The "Fat Line"

You have probably heard of the “color line”.   I think there is a “fat line”, too.  There’s a big difference in the way overweight women are treated versus how normal weight women are treated.  I’ve been on both sides of that line.

In my adult life, I've been pretty darned overweight, and I've been normal weight (at the top of my normal range).  As an overweight woman, not only do you get ignored at times, you get made fun of.  Most of what I experienced was that lovely type of gossip that is done behind your back, but closely behind your back, meaning I could catch a few words and hear the laughing.  For me, it’s my backside that seems to have inspired derision.  I’ve gotten mooing, comments about having a horse’s behind, and gestures that I can see once I turn around.  Most of that treatment came from young guys.  I know it shouldn’t have bothered me, but it usually did, for days.    

Oh, and here’s one that absolutely slays me:  Fat men who make fun of fat women!!!  It makes me want to pull an Elaine (from Seinfeld).  You know, when George, who’s bald, didn’t want to go out with a bald woman, Elaine cupped her hands around her mouth and shouts, “You’re bald!!”  Apparently, it’s a way bigger sin for a woman to be overweight than a man.

When I’m thinner, I get treated better by everyone.  THIS BLOWS MY MIND!!!  I am the same person.  I own all of the past me’s—the fat me and the normal weight me and the just-a-little-chubby me.  Really, I reduce the fat on my body and I’m treated well but if I increase it I’m treated like dirt????   Maybe it’s human nature, to treat people based on their attractiveness, but it still blows me away.

There’s this discomfort between women, the overweight and the not-overweight.  Ever notice that overweight women tend to be friends with other overweight women, and ditto for thinner women? When I’m closer to normal weight, I’ve seen bigger women refuse to look at me, turn away with a big toss of their hair, or even sensed anger.  To be honest, I just don't know how to handle this.  I used to be where they are.  But when I was large, smaller women didn’t intimidate me because I just told myself I looked fine, and believed it.

No matter what side of the "Fat Line" a woman may be standing on, maybe we should all remember that she may have had a long hard road to get to where she is.

Choco-craziness

Here it is, Valentine's Day.  So I am inspired to write about my nemesis, and my love, chocolate.  My obsession with chocolate has definitely helped me pack on some pounds in my life.  One time, as a little kid, I took a huge chocolate bar in my room and ate from it to my heart's content.  My mom later found the remains of the bar and was flabbergasted at how much I ate.  "You're going to get sick if you ate that much."  Nope, not even close, mom.  I was fine.  Never better!!!

I heard a story on NPR one time about how the guy who invented M&M's experimented with recipes until he came up with one that people could not stop eating!!!  See, it's not all my fault.  I would bet that probably a lot of our favorite processed foods were "perfected" this way too.

I won't go into every unsavory detail about every time I've lost control with chocolate, but I will say that it played a big part in my gaining a LOT of weight in my 20's.  Some evil genius put a box full of candy bars in the break room of the bookstore where I worked--an OPEN BOX--and we were to pay for whatever we took on the honor system.  It was a miniscule break room with only enough room for a table, and maybe 2 people.  So I would sit there on break, usually alone, with this damn box of candy bars staring me in the face.  I would lose track of how many I had eaten, then later just shove in a twenty.  I was paying money to this evil genius to hurt my own health.  Ugh.  Not one of my better episodes.

These days I'm doing better with it.  I try to only have dark chocolate, the darker the better.  It actually satisfies me, whereas milk chocolate spurs me on to eat more and more.  I'm trying not to slip backwards into addiction, chocolatey or otherwise.

The Battle Begins, or, It Starts with a Chubby Childhood

My hope for this blog is that it will be a little different from other chubby girl blogs.  I hope it will be more than another blow by blow of "My Journey to Thinness".  It's been done, sometimes really well, but done.  Mine will be revisiting some of the highlights and lowlights of my dieting life (which is the majority of my life), and some possibly intelligent commentary on our society's collective insanity on the subject of weight. I invite you to laugh with me or at me, it's all good.  Or at least read the thing.

Ever heard certain folks described as “naturally thin”?  (yes, I envy/ hate/want to be them too.) Well, I’m "naturally chubby".  Why don’t we hear that term very often, even though some people clearly are?  We seem to acknowledge that some people have thin genes, but if you're chubby or fat, then our culture thinks it's all your fault.  I’m pretty sure my case is at least partially genetic.  My parents were, my grandmothers were, and I have been since childhood.  I have a picture of myself at maybe age 3, playing out in the sunshine with no shirt on, smilingly oblivious to the cellulite on my tummy. 

The first diet I ever went on was around age 8, and it was eating only what my mother approved.  I suspect it was 1970's Weight Watchers style, with a dash of Atkins for good measure.  I remember eating open faced grilled cheese sandwiches, made under the broiler (I've never heard of anyone else doing this) and cottage cheese, and I'm sure a few other equally delectable treats.  At a certain point,  after losing perhaps 10 pounds, mom told me I had lost enough weight so I could stop dieting. I then proceeded to put not one iota of effort into maintenance.  I’m sure I gained it all back. 

Grilled cheese wasn't all I was eating.  What chubby girl doesn’t love Doritos, and sugary cereal?  I was no exception.  Probably as a consequence of my passion for them, my mother rarely bought them.  One of those special, special times that she did buy Doritos, though, I was soon under the kitchen table, Doritos in hand, stuffing my face.  Eating Doritos is a noisy undertaking, even if you are trying to be sneaky kid quiet. She heard the crinkle of the Doritos bag, and possibly the muffled crunching, from wherever she was in the house.  “Are you eating those Doritos?” “No”, I lied, with absolutely no guilt.  None.  Maybe Doritos suppress your conscience, or just arouse your id so much that it cannot be denied, which may be why they are such a successful junk food.  According to Wikipedia (so it must be true) Doritos are a $4 billion dollar a year product.  That is one hell of a lot of Doritos we're eating.

I have to give my parents credit.  They did their best, in spite of their own weight battles, to instill some good habits in me.  Pretty often, they pried me off the couch and away from HR Puffenstuff, or whatever equally quality 1970's television programming was on, and got me outside.  They encouraged me to play with the neighbor kids, on my jungle gym, and in my sandbox.  My dad took me to playgrounds and taught me to ride my bike.  My mom took me to swim lessons, gymnastics lessons, and horseback riding lessons.  And they tried to set a good example by losing weight and exercising themselves.

And so begins my feast or famine story.  I hope you'll stay tuned to see if I've found any middle ground here in the middle of fat country.