Belly Appreciation Pix.

I posted these photos on my Tumblr today. It was really very scary. I lost one follower over this. My boyfriend supported me and posted sweet comments, though, and that felt good. I didn't post the pictures thinking "I'm so hot and I wanna get compliments". I did it to hopefully show some body diversity and positivity. I also did it because I feared it.

The first one is taken with my cell phone cam, and the others with my webcam - same light and clothing. You can tell the difference. It's hard to position yourself so that you get a picture of your full belly, so none of them shows my face. It wasn't meant to be a "headless fatty" thing.

My belly is jiggly and soft, yet somewhat firm. When I gain weight, it always seems to go there first. My fat fetish seems very belly-focused - I love fat bellies on everyone but myself. My own makes me vaguely horrified. This is probably a normal reaction to your own body, given our culture. There are lots of negative messages about belly fat, and I often feel like people are scared of liking a belly, lest it kills you in the end. But it shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't be scared of your own flesh and bone. I want to feel calm about my belly, even if there are risks. There are risks to every body type and lifestyle. That shouldn't be a reason to hate your figure.

Reading about others' thoughts and looking at their pictures, I've gained some kind of respect for my belly. When you look at your own, it always feels OMG HUGE AND HORRIBLE, but maybe that's just the way we're conditioned to think. Other people's bellies look natural and beautiful, even if they're bigger than mine. I like fat, and I enjoy seeing fat bellies, but my own still kind of scres me. That's why I'm posting pictures of it, to make it more real and also less scary for myself.

So there it is.

Conflicted.

Very crappy photo= me standing on a scale. For those who use lb’s, it’s about 200 pounds. Not that it really 

matters. 

Once again, I’m in a place where I feel like dieting (no, not crash dieting, just “eating less and exercising”). No one can really help me, because I have to find my own way in this issue. It’s hard. The majority opinion is that I should absolutely do something about it, because a lot of it is visceral (belly) fat, and my BMI is 35, and it’s dangerous. The minority opinion is that I would just gain the weight back, and fat isn’t as dangerous as people like to think, and I should aim for self-acceptance instead. 

I’ve thought about this long and hard, many times, for about the last 12 years. I always end up leaning on the fat acceptance view. It’s the more critical one, for one thing. People like to straw man it as: “I wanna eat so I’ll accept my fat and just say lalalala I’m not listening when someone says it’s dangerous.” This is very far from the deep-

thought, critical blogs I’ve read.

The people who lost weight seem to gain it back in almost all cases. I know one or two people who lost weight and kept it all off. One of the most striking yo-yo examples is my own Dad. He has been battling his weight for 20 years, going on all kinds of healthy eating plans and exercising. He’s now fatter than ever and diabetic. My family thinks it’s because he eats too much. I have to wonder, if he would be smaller, had he not dieted. Or maybe he would be the same size either way, considering that his father got fat at the same age and was also diabetic. 

Maybe the two things are connected?

Furthermore, my mental health should come first. I have been struggling with depression for two years now, and I need to keep my head above the water. I had some eating disorder symptoms when I was young, and was obsessed with weight for so long, and I don’t want to go back into that mindset. I’m battling a really powerful self-loathing, not to sound dramatic. I worry about that. Maybe that, more than anything else, is the reason I’m leaning on fat acceptance. I’m not sure if I could just “diet sensibly”. I worry that I could not. 

Or maybe the biggest question is: would I lose something important of myself and my power and courage? Would I lose the part of me that could inspire other people? Would I lose my way? 

Why do I always go back into fear mode? Is it just an emotional response, perhaps a logical/”common sense” reasoning for wanting to take the easy way out? Maybe I just don’t want to believe that fat acceptance is true, or right for me, because it scares me to always be thought in the wrong. It scares me to be the glutton in anybody’s eyes, or to be the ugly one, or just damn ignorant. The last one stings the worst, because I do want people to see me as intelligent and critical. 

Or maybe it’s just reasonable concern about my real health risks. In which case, if I can’t diet, I will have to learn to live with it. I can always comfort myself with the knowledge that dieting might make me fatter in the long run, thus increasing the risks. 

Arghhh brain is fuming must stop thinking now