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Monday, September 25, 2006
Crimson and Clover Over and Over...
Pretty much word for word (substituting Yom Kippur for Valentines Day) I am in exactly the same boat now as I was in then.
I like a boy. We have been writing for almost two weeks (which is a long correspondence in the land of fake boyfriends). He wants to meet. I feel the need to "warn" him over and over again that I am fat.
What I really feel like saying to him is, "I'm fat. I may always be this fat. I may get smaller (or bigger). But I am really fucking cool so let's give this a go". But that sounds stupid.
I think what has me so worried is that while I have already told him I am fat, the image of a "fat woman" has so many different conceptions. For some people it means anything over 120 lbs. For others anything over 200 lbs is gigantic. And while I am of the opinion that most men have no idea what women actually weigh, I am universally fat.
And I am worried that he wont want a fat girlfriend. Or he wouldn't want to introduce a fat girlfriend to his friends. Or he would only use me for sex and leave out the relationship part.
And I guess if I get right down to it, I don't feel like I am ever going to find a loving normal relationship at this weight, so I sabotage myself. Past experience tells me I am correct to do so. But if I keep doing it, then nothing will ever change.
I just don't want to settle. I like certain traits in men, and in my mind the chance that one of those men would actually date a fat girl seems to be minuscule. I suppose I have only a few options:
1. Just meet him and hope for the best;
2. Tell him again that I am fat. Really fat and try to get a straight answer out of him about how he feels about that;
3. Stop attempting to date until I have some more confidence in myself.
I want to do option number 2 so badly but it seems insane. I will probably go with option number 1. And option number 3 just confuses me even more.
Am I missing any other options? Thoughts?
255 comments:1 – 200 of 255 Newer› Newest»
- jo said...
Well, I totally understand your dilemma. I've written about similar dating dramas in my blog in the past. And yeah, same old, same old...
I'd be inclined to just go for #1. I mean, if you have already given him a little warning then he should at least be considering the fact that you could be very fat or just a little fat. If he doesn't ask you to specify then it's probably best to just go for it and meet him.
Otherwise I fear it makes us sound like we have an 'issue' with our weight, which sure we do, but it probably makes us sound more neurotic than we actually are. In this case it's more of an issue with his potential issues (society's issues).
So much of attraction is ephemeral. I think you need to meet him. If you have already charmed him with your gorgeous personality, then just take a risk in meeting up him and see what happens. What's the worst that can happen? Is it really that bad? I am pretty sure I had one of the worst outcomes to a meeting, which I documented in a rambling entry on my blog. In summary the jerk walked out on me while pretending to go to the toilet during the meal. I was sure it was a weight issue. Well, I was pretty damn horrified. But I got over it. Definitely his loss, not mine.
It did confirm though that I really prefer to date offline. But when you can't meet many people that way, then you have to take some risks somewhere or otherwise nothing happens. And how do you build confidence in yourself without challenging yourself with new interactions? If there is a way, I am not sure what it is.
I'll be interested to see what others have to say.
Good luck whatever you choose! I am living vicariously through you with this, so do something exciting!
you could exchange photos with him - that'd remove any element of surprise. If he then starts delaying/making excuses, then he's probably bothered. If not, then he may well not be bothered by it. Plus it makes it easier to find each other when you do meet up.
- Miss Rachel said...
I think if you've already told him you're fat, then just go with option number one. No need to dwell on it with option number two. And as far as option number three, just do the work on "getting more confidence in yourself" and remove the don't date part unless of course, you don't want to date (?).
And I can tell from your blog that you are, in fact, really fucking cool. :-)
- GoBetty said...
#1 hun
Did I miss something. You've never met the guy? Then how the heck do you "know" him?
Is this some kind of online dating thing? Don't those sites required a photo upload, even if it's a deceptive "fat girl angle shot"?:
Maybe you should start over again and try to meet people in person, the old fashioned way. Then this problem solves itself.
Advantages of the traditional way:
o You'll be out doing stuff with other people, rather than arranging sauces on your "binge tray" while watching television
o Eating with others will help enforce normal healthy eating
o Having people over will get you doing some basic cooking, so you start to get free of always eating take-out crap
o You'll have your mind on something besides eating
o You'll get some exercise
o You'll probably meet the friends of the guy at the same time as meeting the guy, so he won't be put in the situation of dreading introducing the fat girlfriend to his friends -- they'll already know you (and hopefully like you)
- Lori said...
Go for #1. I assume you have exchanged some pictures.
I really do understand, though. Some men think when women say that they're overweight, they've over 10 pounds or something.
And in my pictures (at least the last ones I've allowed taken), I look pretty normal but to me, from the waist down, it's Jabba the Hutt (to me).
It's hard to develop confidence when you worry about things like this and for me, it's harder when you have no frame of reference (success to an extent) to remember.
(Why do we need to tell people we're fat? Not just in this situation but when we're actually in front of some people like doctors, nurses, etc.?)
Good luck!!
Well, I'm going to be a dissenter and say #2. Make sure he knows beforehand that when you say "fat" you don't mean "a little overweight" but "really fat." You don't need to sabotage yourself and repeat it over and over, but make sure he knows exactly what you mean when you say "fat." (You're right, to some guys that means a little extra padding, to others it means really, really obese.)
Because, I'm sorry to say, but as unfair as it may be, and hate me for saying it though you will, few guys want to date a really fat chick. I'm not saying you don't deserve to meet a really nice, cute, educated (and SANE ;)) boy who's crazy about you, but the ones who won't be put off by obesity are in a small minority.
If he's very clear on what body type you are beforehand and he still wants a date, then you can be fairly certain he's at least willing to give it a shot.
If he's not, then you are gambling that he'll be among the small percentage of men who find fat women attractive. If he's not, then worst case scenario, you get that heart-sinking look of disappointment, and best-case scenario is he is a perfect gentleman and gamely goes through with the date, but there won't be a second one.
Sweetie - go with #1. If you are open and honest with him and he can't accept you for who you are, screw him.
I went out on a date 2 weeks ago. After exchanging photos (yes I send full-length fat photos). We met for dinner and he couldn't have shown more disinterest in me. Whatever!
I've also been ditched on 2 dates so be prepared with money etc...unfortunately.
- Heather said...
I have current pics posted in my profile, and under body size I have listed "heavyset". My friends have all looked at the pics and say that they are an honest representation of what I look like (I don't bother with the wierd angles to make me look thinner).
Since 85% of the guys I contact never contact me back, and 10% of the remaining 15% never make it past the e-mail stage, I am assuming that they all have got it figured out that I am chunky and would prefer not to be bothered. That frees up a lot of time for the final 5% who actually are intellegent enough to look past the surface!!!
I would advise against mentioning over and over (and over and over) again how "fat and pathetic" you are. If they don't mind the weight, they will almost certainly be turned away by the constant self criticism (I know, easier said than done!).
- Heather said...
And I just have to second Miss Rachel's statement that "you are really fucking cool". If they can't get past the weight, it's THEIR loss, not yours!
go with #1. I've found that if you make a huge deal out of being fat (no pun intended), that he will, too. if it didn't bother him to begin with, it will because you're making it such a big deal.
just go, have fun, be yourself. either he'll like you just as you are, or he won't. sabbotage not required.
I say 4 - exchange photo's. You might not fancy him either!
I am fat, and I have dated pretty successfully, and here's how I did it: date like a guy. Never get too into any one guy. Meet them F2F as soon as possible so you can see if there's any chemistry. Have at least 3 prospects at all times: it gives you this confidence that drives men absolutely nuts. Have you ever seen the movie The Tao of Steve? He is totally onto something with the "Be desireless, be excellent, be gone" theory.
I realize this all sounds like game-playing...to me, it's just a way of stoking the dating confidence that you should have anyway, so that you don't end up playing the "self-deprecating fat girl" role. Because you would make a terrific girlfriend, but guys can only see that if you're confident.
lots of men out there that love fat women! Thank god!
If you've told him...he knows. Go for it! If it doesn't go well, learn from it. You can handle it.
I say #1.
If you have been honest in your posting and your photos and conversations, then what do you have to lose. Make sure he is worthy of you. You do not do that by trying to push him away before he has even met you...you do that by meeting him and showing him what a goddess you are. If he does not respond, or God forbid, like some previous posters have said, ditches you, do not take it so personally, just know he is not the one for you. I say the "make sure he is worthy" part with all seriousness. I have been in the position of 'fat girl that he likes to hang with privately but not in front of his friends' more times than I care to count. As a matter of fact, I met the man I married because a guy I was going out with was ashamed of me, and invited his new friend out on a 'date' with us, but told me not to tell the dude it was a date. I liked guy #2 much better, and am now married to him. Since we got married and had two kids, I am even fatter, and he still loves me. So, make sure he is worthy.
How pissy was that post asking you if you did the 'fat girl angle'--what the hell? Spare us those comments, eh?
And you--feel the love from the rest of us--you are really fucking cool!!
If your as fat as you say you are, I doubt there is much chance of him liking you. I say no. 2 and no. 3. why are you wrapping yourself up in what a guy thinks?
Actually, Anon 8:13, about 50% of men like fat chicks and 50% don't. So, I'd say that she has a pretty good shot..
- emily pound said...
Exchanging photos is a good option, as others have suggested, but I would go with #2 as well -- make sure he knows you're FAT as opposed to fat. I'm sure he will want to meet you anyway, but this way you have told him beforehand and he will have some idea of what to expect. The only other advice I have is, unfortunately, a little depressing: don't get your heart too set on this guy until you "really" meet him in person, and find out more about his character. In my experience, the guys who seem the most desirable online always turn out to be the most superficial. Hopefully, this guy will not fall into that category. Good luck!
"If you listen carefully, you'll never hear straight guys say they aren't into fat chicks. 'She's too fat' is the kind of thing gay guys and mean girls say. Real men could care less."
-Vice Magazine
Go with #1; meet him and see what happens.
Who knows, maybe he's a mongoloid or still lives with his mom and their 9 cats?
I've always approached dating/courting/meeting someone you're interested is as looking at the worst scenario.
If he's already played down your size and wants to meet, then meet; the worst that'll come of it is that he rejects you.
That sucks, but it's not the end of the world. Everyone fails, it's the reaction to failure that separates people.
I think with #2, if you went that route, he'd probably get frustrated that you're making such a big deal about it and probably wonder what he's missing about your size, since you're playing it up so much.
Honestly, #3 is bullshit, no one is ever confident/ready enough to put themselves out there and face potential rejection. The only way you get more comfortable in such situations, is to expose yourself to them; practice makes perfect.
Look girl, I have been both fat and thin, and I am going to be honest with you here.
You don't want to settle. You want an attractive, successful, charming "catch."
Well guess what. Catches don't like fat girls. So you are going to have to decide how much you want a catch. Clearly you are a brilliant woman from your writing, but you aren't going to be able to think/write/analyze your way out of that reality.
Think about it this way: what if you were a gay guy who was into straight "catches." Would you think and obsess over whether you could get straight dude you met online to like you, be into you? Even though they aren't attracted to men? Well, you might, but you'd be delusional. The vast, vast majority of catches want a woman of stereotypical attractiveness, or at least within certain parameters.
- Kate said...
I think that the earth just tilted on its axis; I agree 100% with Puncher of Donkeys.
As for Anonymous 10:14, I think you're missing the point. McGee's not the equivalent of a gay man looking for a straight man; she wants someone who likes her as she is, not as who he'd like her to morph into. Any man who can't appreciate how intelligent and funny she is because she doesn't fit the Madison Avenue/Rodeo Drive ideal doesn't deserve to shine her (no doubt fabulous) shoes, let alone date her.
You are also assuming that what she considers "attractive" is what you consider attractive. I don't know which of the ladies wrote this particular post, but Emily has stated several times that she prefers fat men. I, too, am assuming and may be wrong but, from your post, I sincerely doubt that you would ever consider a fat man "a catch."
Also, for some of us, "successful" is not defined solely by one's bank balance. To me, "sucessful" is being happy doing what he's doing and being kind to those around him, especially those over whom he has the upper hand (waiters, for example).
And in case I wasn't clear, #1.
Dating sucks, and trying to negotiate this aspect of online dating sucks hardcore. But #2 is asking too much of him.
As nice as it would be to hear from him that he's been attracted to really heavy women in the past (but isn't a scary chubby chaser) and he doesn't feel that your weight is a dealbreaker, that's asking him to open himself up pretty far when you're only at the very beginning of knowing one another.
Full length pics are my recommendation for the future, since it'll determine whether your weight is a dealbreaker before you invest a lot of time in things. Yes, some people won't email you back. But they're not the ones you want to be emailing! You deserve a good guy *who's into you* - the search sucks, so don't allow your time to be wasted by assholes who can't get past dress size.
Oh, my dear, I totally understand. Let me just echo what a couple of the other posters have already said: You ARE fabulous! Right now, at whatever weight you're at, you are a goddess. And you absolutely should not settle. The man who deserves you will appreciate you for the goddess you are - a REAL woman, not an airbrushed fake in a magazine, and simply not thin, but ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!
I also agree with the poster who said to date like a man. This guy right now isn't even someone you know, so what he thinks of your appearance when he meets you doesn't matter very much in your fabulous life. So I say don't give the power of life and death to a stranger when it comes to how you feel about your fabulous self. The fact is that most first dates don't go that well, no matter what people look like. If you approach it as a "nothing ventured, nothing gained" kind of thing, without getting all emotionally invested in it, you'll be able to relax and decide for yourself whether you want to get to know this guy for real. And let him decide for himself if he wants to get to know you; don't try to decide it for him based on your perceived level of fatness.
And I just have to say this, darlin': there's one sure-fire way to make sure he won't just use you for sex. Don't have sex with someone you don't know well enough to judge his intentions. Make him wait, make him want you, make him beg!!! Because you're right, sometimes men do use women for sex, but that's because women let them. If you don't let him, and that's all he wants, you don't want it. Let him get it somewhere else. But if what he wants is you, making him wait will only drive him wild with anticipation over your fabulous goddess self!!
So I say go with option 1. Have fun, relax, enjoy exploring whether YOU want to continue this relationship, and let HIM worry about whether he wants to continue it. In any event, you get to dress up cute for an evening and have fun!
Lots and lots of love and encouragement from one of your devoted fans!
In a post a couple days ago, you said you wore a size 20, long and lean jean. You are not that fat.
jeesh, you're making yourself bigger than you really are.
really, size 20 isn't that big.
Anon Above,
that was emily and this is lindsey. right? am I wrong?
- AnaBell said...
I'm always baffled by the fatter-then-thou thing. If she says she's fat, she's fat. Period. Your perception is your reality (or something to that effect).
I say go with 1. If it doens't turn out ok you'll always can make him into an entry (that's the blogger's way of life, didn't ya know?)
Kate and Alice obviously have their hearts in the right place, but sexual attraction is not just about finding someone intelligent and funny, even for women. If I had wanted to sleep with every intelligent and/or funny guy I had ever met I would be in serious trouble by now. There has to be that instinctive, internal "yes" to someone's appearance to make you want to sleep with them. You will never find out whether that exists (on either side) unless you meet him. Of course it's a risk. The majority of men, for whatever reason, don't find fat women sexually attractive. That doesn't necessarily make them assholes, it just means they aren't wired that way. Having said that, it isn't necessary to fit the "Madison Avenue/Rodeo Drive stereotype" either. Why is this always posited as the alternative to being extremely fat? Most of us are curvy rather than skinny, and we get by just fine.
And I wouldn't ask this if your recent posts hadn't been so heartrending: but honestly, if the price you have to pay for private takeout binges or unrestricted access to high-calorie food is to be miserable for such a lot of the time, not to be able to wear the clothes you want, to avoid seeing family and friends (let alone dating) and generally living a half-life, is it really worth it?
- Kate said...
That "internal yes" isn't always instantaneous.
I've known plenty of gorgeous men I wouldn't sleep with for anything because they are total sphincters. I've also know men I didn't even notice at first who, upon getting to know, I think are extremely attractive.
Option 1; I agree with what seems to be the majority, here.
The other thing I wanted to say, as a fat* chick who is currently seeing two extremely nice guys she can't really decide between -- things are very mutable. One of these guys was from an online dating scenario, and said upfront before we even met for coffee that he was into it for friendship only, and that that was because of not being attracted to me. Nonetheless, we are slowly and carefully working our way towards a possible relationship, and there's a very hot, real connection there.
The other guy illustrates a different point: I also thought that men who were actively INTO larger women were creepy and fetishy and weird. But not all of them are, at all. I met the other guy I'm seeing at a BBW dance that I went to with a friend, almost for anthropological purposes... to see what that scene was like, from a position of total ignorance. And the guy I met... he's incredibly sweet, and hella fun to spend time with, and the sex is great, and he appreciates me the way I am. He's gotten a lot of shit about his tastes, too, his whole life, but he's out about it, and he is the farthest thing in the world from creepy.
Experiment; look around. Also, I totally agree with the commenter who pointed to The Tao of Steve, which is a hilarious movie and an interesting idea. I conceive of it as manifesting abundance: if you have a lot of options, you're not too heavily dependent on ONE, and you feel less needy and seem more confident.
*And by fat I mean I range from a size 24 on top to a 26/28 on bottom; I ain't small.
Anything but #1!! Being fat IS very relevant to physical attraction. How would you feel if you met and he was 4 ft 5 inches tall, but was just hoping for the best in case you didn't mind extremely short men?
If he doesn't mind fat, then honesty and full length photos won't hurt a bit. If he does, then you're not going to get anywhere anyway - his first impression will be "she tricked me".
- Denise said...
Get a friend to take a full length photo of you and then email him asking that he do the same. (You deserve to see who YOU are talking to, too.) Some men love large women, some men aren't attacted to large women, and some men don't care either way and look at the character of the woman they're interested in instead - don't you want to know which category he's in before you invest in him any further?
- Lisa said...
Just meet him! I married my match.com guy 4 years ago at close to my highest weight. If there is ANY mental connection meet as soon as possible. Either one of you won't be attracted to the other (you never know, you might not be attracted to HIM). Or it will go well. You don't want to get mentally invested just to be disappointed. I know people who emailed for MONTHS thinking "this is the one" only to meet and be devastated that it didn't work out. Good luck!
I think you can be a *catch* at any size. We allow our skin to betray our soul, and you are so much more than your skin. There are men who not only will recognize that, but celebrate it with you.
That said, how can you expect a man to like you when you don't like yourself?
Set the example! Love yourself, pamper yourself, recognize your value! Do that and everything else will fall into place.
- Heather said...
lisa...you've given me hope!!!! And maybe, just maybe, I'll renew my Match subscription!
Actually, I am talking with a guy that I met on Match. So far we seem to click. The F2F is only a few days away. For once I am not nervous.
Um, I know not much about this, having not dated many people other than my husband, but I have many close guy friends, and this is my impression:
Most straight men do not have a strong "type" (even if they think they do!) and most will actually find a wide range of women attractive. What they generally don't like is girls who keep talking about how much they dislike some aspect of themselves.
I used to moan about my weight to my husband (then boyfriend) and also about the shape of my nose. Eventually I realized that he found this really off-putting and upsetting. So... I don't talk about it to him any more. After all, it's kind of an insult to his taste!
In some ways this sucks, because I have to pretend I like every aspect of my appearance, BUT ONLY TO HIM. I can still talk about it with my sister or my girlfriends.
Most of my friends have dated a variety of girls - thin, fat, conventionally pretty or totally ordinary - and of the ones who have settled down, they didn't usually end up with the prettiest. They ended up with the one whose personality meshed with theirs. I'm not saying being gorgeous doesn't get you attention at first, but it doesn't mean you can hold that attention.
I'd go for #1 is what I'm saying. Good luck.
If you found someone in real life and not online it might help. Then they'd see your physical appearance immediately and you wouldn't be anxious about what they might think. Plenty of large women get dates.
I don't agree with people above who say men don't want to date fat chicks. Some don't care what a woman weighs, and some like a larger woman. Back when I was a smut writer there were a lot of straight smut stories (NOT fat fetish stories) where the women of desire were described as over 200 lbs, which indicates to me a lot of men don't find weight to be much of an issue. You never know.
Personally, I don't recommend meeting a guy from online on a blind date. Many men are used to 120 pound women calling themselves "fat" because of self-esteem issues. I'd recommend sending him a photo before meeting him then go with #2.
- jen said...
Maybe he's fat too. Everyone seems to ignore the fact that not all guys look like Brad Pitt either, and some of them manage to get dates. This baloney about men being "wired" to go for looks is baloney -- anyone who's been around teenaged girls knows that they are plenty into looks too, until they learn that it's not acceptable. I think that women should be as honest about the physical aspect of their attraction as men are. Exchanging photos is a good idea anyway, otherwise how are you going to know who he is when you meet?
I do agree with the people who said that if you are going to be apologizing for yourself all the time, then you probably should go with option #3. Acting like you're not good enough for a guy tends to bring out his inner sadistic jerk, even if he's nice, and if he's not nice, look out.
Go with #1. You never know who you'll be attracted to until you go for it. Case in point...
I like big guys in all senses of the word. Tall, bellys, broad, fat, etc...b/c the truth is I'm both attracted to that AND I'm attracted to people who are bigger than me and as such, make me feel smaller. (Fucked up as it may be, it's the truth)
So, whenever I did online dating I always put height requirements of at least a few inches taller than me. And then, I met the guy I'm currently dating and he's an inch or two shorter than I am. And had I seen him online I would have never gone out with him b/c he's shorter than me. But I met him at a wedding, in person, met his friends and...4 months later we're still doing our thing. He's stocky though which gives me comfort. Although my friend is currently dating a guy an inch or two shorter than her and like 40 lbs less than her, so all sorts of things happen.
So, I've managed to get over my body issues with him, although I still haven't worn heels around him. What I haven't managed to get over, is the fact that he isn't a Jew. Eek!!! Ain't nothing gonna change that.
i'm rootin' for you hon.
you're awesome. if he can't see that, then fuck him!
You can't blame someone for not being attracted to you.
Please please PLEASE just go out with him! Warning him over again that you're fat just makes you seem insecure and ashamed of your weight-- which will a) turn him off, because if he's a cool guy then he'll want a cool, confident girl, or b) if he's a sleazy loser he'll see you as fresh meat and treat you badly, thinking he can get away with it because you have no self esteem and will just take it. As for the third option, I know where you're coming from. I'm about 230 lbs, dating someone about 170, and I kept telling myself that there was no way he'd see me naked until I'd lost like 50 pounds. We've been together for 3 1/2 years now, and needless to say, we've slept together bunches of times, with the lights on, and I have gained weight, if anything. So you have to just accept yourself the way you are, and move on with your love life as though you'll never lose any weight (though who knows, you could). Eventually you'll meet a guy who's into you for you, because you sound pretty snazzy, and you'll happily ever after. But please, for all our sakes, don't act on your impulses and scare him off with too much fatty talk. In the meantime, charm him with your wit and grace, until he's so enchanted that he won't be able to see you as anything but beautiful. And whatever you do, oooooze confidence! It's sexy!
Oh hi, I just posted, but I wanted to make another suggestion. If you reallllly want to gauge his feelings, ask to exchange pictures, "so you'll know who you're looking for." But make sure you get his pic in return, or it'll still seem like a "look how fat I am, are you sure you still want to meet me" thing.
- DietQueen said...
This hurts. A co-worker/friend wanted me to meet a guy her husband worked with. I really didn't want to but I agreed to. So my boss/friend and myself went to her house where he didn't show. He called however, and asked to talk to me. He apologized for not being there and then said "Phil said you were a big girl". How did he expect me to respond to that? I don't even remember how I responded but sitting at that table with my friends I felt ashamed and on the verge of tears. Even though they did not hear the conversation I felt like they had. I acted as if nothing had been said on the phone and continued on with the visit, trying to act like I was ok. That was one of the worse nights of my life. The funny thing is I didn't want to meet him. Yet he made me feel bad. At the time I was very much in love with another man who didn't love me, but I wasn't interested in anyone else. I did later meet this man at (during one of my skinny years)a football game, he suddenly was very interested and it gave me great pleasure to tell him that I was married and then I didn't even look his way the rest of the evening. I'm not sure why I'm writing this but your post brought this memory to mind. My husband met me when I was big, he has been through fat and thin, health and illness with me. I thought I would forever be by myself but now I know that I will be with my husband until I die. We are friends and we love each other more and more every year. So whatever happens remember if it could happen to me it could happen to you. You will find the right person for you. Sorry such a long comment I just felt the need to tell you this story of mine.
As a fat girl who dated on match.com like it was my job last spring, I have to say, I was surprised by how many men were not bothered by my weight. I'm a size 18 and I list myself as "full-figured" with face only shots. My weight was never the topic of discussion on any of my dates. I eventually met someone I clicked with, a non-fat guy who normally dates thin girls and we dated for several months before ending it last month. I guess I'm telling you this to say go for #1, you might be surprised by how not a big deal your weight can be. Last spring gave me a lot more confidence than I've had in years. Pick and choose girl!
NO ONE needs to "look past" your fat.
Secondly, tell him what you want to tell him. It doesn't sound stupid, because that is the truth that lives in your soul.
Also, do you think he is worrying that much about disappointing you? That man is living in the euphoria of your possibility, he is not that worried. Do not do his worrying for him.
In addition, how much do you know about him? If you are considering meeting, make sure you have his name and phone number and talk to him if you have not. (Hit *67 and he won't be able to see your home number when you call.) Lastly, take that phone number and invest in a simple background check online - for your peace of mind and ours.
You are a fat girl. No one knows what that feels like more than we do. No one understands our relationships as fat girls to men as we do. And you are not crazy - all your concerns are grounded in reality. But you deserve love and tenderness, and I hope you can find the courage to close your eyes, take a breath and let go. I promise the fall will not be as bad as you think it will be. He might be the one who experiences you as the person you feel you are inside. You know what I mean. I know you won't settle. (Just take an educated leap of faith.)
You are so much more attractive than you give yourself credit for.
he probably thinks that you are just saying your fat, because all girls, even skinny ass girls say "I'm fat". So he won't really know until he sees you.
- Thora said...
Men are visual. There are no two ways about it. They either like what they see, or they don't.
Send a full length picture and stop obsessing. If he decides that he's not interested, then that saves you both some time. Better to get everything out now than have an awkward situation later.
I once replied to an ad where the guy was at pains to say he thought size was no barrier to attractiveness or love. We had plenty in common and he was really keen on meeting up but when I told him that his view on size was one of the things which had made me respond to his ad, he started backpeddling like mad. Before long it became apparent that he did, in fact, consider size a major turn-off and had willfully misrepresented himself because he thought it made him sound kinder and less shallow than he actually was! He still wanted to meet with me just in case my size proved not to be turn-off. I told him I wasn't willing to be appraised solely on the basis of my body, least of all by a liar.
Ms McGee, while I can understand how tempting it may be to opt for #2 , you have told the guy you're fat already – and, without a photograph, (definitely a good suggestion for any future online dating, if only to weed out the fatphobes ahead of time), he'll interpret that in his own individual way regardless of whether you bring it up again or not. For all you know he might be envisioning you at precisely the weight you are and you telling him, "No, I'm really, really, really fat" could well make him think you look like Gilbert Grape's mum. Which you don't. Go for #1.
As for all this Tao Of Steve malarkey, personally I think finding three agreeable prospects per se, let alone at all times, is a pretty tall order, not least if you're picky and/or find blind dating quite stressful. But I do think you should put the breaks on your own romantic hopes and try to concentrate more on what you might think of him when you meet, rather than what he might think of you. Much as I loathe self-help books, I do think Elizabeth Wurtzel was onto something with The Bitch Rules.
Lastly,Diet Queen, big hug! What a spineless, immature arsehole though, who couldn't even summon the common courtesey to attend a dinner engagement with a group of friends. He wasn't just rude to you, he was rude to them and it's a shame you didn't tell them what he said to you. I doubt they'd have looked at him in a kindly light after that.
I don't understand why you are focusing so much on dating?
Why aren't you focusing on taking care of YOU instead of giving a shit about some guy.
Look, are you really happy binging and watching your body balloon and blogging about binging and ballooning? Are you? Really?
Why don't you make a promise to SWEAT in gym three nights a week and go to weight watchers meeting ONCE a week until New Years. And swear off dating sites till then. You may just meet someone naturally that way.
Anonymous 9:48 loves alliteration.
So it would appear. B also stands for bullying, which it would appear Anonymous also likes.
Newsflash, girls! Anonymous says that you can only meet nice people and have a relationship if you join a gym and go to Weight Watchers meetings!
I better dump the boyfriend right now before he hears about that one.
Hi, Girls
Im just wanting to put it out there....maybe he's insecure about something with himself.
I have some male friends, and they are just as insecure about themselves, as we women are...maybe more.
He could be worried about what you think of him!~ maybe a bald spot, he's short, etc etc.
Whatever the case, I think it would be good to exchange photos.
I wouldn't talk to him too much about being fat tho. be diplomatic about it.
I think #1 idea is good, however it could be very hurtful if he decides he doesn't like you for whatever reason.
PS: You are fabulous! You will meet the man of your dreams one day, and don't let any feelings of potential rejection stop you from enjoying your life.
rhetorical question: if some people out there hate fat people so badly that they feel the need to put us down soley based on our weight, why are they wasting their time reading a fat blog? why would you actively seek out places that people you hate are "gathered?" if you hate fat people so much, stop coming here. and for crissake, stop commenting just to hurt. you talk about us needing to better ourselves physically when you ought to spend that time bettering yourself emotionally. it's a shame when someone has to put another person down to feel good about themselves. while we're in the gym, maybe you should check out a good therapist.
I love this blog and reading what most people have to say, but the playground bullying is getting to be too much.
1) Send a picture. You HAVE to give someone an idea what you look like if you're meeting from an online dating site.
Seriously, if you meet him and you see a look of disappointment and disgust on his face because he thinks you weigh 150, and you're 250, you only have yourself to blame. (I'm not saying that he will be disgusted or that fat women are disgusting, but that this is a possibility based on the other woman's testimony).
Sending a picture can only help. If he doesn't want to meet you, at least you won't have to face in person humiliation. And if he still likes you, you know he doesn't care that much about appearances.
And if he doesn't like you, that doesn't make him a jerk. No woman here would date any man whose personality they liked regardless of what they looked like (or very, very few). Everyone has something that is a turn-off. For many people, it is obesity. I don't think that is necessarily a prejudice - you can't always help what you are attracted to, and seriously, if a guy likes fat women and doesn't want to admit it, you wouldn't want to be with someone like that, anyway.
buffpuff, anyone who believes that ANY size is irrelevant to compatibility is a moron. Is he seriously contemplating a relationship with someone who weights 600lbs?
Also, "fatphobe" is quite disingenuous: I am not phobic towards fat women, I just don't find them attractive. I don't find gay men attractive either, but that does not make me a "homophobe".
Anonymous 7.31: I don't think the lying git in question was even contemplating meeting any 600lb women, since they are somewhat rare in the UK. Just for the record I don't look like Gilbert Grape's ma either. I'm more of your pocket-Willendorf Venus.
What became apparent during our conversation was that he wanted a slim girlfriend, having said he was open-minded about size and physical appearance in general because he didn't think one could or should be prescriptive about matters of attraction. Since I myself agree with this, finding myself attracted to a very wide variety of physical types over the years, and happen to be fat and quite politicised about it, I thought he sounded pretty cool.
And for a fine example of a fatphobe I suggest you take another dekko at dietqueen's tale of woe; a man who boycotted a dinner date with friends and colleagues because he'd been told the single girl attending was "a big girl".
Anonymous at 4.26, (for all I know the same anonymous as above. It would be so helpful to have some means by which to tell you people apart): condescending much?
...if he still likes you, you know he doesn't care that much about appearances
Or it might simply mean he finds her attractive, fat and all.
Society doesn't make it easy for a man who is attracted to fat women to be out and proud about it. By excluding those who might be a little backward in coming forward you're not leaving her very much scope are you? And as for...
...if you meet him and you see a look of disappointment and disgust on his face because he thinks you weigh 150, and you're 250, you only have yourself to blame
I don't think anyone's "to blame" - either for conjuring up a picture that isn't representative or for failing to conform to it. I've had dates where chemistry was lacking on one side, another or both, and have never been greeted with an overt expression of disgust or disappointment. Perhaps you're projecting?
- mariabellissima said...
Dear Fabulous,
Okay I do the online dating thing ALL the time myself, and I hate when it comes to explaining you're fat. I obviously agree with the 2093843 people that said to send a full length picture, but when the guy compliments me on my looks, i kind of slip in "you don't mind that im a bigger girl?" I think it works well because you know skinny ass girls who call themselves "fat" would never refer to themselves as a big girl. Only bonafide big girls do such a thing. Good luck, and keep us posted!
I'm the "Alliteration-loving" poster above, and yes, I'm fat, and no, I'm not a bully.
Why do the fat acceptance police try so hard to censor thought on this blog? Are you not allowed to see a young woman in pain and suggest she take steps to heal HERSELF before worrying about what some random dude on jdate thinks of her body? Do you read this blog and honestly think her body makes her happy right now? Do you think pannus-obsessing and sizing out of your pants is fun?
You can love yourself at any size, and DEMAND RESPECT at any size, but still NOT LIKE THE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL FEELING of being that size. That is possible, FYI.
Wooh. That's me told.
Actually, Alliterative Anonymous, it may surprise you to learn I agree with your last statement 100% - but since our webmistress was not asking for weight loss advice, merely what she should do in this particular instance, I found the hectoring tone of your post pretty indistinguishable from those of the self-elected Health Police.
I don't know how things are conducted in your universe but, in mine, the response to seeing a fellow human being in pain does not generally involve roaring at them about all their shortcomings and suggesting they SWEAT.
Yeah, how dare anyone suggest that a fat chick actually work up a sweat? The nerve!
If Fatty McGee spent half the energy that she currently spends on blogging and bingeing on actually losing weight and getting healthy, she'd feel a whole lot better about herself. Instead of worrying what some complete stranger thinks of her weight, she'd be wondering whether HE was good enough for HER!
I've been obese and - trust me - life's a whole lot better when you're thin!
- Kate said...
There's none so virtuous as a reformed whore...
That's very true, Kate! LOL!
I hazte how people thing "losing weight" and "being healthy" go hand-in-hand. I'm sure all of those anorexics are in great health. Really.
Why would I be projecting? I'm not fat, and I don't meet people for dating online. I go to college, so I don't have to.
Anyway, Buffpuff, you're right. If he doesn't mind her being fat, it might not necessarily mean he doesn't care about appearance. I don't know how to say this without sounding sarcastic, but I forgot that some people find fat attractive.
BUT I do think that in a situation where you're going to meet someone as a potential dating partner, they should know what you look like first. If she doesn't give him a picture, and he is disappointed, she is to blame, because it is common sense to let the person know what you look like beforehand.
In my experience, most good-looking straight men will not date a really obese girl, unless she has an amazing personality. I'm not sure if this is discrimination, but according to the standards of our society, which are not totally arbitrary, obesity is viewed in a negative light. There's always going to be some physical trait viewed as unattractive - in a thousand years, it may be thinnness again, and there might be a "Thin Acceptance" movement. I think it's important not to blame anyone for their physical tastes. Just as she expresses a taste for Jewish men, many, many, many straight men express tastes for thin women. Marginalized groups will always complain.
In response to annonymous 626 - I don't necessarily equate "losing weight" with "being healthy" - I just wanted to make the point that there are other issues at stake here besides having a nice date.
At a size 20, Fatty McGee is obese which means she is at significantly increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, some cancers and other serious health problems.
Personally, I hate it when people react to the suggestion that an obese person lose weight by yelling "Anorexic!"
FFC, I'm not yelling at your suggestion to her to lose weight with screaming "Anorexic!" I'm just stating that losing weight =/= health. "Getting healthy" is one thing, for some people doing that will promote weight loss, in others it won't. Personally, I believe some of the things that may cause obesity in some people - diets with a lot of processed food, sedentary life style, etc. to be more of the cause of health problems like diabetes then the excess fat cells in and of themselves. Joint problems are the only health-related thing I could see stemming from excess weight in and of itself, due to the increased amount of stress on the areas. It's not like fat cells are radioactive.
That's why I said "lose weight AND get healthy" - which implies that the two things are not necessarily the same.
And joint problems are not the only health problem caused by obesity. Any excess weight puts a major strain on the heart, and thus the entire body. You cannot be obese and healthy - if Fatty McGee doesn't have weight-related health problems now, it's only a matter of time.
- byrneout said...
We're all going to die! Die! Die!
Get bent, FFC. McGee has a dating problem right now that she needs to solve right now. "Lose weight" is not practical advice for the problem she asked about.
One more vote for "Here's a picture so you know me when you see me; please send me the same." Get it out of the way now so you don't have to keep fretting about it.
Yeah and after the date, whether it goes well or not, McGee will still be obese and unhealthy.
As several posters have already pointed out, she should be focusing on the real issue at hand here - and it's not what some complete stranger thinks of her.
As several posters have already pointed out, she should be focusing on the real issue at hand here - and it's not what some complete stranger thinks of her
You're so right, formerfatchick, she should be concentrating on the real issue here, which is what to do about her date - rather than what some moralising nobody thinks she should be doing about her weight.
Go and eat another cheesecake - it wil make you feel better about yourself.
I feel perfectly fine about myself without, thanks. But feel free to make impudent assumptions about my diet and self-image if that's what floats your boat.
Alliteration poster here again.
Imagine you had a hair growth problem. You had thick hair growing in a beard-like pattern on your face. You are scared your online boyfriend will not like it if he meets you.
Friend A says to you, "If he doesn't like your beard, he doesn't deserve you! Send him a face shot and fuck him if he doesn't like your beard! He doesn't respect you if he doesn't like all of you. Beard power."
Friend B says, "Honey .. forget this guy for a minute and let's work on losing the fucking beard. Let's go online together and find a good electrolyst who works in area. Whatever the money, it's worth it, cause this beard isn't doing you any favors. You first, men second."
Which one would you want as a friend? Which one sounds most like your mom or like your closest friend? Friend B, right? Friend A pretends to care about you but really only cares about enlisting more troops in the Beard Power movement.
Alliterative anon...what if the beard doesn't go away? What if your friend spends thousands of dollars and hours of her time at the electrolyst's, and it grows right back? Do you then say, "Wow, I guess you're never going to be good enough. Let's pray for the day when science develops a pill that'll get rid of that awful beard, and until then, you're not worthy of love." ?
That's not rhetorical. I really want to know.
Alliteration poster - I'm totally with you!
Anonymous at 10.59 - that is a false analogy. If Fatty loses weight, the fat "will only grow right back" if she lets it. The hardest part of losing a massive amount of weight is sucking it up and actually getting started. And yeah, in order to maintain the weight loss, you need to follow a healthy regime of diet and exercise for the rest of your life. But that's a hell of a better lifestyle than the pain I see in Fatty's blog. I read it and just want to cry because I used to be her.
And I guess if I get right down to it, I don't feel like I am ever going to find a loving normal relationship at this weight, so I sabotage myself. Past experience tells me I am correct to do so. But if I keep doing it, then nothing will ever change.
That's so sad. And it's a cry for help. Fatty needs some tough love and real help right now, not a bunch of Fat Acceptance chicks who enable her obesity because it's easier than facing up to what they need to do to get their lives on track.
- Kate said...
FFC - I've lived phycially starved (which is what it takes for me to get and stay slim) and emotionally starved. I'll take the latter over the former any day of the week.
Please stop assuming that the whole world should embrace your priorities. One size does not fit all.
Oh joy. Tough love and enablement in the same sentence. We either have a Twelve Stepper in the house or someone who reads a shitload of self help books.
You know what I think is sad, FFC? Self-loathing. I could tell you how it pains me, as a fat acceptance advocate, that you couldn't love your previously fat self; how it wounds me that you've allowed yourself to be diminished by cultural brainwashing; how wretched I feel on your behalf that you'll be dieting for the rest of forever. I could even suggest that you come back and criticise my politics when you've dropped the diet, returned to devouring whole cheesecakes, (well I can't imagine where you would have gotten the idea that that's what other fat people do if it wasn't borne out by personal experience), and your arse is once again the size of Estonia. But that would be patronising and rude and, besides, I don't actually care.
Nobody comes here for diet advice or health lectures. Furthermore many of us fat acceptance types have our lives on track just fine. Do us all a favour and take your missionary zeal and your new best alliterating friend and tell it to people who want to hear it.
Oh joy. Tough love and enablement in the same sentence. We either have a Twelve Stepper in the house or someone who reads a shitload of self help books.
You know what I think is sad, FFC? Self-loathing. I could tell you how it pains me, as a fat acceptance advocate, that you couldn't love your previously fat self; how it wounds me that you've allowed yourself to be diminished by cultural brainwashing; how wretched I feel on your behalf that you'll be dieting for the rest of forever. I could even suggest that you come back and criticise my politics when you've dropped the diet, returned to devouring whole cheesecakes, (well I can't imagine where you would have gotten the idea that that's what other fat people do if it wasn't borne out by personal experience), and your arse is once again the size of Estonia. But that would be patronising and rude and, besides, I don't actually care.
Nobody comes here for diet advice or health lectures. Furthermore many of us fat acceptance types have our lives on track just fine. Do us all a favour and take your missionary zeal and your new best alliterating friend and tell it to people who want to hear it.
buffpuff - thanks for answering my question about whether your name means "buff" or merely "puffy".
And just so we're clear, I'm not a 12 Stepper, I've never read a self-help book in my life, nor have I ever eaten an entire cheesecake. Oh, and I'm not on a "diet". I work out and maintain my weight/bodyfat % just fine on 2,200 calories a day. (Just in case you don't know, when you eat only healthy food, that's a lot of food.)
I'm just glad that I don't live in the US, because my taxes would be paying for the inevitable health care costs of your "politics".
Kate - I had a look at your blog. Do you seriously expect people to believe that you had to work out 10-12 hours a day to keep your weight down? Come on - even professional athletes only train for 5-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Either you're lying, or your workouts were highly ineffective.
Hey, formerfatchick who knows it all, I believe it. I was training anywhere from 3-7 hours a day, and that's what it took to keep my weight down, and I have the broken bones to prove it. Boy, it must be swell to be an expert on everyone else's life and everyone else's health and everyone else's physical needs, and to have all the answers for everyone. Why don't you claim your Nobel Prize now, and let the rest of the scientific world go on a vacation? I guess all the rest of the Diet Machinery can just disband, now that you're on the scene with all the answers. Thank you, thank you, for so generously sharing that information with us, and for being hardly snide and rude and supercilious at all!
Dolley - I may not have all the answers, but at least I don't eat an apple croissant every day, then wonder why I'm gaining weight!
buffpuff - I forgot to add..
And I guess if I get right down to it, I don't feel like I am ever going to find a loving normal relationship at this weight, so I sabotage myself. Past experience tells me I am correct to do so. But if I keep doing it, then nothing will ever change.
Somehow, that doesn't sound like someone who has their "life on track just fine" to me.
I'll go away now and leave you fat chicks - I'm sorry, Fat Acceptance Advocates - alone in your own sad little corner of the net. Have fun!
you know to get back to the post at hand, I'm gonna play armchair psychologist for a sec.
You may simply just be spoiled, Fatty McGee.
you may must want to be able to eat whatever you want, lie around and not move as much as you want, and you also want a Jeremy Piven lookalike Nice Jewish Boy with Edge to wanna fuck you.
Maybe you're like a little kid who doesn't want to grow up?
"We despise in others what we despise in ourselves."
I think formerfatchick is a boy.
I have a linguistics expert for a close friend - girls don't generally talk like that.
Not everyone who has been fat and is now thin despises or hates fatness or fat people. If I could have coped physically with weighing 200 pounds (at 5 feet 2) I would happily have stayed that way. But I couldn't even walk comfortably, let alone work out, so restricted eating was the only option for me. Now I am less fat, though still not thin, but at least I can walk a few miles a day and climb stairs without feeling as if I am going to die. I envy Kate and Buffpuff for being stronger. But FMcG can't cope emotionally with being fat (I say this based on her reluctance to see family and friends and her dread of rejection by her date). Being told, even with the best possible motives, that she should not have a problem just isn't addressing her particular issue. Maybe she will never be able to accept herself at her present weight. If weight loss, however moderate and careful, could help her, why should that be the one option she isn't allowed to consider? Is it somehow wrong to support fat people who need, for whatever reason, to reduce their fatness? BTW, I totally endorse Buffpuff's recommendation of The Bitch Rules - a stupid title, but a brilliant little book.
formerfatchick, I wasn't wondering - I KNOW that's what put the weight on. That's 250 calories a day, and it counts as a meal for me, you sanctimonious supercilious snot. It's not empty calories - the apple is not just because I like apples, but for the Vitamin C and the roughage. Just to clue you in, since you seem to be so sure that the rest of us aren't working out and overindulging, my average weekday diet consists of:
4:00 a.m., at home: bowl (standard box measure of 1 cup) of Honey Nut Cheerios, with 2% milk
Work out from 6:30-8:30 at the gym (unless I'm at my desk by 6:30, in which case I work out at home in the evening)
9:00 a.m. - one apple croissant; maybe two, at work
3:00 - plain croissant at work; sometimes I have a hot dog instead
9:00/10:00 p.m., when I get home:
It depends. Sometimes it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat. Sometimes it's a slice and a half of pizza (mushroom and green pepper), or a bowl (1 cup, not a serving bowl) of pork-fried rice. Sometimes I'll have milk with dinner; usually I'll have Diet Coke.
And you can take your supercilious know-it-all attitude, sprinkle it with Sweet 'N Low, and shove it up your ass, because there really isn't an awful lot of room to cut down on my average daily diet.
Does it vary? Sure it does, sometimes. Over the past year, I've had eight donuts. Over the past year. Usually if I have sugar, it'll be an apple, or a peach, or a banana.
Is my diet balanced? No, not particularly, but it is what it is. And it's not some friggin' eternal buffet, which is what you seem to think.
Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
formerfatchick, I don't see any of the size acceptance advocates on this board telling Fatty McG, "Eat lots of things that are bad for you, and for god's sake don't exercise!" I generally see them saying, "Don't wait until you're thin to live your life and stop hating yourself."
- Undine's Soul said...
Honey, Don't you have a digital camera? Send him a picture. They say they are "worth a thousand words" for a reason. But send him a GREAT picture, one in which you look beautiful. Even if you have to take 100 photos to find one that capture your true beauty. Take 100.
I agree with everyone who said to exchange pics first. It really does take care of getting the "Is he turned off by my fat?" factor out of the way before any humiliating face-to-face encounters.
And dolley, speaking as a fellow fatty, I can totally relate to how pissed you might be at some of the puerile comments posted here enough to outline your daily intake here. But in my opinion, I would be DAMNED if I went that far to dignify their comments!
What I eat is my fucking business; I don't need to prove to ANYBODY my worthiness as a person by showing how good or bad my eating habits are. Whether I eat bean sprouts and Evian all day or mainline Krispy Kremes should not determine the validity of my experiences as a fat person (and the shit I go through for being one!), and if some idiot wants to do so, fuck them and the time they wasted visiting this blog! I refuse to validate their right to make assumptions by trying to prove them wrong; it's likely they will neither believe nor care what I have to say.
All that being said, I wanted to also say that I love this blog! I never thought I'd find anyone who could relate to my life as a fat girl in a thin world, and when I found this place, I felt like I found my real long-lost sisters, so rock on girls--you're both my sheroes! :)
This blog is freaking hilarious! Now we have some chick who lives on high GI processed carbs all day defending her diet!
Oops - I'm sorry. You girls don't want nutritional advice. You'd rather eat all kinds of processed crap and blame your obesity on your "genetics" than take the trouble to learn about eating healthy.
Thanks for the laugh!
I forgot to add - Dolley, if you really want vitamin C and roughage you could eat a raw apple. You don't need to have it cooked and wrapped up in a croissant.
- Kate said...
You girls don't want nutritional advice. You'd rather eat all kinds of processed crap and blame your obesity on your "genetics" than take the trouble to learn about eating healthy.
What we "girls" really want is to live a life in which how and what we eat and how (or whether) we exercise is:
A) Not assumed because of our sizes by people who don't even know us
B) Not the basis on which our worth as human beings is judged.
I don't know what Siddhartha Gautama's, Einstein's, Ghandi's, Stephen Hawking's or Mother Theresa's diets are/were like, but don't you think that it's irrelevant to their worth as humans?
Likewise, I don't know what Charles Manson, Dennis Rader (the BTK killer), David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, or Jack the Ripper ate, either, but in spite of their physiques, these men are hardly admirable.
What we "girls" really want is to live a life in which how and what we eat and how (or whether) we exercise is:
A) Not assumed because of our sizes by people who don't even know us
B) Not the basis on which our worth as human beings is judged
Yes Kate, I understand that, but it's a fact of life in our society that - unfair as it is - people *do* make those kinds of assumptions about other people based soley on their appearance. You can bang your head against this all you like, but it's the way life is.
As someone who has chosen to go through life obese, you must be aware that you're making your life a whole lot more difficult than it need be.
i lyk 3 hav seks lol w/ boyysw
- Kate said...
Wow, Pam! I never looked at it that way!!!!!
I've seen the light!!!! I'm going to start eating only spinach, green beans, oranges, raw cranberries, unsalted nuts, and tofu, and drinking only distilled water and unsweetened green tea RIGHT NOW. I'm going to spend every moment that I'm not at work or asleep at the gym. WHO KNEW that I could could make my life "easier" by capitualating to bigots and spending my life doing things that I hate to do?
Dolley - I should also add that your diet of highly processed high GI carbs is not only keeping you fat, but also putting you at a high risk of diabetes. I know what I'm talking about, as my mother is a Type 2 diabetic, and - believe me - it's not a fate I'd wish on my worst enemy.
Kate - Well, that would be a start, but you'll need plenty of lean protein as well.
Seriously, I wonder how sarcastic you'll feel when - not if, but when - you develop diabetes, or have a stroke or heart attack? But then, improving your health would be "capitulating to bigots" and we can't have that, can we?
- Kate said...
OK, sarcspasm over.
For the record, other than tofu, which I detest with a white-hot passion, I love all of the foods listed in my previous post. Spinach is one of my absolute favorite foods and doing without it for the past couple of weeks has been a real sacrifice. I do eat more carbs than I should (apparently craving carbs is a symptom of a sluggish thyroid, which I have), and I love milk fats, but don't consume either to the exclusion of healthy foods.
I do realize that losing weight would make my social life, and to a certain extent my professional life, easier; however, it would require me to make time to exercise a great deal more than I do already, which I'll grant isn't really enough to be truly healthy, but I'm far from completely sedentary. It would also take eating three or four meals a day. Something I would have to really work to do. Currently, I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full, (typically a single serving of whatever I'm eating) generally once, and never more than twice, a day.
I could do those things, but why should the target of bigotry be responsible for avoiding its results? The only way unfairness has ever been successfully fought is when enough people get sufficiently fed up and screw up sufficient courage to say "enough."
I don't see myself as a John Wycliffe, a Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs, a Martin Luther, a Martin Luther King, or even a Rosa Parks, whose feet hurt too much to walk all the way to the back of the bus. I do however see myself as a the equivalent to a Montgomery or gay pride marcher.
I'm here; I'm a sphere; get used to it!
"I forgot to add - Dolley, if you really want vitamin C and roughage you could eat a raw apple. You don't need to have it cooked and wrapped up in a croissant."
See, Dolley, don't you just feel all better when Nanny 911 visits and explains that processed apples don't have the nutritional content of fresh apples? I bet that never crossed your mind, huh? I bet you're thanking your lucky stars this self-appointed guidance counselor showed you the light. I hope you're out buying good apples right now and can now be a good girl and learn that you don't NEED an apple that's BAKED and PROCESSED.
What a genius!
I can't wait until transfats are friggin' BANNED in every U.S. city because of busybody nannying worrywarts like you. You mom might appreciate your fussing, but it's more annoying than warts to most of us.
But hey, you just made me crave cheesecake in the worst way, so, before that's banned, I'll go eat one. Just for you ;)
"I can't wait until transfats are friggin' BANNED in every U.S. city because of busybody nannying worrywarts like you."
Ok, whoever wrote that is a complete moron. Trans-fats in packaged carbs don't make them "more delicious," you food-crazed maniac -- they just make muffins, etc. easier and cheaper to produce. So don't worry, you won't miss out on any deliciousness.
Saying you don't want trans-fats banned as an additive is like saying you don't want any other carcinogen banned from your diet.
"I can't wait until transfats are friggin' BANNED in every U.S. city because of busybody nannying worrywarts like you."
Hahahah... I love Americans. Yes, keeping trans-fats in your food is saying no to government intervention.
Kate, I'm glad you at least admit that you don't eat enough and/or frequently enough. Like Dolley said, her day isn't one continuous buffet. Thin people often imagine that fat people pig out all day, when in fact they often don't eat enough calories, thus slowing their metabolism - or like Dolley, eat the kind of food which only sparks the continual release of insulin which can lead to diabetes. (Gee, why didn't anyone pick up on my comments about diabetes? Could it be that people actually took that seriously? Nah - I'm flattering myself. But I digress...)
I could do those things, but why should the target of bigotry be responsible for avoiding its results? The only way unfairness has ever been successfully fought is when enough people get sufficiently fed up and screw up sufficient courage to say "enough."
I do however see myself as a the equivalent to a Montgomery or gay pride marcher. I'm here; I'm a sphere; get used to it!
That's a false analogy and you know it. The difference between you and a gay pride marcher is that gay people don't choose their sexual orientation. You, however - by your own admission - choose to be obese. Big difference.
And hence all the hostility on this blog directed towards fat chicks.
[My post workout apple croissant is] not empty calories - the apple is not just because I like apples, but for the Vitamin C and the roughage.
Oh dear, I haven't eaten enough protein today. I'd better grab a cream cheese danish. Or two.
How does this help Emily or Lindsey decide what to do about her prospective date? IMO the way to go is to forget online dating. How can you really get to know anyone from e-mails? Two of the creepiest guys I ever worked with used to boast about their online relationships, and believe me you wouldn't have wanted to be in the same room with either of them from choice. Get out there, meet as many people as possible, join a group of some sort if you aren't comfortable alone. Go where you can be seen, and engage with real people and not avatars. Try and be patient. Enjoy your life as it is, and don't overvalue romance at the expense of friendship. Someone out there will love you just the way you are. And if you go for him too that's all it takes. But you'll never meet him if you keep hiding away.
That's a false analogy and you know it. The difference between you and a gay pride marcher is that gay people don't choose their sexual orientation. You, however - by your own admission - choose to be obese. Big difference.
And hence all the hostility on this blog directed towards fat chicks.
Actually, if they really wanted to, gay people could just bang the opposite sex if they wanted to avoid bigotry. Or black people could just get their skin bleached.
"Actually, if they really wanted to, gay people could just bang the opposite sex if they wanted to avoid bigotry. Or black people could just get their skin bleached."
That is a massive insult to the legacy of civil rights movement, you smug self-satisfied lunatic.
You should be ashamed of yourself for writing that. I am dead serious.
I can't believe we've reached the point where overweight educated middle-class white women have managed to convince themselves that cramming apple danish into their face and refusing to get off their behinds is somehow an act of noble defiance against discrimination. Just admit you don't feel like dieting/working out.
You should be ashamed of yourself for writing that. I am dead serious.
Honey, you haven't even seen me get started about those damn Jews.
How does this help Emily or Lindsey decide what to do about her prospective date? IMO the way to go is to forget online dating. How can you really get to know anyone from e-mails? Two of the creepiest guys I ever worked with used to boast about their online relationships, and believe me you wouldn't have wanted to be in the same room with either of them from choice. Get out there, meet as many people as possible, join a group of some sort if you aren't comfortable alone. Go where you can be seen, and engage with real people and not avatars. Try and be patient. Enjoy your life as it is, and don't overvalue romance at the expense of friendship. Someone out there will love you just the way you are. And if you go for him too that's all it takes. But you'll never meet him if you keep hiding away.
That all makes perfect sense, Anonymous @7.27 - until you realise that Emily and Lindsey HAVE to go the online dating route. They "meet" men online hoping to win them over with their intelligence and great personalities, then worry about whether their prospective dates will be turned off by their fat - hence all the angst in the very blog entry we're discussing. Whereas if they met men in the flesh first, the guys would get turned off immediately and they wouldn't have the opportunity to win them over. We're superficial - we make the decision whether or not to even talk to someone based on how attractive we find them. It's all very well to say "Someone out there will love you just the way you are," but if - through your own greed and sloth - you're turning off 98% of the male population, you're stacking the odds against you.
I think formerfatchick is a boy.
I have a linguistics expert for a close friend - girls don't generally talk like that.
littlem, I hope your "linguistic expert" friend can get their tuition fees back because I'm a woman and always have been.
Are you so threatened by my experience of having been morbidly obese and losing all the extra weight (and just in case you're wondering, there was no surgery involved) that you decided I must be a fraud? Is my experience that threatening to you?
You are pathetic.
You know, I'm going to take a little time out here from the flame-throwing and be honest for a second.
All you wacky Fat Acceptance chicks-- I honestly truly appreciate you. As a fattie myself, I am really glad you are out there flaming up the internet, protesting sizism, etc. I'm truly glad that some women of size have said "FUCK THIS. I want the fat joke to go the way of the gay joke. I really, really do." And I am impressed by your willingness to drink the kool aid and tell everyone "diets don't work."
HOWEVER. HOWEVER. I will never be one of you, and will keep struggling to lose weight. Because you are fighting a battle that isn't really worth winning. Being fat sucks. It would still suck if everyone was really, really nice to fat people.
If you can make the fat jokes and insults disappear, that would be wonderful. But you still aren't going to rewire men's brains into finding obese people attractive. It ain't happening.
So keep on fighting on the internet. I for one am going to the gym.
formerfatchick is obviously full of hate and possibly (as someone else suggested) self-hate. Poor girl.
One can be thin and support fat-acceptance. And fat and be a fat-hater. The issue of fat is exagerrated by soceity but it's really all about a personal and relative issue for a fat person. There are fat people who are happy! And thin ones who are bitter and pathetic (ffg for one!). Let's not simplify things that are so complicated and individual! Also, anonymous 12:22pm, If all men think that fat women are unattractive, who are all those guys with fat chicks that I see every day at the grocery store, the mall, the streets, just life, who are those guys? Those are not the miniscule part of a minority group that does like fat women, those guys are the norm. If you're missing out on life because you're fat, many many fat women out there are not, just look around you.
formerfatchick is obviously full of hate and possibly (as someone else suggested) self-hate. Poor girl.
Yeah, life really sucks when you're a size 4-6. I cry myself to sleep every night. Transforming myself from a morbidly obese tub of lard to a thin chick has made me full of hate and self-loathing. Oh please!
fifi - You know who I really hate? Not fat people per se, but fat people who are totally deluded and full of BS. Who compare themselves to gay rights activists. Who justify eating apple danishes all day. And who hate former fat chicks because they've got more grit, determination and self-control in their little finger than they'll ever have in their entire plus-sized bodies.
anonymous 12:22pm - I applaud you. You see life for what it is, you see yourself for what you are and you're going to change the only thing you can - not society but yourself. With your attitude you're bound to be successful!
Like I said, you are indeed full of hate. Even with your supposed weight loss. You're are so obviously twisting things around to suit and justify your completely unfounded hatred towards fatness. Let me ask you this, what give you the right to meddle into other people's business??? Who are you to tell people that they should not eat an apple danish? Really, who the hell are you?? What makes you think that you are so superior and different from the rest of us? Reality check: You're just like the rest of us, except that you are probably angrier and you have focused your obsessions to other things, "health food" and staying thin. Poor, poor thing.
You have issues. Anger issues. No longer the fat girl, but the bitter girl. Nice. Btw, what did you do with all that extra skin? Is it hanging off of you or did have it surgically removed? After all that weight loss your skin most likely hangs on you as if you're melting, maybe that's why you're so angry....
The problem with formerfatchick is that she sees the weightloss as an act of superior moral. I think it would've been better if spent your fucking time helping those who really needed it, like, say, the poor? Orphans? Natural disaster victims? You may be able to fit into a smaller dress size now, but that is no feet of moral. Get your head out of your ass and stop acting prideful.
I, for one, have much more respect for the fat people who work to make the world a better place then these skinny bitches who sit on their asses and do nothing but self-loath and try to make other people self-loath with them. Screw you.
Anonymous at 9.48, you are a fine one to bandy about words like smug and self-satisfied. And you may dip your spurious bleeding-heart Liberal schtick in wasabi and shove it up your sanctimonious sphincter.
I can't believe society has reached such an all-time, bucket-scraping low that a simple physical characteristic has become so synonymous with moral laxity, (among other equally negative, random human traits), that self-righteous strangers feel it's their God-given right/duty to insult us for our own good. Let's leave comparisons between sexual orientation, skin colour and size aside and concentrate on the discrimination part, shall we? Don't kid yourself you occupy any kind of moral high ground here, chum. Racists make crass, simplistic generalisations based on little other than appearance just like you do – while using someone's alleged "choice" to be fat as justification to direct hostility toward them makes you no different to some tub-thumping homophobe who views sexuality as a lifestyle choice.
life really sucks when you're a size 4-6. I cry myself to sleep every night. Transforming myself from a morbidly obese tub of lard to a thin chick has made me full of hate and self-loathing. Oh please!
Well, FFC, describing yourself as a morbidly obese tub of lard would seem to indicate you weren't exactly big with the self-love back then, while your vitriolic presence on this blog is certainly hateful enough from where I'm sitting.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Health is a weasel-word here. The spectre of a total stranger's hypothetical ill-health is no justifcation for discrimination. There is no justification for discrimination. End of story.
Please note no cake of any kind was partaken of during this refusal to take your shit.
By the way, Dolley, congratulations on The Apple Danish Of Contention outstripping BuffPuff's Big Ass Icecream On A Stick as this season's catch-all comestible to embody the woeful eating habits of the fat. Grey is the new black, babe!
formerfatchick and those other discrimation-driven, self-hating, self-esteem lacking, thin obsessed, boring, fat-hating, narrow-minded, pathetic anonymous posters:
Do us all a favor and go choke on an apple Danish will you?
I'd really like to see some of these crazy FA chicks tell a black person in real life that "you can just get your skin bleached" and that fat discrimination is just like race discrimination. That when a guy on Jdate decides you're too goddamn fat for him to be attracted to, he's basically acting like Governor Wallace circa 1963.
I also find it hilarious that they STILL scream "fat discrimination" at anyone who comments on their combination of idiocy, audacity, and self-delusion. I'm not "discriminating" against you for being fat, I'm discriminating against you for being idiots.
Look, knock yourself out. If you wanna eat apple danish and call yourself Rosa Parks, go right ahead. But don't expect the world not to be horrified at your insanity.
And I too have gotta stop responding to your flames. Everyone knows FAs NEVER leave the computer...
formerfatchick aka anonymous
Cringe! What a truly stupid and senseless analogy, my god!
You are boooriiiing! Hey, Anorexic wannabe, you're boring as hell! Go get attention somewhere else, you're obviously dying for it.
Wow... such hostility! I guess you fat acceptance chicks only preach "tolerance" if it extends to other fat chicks. God help anyone who dares to break ranks.
I'll respond to your vitriol with just one thought - Everyone pities the weak. Jealousy you have to earn.
Have a nice day!
Whoa, I can see that the TuckerMax people have once again visited this site. The disdain is so vile. And Former Fat Chick, you are surely destined to be Former Skinny Chick if you don't lighten up, literally. Have you forgotten from whence you came?
Emily and Lindsey, your site as always is a delight.
keep on tellin it like it is!
And I too have gotta stop responding to your flames. Everyone knows FAs NEVER leave the computer...
LOL! Yeah, why aren't they out spending their (in the words of anonymous at 3.46)
fucking time helping those who really needed it, like, say, the poor? Orphans? Natural disaster victims?
Formerfatchick, Fatty McBlog, as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, is not a fat acceptance site. It is, (to quote one of your fellow trollsters from another thread), a fat ambivalent site. Some of us who post here do so from a fat acceptance or HAES perspective; many others, including the webmistresses, do not. If you seriously cannot tell the difference between our numerous varying views on our own and each others' fat, you are either even more dimwitted than your infantile playground taunts would seem to indicate or, as I suspect, purely here to piss folk off.
What, pray, do you feel you have contributed to the proceedings that in any way entitles you to respect? What is it about your bent little psyche that drives you to visit your residual self-hatred on those who retain physical characteristics you couldn't love or live with - and, furthermore, interpret their refusal to suck up your insults as jealousy? Believe me, you are nobody's poster child for tolerance and I wouldn't want to be vicious, twisted, ugly little you under any circumstances. Not even if there was money involved.
Here's an idea. Why don't you take out those residual feelings of inadequacy on the people who caused them in the first place - all the nonstickpams, nany911s and spineless jerks who can't even be bothered to give themselves an online name to distinguish them from each other. Or did being fat screw you up so much that joining your erstwhile tormenters constitutes some kind of accolade?
Do us all a favour and put your arse away, pull up your frilly knickers and climb back into your pushchair. It's high time you took a nap.
Btw, what did you do with all that extra skin? Is it hanging off of you or did have it surgically removed? After all that weight loss your skin most likely hangs on you as if you're melting, maybe that's why you're so angry....
Nice. Well Fifi, loose skin is one problem you'll never have to deal with now, is it?
Nice. Well Fifi, loose skin is one problem you'll never have to deal with now, is it?
Oh dear, Nanny911, now you've just given all the fat chicks another reason to stay fat - "Better have another apple danish, I don't want to end up with loose skin!"
- Kate said...
I "didn't address" the diabetes comment on Friday because I had to go to a meeting and didn't feel like coming back to my desk on a Friday evening to "justify" my existence (yet again).
The American Diabetes Association estimates that between 90% and 95% of the 14,500,000 diagnosed cases of diabetes in the US (a total of 13,775,000) are Type II. According to the Scientific American (hardly a lunatic fringe publication), The CDC estimates that 55 percent of adult diabetics are obese.
296,410,404 US Population (US Census Bureau)
x .30 % having BMI Over 30 (National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control)
88,923,121 US Population with BMI of 30 or more
13,775,000 Americans with "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" Type II diabetes (American Diabetes Association)
7,576,250 Americans with "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" Type II diabetes and a BMI 30 or more with diabetes
88,165,496 Americans with
a BMI of 30 or more without "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" diabetes
If you prefer percentages:
7% of the US population has "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" diabetes
55% of the 7%, or 3.85% of of the US population, has "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" diabetes and a BMI of 30 or more
So, 12.3% of the US population that has a BMI of 30 or more has "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" diabetes.
Of the 12.3%, there is more than obesity to consider. According to the American Diabetic Association, ...a family history of type 2 diabetes is one of the strongest risk factors for getting the disease... They do also say that a "Western lifestyle" contributes to this risk, but that's on top of the genetic predispostion, not in spite of it.
Most diabetes researchers admit that they don't know whether obesity is a cause of diabetes, its symptom, or a related syptom of a common cause. If scientists who study the problem can't answer that question, what makes you assume that the "conventional wisdom" that fat causes diabetes is correct?
The "pre-diabetic" figures are mere speculation based on unproven assumptions, so I consider them completely worthless and have not included them here.
My father was diagnosed with diabetes at one point. He'd been on a bender and his sugar shot through the roof. His doctors placed him on Glyburide, and when he ended up in the hospital with an ulcer, determined that his blood sugar was dangerously low, and took him off the medication. He continued to monitor his blood sugar until the day he died, and in spite of the fact that he drank himself legless pretty much every day, his blood sugar seldom went over the recommended 100, and never again did it get over 110.
Please pardon me if I don't consider a 12.3% (just under 9% if you remove the dubious "undiagnosed" numbers) chance of developing a manageable disease of which my family has no real history as cause for hysteria.
- Kate said...
I started to do just "diagnosed" and changed my mind. The percentages section above are correct, but the actual diabetes figures aren't.
20,748,728 7% Americans with "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" Type II diabetes (American Diabetes Association)
11,411,801 3.85% (55% of 7%) of Americans with "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" Type II diabetes and a BMI 30 or more with diabetes
77,511,321 Americans with a BMI of 30 or more without "diagnosed or 'undiagnosed'" diabetes
If you believe the people who say that two thirds of Americans are overweight, not only does the 55% of overweight diabetics fall to under population representation, the percent of overweight American diabetics falls to 5.7% of overweight Americans.
Kate - rather than argue with statistics, I would politely suggest (and I do mean that in the nicest possible way) that you have a blood sugar test.
I mentioned upthread that my mother is a Type 2 diabetic - she was a normal weight when she was diagnosed. The doctors said it was due to her diet and a lack of exercise.
I'm by no means a medical expert nor a statistician, but I'd rather skew the odds in my favour than risk diabetes.
formerfatchick aka anonymous, aka nonstickpam
You are so predictable. Of course, I just have to be fat in order to think the way I do, right? I'm a few sizes bigger than you, 8-10. I do not have loose skin :-)
You are such a snooze! We don't care for your diet! Start a blog, write what you consume every day, write about your thin obsessions, about throwing up and whatever lovely things you do, all that other boring stuff that occupies your life, and how healthy you think you are and how the skin hangs off of you and how bitter you now are cuz you're still not good enough. Do whatever you want, but stop with the diet advise. Do you honestly think that you will win converts here? Do you really think you are saying something new? Hahaha. Deluded lady. Do you expect someone to take on the "Angry, Bitter Uptight Crank, but Skinny Non-Stick Pam diet"? Uh, No.
You're quite right, Fifi - no one here wants diet advice. Much better to use the internet to spread BS, rant about the "politics" of being obese, bitch about how society looks down on you because you're fat, rail against men because they don't like fat chicks, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Not that you're the bitter, angry one. Nooo....
Pam, I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this particular row yet again, having had it soooo many times with similar characters to yourself on previous threads - but....
Why are you actually here? Seriously. What purpose do you think your vituperative harangueing, cloaked in bogus concern for the health of a bunch of complete strangers actually serves? Are you trying to shock us out of some perceived complacency? And, if so, why? (And kindly don't trot out the same old guff about how it's all my fault your insurance rates have gone up or you don't want to get deep vein thrombosis sitting next to me on a plane. I don't live in the US and I don't need a seatbelt extender either.) Just give me an honest answer about why my weight is any of your damned business. If you can ).
As one of the few FA proponents who post here the only bitching, ranting and railing I find myself doing on a regular basis is against people like yourself. People whose idea of fun involves verbally abusing strangers on the grounds of what they look like over the internet. It is clueless, stereotype-foisting bigots like yourself who contrive to make fat people's lives intolerable.
< eyeroll > And I should take the advice of people who can't tell an apple croissant from an apple danish? That tells me you really pay attention.
I don't know why these trolls keep haranguing us. To Pam, fatchick, and all the rest:
Piss off, Savonarola. It's not as if we want to sleep with you.
- Kate said...
Pam, first of all, you're the one who brought up the specter of diabetes. I merely answered your condescending "why didn't anyone respond to that?" question.
Besides, how do you think insurance works. It's all statistical risk assessment.
I'm gong to assume that your suggestion that I get my blood sugar checked is out of genuine concern, not some bizarre schadenfreudenistic anticipation. Not that it's any of your freaking business, but I get blood work done every year. My results are boringly consistent: blood sugar at between 95 and 100, my LDL at 120 (admittedly higher than optimum, but certainly within the "normal" range), HDL at 57, blood pressure between 110/70 and 115/75, and hematocrit at 35 to 37.
With the exception of the iron, my doctor is perfectly happy with those numbers and says that other than the same issues that I had when I was underweight (FMS, allergies, anemia), I'm as healthy as a horse.
I seriously doubt that even with the best intentions you, having never even seen me, are in a better position to assess my health than my own doctor. Maybe I should be trying to "skew" the odds in my favor, but given that there's no history of diabetes in my family, I'm not going to waste time and energy worrying about something that's not likely to happen.
Dolley, my apologies for taking my eye off the ball - damned croissant morphed into a danish and I didn't even notice! I guess that's because we chubsters are such rampant, insatiable eating machines it makes no difference, just as long as it's P-A-S-T-R-Y (or ice cream, obviously, in my case).
I have been overweight. I've been underweight. Now I'm just average.
At 115 pounds I am the thinnest person my family has ever seen. I have relatives reaching into the 400 range. My own brother tops 300 pounds.
I understand why some people are fat and why it's so hard for them to lose weight- I see it every major holiday and some weekends in the summertime. You gain a large amount of weight and don't know where to start, or you're satisfied with where your life is right now and don't feel like changing because you don't see the "benefits". But, it is proven that being overweight increaeses your risk, not ensures, but increases the likelihood of contracting a number of diseases. Even if you don't care what others think (and kudos to you if you don't) you're backing into a spiked box.
And I like to think of myself as a rational, open-minded person, but seriously, what weight are you guys trying to maintain???!!! If you pick a healthy weight for your body, not a super-skinny one or a supermodel one, but a healthy weight, you don't need to exercise 24/7 or starve yourself.
Also, the fat acceptance movement is not the same thing as the civil rights movement. That is seriously one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.
If you choose to be heavy, then it's your priority, just like I choose to be thinner. But don't try to make people feel sympathetic or believe that your situation is beyond your control.
I guess that's because we chubsters are such rampant, insatiable eating machines it makes no difference, just as long as it's P-A-S-T-R-Y (or ice cream, obviously, in my case).
So how come you "chubsters" keep saying that no-one chooses to be fat?
Anon 2:11, your word for the day is "sarcasm". S-A-R-C-A-S-M.
Back away from the keyboard slowly and go look it up now, like a good Anonymous.
BTW, aren't we WAAAAAAAAAY off topic here? Wasn't this post about a meeting? Photos? Relationships?
What are all you ill-informed mal-logicians with your assumptions about type II diabetics and overweight (I have both in my family, but no person has both conditions, so don't even think of clowning) doing here anyway?
If you choose to be heavy, then it's your priority, just like I choose to be thinner. But don't try to make people feel sympathetic or believe that your situation is beyond your control.
Miss Marly, with all due deference, "trying to make people feel sympathetic" infers I see fat as a shameful affliction, which I don't. The argument regarding fat and choice has been held ad nauseam elsewhere on this blog and I feel disinclined to sally forth into the breach (again) since I have paid work to attend to.
What I will say, however, is that this element of choice is invariably brought up as justification for fat-bashing by people who patently get their jollies that way - i.e. I "choose" to be something society finds abhorant therefore, in making that alleged choice, I must take the consequences – the consequences being said bashers getting to call me all manner of ugly names without having the first clue about me as an individual because a prevailing culture of political correctness has robbed them of any other socially-approved whipping boys. (And there is something so lacking, self-loathing or just plain vicious in their psyches that they cannot do without somebody's arse to kick for fun and self-aggrandisement).
What I choose is to live a normal life in the body I have chosen to accept as normal for me in the light of the life experiences I have had. What I also choose is to refute the fat = ugly/stupid/slovenly/unwashed/nutritionally ignorant/asexual/weak/self-deceiving/morally lacking stereotype precisely because I don't see myself as a victim - and because it doesn't describe me.
Verbal abuse based on physical appearance is nobody's right, duty, moral or social obligation. It's bullying, which I do consider a moral issue. Fat, however, is not one and neither is health. In point of fact health is pretty much a lottery for all of us. And my health, which I take full responsibility for, is my business.
I agree with what alot of what you are saying Buffpuff. You're a much better writer and debater than I am. But I was speaking more to the people that were saying how being fat for them is something that they have no control over, or they have to exercise 10 hours a day and eat nothing but a grain of rice or other such crap to maintain a weight that is obviously too low for them. I have no idea what anyone here eats unless they tell me, but THE MAJORITY OF ALL PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE SLUGGISH METABOLISMS. I have a friend with a thyroid condition and she is at a healthy weight. She loses and gains a small bit of weight depending on how badly her condition is acting up, but she isn't obese or even overweight.
Buffpuff, I actually (no sarcasm) apoligize if my words made fat into being something shameful. That's not what I meant to do. I think accepting your body is a great thing- but people have to accept the reasons why they have that body, instead of claiming it is beyond their control. I argue the science and facts here, not the ethics.
Well said Miss Marly!
People can actually "reset" their metabolisms through a healthy diet and exercising. But no-one here wants to hear that, do they? They assume that anyone who is slim has a fast metabolism (which very few people actually do) or throws up.
As for accepting and loving your body, that's all very well until it crosses the line of being delusional. That's the whole point of this blog. The webmistress and her followers, as it says right on the home page "don't do anything productive to not be as fat ... for we are also lazy." Then when the world won't love and accept their bodies and the greed and laziness they signify, they rail at the unfairness of it all.
Newsflash - that's the way of the world. Either "do something productive to be not as fat" or stay the way you are and STFU!
What I also choose is to refute the fat = ugly/stupid/slovenly/unwashed/nutritionally ignorant/asexual/weak/self-deceiving/morally lacking stereotype precisely because I don't see myself as a victim - and because it doesn't describe me.
Well "nutritionally ignorant" may or may not describe you buffpuff, but it sure as hell describes the diet of your fellow fattie dolley.
Just in case you missed it:
4:00 a.m., at home: bowl (standard box measure of 1 cup) of Honey Nut Cheerios, with 2% milk
9:00 a.m. - one apple croissant; maybe two, at work
3:00 - plain croissant at work; sometimes I have a hot dog instead
9:00/10:00 p.m., when I get home:
It depends. Sometimes it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat. Sometimes it's a slice and a half of pizza (mushroom and green pepper), or a bowl (1 cup, not a serving bowl) of pork-fried rice. Sometimes I'll have milk with dinner; usually I'll have Diet Coke.
"Nutritionally ignorant" describes that pretty well, wouldn't ya say?
I read this blog because I went from 120 to 250 pounds and it taught me a lot about how the world treats people who are physically different. I was miserable all the time and it got so bad I turned to diet and exercise because I couldn't stand the pain of being fat any more. It took 3 years to lose the weight and I have kept it off for 3 years. I know it will always be an effort but I would rather do that than ever be fat again. My point is, I wish I could have been OK with being fat. If anyone else is I am happy for them and I am glad they do not have the pain I had. WHat I really don't get is why thin or formerly fat people get so mad with them?
ANd don't start with that we are paying for them stuff. We all pay for each other in some way.
"Work out from 6:30-8:30 at the gym (unless I'm at my desk by 6:30, in which case I work out at home in the evening"
Are all you nannying snoots deliberately missing this part of Dolley's post? Not that she needs to justify what she does or what she eats at all, but I will bet money that her eating and exercise habits may not be the most pure and pristine, they're hardly off the deep end. I know many skinny people who eat just like that and DON'T exercise, so you morons who drool all over Dolley's "mistakes" are the ones who need to STFU
"but I will bet money that her eating and exercise habits may not be the most pure and pristine, they're hardly off the deep end."
Should be " while her eating and exercising habits may not be the most..."
I apologise, annonymous at 2:59 and 3:03. I should have made my point clearer. Dolley's exercise routine won't make up for her nutrionally-poor diet (as she herself has admitted as she has gained weight). In fact, the way she eats, it's a wonder she has the energy to work out at all.
I read this blog because I went from 120 to 250 pounds and it taught me a lot about how the world treats people who are physically different. I was miserable all the time and it got so bad I turned to diet and exercise because I couldn't stand the pain of being fat any more. It took 3 years to lose the weight and I have kept it off for 3 years. I know it will always be an effort but I would rather do that than ever be fat again.
Congratulations on your achievement! You must be very proud of yourself :-)
I can relate to this. I'm trying the online dating thing and I always wonder what to say about my weight. I want to say in every coorespondance (I'm fat, remember I'm fat...did I tell you yet that I'm fat). I don't every want to see the look of shock and disgust that I've gotten when I weighed 400lbs. I now weigh 200, but like you said, to some, that is huge, monstrous. With the hanging skin due to weight loss, well I look like I'm melting, so how much do you tell the person, to keep them interested and not scare them off, yet not surprise them with my proportions. It's a dilemma I haven't figured out yet, which is why I stall when the online dates ask to meet me.
Wow, I just read all the rest of the messages, this has really gotten ugly. I have to say, I consider myself a fat advocate even though I "bowed to societal pressure" and lost some weight.
Fat or not every person is entitled to be treated with dignity, I don't care how much they weigh. The phrase "choose to be obese" is ridiculous. I've had to make food an obsession, and I will need to struggle with the rest of my life in order to be just overweight and not obese. I would never ridicule someone for not doing that to themselves.
On the other hand, I do agree with some of the trolls here that fat people comparing themselves and their treatment to racism is absurd. When you have a history of being hung from a tree, or dragged until you are decapitated, simply because you have melinin in your skin, then maybe there will be a comparison. When you are thrown in jail for getting for refusing to be a white womans maid (grandmother) or get chased down the street at the age of 5 with white kids screaming the n-word at you (me), then maybe there will be a comparison. I've been 400lbs, so I've experienced the gamut. Race was worse.
"I apologise, annonymous at 2:59 and 3:03. I should have made my point clearer. Dolley's exercise routine won't make up for her nutrionally-poor diet (as she herself has admitted as she has gained weight). In fact, the way she eats, it's a wonder she has the energy to work out at all."
OK, I hate to keep making an example of Dolley, but Anon 1255, when you say exercise won't "make up for" a diet, I'm presuming you mean it won't make Dolley thinner? If you add up the calorie counts from the sample menu, how many do you get? I don't have the time or inclination to look it up on FitDay, but I'm going to assume it's around 2000 or less. Couple that with, say, a minimum burn of 200 cals at the gym and...that's a calorie intake of about 1800, the upper limit of most WEight Watcher type diets.
So, why isn't she skinny and acceptable?
Or do you actually mean to get on the "health" bandwagon and tell us that her diet, in spite of exercise, won't lead her to health? In which case, I'd say that I guess the skinny people I know who eat like this aren't any healthier, so why the heck is it "OK" for them to eat like that and not Dolley?
Riddle me this, riddle me that...
Thanks for putting the issues into perspective, Tara.
anonymous at 9:10 - Since I don't have the time or inclination to type out a lengthy explanation of basic nutrition principles, here's a suggestion - why don't you, Dolley and your pastry-eating friends use the internet to do something productive for a change? All the information is you need is out there.
But wait, that would mean getting on the "health" bandwagon wouldn't it? And we can't have that can we? Food is all about "fun", right?
I'm happy Tara was here, maybe that'll shut Kate up with her comparisons. Montgomery? Gay pride? No, sweetie. No. You deserve to be bitch-slapped by a black lesbian.
Marla 5.17:
I don't feel proud exactly, more like I've been let out of jail unexpectedly or had all my credit cards paid off. I had a lot of support from my husband who kept telling me he would love me at any size but he would support whatever I wanted to do, and from my family who are all naturally thin but would never judge anyone for being fat. And the fat friends I had (and still have) were just interested and not judgmental. Lucky is how I feel.
It's shaming to see people equate the social inconvenience of being fat with the misery of racism. Thank you for the reality check.
I don't understand something about that whole fat acceptance thing.
Why is it no longer allowed to draw the conclusion that eating too much of the wrong food leads to weight gain?
I am not able to believe that no one who got fat never ate too much at least at some point in his/her life for a longer period of time.
It btw contradicts every diet journal I ever read, where people are suddenly able to admit they ate crappily before.
I can say that I have gained weight because I ate too much, and too much unhealthy stuff.
I really admire the writers of this blog for admitting to their eating habits.
All that pretending that fat people never eat or ate anything more than skinny people seems extremely unbelievable to me.
And for me that is not the point. I don't think that there exists something like the pure and good fat who got fat by bad luck/getting hit with the fat stick/whatever and therefore should be treated with respect and piggish/sloppy/lazy fat who are kind of evil.
Nobody should have to suffer from bullies. I generally try to respect everybody that I come in contact with. Nobody has to prove to me that they are flawless.
From what I read so far fat acceptance is stating that being fat is a destiny that can not be changed or avoided.
Contradicts personal experience and logic. And the rising number of people that got fat because of the lifestyle changes during this and the last century definitely prove that eating and exercising habits and weight gain are related.
The opposite of fat is not anorexic or bulimic.
Now for the pastry portion of my comment:
Eating any kind of baked good filled with apple-containing stuff because it tastes good makes way more sense to me than the Homer Simpson variety of nutritional advice that "purple is a fruit", sorry.
- Kate said...
It's shaming to see people equate the social inconvenience of being fat with the misery of racism.
That "social inconvenience" includes job discrimination (I've heard more than one person say "I'd never hire a fat person"), disparities in pay, being publically humiliated (see the seatbelt extender thread), not being able to find affordable clothing that is both well-made, stylish, and being subjected to the ignorant comments of random strangers who feel free to conclude that we're "lazy, dirty, and stupid" without ever having even met us.
We may not be relegated to the back of the bus (although we are sometimes relegated to the back of the airplane), but we our personal worth as human beings is judged on physical characteristics, not our inner characters. Whether our size is a matter of genetics or choice, that's still bigotry.
...and Cherree, you're welcome to try it.
Kate, fat people are relegated to the back on an airplane for weight distribution purposes. Especially on small planes, people and luggage have to be shifted around for stability. That's not discrimination. If you weigh twice what an average person weighs, you can't expect to be treated the same in instances where weight matters.
And in the list of justifications as to why fat acceptance is similar to racism, I can't really believe you listed clothing. That's kind of a shallow understanding of the treatment of non-white people in this country.
I'm not anti-fat or fat acceptance, but I do think that never admitting that lifestyle can contribute to weight and carrying too much weight can impact your health and that healthy weight loss is possible in many cases hurts your cause. People will never take this movement seriously because too many people have experienced these things firsthand.
"anonymous at 9:10 - Since I don't have the time or inclination to type out a lengthy explanation of basic nutrition principles, here's a suggestion - why don't you, Dolley and your pastry-eating friends use the internet to do something productive for a change? All the information is you need is out there.
But wait, that would mean getting on the "health" bandwagon wouldn't it? And we can't have that can we? Food is all about "fun", right? "
Heavens, no, food can't possibly be fun. The horrors. I mean, it would be best if we all just had our taste buds cut out of our mouths.
Wasn't asking for a nutritional overview, dear, I was asking why the all-too-familiar "calories burned vs. calories eaten" didn't seem to apply in this particular case.
But I guess reading comprehension isn't much fun, either, is it?
Mmmmmm....a donut....how fun!! WHEEE!!!!
Honestly, it is not cool at all to compare racial discrimination to fat discrimination.
It demeans and devalues the experiences of FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF SLAVERY that we are only beginning as an American society to come to terms with.
Like, I'm sorry that you got too big for your Lane Bryant size 24 jeans. And I'm sorry that some mean guy on the subway gave you a dirty look for eating apple danish.
But if you have ANY hope at all of the fat acceptance movement gaining any legitimacy, don't attempt to compare yourself to a victim of racial discrimination.
Like Tara said, I never saw any fat people swinging from trees.
Wasn't asking for a nutritional overview, dear, I was asking why the all-too-familiar "calories burned vs. calories eaten" didn't seem to apply in this particular case.
But I guess reading comprehension isn't much fun, either, is it?
Anonymous at 8.03. There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension and you know it. As Jill sensibly pointed out, fat people get that way by eating too much and/or eating too much of the wrong type of food. I know you fatties don't want diet tips - you'd rather blame the world for not accepting your fat than to actually take the trouble to find out how you got that way - but here's a tip. Get off this hateful and hate-filled blog and look up "empty calories".
Or do as Jill does and - horror! - read a diet/nutrition book. But something tells me you're not going to do that either.
Americans are the fattest people in the world. Americans are much fatter than they were 50 years ago. As the world starts eating more processed and junk food, they are also getting fatter. Japanese people, with both a history of very low obesity rates, very different traditional cuisine, in addition to a different genetic makeup (some might call it "naturally skinny") are also getting fatter as a result of junk food. Please tell me that this is genetics. The time span is too short for the genetic make-up of the population to change. This is happening all over the world, so don't tell me it's fate, that you were born this way. You might have a predisposition towards being fat, but it's not completely out of your hands.
I am by no means anti-fat, and I also know that a minority of overweight people have physical peoblems, such as a thyroid condition that makes it hard to lose weight.
However, for most it is not impossible. And no, it doesn't require eating only iceberg lettuce and working out 6 hours a day. Also, the opposite of fat is not a size 0. Like the person above said, the opposite of fat is not anorexic.
And Kate, again, I can't believe you persist in your comparisons. You are really doing both yourself and the FA movement a disservice. Are fat people denied access to education? Are they forced to work for skinny people for no money? Are they lynched for being attracted to/coming onto skinny people? Are they forbidden to marry skinny people? Are they all put on plantations and being whipped by skinny people?
I can't believe you compare the public humiliation of asking for a seatbelt extender with that of being lynched or shot or whipped or called names based on the color of your skin (and I believe there were only 2 people in that thread who were humiliated. Out of a lot more who said that there was no humiliation whatsoever).
Oh, and this:
"not being able to find affordable clothing that is both well-made, stylish" ?
That is comparable to racism? You're out of your mind.
That doesn't even come from discrimination, it's mostly supply and demand. There will be more fat clothes, as more people are getting fatter. The sizes are increasing anyways (i.e. "vanity sizing"), and there are many more plus sized stores in the US than other countries, so just wait a few years, and you'll have more clothes. When there is money to be made, people will adapt, so don't tell me that there are no clothes because of discrimination. It's because the demand for regular-sized clothes is still higher than the demand for plus sized clothes.
You give the FA movement a bad name, and, yeah, I'm still waiting for that black lesbian to put you in your place.
OT, but this is cool.
< eyeroll > And I should take the advice of people who can't tell an apple croissant from an apple danish?
I can't tell whether this is pathetic or funny. No, I"ve decided it's pathetic.
Dolley, I literally don't know the difference between an apple danish and an apple croisasant. I don't eat pastries. But I'm thin. And no, I don't have a fast metabolism and I don't throw up.
I don't think the people who compare racism to fattism are saying that the horrible things people do to victims of either are compareable. I believe they're saying that both forms of bigotry has the same basis - personal appearance. Fatness is part of appearance. Skin color is part of appearance.
I understand this point of view, but the more I think about it and study it, the more I think that racism really isn't based on appearance. There are people who look white, who don't appear to have any African ancestry at all who when their ethnicity is discovered are treated with the same bigotry as someone who is dark skinned. Assumtions are made about who they are, where they are from, innate intelligence.
I don't mean to demean the bigotry that people who are fat suffer-I've suffered it myself, been called names, humiliated, even institionalized by my parents because I was fat. But it will never compare to what I, my family, and generations of people have suffered because of who we are. That's what it is, who we are, not just how we look.
Comparing oppression is a dangerous game, and usually I won't participate in it, but I felt I had to say something. To think that not being able to find clothing or having to ask for a seatbelt extender comes anywhere near what people of color (not just Black) have suffered in this country (slavery, genocide) just shows the ignorance and blindness that is a side product of white priviledge. I don't mean everyone, just some.
"Anonymous at 8.03. There is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension and you know it. As Jill sensibly pointed out, fat people get that way by eating too much and/or eating too much of the wrong type of food. I know you fatties don't want diet tips - you'd rather blame the world for not accepting your fat than to actually take the trouble to find out how you got that way - but here's a tip. Get off this hateful and hate-filled blog and look up "empty calories".
Or do as Jill does and - horror! - read a diet/nutrition book. But something tells me you're not going to do that either."
Actually, I don't know that there's nothing wrong with your reading comprehension. You haven't answered a single question I've asked, so it seemed logical to wonder just how much you read...aside, of course, from nutrition labels on food.
You're right...I have no intention of reading a diet book. I've read them already and they don't merit rereading.
But since you mentioned reading, I suddenly feel like reading a trashy romance whilst devouring a carton or two of chocolate. And, just because I know it makes you blood boil just thinking of a fatty consuming empty calories, I'm going to drink Bailey's right along with it. And I'm going to find you on an airplane and sit RIGHT NEXT TO YOU...bwahhh hahhh ahhh....
Good for you, Anonymous Coward 12:17. You know what I find pathetic? I find it pathetic that when I post "croissant," somebody else responds to my "danish" posting. This tells me that the person posting is either unable to read and process the information that I've posted; or he's unable to retain that information for the length of time necessary to respond to that post; or he's unaware of the difference between the two, and therefore assumes that there IS no difference; or he assumes he knows better than I do what I SHOULD have posted. And yet he still believes he's in a position to lecture me and give me advice about anything. That's what I find pathetic. But I also find it pretty darned funny.
But Pastry Identity and the Curse of Diabetes Yet to Come aside, I'd like to point out the actual questions/choices outlined by our hostess(es) were:
"1. Just meet him and hope for the best;
2. Tell him again that I am fat. Really fat and try to get a straight answer out of him about how he feels about that;
3. Stop attempting to date until I have some more confidence in myself."
I didn't see a box marked "other." I let myself get drawn away from the McGee question in trying to say something supportive to Kate in light of that unprovoked attack (not a bad thing in and of itself), when that wasn't the point of the Fatty McGee entry in this instance. The same thing applies to the people who respond with WHY DON'T YOU GO SWEAT IN A GYM??? and/or offer unsolicited diet advice; those weren't among the choices listed. Although the folks who suggested exchanging good full-length photos also opted for responses that weren't on the menu, at least they were a) related and responsive to the questions, and b) useful. In that spirit, I would also say "I think it's a good idea for you both to exchange full-length photos. Among other things, it lets you find each other when and if you decide to meet up."
As far as #1 goes (Just meet him and hope for the best): Once you've exchanged photos, you're in a better position to "hope for the best," because you'll both have a little more information available to you. As far as #2 goes (Tell him again that I am fat. Really fat and try to get a straight answer out of him about how he feels about that.), I think it's a statement which provides no actual information; unless you've given him something to compare you with and/or to, how will he know what your criteria for "really fat" is? For someone like Nicole Richie, 130 could be "really fat." You could tell him how much you weigh, but unless he's a really good judge of women's weight (unlikely, since most women lie about their weight), he may still not be able to form an accurate mental picture of what you look like. As far as getting a straight answer out of him about how he feels about that, it's possible that he may not know himself, which might make that a tough question for him to answer. Again, better to send him a photo. Maybe a couple, showing you having a good time with other people, as opposed to a full-length "here it is!" mug shot kind of photo. As far as #3 goes (Stop attempting to date until I have some more confidence in myself.) - I think only you can answer that. Is that what you want to do? How much confidence would that take? And confidence about ... what? Your appearance? Because it seems as if people really like you already, so that doesn't seem to be the problem. If the problem is your confidence, rather than your appearance, there are ways to address that, none of which seem to have actually been offered. There are plenty of people who've offered unsolicited ways for you to change your appearance, without ever having even seen you, but not much in the way of how to go about improving your confidence in yourself. As far as dating goes: That's actually a total crapshoot, and what often comes up is crap. You could look like Sophia Loren, and you know what? If he likes Audrey Hepburn, he still wouldn't be interested in you. Wear clothes you like, that you know are flattering; make sure your appearance is as polished as you care for it to be. That's common sense. As for the confidence, you could consider a course of either hypnosis from an accredited professional, or learn some self-hypnosis techniques to boost your confidence. You could try meditation, or yoga; you could even Google for books, or classes, or seminars, on "How to improve your self confidence." And the reason I make those suggestions, instead of others, is because the question here seems to be about your level of self-confidence, and NOT "how can I lose weight?" I have to assume that all those people who've suggested changes in how you eat and/or work out haven't actually read your questions, and are therefore interested only in hearing the sounds of their own voices. I suppose there is an implied, "If you lose weight and gain muscle, you will automatically become more confident!" - but just because it's implied doesn't mean it's actually true. Because it's not. There's no guarantee that your level of self-confidence is going to go up in direct proportion to your weight going down. There's a good chance, in fact, that it won't. There's every chance, if you dieted and sweated and dropped fifty pounds, or a hundred pounds, you'd sit there at dinner with him and wonder if he's with you only because you're thin. You'd wonder if he would suddenly stop seeing you, if you gained back fifty pounds. Or thirty pounds. Or twenty pounds. Or five pounds. You might sit there and start feeling pretty bitter about the whole situation, because, after all, you're the same person you were at 250 pounds; the only difference is weight. You might wonder if he'd stop seeing you if you cut your hair, or got a tattoo, or had a tattoo. If you condition meeting guys only on how you look, you're always going to have something to worry about. And let's face it: what, do you think that all those thin girls have blind dates/internet dates that go swimmingly? Check out what Sars and her friends have to say on tomatonation.com, because Sars is funny as hell, and she offers some really good dating horror stories. Since the issues here are twofold, you get two answers: the current guy, and any prospective guy, should have a full length photo of you. Since you're in the Dating Era of Life, why don't you actually have an attractive full-length studio portrait made? It can be full-length, and honest about your weight, but there's no reason why it shouldn't show you at your best. The second answer is yes, you should work on your self-confidence, but it doesn't have anything to do with your weight. Otherwise there'd never ever be any insecure thin women, would there? So you should start looking for ways to improve your self-confidence. I mentioned hypnosis, because it worked very well for a friend of mine. She had several sessions with a hypnotist, and he made her a CD that she listened to at night, and he taught her how to reinforce what she had learned through self-hypnosis. You may also be able to find a couple of useful books on the subject. People who have had similar experiences and useful answers to offer might consider offering them. People who have recommendations to make about Diet and Exercise can just hold onto them until the questions raised are about Diet and Exercise.
But since you mentioned reading, I suddenly feel like reading a trashy romance whilst devouring a carton or two of chocolate. And, just because I know it makes you blood boil just thinking of a fatty consuming empty calories, I'm going to drink Bailey's right along with it. And I'm going to find you on an airplane and sit RIGHT NEXT TO YOU...bwahhh hahhh ahhh...
And what would be the point of that? To make yourself even fatter just to spite thin people? Sounds pretty self-destructive/self-hating to me.
Whoever said Americans have no sense of irony obviously had Anon at 4.22 in mind when they said it.
Whoops, sorry. Lisa at 4.22. It's late where I'm posting from.
Look, Kate, let me teach you a little something about common sense.
You are a fat white woman. Tara is a fat [or formerly fat?] woman of color.
Tara is telling you, along with several other people, that comparing racial discrimination with the inconveniences and insults of being fat is way, way, way, way, off.
I think you need to accept that and move on.
Buffpuff, you (frequently being the voice of reason) seriously can't condone Kate's shallow comparison of racism to fat bashing because of the reasons she listed, specifically that she can't find clothes to fit in.
Dolley: Will you please stop going on about danish and croissants. So someone got them mixed up. Get over it and move on.
Having said that, you make a lot of sensible points. Except for the no-unsolicited-diet-advice one. Why, when it's glaringly obvious that what is bothering the (probably fictitious) author of this post is that she is FAT, is it not OK to suggest that she might want to think about tackling the the root cause? You may be happy being fat, but she isn't. Trying to psych herself into denial is no healthier than anorexia. And neither has to be the answer. Nothing anyone has said has convincingly contradicted the basic truth that less junk food equals less fat. No one has a sad and lonely life because they eat fewer croissants (or danish).
"Whoever said Americans have no sense of irony obviously had Anon at 4.22 in mind when they said it."
Ah, thank you, BP. Remember, irony and reading comprehension can also be fun, and fun is not to be found except in sneering at others who are heavier than you.
Now, where's my double-chocolate crepe/croissant/danish? Gotta get my self-hate on. ;)
Considering that the Australians are seriously considering whether or not to make being fat illegal, perhaps Kate should be left in peace to make whatever comparisons she sees fit to make:
I find it pretty funny that the people without the guts to sign their posts seem to think that they're in charge of deciding when it's appropriate for someone else to "get over" whatever may be annoying/upsetting/bothering/irritating her. Who put you in charge of deciding whether or not someone's feelings were valid or permissible? I know I didn't see that form on my desk, so I'm sure I didn't sign it. Kate feels as she feels. I feel as I do. And thank you, anonymous, for brilliantly illustrating my point, which was not that someone got "mixed up," but that people who weren't paying even minimal attention still believed that somehow they were authorized to make judgments.
And speaking of assumptions, why are you assuming I'm fat? Because I support Kate, or Buffpuff, or the McGees? Because I have issues with my body? As it happens, I'm not fat. I'm not model-thin, but I'm fit, and presentable enough that I've been stopped by agents asking if I'd be interested in theatrical representation.
I suggested that people not offer diet and exercise advice until they were asked to do so, because those weren't the questions that were asked. If the McGees want that advice, they'll ask for it. They're not too shy to do that. And why do you assume that the authors aren't real? Again with the assumptions. You don't know if they're real, but you have all the answers to their lives. And I would point out that you're not even paying attention to what you write: "Why, when it's glaringly obvious that what is bothering the (probably fictitious) author of this post is that she is FAT, is it not OK to suggest that she might want to think about tackling the the root cause?" (emphasis added)
You're not talking about tackling the root cause, and you're not making any suggestions that address the root cause, or any ways of dealing with it. You're talking about diet and exercise; all that does is address the manifestation of the original problem - the why of Why The McGees Are Fat isn't being investigated, counseled, or treated. You are (again!) assuming that it's a matter of: The McGees eat too much and don't exercise enough! Eat this way, and do these exercises, and your problem is solved! You are either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the underlying reasons that prompt the overeating in the first place. And (again again!) there's another assumption implicit in the statement "No one has a sad and lonely life because they eat fewer croissants (or danish)." The underlying implications seem to be that people who eat croissants and/or danishes lead sad and lonely lives, and that people who eat fewer croissants and/or danishes are not sad and lonely. There's also the implicit assumption that people who eat fewer croissants and danishes are thinner than those who eat more croissants and danishes. So where does that leave thin people who eat a lot of croissants and danishes? Are they doomed to sad and lonely lives? What about the fat people who don't eat croissants and danishes? What if they're happy, and still fat? What if they're not happy, but have no croissants and danishes to give up? Could it be that the problem isn't with the croissants and danishes, per se?
Since you seem to be unaware of the fact, one of the reasons that people do turn to croissants and danishes is because they would have had sadder, if not lonelier, lives without their croissants and danishes (or the equivalents thereof). Sugar is one of the most powerful mood-altering drugs there is, and it's the first one that's available to children. And it doesn't matter if it's sugar found in junk foods, such as sodas and candy and the like, or the sugar available once either complex or simple carbohydrates have broken down in the system: pasta, dairy [ice cream], rice, potatoes; they all affect the brain. Sugar alters levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is one of the most important chemical messengers in the brain; it's involved in the regulation of so many vital metabolic systems, including the release of dopamine and endorphins (the natural neurochemical equivalent of opiates), that a low level of serotonergic activity is perceived by the brain to be life-threatening; individuals with low brain serotonin experience feelings of impending doom. Low brain serotonin produces the array of symptoms substance abuse counselors know as the "abstinence syndrome": depression, anxiety, irritability, anger, lethargy, poor memory and mental confusion, and sleeplessness.
So in response, as a matter of fact, people can very EASILY lead "sadder" lives "because they eat fewer croissants (or danish)" especially if they've become addicted to carbohydrates, which are, in fact, physically addicting, in the same manner as other addictions.
And that's why I tried to answer the questions that were asked, instead of offering advice that wasn't requested.
Since you seem to be unaware of the fact, one of the reasons that people do turn to croissants and danishes is because they would have had sadder, if not lonelier, lives without their croissants and danishes (or the equivalents thereof). Sugar is one of the most powerful mood-altering drugs there is, and it's the first one that's available to children. And it doesn't matter if it's sugar found in junk foods, such as sodas and candy and the like, or the sugar available once either complex or simple carbohydrates have broken down in the system: pasta, dairy [ice cream], rice, potatoes; they all affect the brain...
Brave words Dolley! So I guess that explains your diet of processed sugary breakfast cereal, apple croissants (see, I have been paying attention!), plain croissants, hot dogs, pizza and fried rice.
And somehow I have trouble believing your assertion that you're "fit not fat". Do you have something against protein? Or vegetables?
Dolley - just adding that I know about carbohydrate addiction, serotonin, etc (having been there myself). But don't you think it's a more than a bit sad to use food to make you "happy"?
The McGees TELL us they eat too much and don't take enough exercise.
If the one who in this and previous posts
a)thinks she is getting fatter;
b)says she is unhappy about;
c)says her greatest pleasure in life is compulsive and secret junk food fests;
d)says she avoids seeing friends and family and doesn't want to go out;
e)can't bring herself to meet a man she might possibly have a connection with because she thinks her shape and size might put him off;
f) poses three possible solutions to the last problem but also asks if she has missed anything or if there are any other suggestions:
it would be extraordinary if at least half the responses didn't include the suggestion that losing some weight might possibly help.
I learned this last night and wanted to post it in hopes it might make fatty feel a little better about meeting the guy:
I have a friend who is conventionally gorgeous (slim, great hair, perfect skin, etc), and is the nicest person you'd ever want to meet. She's also a surgeon. And you know what? She says she can't find a date because guys are intimidated by her job. Seriously!
So if you meet the guy and he rejects you, it might not be a fat thing. Guys apparently reject girls for all kinds of stupid reasons. :-)
Anon 1:46
Guess what the fatty mcgee girls also say to us:
a) they know that they should lose weight
b) They know how to lose weight, but just haven't yet
c) Why do you people feel the need to state the obvious? If you had read any of this blog you would know that these girls realize their faults and what actions they need to take. Then you guys go and tell them what they already know. No Shit! But, at the same time, they aren't losing their weight, so they're trying to deal with life like that as well.
Temper, temper. Have another apple croissant and calm down.
That's your comeback? Wow. Good one.
Looks like you didn't have anything to say because you were put in your place.
PS. I don't like apple croissants and, to your surprise, I'm not fat, I just like what these girls have to say
dolley, I know you didn't ask for dietary advice but you did post what you ususally eat, so you must've known what was going to happen.
Although the problems are obvious to anyone, here you go anyway.
And you do know what happens to vitamin C when you cook it? I can't even believe you would say that you get an apple croissant for fiber and vitamin C.
It doesn't even matter that you're not overweight and that you're working out, aside from (mostly) simple carbs and some fats, you're not really eating anything.
Um, actually they are. Fatty specifically asked for advice in the very post we're discussing. One option was:
"3. Stop attempting to date until I have some more confidence in myself."
At the risk of stating the blinding obvious, the reason Fatty has little confidence in meeting her online "date" face to face is her weight. If she lost weight she'd have more confidence. I know it's not quite that simple - thin women can be insecure too - but hell, she states quite openly that:
"I am worried that he wont want a fat girlfriend. Or he wouldn't want to introduce a fat girlfriend to his friends. Or he would only use me for sex and leave out the relationship part."
Or to put it another way, her problenm isn't her "lack of confidence". It's her weight.
oh, and, unless it's re-added after cooking an apple croissant contains 0% of your daily requirement of vitamin C. Maybe you wouldn't need so much sugar to keep you happy if you had some vitamins once in a while.
Buffpuff, you (frequently being the voice of reason) seriously can't condone Kate's shallow comparison of racism to fat bashing because of the reasons she listed, specifically that she can't find clothes to fit in.
In the first instance, anon at 9.49 p.m, I'd like to point out that all Kate actually said to spark off this particular furore was that she considered herself a foot-soldier for a cause she believes in, (in the manner of a Montgomery or Gay Pride marcher), for which she was pilloried by a couple of reactionary hysterics masquerading as liberals. Despite the fact Kate specificied she did not view herself as a Rosa Parks and never actually drew a comparison between racism and fat discrimination, she was attacked as if she had – which, frankly, comes as no surprise since hatemongers will jump on anything, no matter how tenuous, to assume the moral high ground. In this instance some points made by the gracious and eloquent Tara, (whom I emphatically do not include in this rabble), served as an adequate catalyst to put the hate on Kate.
Tara, incidentally made some other points, such as: "I don't mean to demean the bigotry that people who are fat suffer - I've suffered it myself, been called names, humiliated, even institionalized by my parents because I was fat" and "the phrase 'choose to be obese' is ridiculous. I've had to make food an obsession, and I will need to struggle with the rest of my life in order to be just overweight and not obese" – comments which, under any other circumstances, would have had nonstickpam, formerfatchick, cherree et al calling her a weak-willed, delusional failure. After all, I weigh in at less than Tara's 200lbs and have been roundly criticised for a) opting to live in harmony with it and b) voicing my unwillingness to make food an obsession and struggle for the rest of my life.
Llike Tara, I don't care to get into discussions comparing oppression. It is enough that sizism, like racism and homophobia, exists and blights people's lives. Dolley beat me to it with the link on Australia's current preoccupation with trying to legislate against obesity – something which has a positive whiff of Nazism about it in my considered, (and Jewish), opinion – but do you seriously think it little more than a "social inconvenience" that people are routinely denied employment or promotion on the grounds of their size? Or that someone can be fired for putting on weight because their boss equates weight gain with weakness of character, ergo inability to do their job? That children and adolescents are driven to commit suicide because of size-related bullying or that children - like Tara, apparently, can be institutionalised because of their size? That fat people are so disproportionately represented on the big or small screen that anyone visiting from another planet would assume they didn't exist at all – much less make up a good half of the Western population? Or, that on the rare occasions they are given representation, they are routinely made out to be figures of pathos, derision or ridlcule? Do you think it nothing more than a petty vexation that people over a certain size are forbidden to adopt children or denied IVF treatment? (Something, incidentally, which affects a substantial proportion of the Afro-Carribean community on my shores).
And lastly we come to the piffling, frivolous issue of clothes; the manner in which my slender counterpart gets to express every facet of her personality in a world which judges all of us on appearance. Boy, you really shouldn't even have got me started. Ever tried to get work in a clothing store where you're required to wear the stock, only to discover it doesn't come in your size? (No job for you, porky!) Or been to a health spa where the robes supplied don't fit so you're forced to go naked or put your clothes back on, so even though you're paying through the eye teeth to be treated like a movie star, you look and feel like a freak? Ever needed to purchase businesswear for professional purposes and couldn't actually find any? Or what about department stores which refuse to stock plus-sizes because they don't want to spoil the shopping experience of their non-plus-sized clientele?
No, it's not like racism. Sizism is like itself. It's pernicious and cumulative and it eats away at the self-esteem like the fucking ebola virus.
No, bitch. Not so fast.
Sizism is not just "different" than racism. Sizism is NOT AS BAD as racism. Racism is more of a blight on society than sizism. To argue otherwise is revolting.
So, yes, you EASILY can compare them.
And don't whitewash the thread. Someone posted that telling a fat person to lose weight is like telling a black person to bleach their skin.
"Or been to a health spa where the robes supplied don't fit so you're forced to go naked or put your clothes back on...."
OH GOD .. YOU .. YOU ARE SO RIGHT! Here I was thinking that racism and genocide are far worse than sizism, but then I read this and realized they are just "different" from each other.
FAT RICH WHITE WOMEN ARE NOT FITTING IN THE ROBES AT THE HEALTH CLUB!!!??!! Nooooooo! WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS THIS. WHAT KIND OF A GOD ..WOULD DO SUCH A THING? Next they will be too fat for the massage tables! Someone get Bono on the case.
Just to clarify, we Australians are NOT "seriously considering legislating against obesity". That was just a catchy title for a conference about public policy and ethics.
Since Australia is the second fattest nation in the world (after the US and excluding some Pacific Island nations) we couldn't legislate against obesity even if we wanted to. Our politicians and the people who vote them into office are fat too, remember.
oh, and, unless it's re-added after cooking an apple croissant contains 0% of your daily requirement of vitamin C. Maybe you wouldn't need so much sugar to keep you happy if you had some vitamins once in a while.
Brilliant! And I see the croissant has only 1 gram of dietary fibre as well. So maybe Dolley needs to take some Metamucil with her apple croissant.
Buff Puff - I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. Since your size is obviously so problematic for you, what with the spa robes that don't fit, the lack of smart business clothes and all, wouldn't it be a heck of a lot easier to just lose weight? It's far easier to change yourself than change the rest of society.
Oops - you're the one who equates losing weight with being "diminished by cultural brainwashing". And you do have your "politics" to keep you warm at night.
Why is everyone acting like the apple danish/croissant/whatever is the only place where she's getting vitamins from? I like cookies, they aren't so good for you, but whatever. Do I now need to be ridiculed for liking cookies because, "OH NOES, THEY AREN'T CHOCK FULL OF VITAMIN A, B, C, D, E, H, MQ, 56, 78!"
Anonymous @ 7:15 - in case you missed it, Dolley justified her apple croissant habit right here in this very thread by saying:
It's not empty calories - the apple is not just because I like apples, but for the Vitamin C and the roughage.
And sadly, given the rest of her typical diet of pastries, highly processed breakfast cereal, peanut butter sandwiches and the ocasional hot dog, yes, that's pretty much her only source of vitamins.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the peanut butter in Dolley's sandwich isn't nutritious - assuming of course that it contains no transfats or sugar. But Dolley clearly isn't one to check nutritional labels.
Ugh, Buffpuff, for hundreds of years, the things you mention fat people having problems with weren't even in the equation for minorities. So you can't fit into a bathrobe because the manufacturers create a one-size-fits-all robe that you are too big for? Is that the same as not being able to go to the spa in the first place because your job is low-paying because you live in an area with underfunded schools because while whites were given home loans to buy up all the profitable real estate, blacks were legally denied these? Come on, how ignorant of race relations are you? I know you are a champion of fat acceptance, but I really think you are taking this too far. It's almost unbelievable that you'd mention your difficulties in going to a spa to be treated like a queen as if that's even remotely on the same level of discrimination as minorities have had to face. Maybe it's because you live in England and have never had to take an American history course, (or have you?) or maybe you are just completely unsympathetic to the plight of other races. I do think being fat is often just a social inconvenience because the things you mention (being fired, committing suicide) are very rare. After all, a very high percentage of Americans are fat.
By the way, buffpuff, if you don't think being fat is caused by lifestyle, how do you account for the fact that poorer people weigh more, if not for their lack of funds to buy more expensive, higher quality foods, and lack of time devoted to physical and leisure activies? Are poor people genetically different from the rest of us?
Nanny 911
Nope. I have nothing against protein; I like it a lot. But if you'd actually read my post, you'd see that my free time, right now, runs from 10:00 p.m. (approximately) to 4:00 a.m. - and that covers all my free time, including shopping for food, getting ready for work, taking care of things at home, and getting some sleep. So when and where I pick up my food is pretty limited these days.
As for the rest, so? So what? As it happens, I am fit, but so what if you "have trouble believing" ? How is your lack of faith my problem? Take your issues about your ability to "believe" to the Church; maybe they'll care.
"But don't you think it's a more than a bit sad to use food to make you "happy"?"
It's a fact that some people do so, regardless of any "sadness" I might feel. Not all people; not I, for instance. But why should I find it a "sadder" choice than other choices that people may make? Some people choose alcohol; some people choose drugs; some people shop compulsively, some people cut themselves, some people get addicted to the endorphin rush from spending hours at a time working out, some people bury themselves in their work, some people are addicted to sex, and some people can only make themselves happy by putting other people down or by hurting them.
Now, that last one - that's the one I find more than a bit sad.
Just before this post attracts its 200th comment may I ask either of the two McGees to let us know what she decided to do about her date? I hope she met him and I hope they adored each other.
Hello? Anyone at home? I believe I stated that I did not care to enter into a pissing contest comparing different kinds of oppression. If you various anonymous posters wish to continue making those comparisons, by all means keep working yourselves into that fine lather of moral outrage you've got frothing merrily away, just don't expect me to join you. And your mention of genocide really was a cheap, ill-judged shot. As a third generation British Jew, you can bet your arse I think the Holocaust was different from sizism. That doesn't render sizism any less oppressive; it doesn't negate it, excuse it or justify it.
I find it significant you all fixate on the clothing issues I mentioned while blithely ignoring all the others, many of which overlap with those issues of poverty and race discrimination you claim to be so concerned about. I guess you're all too busy bristling with righteous indignation to join the dots – or maybe you reserve your scorn for "fat rich, white women."
I am, incidentally, not rich and have never had the kind of job where I needed to wear a business suit; nor do I frequent health spas, upmarket or otherwise, though it's interesting you bring up being too fat for the massage table. Perhaps you'd care to read the thread about the student advisor who actively discourages fat people from training to be masseurs on the basis of her own prejudice? As for living in England predisposing me to be ignorant of or unsympathetic to the plights of other races...WTF?! I live in London, for pity's sake, one of the biggest cultural melting pots in the world. We have poverty here too.
And, yes, Ms McGee – did you meet him? What happened?! Let's for godsake get back on topic...
I have to honestly say....this thread was about advice for Fatty McGee about that guy she's supposed to meet. How did it become a thread about comparing oppression, or diet advice?
Dolley: Im really sorry that you have literally been beaten over the head with your comments. One piece of advice is to never post anything personal here because there are people out there who are so filled with hate, that they somehow think those things are an excuse to put someone down.
(Whoo-hoo all you thin and angry people who feel so superior because you eat so healthy...if you are so happy being thin, then why do you come to a fatty blog and insult people? If you were truly happy you wouldn't try to hurt others with your words.)
There are a lot of skinny people who eat
junk food, yet I don't hear anyone getting on their moral high horse about them.
I think that these people who are so smug and feel so superior because they don't eat junk food (how about smoke? Do drugs? drink alcohol? etc etc etc)
If you enjoying an apple croissant is the worst of your sins, then I can say you are better than most people.
Now, I would like to tell the trolls to get lost. Nobody likes you or wants you here.
You are just a bunch of jerks, anyway.