Category: Fat is Just an Adjective

Some Fat Acceptance/HAES Basics

On By MezzoSherriIn Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size6 Comments

(Apologies to anyone who’s a Facebook friend — some of this will be a re-hash of the links I’ve been posting there today.)

It’s occurred to me today that because I’ve been thinking about fat acceptance & health at every size concepts for a few years now, I sometimes talk about these concepts in a very “I hold these truths to be self-evident” way. And maybe, instead, it’s worth unpacking just a little bit about my perspective on questions of fatness and health.

Now to be sure, plenty of bloggers have already dropped the mic on this again and again and again, which may be part of my reticence tonight. After all, why cover ground that has really truly been covered with great insight before?

ANGRY!
ANGRY!

Maybe because the things things these writers have said are worth saying again. And again and again and again, until people finally stop all the fat-shaming and masking their superiority in concern trolling and their obesity panic and bleeping get it.

So here’s my own little piece of the mythbusting puzzle.

Most of what “everyone knows” about fat is pretty much wrong.

To start off, being fat is not automatically unhealthy. Fat people actually tend to live a bit longer, and are more likely to survive cardiac events. There’s also a fair bit of evidence that a lot of health problems supposedly “caused” by fatness might instead be a result of dieting and weight cycling. There is some evidence that certain health risks are tied to having a very specific type of adipose tissue in your body (visceral fat), but guess what? Thin people AND fat people can have too much visceral fat hurting their organs, and unless you’re Superman, I defy you to tell me you have the kind of x-ray vision to know who’s packing VF and who isn’t.

Warning: that last article I linked may give you stabby pains behind the eyes because after reporting on a study that pretty clearly states that the important factors are metabolic health and visceral fat, the author still ends with the concluding thought that these results should not be taken as “an excuse to remain overweight or obese.” Because even though the study shows obesity as a non-factor in measuring health, it’s still somehow a health risk. (Just because?) Ah, rumor-mongering science journalism at its finest.

And while the illustrious staff writers at Time have left such tempting fruit, let’s take on this whole balderdash that implies one’s body shape and size are completely under one’s Ayn Rand-ian will. Because, statistically speaking, diets don’t work. Sorry Not-sorry to burst your bubble on this one: they don’t. And they do incredible harm along the way. The weight loss industry, has a catastrophic “success rate” and an evil jiu jitsu way of transfering its own failings out onto the customer so they feel guilty about it all. Well, to quote Golda Poretsky at Body Love Wellness: “It’s bullshit and it’s bad for ya.”

As for healthy diet and exercise choices, yes they do indeed matter and they can make a big difference in reducing the effect of various “fat-related” conditions like cholesterol levels or blood pressure. But here’s the funny thing: those conditions get reversed independent of any actual weight loss being caused by diet and exercise choices. And considering the negative health effects of being fat-shamed and stigmatized, and considering the fact that fat people have a dramatically lower chance of even getting decent health care on account of the prejudicial attitudes of medical professionals, it’s probably best to steer clear of claiming that a fat person’s health challenges are being caused by weight. ‘Cos I’m seeing a lot of confounding causality here.

I need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, so I’m pulling the cart to a stop here. With one final thought.

Even if fat were unhealthy and if being fat were entirely under an individual’s control, every fat person on this planet would be deserving of fundamental human respect, acceptance and compassion. Just because of their humanity.

The heart-breaking thing is how little respect, acceptance, or compassion fat people get in this culture today —  even though fat isn’t unhealthy and it can’t reliably be controlled.

Data Points

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance1 Comment

The doctor’s office that prescribed my HCG gave me a booklet to help me track all kinds of things. Portions of food, my water intake, supplements, ketosis level — and, yes, a daily weigh-in.

I’ll admit, I toyed with the notion of skipping that last piece. Ultimately I decided I wanted to respect the protocol in every possible detail. Including weigh-ins: even if I have all kinds of associations between morning weigh-ins and the evils of the diet industry, I’m willing to take on this task in the context of tracking my weight as one among a set of data points.

02.scale_So I dragged the scale out of the basement* and threw it into the bathroom, where it and I have been having a daily, emotionally-guarded, one-on-one.

As I expected, this detox process has meant that my numbers on the scale have been going down, a little bit each day. And, as uncomfortable as it is to admit, there’s been part of me enjoying that trajectory. I spent so many years being brainwashed around the value of skinny** that I know there’s part of me that can still fall into that old model of thinking.

Aside from that, there’s been some concrete benefits. Some of my slacks had started getting a bit tight in the past few months, and even though I would have been 100% willing and unashamed to buy a larger size if need be, I can’t deny that I’m glad not to have to spend the money and to instead be feeling more physically comfortable in my current wardrobe.

I was having a similar issue with my wedding rings feeling a tiny bit tight and uncomfortable, and it’s especially nice for those to be back to fitting better.

Anyhow, today, I had my morning date with the scale and the numbers were exactly the same as they were yesterday.

This is entirely unsurprising. All the information about HCG — even from a weight-loss perspective — talks about the inevitability that some days your weight will “plateau” instead of being lower than the day before. I kinda think the diet guides make a really big deal out of this possibility just so someone doing HCG for the purpose of weight loss won’t freak out when this occurs.

But it was fascinating to witness myself when this moment occurred. In an instant, I could recall all the old tricks I would have used, back in the obsessive-dieting days, to make the scale move in a good direction. Maybe I should weigh myself starkers, or try again after another trip to the toilet.

Or maybe not.

For all that I was able to recall the ways a “plateau day” would have thrown the old diet-obsessed Sherri for a loop, perhaps the most surprising thing about this morning was really how little emotional charge today’s date with the scale held for me. I saw the numbers, saw all the possibilities for being negatively impacted emotionally, and just felt fine.

Almost like my weight is just another data point for me.

* And why did I even still have a scale? For the always-important job of checking to make sure my luggage is under the airplane weight limit.

** Oh who am I kidding? From a cultural messages standpoint, I’m still being brainwashed about the value of skinny. We all are.

———-

Image credit: http://simplykierste.com/2013/01/fit-friday-with-erica-the-scale-friend-or-foe.html (And yes, this was a very deliberate choice…)

Taking It All In

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Fat is Just an Adjective, Practicing in the Heart2 Comments

I’m down here for a 4, 4-and-a-half day experience, which is meant to transition me into a 42-day HCG journey. (Which in itself is intended as the first stage in a lifetime path of detoxing and caring for myself differently.)

I share these calendar details in the spirit of observing that it’s only the end of Day 1, and there is already so much to look at and write about that I could take weeks to do it. I’m assuming that in a week or two, once I’ve settled into the protocol, there will be some time to reflect back on parts of this trip. Given that expectation — and, quite honestly, given the reality that I can only write so much before my weary bones call me to bed — I’m not even remotely going to try and pretend I’m going to capture everything worth saying here in the midst of experiencing everything. Instead, I’m just going to look at whatever is most present to me.

So, one big thing that happened today is I had my doctor’s consult and did my first HCG shot. Which means I’m in the midst of one of the more counterintuitive moments of the protocol: loading days.

Here’s my kindergarten-level explanation of how the HCG protocol works. By combining the hormone shots with a no-sugar, no-starch diet, you’re able to inspire your body to shift into ketosis, where you’re deriving your daily energy from fat molecules rather than sugar molecules. Since the diet restrictions also eliminate fats (new fat intake being what the body would first choose as an ketosis energy source), the body is further inspired to extract energy from the body’s existing deposits of adipose tissue — then allowing the rest of the toxins and gunk from within those cells to be cleared.

However, it takes a few days to shift into that second part of the process, so part of the protocol is to spend the first two injection days eating a whole lot of high-protein, high-fat food — so your system has a short term energy source before the deep detoxing begins.

And I mean a LOT of food.

———-

Now I know that it is impossible to look at someone’s waistline and magically be able to intuit how “healthy” or “unhealthy” their eating habits are.* But I also know that, speaking only for myself, I have indeed been living from a place of emotional eating and a lot of unhealthy eating habits. So, as I talked through my Day 1 “loading menu” with my detox coach last night, I kinda thought I would find this piece easy. After all, everything on the menu — lattes, breakfast sandwiches, bacon cheeseburgers, calzones — are things that I eat pretty regularly.

But even I don’t eat them all together in the same day. And it was surprisingly like a marathon/endurance journey to get through and take in all the calories prescribed to me for this Day 1 experience.** And there’s still tomorrow…

———-

There’s the whole other level of “taking it in” — taking in care and support — that I’m also practicing into. Folks filling my water bottle for me and rinsing my dishes after I have one of these surprisingly difficult-to-eat meals. It is harder for me to allow that, even a little bit harder than I expected it to be. And yet, I am profoundly grateful for the care being shown me.

And that, however halfway-told the story is, and however gossamer-thin its conclusion, is all she wrote tonight. Bed is calling.

———-

* And, just for the record, even if someone has the “unhealthiest” diet in the ever-loving WORLD, that person is still of worth and value and deserves to be met with compassion and acceptance and respect.

** There’s also a whole other exploration worth articulating — some other day — about the surreal nature of taking eating choices and patterns I customarily express in a deeply unconscious place and to be replicating them in a sober, conscious, spiritually awake place. Wild.

Of Lunchtime and Lingering Habits

On By MezzoSherriIn Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head17 Comments

This week at work has been on the crazed side, but I’ve been trying to carve out enough time to lunch with colleagues in the cafeteria — just for the sake of some conversation and to get a bit of a break. Yesterday, however, that streak ended and I found myself eating at my desk. My traditional bring-from-home lunch: a Lean Cuisine frozen entree.

Let me say that again: Lean effing Cuisine. Food designed and marketed to help one lose weight.

I’ve been eating these for lunch at work for years. I can’t recall what I did during the grad school/teaching years, but by the time I was in the office environment with lunchrooms and microwaves, my transition from skinny kid to fat adult had commenced and I started buying the frozen entrees as something quick and convenient and that also would help me “get thin again.”

Now, I consciously decided to stop dieting somewhere in 2008, when I chose to embrace the ideals of FA for myself. And yet I’ve been buying diet meals for office lunches for all of those intervening months.

And I didn’t even really notice that weird contradiction until yesterday.

I’m trying to imagine what rationales have been going on in my head for me to simultaneously eschew dieting and to buy diet lunches for myself. Is it another twist on the good fattie/bad fattie pressure I talked about two days ago? My symbolic gesture that yes, I am eating healthy so if I’m fat then it truly is about genetics and not about me eating “too much” or “the wrong things”? Is it that notion of “this fat but no fatter” that was so insightfully discussed* on Shapely Prose recently? My way of trying to “hold the line” so my body stays at this current weight?

Either of those possibilities seem reasonable — and by that I mean “reasonably likely,” not really reasonable.

But I can’t help wondering if there’s something both more innocent and sinister at work here.

On the one side, there’s the innocence of it being an unconscious choice. In a life that can sometimes feel over-full, I find comfort in having some routines. And this choice for bring-from-home lunches is such an easy choice for me to make. (Which definitely says a lot about my class privilege and the fact that I can be so cavalier about the cost factor.) There’s a narrow little shelf in the freezer that perfectly holds 6 Lean Cuisines, and Matt and I know exactly which are my favorite flavors, so we can easily restock that shelf on each trip to the grocery store.

On the sinister side, is the way that this is such an easy choice to make. The miasma of body-shaming in society kind of makes it easier to be on a diet than not to be. Lo-fat, no-fat — and Lean Cuisines — are practically configured to be the default food choice for a woman to make. I think it’s the power of that miasma that helped me not only to continue the Lean Cuisine habit, but to do it so very unconsciously. To not even notice that I was buying diet food. I was just buying my “normal lunch.”

Powerful messages to try and resist. And I’m feeling tonight that I’ve got a long way to go in that.

Especially because when I did the grocery shopping today, I bought 3 more Lean Cuisines to restock the freezer shelf. I just didn’t have the mental energy to figure out how to reinvent my lunch habit, or to reinvent my mornings to make time for more preparation-intensive lunch choices.

At least this time it was a conscious choice. That at least gives me more of an option to choose differently, once I have the energy to do so.

* Too tired to find link; will do so tomorrow.

Addicted to Life

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance, Spirituality, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head8 Comments

One of the topics that often circles through FA circles is a healthy skepticism about any dieting lifestyle change rhetoric that too strongly embraces that associates heaviness with addictive eating. Such skepticism is well-founded in part because fatness looks to be a way more complicated and individualized phenomenon than can be captured in a simple “calories in > calories exercised off” equation.

The other Very Good Reason to be skeptical is the cognitive dissonance around classifying a substance that is essential for the maintenance of life as an addiction — as if food is somehow like other addictive substances (like alcohol or drugs) that can be completely excised from life.*

This in large part is noodling around my brain again because of an insightful post over at Kataphatic.** It will be very hard for me not to quote the post in its entirety, but I’ll do what I can to pull out a passage or two that really started my wheels turning.

Katie was writing about the Candidacy Guidebook that lays out the steps on her path towards ordination as a deacon in her church, and specifically about a passage that discusses the need for substance abuse counseling for many individuals “who become dependent on alcohol or other drugs or food.”

Katie’s initial response is charming enough to warrant a healthy quote:

So here I am, reading along, thinking, “yep, I’m with you here, it’s not healthy for ministers to become dependent on alcohol or other drugs or… food?

Wait what? (cocking my head to the side and raising one eyebrow)

Does that really say FOOD?

Are they really saying that as a minister I am supposed to become super human and no longer be dependent on food??” [ . . . ]

Ooohhhh, okay.

So what they really mean is “emotional dependence.” Not just “dependence” period… because suggesting that we could become “dependent” or “addicted to” something that is actually necessary for our survival is just… silly, right? No one in their right mind would suggest otherwise! Right?

haha… hah… *sigh*

Katie goes on to thoughtfully examine notions about emotional dependence on food, suggesting that comfort food could perhaps more readily be classified amongst a whole host of self-soothing behaviors that are okay in moderation but could become problematic if taken too far. She also cautions about some of the dangers she sees that can stem from placing too much of an emphasis on “emotional eating” as something to self-monitor and judge oneself for.

It’s all very wise and heart-centered and I encourage you to read it all. But, in a narcissistic it’s-all-about-me moment, I’m going to riff off of her closing words:

But just because you’re fat, or just because you “emotionally eat” from time to time, doesn’t mean you have a disordered relationship with food! God has purposefully chosen to make this thing we need—food—bring us pleasure, draw us closer in community, and give us emotional comfort in addition to satisfying physical hunger. Let us be thankful for the good gift of food, and its ability to enhance our lives in such a complex and beautiful variety of ways!

I find real comfort here.

I’ve shared earlier about some of the ways it’s a tough summer for me. In addition to these upheavals (good and grief-laden) in my personal life, I’m still in my first 6 months at a new job which is rather demanding, and I’m starting coursework to begin the long road to an MBA. So in the midst of all of this, yes, I have been taking occasional refuge in the macaroni and cheese.

I know intellectually how FA activists work against the symbolic opposition of the “good fattie” (someone with pristine nutritional and exercise habits who remains fat) vs. the “bad fattie” (someone with imperfect eating and exercise habits). But as I’m trying to find my own voice in FA circles, I can feel the weight of internal pressure about how I’m not being a “good example” of Fat Acceptance, and I’m not being any sort of example for the idea of Health at Every Size. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

As I’m trying to find my own voice in FA circles, I can feel the weight of these internal pressures. But I can also tap into a growing sense of internal resource and acceptance that helps me resist such pressure. That helps me understand how turning to comfort food is an entirely natural way to respond to all the pressures and changes going on in my life. (One might even call it a healthy response, as compared to other self-soothing behaviors that got a little bit out of control in my life a decade or two ago.)

Perhaps best of all, as I continue to find my voice in FA circles, is the way that I don’t have to stand alone against the voices of internal pressure. Instead, I can be part of a community from which I can draw wisdom and support. Like I did from Katie’s post.

Blessed be.

* I do not mean to minimize how hard it can be for an addict to cut alcohol or drugs out of one’s life. I merely wish to make an obvious contrast between the theoretical possibility of letting go of a substance like alcohol — which has no inherent physical necessity for human life — versus the notion of giving up food — which is necessary for life.

** Allow me to pause for a brief squee over how terrifically inspired I am to know that there’s a blog out there writing about Fat Liberation Theology. Squeeeee!

The Selfishness of Body Dysmorphia

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head7 Comments

So we fly north tomorrow for the family/funereal weekend. My suitcase is mostly packed: I’m sure I have way too many clothes for the length of trip, but there’s a lot of different elements to plan for.

One major element is simply the way I inevitably begin to have an internal freak out whenever I’m about to see my family.

However much of a grownup I am in my day-to-day life, however much progress I’ve made in bringing fat acceptance into my life and growing my sense of self-acceptance, I still revert back to all sorts of self-judging habits when I go back into the family environment in which I spent all those awful awkward school years.

So instead of finishing my packing, instead of journaling, or showering, or doing any other thing that might better prepare me to take care of myself and support my family and honor my father — instead of any of that, I am feeling down on myself because when I am up in New England, I am “going to look like  whale” next to my older sister who got the athletic/skinny genes.

I was speaking to one of my spiritual teachers last night, looking ahead to this trip, and discussing the ways I fear it will be a more sorrowful experience for me than even the original funeral was. (His death was so sudden, I really truly think I was in shock for the funeral and a couple weeks after.) We also talked about this slide into the old “unhappy adolescent” headspace I could feel coming in, and the way that my current 40-year-old fatness has just been completely co-opted into the narrative of nasty self-talk this voice in my head spews out.

Not one to mince words, my teacher encouraged me to fight this voice. “You’ve got so many great things going on, and this is the voice that keeps you from enjoying any of it. This is the voice that shits on your life.”

And I am really angry about this internal pattern of mine tonight. So many things it’s keeping me from. I’ve listed some of those thing above, and I could sit and type and list more things for quite a while. Like the fact that I haven’t seen my niece and nephew since Christmas, and I could treasure another chance to see them, and also open my heart to be ready to support them as they face the first significant loss of their young lives. Like the fact that Matt has been so supportive of me in my grief, and how grateful I am to have him to lean on during the next few days. Like…. Like…..   Like…..

Or, to boil this down to its most essential feature: when I let myself fall into this space of dysmorphia and self-hatred, it keeps me from my life.

Bridal Fatshion

On By MezzoSherriIn Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, The Pressure to Fix Myself4 Comments

Within the last week, the NYTimes had an article about the increasing sophistication and intrusiveness of Internet cookies for tracking a web surfer’s interests and demographic characteristics — thus resulting in that web-surfer receiving specially targeted offers when they visit a shopping site. (So, for example, someone with a “bargain shopper” profile might be offered discounts at a site that a “known full-price shopper” never ever even sees….)

However subtly Orwellian the scenario spelled out in this particular article, I find myself continually amused by the more ham-handed examples of that sort of “Internet profiling.”

Like the way Facebook has been pitching me “The Wedding Diet” ever since I changed my relationship status to read “Engaged.”

I don’t think the ad shows up every time I log into Facebook — even if it did, I’m not active enough over there to see the ad often enough to really piss me off.

It just amuses me. The headless picture of some bride with a deep v-neck dress,* a skinny little waist, and a hint of enough poufy skirt to fill a whole bakery with meringue. And then the usual ad copy:

Discover how brides to be everywhere fit into your dream dress with this amazing weightless solution!

Yes, it really says “weightless” solution. And I’m not really sure how I feel about brides everywhere fitting into my dream dress. If my wedding dress is supposed to be brand spanking new when I wear it for my ceremony, do I want it to have all the travel miles from these brides “everywhere” giving the dress a test run?

Then there’s the headless blond in a strapless dress (I know she’s blond ‘cos her long hair is still visible in the shot):

This weightloss program is helping engaged women everywhere lose weight for their weddings. Will you be next?

That’s an easy one. No, I will not.

I intend to buy a dress that fits me exactly as I am, and that makes me feel lovely exactly as I am. ‘Cos I’m lucky enough to have a fiancee who loves me exactly as I am — so no diet will be required for me to be “acceptable enough” to share vows with him.

If only I knew how to tell Facebook that so they could stop wasting their time advertising useless services to me.

* Halter, really, if my eyes do not deceive.

More to Love: “Real Women” and Reality TV

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Pop Goes the CultureLeave a comment

My DVR has been somewhat on the fritz of late.  It’s still good with the recording what I want and with basic playback, but not so good with the fast forwarding*  The unexpected — one might even say unwelcome — side result is that I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials for Fox’s new reality dating series More to Love while I’ve been getting my obligatory So You Think You Can Dance fix.

More accurately, I’ve been seeing the same commercial over and over and over again…. It’s the one that starts by saying (to paraphrase) “The average woman is a size 14/16. The average female reality show contestant is a size 2. You call that reality?!?” Then the roast of the ad goes on to lay out the premise: 20 “real-sized” women will via for the affections of Luke Conley. In the clips from the initial meetin’ and greetin’, one of the contestants even goes so far as to express her pleasure that Luke likes “real women.”

Le sigh. How does this bug me?  Let me (incoherently) count the ways:

  1. However much the ex-grad-student in me appreciates the pomo/meta irony of a reality show ad commenting on the unreality of reality TV, I am still a bit galled at the disingenuousness of this opening.  Hey, here’s a wacky notion: if there has been a disproportionate representation of hollywood bods on reality TV, d’you think that might be because of the deliberate casting choices of those of you creating reality TV?
  2. Real woman, misspeaking. I get that fat bodies are usually troped as ugly, unattractive, desexualized — even how the discourse around fatness can be so dehumanizing that it makes sense to stand up and claim one’s humanity and womanhood. But to do so in a way that (intentionally or no) implies that skinnier women are unreal? Really not helpful. I understand that the contestant claiming her “real woman” status may well have taken a more nuanced position, so I’m not sure whether I’m frustrated with her or the magical editing elves. Either ay, I’m frustrated. Denigrating other body types just isn’t gonna help with the project of getting folks to stop denigrating fat body types.
  3. Real women, nitpicking. On my side of the TV screen, I’ve seen some people respond to this commercial with an argument that goes along these lines. “They say the average woman’s size 14 to 16. Well, these women look to be size 18 and up. What’s with all these disgusting fatties?” Way to miss the fucking point.

Is it really that hard to grasp? All women are real women. All women deserve love, and partnership if they so desire it. The skinnies, the fatties, the average 14-16s, the inbetweenies. Nothing about this whole tangle of fat acceptance, body acceptance, self-acceptance will be helped by finger pointing and denigrating, whether in a carefully edited soundbite on the television, or a clever-intending bit of snark on Teevision without Pity.

All that said, I have to admit I have a uneasy wonderment about how the show is actually going to go. I’ll likely have more to say once I’ve actually seen the premiere, rather than just a single commercial.

* And really, isn’t the capacity to ff through commercials the sine qua non of what makes DVR so great?

ETA: I’m not surprised to see so many other fatosphere writers taking on this topic. For full-on reviews, see Kate Harding’s over at Shapely Prose and Marianne Kirby’s over at The Daily Beast.

Straight to 101

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an AdjectiveLeave a comment

I’ve been aware of and somewhat plugged into the fat acceptance movement for about 15 months, give or take.

(Wow. It seems like it’s been a lot longer than that. But yeah, it’s really been only a little bit more than a year.)

So, for all that there are many times that I feel like I get this new way of seeing the world and seeing myself, I know that there’s a whole lot of basic-level learnin’ I need to do.

Therefore, part of what I’m going to use this space for is to do some reading and responding and thinking and blathering about “FA 101” kind of materials. I’m curious to see how much of it will look familiar to me from this recent year-and-a-smidge of low-level involvement in the community. I’m curious to see how much of it will be brand-new.

The books already in my possession to be read as part of this project:

  • Kate Harding & Marianne Kirby; Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere
  • Gina Kolata; Rethinking Thin
  • Evelyn Tribole, Elyse Resch; Intuitive Eating
  • Marilynn Wann; Fat! So?

Any other suggestions, recommendations, or review copies will be gratefully appreciated.

See you in the classroom when it’s next book report day…..