What HAES, Body-Positivity, and Love the Skin You're In Means to Me As an Overweight Woman

Here's something I have been wanting to address for a while: the Health At Every Size movement, the Body-Positivity movement, and the Love the Skin You're In movement. Essentially they are different movements aimed and geared at different goals but with one thing in common: shedding the light on obesity and how it doesn't make any of us less than.  We are not less than the girls who have thigh gaps and exaggerated collarbones.  We are not less than the gym-rats who spend every free moment on the treadmill or at the Smith machine.  We are not less than anyone else because of the number on a scale.

Health At Every Size promotes the idea that every person is capable of being healthy despite their weight.  I do not support that belief because we have to acknowledge that weight at any extreme is dangerous.  However, I promote the idea that my health isn't your business.  I have said this in many, many ways but my favorite is this: if you are not fucking me or financing me, my health status is none of your business.  You know who is directly invested in my health?  My doctor, my mother (who pays for my health insurance), my boyfriend, and myself.  Even when I weighed 405lbs, my weight had shit-all to do with anyone else besides me, my doctor, and my parents since I was underage. That was it.  It wasn't the school guidance counselor's business-who got involved because a well-meaning friend observed me skipping lunch three days in a row and was concerned I was becoming anorexic.  No.  Despite being 405lbs, I was a picky eater and I detest salad.  It is slimy.  It wasn't a random stranger on the streets business.  Now, 200lbs down, it isn't some random stranger on the internet's business. 

Body-Positivity I think I have talked about before.  This is the concept that all bodies are good bodies and that we are allowed to see value in ourselves no matter how our body looks.  This is also the concept that we shouldn't be disparaging toward anyone else because of their body.  We should lift each other up, make sure that our fellow people-no matter their size-sees their worth as a person and sees the value of their body.  This is also, for me, a self-esteem and eating disorder movement.  This is the movement trying to fix the eating disorders and mental hurdles that the modeling industry, media, and diet fad crazed society has pushed onto people for decades.  I love the body-positivity movement. I love it that it doesn't just stand for people of immense size but for those that can't gain weight or struggling with being too small.  It literally says "big tits, no butt, big tummy?  Beautiful.  Small tits, concave stomach, booty-licious?  Still beautiful.  Big butt, Big tits, no tummy?  Still beautiful.  Small muscles, flabby belly, hairy?  Hey, dude, you look amaze-balls."  There is literally not a wrong way to exist in the body-positive community except for being a bully.

Love the Skin You're In movement is sooo comparable to body-positivity that I feel like they are one and the same movement.  To me, this movement is not just about feeling beautiful or feeling healthy.  It's saying that you literally do not have to change a thing about yourself to love yourself. It is saying "you are worthy of love no matter how your body feels and the love you are most worthy of is from your own self. You deserve to love yourself because you exist, you matter, and loving yourself should come first and foremost."  I love that.  I do.  Why?  Because to care about your physical health, you have to have good mental health.  Poor mental health causes so many physical problems.  Its disturbing the amount of people who don't get that you cannot tell someone they need to love themselves and put them down, telling them they need to change the body that they live in everyday.  You cannot simultaneously build someone up while tearing them down.  That causes mental instability.  I think the thing that I love the most about this is that it even says "you have an eating disorder, whether it be anorexia or bulimia or binge eating or food addiction?  You are still worthy of loving yourself and healing yourself and beating the odds."

So I guess what I am getting that is this:

You can be healthy at every size, but an extreme underweight or extreme overweight body is at higher risk for health problems.  That doesn't mean all tiny people or all morbidly obese people are going to be unhealthy.  Because they aren't.  And even if they are?  None of your business.

You shouldn't put people down.  You shouldn't feel bad about your body.  You should be aware that you are beautiful as you are and if you want to change how you are, you're still going to be beautiful.  Unlike a lot of people who believe in body positivity and HAES and LTSYI, I believe you can love yourself enough to make improvements to your body-whether that means eating more or less, exercising more or less, or simply changing the way you dress to feel more comfortable and confident.

You're worthy of love, you deserve love, and you deserve that love to come from within.  It doesn't matter the shape of your body, whether it is tiny, muscular, flabby, fluffy, plus or petite or fit .  . .you matter. Period.

Pissy Remarks and Online Dating In a Big Girl's World

The past couple of weeks has been the most disheartening time I've had in a long time.  Due to not being able to exercise the way I have been for years, my stomach and all my muscles have become flabby and sort of disgusting.  I hate it, but I really didn't think others had noticed or would care.  I mean, I'm still not the 405lbs teenager I was but I have gained some of my weight back (10lbs.  10 damn pounds .  .  .) and it's a horrible feeling.  But yet when I was 405lbs people didn't speak to me the way people have in the past two weeks. Of course, they talked about me behind my back, whispered and giggled and would do mean things, but hardly anyone had enough courage to say something to me.  Probably because . . .I weighed 405lbs.  I would sit on them and forget about it.
I wonder if people stop and think before they say something to someone.  Does pointing out that I'm large make me more likely to be able to exercise?  Does it take away my MS and give me back the functioning body I had almost a  year ago?  No.  It doesn't.  Why say anything at all if it isn't conducive to the situation?  Telling me to get my large ass up off a sidewalk where I was changing shoes didn't cause me to suddenly be skinny and made you piss off and look like an asshole to many people.

Doing online dating after years of having what  you thought was a loving relationship is hard.  It's made a lot harder when you don't know what people are looking for anymore.  I'm 30, not some 20 year old fuck bunny.  I just want stability and compassion, humor and a decent amount of intelligence.  I also don't want to feel like I'm settling because of my weight.  That's what caused my first marriage and my first divorce.  I'm better than that and I deserve better than that.  Yet I feel I have to put a warning about my body on my profile (which too many don't read!) that explains that I am a big girl weight wise and that comments about my body will get you blasted because I'm too smart to put up with that shit.  You would think saying that would be warning enough that rude comments will be treated like you're the scum of the earth, right?  Apparently not.

How dare I, a fat girl, turn down what is a decently good looking guy who just happened to be the exact type of person I don't want in my life? How dare I, a fat girl, not want to send nudes because we aren't horny teenagers?  How dare I, a fat girl, not be flattered by dick pics?  That's pretty much been the running spiel I've gotten in the past few weeks.  When guys have been interested and seemed decent enough to ask for a full body, fully clothed picture and received it, I get "you're misleading.  You don't look that fat in your profile picture.  You work angles to hide your body.  I couldn't be interested in that."  

First of all, my profile literally says I'm fat.  Don't like it?  Fuck off.  It isn't misleading to literally tell someone that you're fat.  You're the douche that shouldn't be surprised when the fat girl who says she's fat turns out to be . . .fat.  Secondly, working angles is a myth.  I lose weight in my face and neck first and gain it there last for whatever reason.  So unless I purposely give myself a double chin and force myself to have bad posture, my weight isn't noticeable in a face selfie.  It is noticeable in a lot of my pictures that aren't selfies, however.  So I am not working angles.  Finally . . .if someone cannot be interested in me because of my weight despite the fact that we have hit it off on a personality level . . .maybe that person should work on their own issues with body image and leave mine alone instead of slinging insults.   I can understand body chemistry.  I haven't had a whole lot of people I've been genuinely attracted to but the ones I have, their body and their personality have both been a factor.  Yet I haven't felt the need to insult someone because I wasn't attracted to them.  I have just simply explained to them that the chemistry wasn't there, but I felt like we could be great friends since we have so much in common.  Sometimes it has worked out just that way.  Sometimes it hasn't and we ended up not talking again. But I sincerely hope that I have never made someone feel bad that I wasn't attracted to them, no matter the reason.

Anyway, due to the insulting behavior of men in the past couple of weeks,  I've been facing something I haven't felt in a long time: shame.  I feel ashamed of my body.  I feel ashamed of being ashamed.  I've been on the body positive, I'm a warrior for women who feel insecure about their bodies and are being made to feel that way by others, path for so long that I feel hollow to feel this way again.  It's compounded by the depression of being sick, I understand that, but it doesn't help or hurt knowing that. Things that haven't always been this hard for me, because I haven't ever been this immobile by force and not choice, so it's been an even bigger struggle for me.  Not only is my weight an issue for some people but it's an issue I absolutely can't fix anymore.  And that is in on me and my body, but it shouldn't be commented on people who don't live my life or want to be a part of my life.  My body is mine to deal with and their criticism isn't needed. I know this, but events like the past two weeks' worth of stuff makes it hard to keep that in line, to keep focusing on what I can do and not on what I can't.

Life, Changed.

It started with a twitch.  My hand shaking on the gear shift of my car and stopping after a while.  Shaking again, harder, and continuously to the point that I ended up at the emergency room.  They tried Ativan.  I passed out and still shook.  They ran CT scans for damaged nerves, found none.  They did physical after physical, consulting different doctors and sending me to different places.  I was checked for everything from Lyme Disease to HIV.  They found nothing.  One doctor suggested it was psychological.  I had to fight to be heard, that I wasn't doing this to myself and that I wasn't crazy. After blessing him out seven ways to Sunday, he finally got me in for an MRI.  When he had said it was all in my head, he was right . . .except that it was literally in my head.  There were spots of demyelination on my brain.  I was damaged.

It's been seven months since that day.  I have gone through one neurologist who's main concern was doping me up and not dealing with me.  I literally talked to her nurse longer in one session than I talked to her combined.  I have more symptoms and they're sure I have Multiple Sclerosis.  It feels like a death sentence. I know, anyone reading this is going to say "well, I know someone with MS and they can do .  . ."  It isn't my job to educate others about my illness but I can say this-no one with it is the same.  What one person is feeling, another may not experience it at all. For me, it's a raging fire going through my body, my right hand has a constant tremor, my legs shake after five minutes of walking around or a few minutes of standing-to the point that I have to sit down, my hearing is gone in my right ear, and I have no spasticity in my back for days at a time.  I have memory and speech problems. 

It has halted life for me as I know it.  I went from working two jobs and going to school to there being days where getting out of bed is impossible.  I'm on more medications to treat symptoms than most 90 year old people.  My love for words has been so stilted that I'm reduced to stuttering and chicken-pecking on a keyboard with one hand.  (This is . . .frustrating. I had beautiful handwriting, always knew the words I needed when I needed them, and typed 92 wpm.)  I laughingly say I have Swiss-cheese-brain because my once identic memory is worse than amnesia patients at times.  I have cried more in the past seven months than I have in the past 30 years. 

Everyone says "stay positive".  Everyone says "it will work out".  No one says "we understand your pain."  Because no one does.  This disease has wrecked my life in so many ways.  Not just physical but emotional too.  I hurt internally all the time, and it sucks, but not being able to live life the way I was living-not feeling like I'm worth the effort that people have to put up with, the cancelled plans, the waiting on me because walking five steps makes my legs shake and my body hurt, the fact that I can't even enjoy being outside with my family because it literally hurts me.  I feel useless and a bother to everyone.  I know my family loves me and doesn't see me that way, but I can't help feeling that way myself.  I went from someone who ran life at full speed to sitting on the side lines.  Life is literally going on without me and that is the greatest pain I've ever really experienced.

I don't want to seem like all I'm doing is complaining.  Sometimes the only way to survive is to break down and cry, to rant and get it all out.  Unfortunately, when I rant out loud I now can't get the words together so . . .the hour to two hours it has taken me to tap this out has been my way of letting go.  I don't know if anyone is going to read this or care and I'm pretty sure that I don't really care if anyone does.  I just know I needed to put it out there, get it out of me, because sometimes the dark thoughts and depression gets to be too much.  Sometimes I find myself wondering if living with this much pain is worth it.  If I didn't have the people who I lean on, it probably wouldn't be.  

I have a wonderful support system-four parents who fight for me and do everything they can to help me, brothers and sisters who make me laugh and love me no matter how horrible I am, and friends who are willing to put up with the extra things that goes along with me like medicine stupors and changed plans and who share their kiddos with me because kids are still the one thing that brings a smile to my face.  I have a wonderful family doctor who listens to my concerns, helps me with paperwork, and keeps me accountable for myself.  Since I'm waiting on a new neurologist, she is the only medical help I have at the moment and the only one who gets it-this is hard, this is painful, and staying positive is sometimes impossible. 

Life is different, drastically so since this time last year.  I understand so much more about things that were going on with my body that I didn't before-jerking limbs that I put down to general muscle spasms, forgetfulness that I brushed off as "everyone forgets something sometimes" (not with an identic memory.  You don't forget.  Your brain doesn't allow you to forget. Sometimes you really, really wish you could.), mood swings even on medication for mood swings, and this aching, burning feeling 24/7.  None of it is random.  None of it is something I can control.  Its a rollercoaster ride that I can't get out of, but I'm taking it one twist and turn at a time.  The only thing I can do is to hold my breath and wait for the next loop. 

Biggest Loser Journey

A few weeks ago I did something I swore I would never do:  I joined a "The Biggest Loser" program at work.  The way they do it is that everyone pays an entry free and weighs in, then, once a week, weigh in again.  If you've gained a pound, you pay a dollar.  If you haven't, then you do nothing.  I started two weeks later than everyone else, but, oh well.
I weighed in at 226.60lbs.  The smallest I've been in about 15 years, but still not where I would like to be at this time this year.  I've gotten lazy and had a knee injury that I had to work through.  Killing myself on the treadmill and elliptical and trying my hardest to cut out sweets better give me some results, or I'm going to go nuts.
 
The thing is, I always thought that we, as ladies struggling with weight loss, shouldn't compete with but support each other.  Mistakenly, I thought that calling it a competition would make everyone snippy and judgmental about what each other weighed and self-conscious about what they ate in front of each other.  Instead, it's been almost the exact opposite.  When someone drops a pound, everyone is happy for them.  When someone doesn't or gains, everyone sympathizes.  There's really a lot of support going on there that I never imagined there could exist in that kind of situation.

It's been about 3 weeks and tonight was my third weigh-in.  I gained weight my first weigh in (8lbs . . .8-freaking-pounds) but I've lost half of that since then.  Yippy!  I can't wait to lose more, and I'm slowly becoming more comfortable with people knowing exactly what my weight is.  Before I couldn't stand for someone to even be in the room when I weighed myself or measured how many inches I'd lost.  Now sharing the details is just another way of keeping the support going and that is definitely something I need at all times.

Fat Shaming, Bullying, and Body Negativity

I'm an active plus sized woman.  I go to the gym everyday.  I work many hours on my feet.  I don't eat exactly right, but I enjoy my food and don't obsess over it (much).  At the end of the day, my calorie and carb count is usually in the deficit, but I'm human and sometimes I slip.

Would you know all of this without me telling you?  No.  Would you know all of this just by looking at me?  Hell no.  To look at me, you'd probably think I'm lazy and that I don't care what I put in my body, because, as I stated, I'm fairly obese.   The thing about that is that a lot of people would assume that because I'm obese I'm lazy and, therefore, they can say what they want about me and my body. 

This is where things are about to get hairy.  Society has become obsessed with body image, because the media has become obsessed with it.  They have made half-hearted attempts at "body acceptance" and have touched on the subjects of fat shaming, bullying, and body negativity.  Unfortunately, it's all been from the perspective of healthy, thin people who look and sound patronizing when they say "we should all love our bodies no matter the size and not judge each other".  Yeah, that's great to say if you're a freakin' size 2 and spent ninety percent of your life making fun of the fat kids behind their backs. 


Then there's the people who say that we shouldn't practice body acceptance because that makes "fat people think it's okay to be overweight."  Newsflash, it is okay to be overweight.  Why do I say that?  Because it isn't anyone else's business if I'm overweight.   It's my problem to take care of and the only person who is allowed to judge my body is me.  

 While most people think that fat shaming is simply making people feel bad about being overweight, it's more than that.  It's this attitude that me being overweight is somehow offensive to someone else, as if they have a body made of pure gold and mine is somehow tarnishing it by association.  It's ridiculous and gives these people a swollen head to think that their opinion should matter to anyone other than themselves.

Bullying is what happens when people who believe in fat shaming have children.  No, I joke, but seriously . . .this happens far too often, not just to children but to adults.  Jokes at an overweight person's expense is bullying.  Making people feel less than socially acceptable is bullying.  Whispering behind someone's back is bullying.  Bullying makes people fall into depressions and has many negative repercussions, such as self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide.  Bullying is something parents need to get a grip on before it goes too far.  People never really grow out of bullying.  They just move on from bullying to, well, fat shaming.

Body negativity is the fact that it's not just obese people that get bullied and shamed and picked on.  People have a bad tendency to look at a person who is skinny and automatically assume that that person is anorexic or bulimic.  They see a fit woman working out and think she's obsessed or showing off.  They see a fit man and assume he's a douchebag concerned with is own body image and ego. A lot of it is media induced, where any skinny woman (whether naturally or from a lot of hard work) is either admired or criticized for her size.  Some of it is envy and petty jealousy.  Such as, thinking there's no way a person looks that good naturally since I don't so obviously they're starving themselves or throwing up their food.  This kind of body negativity needs to stop.  We should all be ashamed of ourselves for acting this way, not for what we see in the mirror.

 Here's the thing:  why do we care?  Why do any of us care what anyone who we're not a). banging or b). raising looks like?  The only thing we should care about is our health and how we see ourselves.  Oh, and that's another thing.  When people claim fake concern about people's health during their fat shaming . . .mental health has a whole hell of a lot to do with physical health.  Making people feel like shit and then claiming that it's just because you're concerned is a great way to cause someone to either want to punch you in the face (me.  I would hard-core punch you in the face.)  or get severely depressed.  You're not concerned.  You're not worried.  You're an asshole.  Don't be an asshole, learn to respect others, and worry about your own body, instead of anyone else's.

The Obligatory "Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014" Blog

It seems like the internet is clogged down with blogs and status updates about kissing the old year good bye and welcoming in the new year.  I figured I would sit down and do one, too, but as soon as I put my fingers to my keyboard, I realized something important.   For all of the horrible things that have went on this past year, it still has been the best year for me in a lot of ways.  I'm not sure if I'm ready for a new year, yet here we are, two days into it already.


Reasons why I'm not bitter about 2013:

1.  We survived 2012 and it's supposed doom.

Okay, okay, I know it's dumb, but . . .with all of the gloom and doom talk at the end of 2012, one can get paranoid.  I never believed in the whole "Mayan Calendar" crap because, as my husband has pointed out, who knows what happened to the Mayans?  Maybe whatever happened to them happened before they finished making the calendar.  Or maybe they really were prophetic and saw how naïve the human race was to become and that was their cruel joke.  Either way, most people sweated away the month of December in 2012 and gave us a whole new appreciation for 2013.

2.  I gained two new family members in 2013.

The first was my baby grand-nephew, Eli.  He's a chunk and a charmer and totally has his Aunt Nikki wrapped around his chubby little pinky.  Even if nothing else great happened in the past 12 months, he came in the world and made it a much happier place.

The second was my husband, Jeromy.  We were married on St. Patrick's Day and it's a day that will always be special in my heart.  Yes, he was a member of my family before we said our vows.  That just made it all nice and legal and official.  He's probably my favorite person in the entire world-though there are days when he would beg to differ, I'm sure.

3.  I grew up.

Six years ago, I took a job at a fast food restaurant, the local McDonald's.  I hated this place with a passion by the time I quit, though I made some of the best friends I've ever had while working there.  There came a time when I realized I had to step away from the dead-end job and start looking for a future.  I quit there and got two part time jobs that work around my school schedule in a way that didn't make them seem resentful that I was doing something else with my life other than serve hamburgers.  I'm not going to say that my experience there was always bad, because it wasn't.  It just wasn't conducive to growing up-at least not for me.  I loved the steady paycheck while I figured out what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be, and I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to feed and clothe myself in the meantime. 

4.  Drama came to a head and, quickly, to a close.

There were painful parts of my life that I kept hidden from mostly everyone who knew me, except my mama and my husband, of course.  Those came out into the open this last year and a lot of it was like ripping the scab off a wound-painful but it had to happen sometime.  Things aren't patched up like brand new and there will always be backlash, but I know I'm stronger and better for what happened. 

5.  I did not go to my high school reunion.

This might seem like a bad thing to some people.  For me, it was an act of willpower and strength.  I wasn't liked in high school.  I had a close knit group of people I hung out with, barely any of which I graduated amongst.  In fact, I was way younger than anyone in my graduating class and I still feel out of place around them.  I used to say that I would be this better person, to the point that at my high school reunion people would realize how horrible they treated me and feel bad.  Now I know better.  I'm not a better person.  I am the same person, all grown up, and those same people that used to make me feel like crap?  They're the same people, too, who either wouldn't remember or wouldn't care.  There was absolutely no reason to go there and revisit those feelings all over again.  I was better than that then and I'm better than that now.  As a teacher, and now friend, once told me, "Invite them to your first book signing."  I plan to do just that.

6. I earned and maintained a 4.0 GPA.

This was not easy.  I don't give a damn if you're a genius or an idiot savant.  Working two jobs and maintaining that GPA is hard work.  I earned ever .10 of that.  Everyone says that your GPA in college doesn't matter, that you get the same degree regardless.  Sure, you do, but for someone like me who refuses to do less than my best on any assignment, GPA matters.  I was the kid in high school who would argue with the teacher over a 99 because it wasn't a 100.  I'm pretty sure that a 3.9 would have had me in tears.


So, you see, I don't really think that 2014 could get much better for me. I have my family, my health, my education, and my job.  What could 2014 bring me that 2013 did not?

Reality Hits Hard, Hit Back

Realization: I will never be "thin."

Hit back:  I can and will be fit.  Every time I see a few certain members of my family, I hear "my God, you've lost weight!  How many pounds?"  They aren't being fake or insincere.  They are really asking because they're family and they know how hard I work to shed even a pound.  None of us are crazy.  The realization that I will never be thin is there.  I can be fit, though, and I am well on my way to getting to that point.

Realization:  I have no willpower.

Hit back:  I can work harder to counter that.  So I pig out on birthday-cake Oreos and chocolate milk.  I'll do a hundred more crunches, skimp on a meal I would normally pig out on, or walk for an extra mile to make up for it.  Having no willpower to refuse junk doesn't mean I'm a fatty or lazy.  It just means I have cravings I'm not willing to deny.  Deprivation makes you desperate for a day off, which leads to two days off, which leads to a week off.  

Realization: People will always hate on what they don't understand.

Hit back: Their ill intent has nothing to do with my self esteem.  I am going to lose weight and gain weight and work out and be less inclined to do so, because I am human.  People have a tendency to hate people who are over weight, classify us as disgusting or lazy.  Too few people realize there are physical ailments that keep people like me and thousands of others locked into the obese category.  The fact that they don't realize that and want to hate on me and others has nothing to do with my self-worth and self-esteem.  I am me. I will lose weight at my body's speed, be it slow or fast.  I can tell the pounds are shedding.  My family can.  If hurtful strangers cannot, then I do not care.  Sorry, Charlie, but your opinion only matters to you!

Realization:  Looking in the mirror will never not be painful.

Hit back: The mirror is a big fat liar.  The person in the mirror isn't who I am or who I want to be.  I am strong, I am capable, and  I am changing everyday.  Whether I see a pound or an inch gone in the mirror or not, I know if I've lost it.  My face may show signs of tears shed, smiles smiled, and stress but it does not tell you if the smiles were fake, the tears from joy or pain, and why I was stressed.   These are all the things that make me, me not the image I see in the mirror.

Realization:  I am not alone, but I am unique.

Hit back:  Someone out there understands some of what I'm going through. They might not get everything.  They might not understand.  They will sympathize because they know what it's like to feel alone.  If I reach out to them, someone will answer and if someone reaches out to me, I can respond.  There's not a situation in this world where I am completely alone in what I'm going through.  This was the best realization of all.