's supposed to break down adipose tissue that will then be absorbed by your body and flushed out.
I KNOW HOW STUPID THIS SOUNDS.
It even sounded stupid then. Not to mention that I did not have the funds to spend on this kind of thing. But I was trying so hard to make a relationship "take" and all I knew was that other men responded well to my having a smaller body that was shaped a specific way, and figured this couldn't hurt my chances with this other guy.
I was so embarrassed about the whole thing that I never told anyone. Except for James.
Not even my sister, whose house I would visit so D could stay with them while I went in for the treatment. I think I told them I was doing a series of mystery shops. Because, what the heck was I doing?
Incidentally, this guy and I were not a good match, and we both dodged bullets in our not being able to make things work. We were both in the same situation, having been soundly rejected by the people who had vowed to love us for our entire lives, and when you live in that for years, someone being nice to you who is also fun to be around feels like The Answer. It was not.
And this was not.
But I believed then, as much as I would have told you that I did not, that if I were just a little smaller, I'd be more worthy of love. Now I know better. And I still wish I had that money (and those hours) back.
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:25pm CDT
Last night, I bought these vouchers for laser lipo, so we'll see what that is. Whether it works or not, it's an experience.
James Ashley
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:27pm CDT
Sometimes, just having an experience is a victory.
Laura Hattaway
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:27pm CDT
Right.
In March 2012, I had been living in an RV for just under a year. I was working 3.5 days a week, bringing in about $9000 a year. Child support paid for D's gymnastics. I could mostly cover rent and utilities. But I was taking about $100-300 a month out of the savings from having sold our house in order to cover expenses like groceries and entertainment.
Yet I had spent close to $500 on what was billed as 80 percent off of three or four treatments of this thing where they focus lasers on "problem areas" of your body and in 15 minutes, it's supposed to break down adipose tissue that will then be absorbed by your body and flushed out.
I KNOW HOW STUPID THIS SOUNDS.
It even sounded stupid then. Not to mention that I did not have the funds to spend on this kind of thing. But I was trying so hard to make a relationship "take" and all I knew was that other men responded well to my having a smaller body that was shaped a specific way, and figured this couldn't hurt my chances with this other guy.
I was so embarrassed about the whole thing that I never told anyone. Except for James.
Not even my sister, whose house I would visit so D could stay with them while I went in for the treatment. I think I told them I was doing a series of mystery shops. Because, what the heck was I doing?
Incidentally, this guy and I were not a good match, and we both dodged bullets in our not being able to make things work. We were both in the same situation, having been soundly rejected by the people who had vowed to love us for our entire lives, and when you live in that for years, someone being nice to you who is also fun to be around feels like The Answer. It was not.
And this was not.
But I believed then, as much as I would have told you that I did not, that if I were just a little smaller, I'd be more worthy of love. Now I know better. And I still wish I had that money (and those hours) back.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
When Fatphobia Leads to False Conflations
Today, James and I had to have some vitals checked and do some blood work for a new life insurance policy.
First, the whole thing was kind of sketchy. They're a medical contractor that does the work for Mutual of Omaha, and they do offer to come to your house. I'm glad that James opted not to do that, because my allergies are worse at home than anywhere else, and that affects my heart rate at times, for sure.
Anyway, the address they gave us was a pretty spectacular glass office building that was way fancy.
When I found the suite, I went in and told the guy we had a 9:30 appointment. He asked, "Do you know the name of the company? We have a lot of companies here." Well, actually, maybe? They didn't mention that they rent office share space, and that information would have been helpful.
Next, they'd instructed us to start drinking water before the appointment because we'd need to provide samples. I took this seriously, and when they hadn't called us in by 9:45 (we were already discussing how long to wait before we took off), I went to the bathroom. As I washed my hands, a lady opened the door and said, "Laura? Oh. We need a urine sample." I told her, "I held one for you for fifteen minutes." Sigh.
We went back into this office and I was ready. I am at a healthy headspacee, for the first time in 30 years, regarding my body. I eat and move and wear what and how I want, without thought to others' opinions, or without shaming myself, and it's so freeing. But I don't know how I'd react to having a number assigned to me (I don't really care what size I wear; that's never been an issue) and I don't want to risk obsessing or going down a dark tunnel over a stupid measurement of my body relative to the gravity of our planet.
So.
I said, "I need not to know what I weigh." The technician interrupted me with, "But no! You're beautiful." I said, "I know." (Seriously. Ask James.)
Just because I was performing self-care doesn't mean I think I'm ugly. On the contrary. Most of my life, I've felt pretty until outside sources "corrected" me. My not wanting to know my weight made her think I feel "too" fat and therefore ugly. There's a meme I just saw last week, and this recalled it.
So there's that. Anyway, because the whole office was carpeted, the scale didn't work, anyway, and so we both just provided weights out of the air. I said what I weighed when I first went in because I was pregnant with Mal. My body is definitely different now than then, but besides that pregnancy, I haven't weighed in 10 years, other than at the doctor's, and then I said the same thing: I can't know. It's not good for me.
Besides that, neither of the women who helped us had English as a first language, although one was fluent. The other was a lot more fluent in English than I am in any other language, but since we were talking about medical conditions and medication, sometimes had a difficult time understanding James and therefore writing down what he was saying. Never mind that EVERY SINGLE THING they asked us we'd already answered on our life insurance application.
Fortunately, the blood-letting was done quite adeptly and you can't even tell that I got jabbed today.
But also, the notes given to us before the appointment about what to expect were: "Blood and urine samples, body fat checks, basic questionnaires."
Sigh.
This is for life insurance, so I'm sure they have some rubric they use to determine risk, based on many factors. However, science is on the side of saying that "body fat" shouldn't be one of them. From a study a few years ago, researchers found "a U-shaped curve, with the bottom of the curve — the lowest risk of death — falling around 25 to 26 on the BMI chart, making the risk of early death lowest for those now labeled overweight. People considered 'mildly obese' had roughly the same risk of dying as those in the 'normal' category. Death rates went up for those on either end of the scale — underweight and severely obese — but not by much." (New York Post)
Anyway, I'm just glad that's over. Because ugh. And after fasting and not having caffeine, I treated myself to Krispy Kreme's Chips Ahoy doughnut and a soda. Because that, too, is self-care.
First, the whole thing was kind of sketchy. They're a medical contractor that does the work for Mutual of Omaha, and they do offer to come to your house. I'm glad that James opted not to do that, because my allergies are worse at home than anywhere else, and that affects my heart rate at times, for sure.
Anyway, the address they gave us was a pretty spectacular glass office building that was way fancy.
 |
| Mal especially enjoyed this white noise indoor courtyard. |
Next, they'd instructed us to start drinking water before the appointment because we'd need to provide samples. I took this seriously, and when they hadn't called us in by 9:45 (we were already discussing how long to wait before we took off), I went to the bathroom. As I washed my hands, a lady opened the door and said, "Laura? Oh. We need a urine sample." I told her, "I held one for you for fifteen minutes." Sigh.
We went back into this office and I was ready. I am at a healthy headspacee, for the first time in 30 years, regarding my body. I eat and move and wear what and how I want, without thought to others' opinions, or without shaming myself, and it's so freeing. But I don't know how I'd react to having a number assigned to me (I don't really care what size I wear; that's never been an issue) and I don't want to risk obsessing or going down a dark tunnel over a stupid measurement of my body relative to the gravity of our planet.
So.
I said, "I need not to know what I weigh." The technician interrupted me with, "But no! You're beautiful." I said, "I know." (Seriously. Ask James.)
Just because I was performing self-care doesn't mean I think I'm ugly. On the contrary. Most of my life, I've felt pretty until outside sources "corrected" me. My not wanting to know my weight made her think I feel "too" fat and therefore ugly. There's a meme I just saw last week, and this recalled it.
 |
| From Body Positive Memes by Michelle Elman |
Besides that, neither of the women who helped us had English as a first language, although one was fluent. The other was a lot more fluent in English than I am in any other language, but since we were talking about medical conditions and medication, sometimes had a difficult time understanding James and therefore writing down what he was saying. Never mind that EVERY SINGLE THING they asked us we'd already answered on our life insurance application.
Fortunately, the blood-letting was done quite adeptly and you can't even tell that I got jabbed today.
But also, the notes given to us before the appointment about what to expect were: "Blood and urine samples, body fat checks, basic questionnaires."
Sigh.
This is for life insurance, so I'm sure they have some rubric they use to determine risk, based on many factors. However, science is on the side of saying that "body fat" shouldn't be one of them. From a study a few years ago, researchers found "a U-shaped curve, with the bottom of the curve — the lowest risk of death — falling around 25 to 26 on the BMI chart, making the risk of early death lowest for those now labeled overweight. People considered 'mildly obese' had roughly the same risk of dying as those in the 'normal' category. Death rates went up for those on either end of the scale — underweight and severely obese — but not by much." (New York Post)
Anyway, I'm just glad that's over. Because ugh. And after fasting and not having caffeine, I treated myself to Krispy Kreme's Chips Ahoy doughnut and a soda. Because that, too, is self-care.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)