I have a lap…
Posted March 11, 2006 at 9:32 am
I’m hoping to post part three of my thread on fat and food sometime this weekend, but I had to just put in a quick post. I finally upgraded to a wireless laptop, and I’m sitting here, reading a very interesting thread on health and wellness in the fat acceptance context, with my laptop on my lap.
Sweet!
March 11th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Please check out my blog before you get too deeply into the Fat Acceptance movement. It’s controlled by men who don’t have our best interests at heart.
(If you’re bored, check out the history of Dimensions Magazine and feederism.)
bigfatfraud.blogspot.com
March 11th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
You go, girl!
Come on over and join other health-seekers at http://www.putdownthedonut.com.
From what little I have read of the fat-acceptance folks, I get the impression they’re mad at those of us willing to try to reach a healthy weight, and even angrier at those of us who achieve it. Granted it is hard work to do so, but that’s not our fault. That’s just the way things is. It’s not our fault that if you drop the bowling ball on your foot you’ll end up wearing an orthopedic shoe, either. It’s just the way things is. No malice intended. So I think the fat-acceptance folks take it all way too personally, and also that they are deluding themselves. They’re fat, and you’re fat, and I’m fat, because at some point we have all eaten too much food for our particular metabolism and lifestyle. Period. I used to be one of those fat people who “didn’t eat much” and when my dr. told me I’d be healthier to lose weight I indignantly told him I didn’t eat much. He said “Hmmm.” Then he suggested I write down everything I ate over a week, bring him the list, and we’d go over it and see what could be done. Well. You may imagine my embarrassment when I followed his suggestion. I was eating a lot of stuff that just flat-out didn’t register. A handful of potato chips here, a couple of “fun size” Hersheys here, a handful of grapes later on, a piece of cheese while cleaning out the fridge… You don’t remember things like this and so you are indignant when a doctor tells you you’re eating too much and that’s why you’re overweight, but, regrettably, he’s right. And any lingering doubts I had were clinched when I had to take a medicine that, as a side effect, caused a complete loss of appetite. I actually had to remind myself that when I felt faint, I needed to force down some food. I lost 25 pounds in one month. After those two experiences, I couldn’t delude myself any longer. And a funny thing happened. Without really “dieting,” when I lost the excuses, I began losing the rest of the weight.
Whew. Sorry about the long dissertation. But maybe it’ll help if somebody else out there is wondering why she’s overweight when she “hardly eats anything” and “never eats junk food.”
March 12th, 2006 at 9:11 am
Ditto. The fat acceptance folks will reach out to you, but they’ll push you away and reject you. Your story is a refutation of their core belief: it’s impossible to lose weight. It’s like changing black skin to white! ;) You’re not starving, you’re not doing anything unhealthy, and you’re understanding the relation between calories you intake and calories you burn.
It’s willpower. They don’t have it, so they’ll try to convince you it’s impossible to have.
I do understand seeking them out - they’re a safety net. If you fail, maybe you can subscribe to their philosophy. Don’t fall for it! You’re doing great!
March 13th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
“Your story is a refutation of their core belief: it’s impossible to lose weight.”
I believe in fat acceptance, and my core belief is certainly not that it is impossible to lose weight. That would be ridiculous. If you stop eating, you will lose weight. If you spend a long time on a calorie-resticted diet, you will lose weight. If you have liposuction, you will lose weight. If you get cancer and have chemotherapy, you will lose weight. Obviously, it is possible to lose weight.
The core beliefs of fat acceptance are more like,
“We don’t know if it is healthy to lose weight.”, given a lot of evidence that dieting causes muscle loss preferentially over fat loss, that fat people have more heart attacks when in the process of losing weight rapidly rather than when at a stable fat weight.
“We believe that focussing on exercise and nutrition will improve our health more than focussing on weight will for an equivalent amount of effort”, given that it’s likely that most of the health risks attributed to obesity are actually a result of lack of exercise and poor nutrition.
“Losing weight may require significant obsession with food intake, and living like this is not, for us, worth the perceived benefits of weight loss”. For many of us, counting calories and focussing on losing weight works, but at the expense of adopting an anorexic-like obsession with food (counting everything that goes into our mouths, planning everything around when and what we will eat, etc). We do not think it is worth it.
March 13th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
In defense of the fat acceptance movement, it is not an evil group of people who hate themselves and hate everyone who is thin.
I am a believer in the movement because I think it is about an acceptance of humanity. It is about civil rights for all, not just those who fall into a very limited sphere of shape and height. It is about not hating ourselves and our bodies.
I personally think a person can choose to loose weight and still be a fat advocate. Maybe there are those that disagree, but I don’t think that it is the act of loosing weight (even deliberately) that is the problem. Instead, it is advocating privacy and automony on the issue of weight. It is getting beyond snap judgements about what a person is and can do by what they look like. It is about stopping self-loathing and the loathing of others because you or they don’t look how you wish they/you did.
If 65% of the population were gay and there were “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policies, we should have to ask ourselves why are we so afraid of who we are. But, 65% of the population is considered some version of fat, but most spend a huge amount of time hating themselves. How sad that is.
I have really enjoyed this blog Beth. Like Tish at www.fatshadow.com (who sent her readers here) I think your story is very interesting. And, I certrainly do not pretend to be able to judge you. I only wanted to defend the people I know in the movement and suggest that it is not about external issues of dieting or not but a deep belief about fairness and worth.
Best!