Micro Fatressions

I have started a Tumblr called Micro Fatgressions. The idea comes from migro aggressions, which also have a Tumblr dedicated to them.

A migro aggression is a small, annoying comment, often said in the guise of a joke. It's something that you can't really help, but that stays under your skin. If you should react, you'll be told "Lighten up" or "You're so sensitive".

Do you get comments about your size? Any pent-up feelings of frustration and anger for your loved ones, friends, coworkers? Don't hesitate to submit! No comment is too minor. (You can submit by clicking "vent fatgressions here". Oh, I apparently haven't decided yet if it's "fatressions" or "fatgressions". Any opinions?)

It has fat in the title, but comments about thinness are also welcome. It's still about fat if it's about the absence thereof.

All of these so far are from me, and I'm really beginning to notice how annoying my Mom is with this...

Exercise: It's Never Enough

I made the mistake of reading a health-related article in the mass media. It just seemed too appealing. On the cover of the latest Suomen Kuvalehti, there's a non-trim (but not fat either) man's belly strapped with drinking bottles. The man is obviously in motion. The caption reads: "Working for Nothing - Exercise the Reason behind Lack of Fitness?"  (translation mine) This is, of course, a totally misleading title that has nothing to do with the content. If you're triggered by expert scorn, stop reading here.

I'll admit that I cherry-pick. I only read health-related articles when they seem like they're going to refute something we all "know for a fact"(tm). I already know all the basic claims against fatness and a sedentary lifestyle, so I don't think I'll become ignorant from not reading every single article reiterating these "facts". I suppose I'm guilty of only reading things that strengthen my own conviction and skipping other things, but so is everyone who ever skimmed thru a fat acceptance blog and left a comment saying "go join a gym". So I'm not going to feel too bad.

The article begins with a recap of statistics about how much Finnish people supposedly exercise; apparently surprisingly many people exercise daily. The question is: why do we still have so much diabetes, obesity, blablabla, if people are exercising more than before? The answer, according to this article, is "slacking": going for a walk but at a leisurely pace, so you talk more than you walk; or skipping the hardest parts of the workout; or, god forbid, going to the gym but parking your car as close to the entrance as possible.

So, as the UKK Institute expert says, it's not enough to just do the minimum amount of exercise (30 minutes a day plus 45 minutes three times a week). It has to be strenuous exercise. It has to be sweatty and tough and and and. So it's not that people don't exercise, it's that the workout isn't good enough. If it were good enough, the people would be slimmer, and healthier, and less diabetic. "Excess weight" is mentioned among diseases like high cholesterol and diabetes; there is no admission that sometimes, people who exercise a lot are still fat. There's a calculation of what a diabetic costs society. Many illustrious examples follow, and the journalist is obviously ridiculing people who think they're so good for doing just a little exercise here and there.

Then, for a little sidestep, we are offered the idea that perhaps health education can lead to resistance and health moralizing may offend and annoy people. This, however, is not really looked into, it's merely mentioned. The expert is never called into question. In fact, it's hard to tell how much of the article is the journalist's own ideas and how much is paraphrased from the expert.

I'm not here to refute the health effects of exercise, given that it seems to be the one thing all experts can agree on. So let's agree that exercise is a good thing for your health, and a natural thing. But I hate the tone of the piece and the whole underlying idea:  that there's a "right way" and "wrong way" to take care of your health, and even when people try to take care of themselves, they can be told off for being slackers.

Ever since my childhood, health articles have had this impact on me: I begin to feel guilty in an irremeedable way. I do actually walk in my everyday life, and I've never thought I'm in particularly good shape, so there was no "OMG I've been doing it wrong" awakening. What I feel is sadness and inferiority: even if I walk to work, and to the store, it's not good enough if it's not strenuous. It's precisely strenuous exercise that makes me pant and sweat that I've always hated. Yes, I've tried the exercycle, and brisk walking, and cycling. I do enjoy some aspects of all of these, but I've never been able to make them a habit. I'll ignore the obvious, yet judgemental idea that I may just be lazy. Maybe I am; but I work damn hard mentally, so I suppose you can't have everything. Whatever the reason, exercise has always been the thing that I just can't do.

So I was happy when there was this "at least move 30 minutes a day" thing. I felt like I can do this- hey, I'm already doing this! It made me more positively disposed to exercise, and probably made me do a bit more walking than I had previously done. So now it's all "that's not enough"?


I thought I was over this by now, but I'm not. I can't even look at the article again to refer to the journalist and expert by name, and I do apologize. The truth is, I was terribly depressed by the piece. I don't think my guilt stems from a genuine remorse for "living wrong". It's just the shame of never being quite good enough, no matter how much you want to live healthier. This feeling is also the reason why I've never made much of an effort. It just hurts too much to be told you did something, but it wasn't enough because you're not an athlete.

The article mentions different attitudes on exercise. Some people crave it, others abhor it. There is no pondering on why this might be so, if it's so very natural for humans, as a species, to be on the move. I think this is the most interesting question: why do we strive to move less? Perhaps we're not all meant to exercise equal amounts. Perhaps we aren't all meant to be fit. I don't know. I don't have any particular theory on this, I just wish the journalist had tackled this question. It would have been nice to have some kind of thought behind the article, but as it is, it just seems to be a mouthpiece for experts who are disappointed in us. Because we want to do something, but really we're just lazy.

Maybe I should decide that what I'm doing now is enough and I'll never have to Have Exercise (tm), no matter what the experts say. That is the only way I can be happy with myself, to be honest. I don't know if it's self-deception... Well, I suppose it isn't, because I'm not denying anything, just allowing myself to be sedentary. Maybe it's OK.

So the article had the opposite effect on me than it perhaps should have had. But hey, it was nice to see the non-fit guy's belly on the cover. He's hot.

In Which I Can't Let Go of Ian McEwan's "Solar"

Mr McEwan, your book is bad and you should feel bad.

Apparently, some people found Solar hi-la-ri-ous because of all the "fatty eats a lot" stuff. It's so ironic, you see. Michael Wood from the Huffington Post writes:

We can't miss the relish in the writing here, the pileup of horrible detail; but it's worth pausing over the relish's double focus: Beard is wallowing in his own gluttony and recklessness, while McEwan's narrator is writing with the mesmerized horror of a much thinner person. This sort of disjunction is essential to the novel's irony, allows us our complex laughter, and means that McEwan, or his narrator, can treat Beard without sympathy and without condemnation. 

(It's actually a very nice, complex review, if you're interested in reading more about the novel. But I must take opposition with this bit. I'm obviously not part of the "us".) 

First of all, there's nothing complex about laughter at fat people. Fat jokes have been skinned to the bone; there is nothing left but "fatty like to eat haha". It's really elementary school humor dressed up as intellectual fiction with some clever word choices. Secondly, this is exactly why I felt so alienated while reading it. Looking at the first chapter, I was hoping to see a realistically depicted, self-aware fat person, but then all the gluttony comes in and ruins it. It's just not very realistic, and we're obviously meant to see the fat person as an Other. While I may make excuses - he's a man, he's older than me, he drinks so much, etc. - I can't escape the fact that Beard has the same amount of "excess weight" that I have. So McEwan might actually be writing about me, among other people. And he imagines that his intellectual readers are going to be slim.

I did come to realize, though, that the mesmerized horror might actually not be so far off from a fat person's inner dialogue. Most of us have that voice inside of us, even those who are fat acceptant. The voice says, "OMG you're getting so HUGE! Will you stop eating so much!" or perhaps "Oh, eating a chocolate bar, are we? No wonder you're so fat." If you're a fat person and you eat anything, but especially specific "fatty foods" like bacon, chocolate, chips, etc. (which Beard also indulges in), you're bound to hear a voice inside you that says you really shouldn't. That's what this culture does to us. Exploring that voice might have been interesting, but McEwan doesn't bother to do that.

The problem with Solar is that it seems to suggest this is the voice of reason, not internalized fat hatred talking. This is, of course, what most people already think. Should I expect McEwan to rise above such cultural norms? Well, I'll say yes - he wrote Atonement, On Chesil Beach and many other beautiful novels where he really went into the characters' heads, even if these characters are women from another time. But apparently he can't afford such empathy and humanity with fat people.

I also disagree that the book is without condemnation. Bearing in mind that Beard drives an SUV (because he can't fit into other cars),  flies planes constantly, and eats primarily meat, McEwan might even be suggesting that fat people are particularly guilty of ecological "crimes" that cause CO2 emissions. Beard never once contemplates on this. When it comes to his body, even if Beard is aware of the fatness, he is also in deep denial about how bad things are. When the doctor gives his list of predictions, we're meant to think it's time for Beard to wake up - and yet he lapses into a blissful feeling of freedom as soon as he leaves the doctor's office. The ending of the book is left open, but most likely he has a heart attack and dies. It's alluded to in no uncertain terms. It may also be seen as a final judgement or punishment for his indulgence. 

In my view, the book would be a lot more powerful if Beard went on his big diet, lost all the weight, and became physically fit but was still a really disgusting human being. That might actually be a lot more current and deep-thought: poking fun at the fitness culture and people's obsession with their bodies; showing that someone who has "will power" over their body is not always a good person in other ways.

After writing the previous post, I've also thought of Battlestar Galactica and my favorite character, Gaius Baltar. Baltar is loathsome in many ways: cowardly, selfish, weak, arrogant, often rude. He has a lot in common with Beard in these ways. Interestingly, however, he is not fat. He is short, like Beard, and this might be an instance of lookism (or heightism?) in both stories. But Baltar was, throughout most of the seasons, quite thin. He indulged in smoking, drinking, women, and arrogance, but not in food. I never really thought of this before, but I like that. What if he had been fat? Would he have been even more irredeemable in some people's eyes? He is already loathed by many fans, but I love him. It might be because the writer Ron D. Moore and the actor James Callis decided to give him some humanity. Some empathy, a lot of guilt, a position as a pawn. There's a lot of humanity to his weakness.

Well, now I digress into my fandoms. My point was going to be this: if you have anti-hero character, and you wish people to care about it, you need to give him something we can relate to. Nobody is completely evil, and if you draw your protagonist that way, you're making a caricature, not a character. Beard is indulgent, selfish, despises most people, and doesn't even care about his own child. As he is the most central character, that soon begins to grate. On topic: Jason Cowley with The Guardian finds the protagonist one-dimensional. Tell me about it. 

It was always going to be high risk, wagering so much on having as your central character a comic grotesque so loathsome and self-pitying, with thoughts mostly so banal, and then leaving the reader trapped, unrelieved, in his company for nearly 300 pages.

I must say, this description is much closer to my feelings than the "complex laughter" quote above.

McEwan won a humor literature prize for Solar. He bought a pig and named it after the protagonist. How deliciously ironic.

This whole has angered me so much that I have decided to make an art project out of it. I decided to cut up the book and place some of the words on my fat body. I'm not sure if McEwan cares - in fact, I'm quite sure he doesn't - but the blubber wants to talk back. And it will.

Some preliminary ideas (my camera doesn't handle small text very well, sadly):

(These are not meant to be erotic pictures, more like feminist art. So I hope you don't mind the nudity.)

Fat Hate in a Time of Climate Change: Ian McEwan's "Solar"

I love Ian McEwan. Atonement is one of my favorite books ever, and I re-read Solid Geometry (from First Love, Last Rites) about once a year to enjoy a great, if bleak, surrealist fantasy. McEwan's writing is often dark and shows humanity and life in a pretty grim light. But in his new book, Solar, this is particularly pronounced, and I'm sorry to say, exaggerated. If you're going to write about an anti-hero, you should at least give him some human moments. Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica is a good example: he's cowardly, weak, selfish, sometimes loathsome, but he does have some skill for empathy and redeeming moments. McEwan doesn't afford Michael Beard anything redeeming at all. His protagonist is, I wouldn't even say anti-hero, just a plain old villain. He is a Nobel laureate working for alternative energy sources, even if he doesn't truly care about saving the planet. He is a complete douchebag: lazy, selfish, uninterested in basically anything, indulgent and perhaps a complete narcissist. He fails to love his women and even his own child. When his character flaws bring him problems, he refuses to acknowledge it was his fault. Til the last minute, he denies any problems and just goes on as before.

He is also increasingly fat. This is used as shorthand for the usual character flaws: sloth, gluttony, lack of self-control, complete negligence of one's health. It starts off fine, with him gaining a little weight and resolving to lose some - he is at least aware of it - but then, as the years go by, he gets fatter and fatter, eats more and more, and is just plain out of control. This makes me mad.

To be perfectly honest, I liked it at first, because I have a weight-gain fetish. It's really very sexy to me to read about someone's wanton weight gaining. But the more I think about it, the more it troubles me. Obviously we're meant to hate Beard. Many online reviews mention his eating habits as "disgusting". He eats enormous amounts of food, basically nothing but meat, butter, cheese, chips, chocolate, and the like. He hates salad (of course!), and even if he vows to start a healthier life, he never does. He is also an unwitting alcoholic, constantly drinking gin and scotch.

So that's my first issue with this book: I feel like I'm supposed to find him irredeemable, inhumanely gross and disgusting, but I don't. I can relate to his lifestyle. I don't eat anywhere near as much, but it's human to eat like that. He's being offered food everywhere; it's natural for human beings to crave food when it's presented to them on a plane or at a conference. It's normal to eat pancakes and bacon when you're  on a trip to America. It's normal to crave chips and make them a daily habit. If you gain weight, it's normal for your appetite to increase, because you need more calories just to get around. And even if I'm not an addict, I find even the alcoholism relatable. It's a disease, not something I'm going to despise people for. Beard could even suffer from binge eating disorder, considering his guilt over his eating habits and the constant inability to stop himself. But I have a feeling that's not where McEwan is going. I'm sure most readers will find him irredeemable, comical, and pathetic. But what about his fat readers? What about the readers who perhaps do eat like this? Do we not exist?

The second issue is with the details. This is a difficult issue, because not everyone will feel the same weight in the same way, but it really reads like "fat is a death sentence" and "no fat person could possibly be comfortable in their own skin". The book is divided into three parts: 2000, 2005, and 2009. I'll leave out the rest of the plot, but in 2000, Beard is 15 pounds overweight and his weight is still a side issue; in 2005, he is 35 pounds overweight, tired and achy, and eats and drinks constantly; in 2009, he is 65 pounds overweight and his heart and liver are failing. He's eating even more than before, has trouble breathing and walking.

I began to wonder at some point if McEwan did his research for this, specifically the number of pounds. In the first chapter, Beard is described as "human blubber" (p. 7) (at least in his own eyes); he has trouble getting out of a low-riding car and bending over. When I got to "He was fifteen pounds overweight. Act now or die early" (p.101), I basically exclaimed, "A measly fifteen pounds?!" I had expected him to be at least forty pounds overweight, what with all the references to his girth. I might have the wrong idea of male bodies; maybe fifteen pounds feels like more when it's all on the waist. But still, it just seems off to me.

I'll quote form the 2009 section and a doctor's visit. This is where it really gets ugly.

"It was true, the doctor did not lecture or moralize, but he compensated with a disengaged, insulting frankness. With each instance, each looming physical catastrophe, the wise turtle head protruded a little further and he gently tapped his own palm with a pencil. No one, he said, not even Beard, would choose to walk around with a body like Beard's." (p. 329)

Stopping here for a minute just to say - is this not a judgement? Also, we're probably meant to think that his hate of doctors' judgements is simply a form of denial. He should be ashamed and humiliated and berated for his lifestyle.

"He was carrying an extra sixty-five pounds, the equivalent of a combat infantry-man's full pack.  His knees and ankles were swollen from the weight, osteoarthritis was a growing possibility, his liver was enlarged, blood pressure was up again and there was a growing risk of congestive heart failure. His bad cholesterol was high, even by English standards. He was clearly experiencing breathing difficulties, he stood a decent chance of diabetes mellitus as well as advancing the likelihood of prostate and kidney cancer and thrombosis. His one piece of luck - luck, Beard observed, not virtue - was that he was not addicted to cigarettes, otherwise he might already be dead." (p.329-330) 

OMG 65 pounds! OMG SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS. It must sound like a huge load to McEwan, but I'm at about 65 pounds overweight and.. I feel fine? I mean, sometimes my knees do ache, but I have no heart and liver trouble, I don't have trouble breathing, and in general feel fine. The complete physical decay described here seems pretty exaggerated. In addition, Beard is an alcoholic, completely sedentary, has a lot of stress, travels a lot, and is sixty-two. All of these factors are going to play into it. But I get the feeling the book is telling us that his OMG GLUTTONY IS KILLING HIM and he doesn't even CARE.

As for the infantryman's pack? It's not exactly scientific to make such an analogy. Obviously, any extra weight is an extra strain on your system, IF we assume that there's a definite point where it becomes "extra". If sixty-five pounds "overweight" is the smallest a person can be, it might actually be the right weight for their bodies. Weight is individual. That said, I realize a doctor might well not share these views, and might say that about the pack.

"As he listened to Parks enumarate his possible futures, he decided not to mention his recent acquisition of a classical symptom: a feeling of tightness around his chest. It would only make him appear even more foolish and doomed. Nor could he admit that he didn't have it in him to eat and drink less, that exercise was a fantasy. He could not command his body to do it, he had no will for it." (p. 330) 

It's all about willpower, y'all! He may want to do it, but he's too weak to even try. He might be dying, but he's not going to admit it to his doctor, because he's too proud or something. I'm not sure how to read this. Maybe we're meant to think he deserves his just desserts - pun intended - and should die from a heart attack right now, because his lifestyle is so omg bad? Or are we to see it as an endearing human frailty, this pride and inability to admit to his failing health? I have a feeling we're not. 

Throughout the book, his weight is a hindrance to him and feels like a huge burden. I can't really argue that it's an unrealistic depiction, because some men might beg to differ. Some women way bigger than me can dance all night and have no knee problems; some women way smaller have high blood pressure and feel tired. Weight affects people differently. But I'd still say that this is a lot of scare tactics. Beard's whole life is, at this point, falling apart; his career and relationships are feeling the strain of his flaws, and so is his body. He also has melanoma (how ironic, a sun-related ailment on a scientist working on solar systems!). His out-of-control eating is just one instance of his flawed nature, his inability to be good. It's very disappointing, because McEwan is an intelligent writer. It's lazy thinking, really.

In his future books, perhaps McEwan will explore some other deliciously bad characters. Like a really hysterical woman! Or a fanatic Christian who hates all non-Christians! Or a lazy Mexican, or flamboyant nymphomaniac homosexual... The opportunities are endless! I see a great future for him as a comedy writer.

TV Teens and Fat: "The Facts of Life"

When I feel depressed, I like to unwind with some good wholesome family fun. Well, maybe not "good" in the same sense as, say, The Sopranos is a good show. More like mediocre, average, non-offensive stuff. Life gets complex, and I want something soothing that tells me it's manageable.

I discovered Facts of Life a few nights ago on Youtube whilst looking for cheesy family show theme songs. It's cheesy, but not the worst of the lot; I'd say much better than the annoying Full House that seems to be more about the grown ups than the kids. Anyhow, I'm hooked. It makes me feel joyful to watch it. I also enjoy the fact that the show is over and I can check out any season I like, seeing their changes over the years.

I came upon this video where three of the main actors discuss the show briefly, years later. They mention weight, and it makes me sad.



Lisa Whelchel, who played the "pretty girl", was pressured to stay thin, and she seems to accept this as a fact of the job:

"That was their job. They hired me to play a certain role, and I was outgrowing that role. They tried to provide  me with a nutritionist and trainer, things I would LOOVE now, but I was sixteen and didn't quite appreciate it." 

I'm not liking what she says here. Maybe I'm jumping into conclusions, but isn't she saying that they had every right to ask her to lose weight, and that she was silly and stubborn enough to be against it? It's like she realizes now how important skinniness is and wishes someone would give her a free nutritionist and trainer. If that's what she means, I feel bad for her. Not surprised, really, if this is the pressure she grew up with, but sad that she has discovered the "truth" of skinniness instead of the joy of self-acceptance.

It's kind of tragic that she had to fit in the mold of "Blair" growing up, instead of being Lisa. I question the need for Blair's character to stay the same. If she was outgrowing the role, maybe they should have realized the show needs to end or the character could actually change and grow. Wasn't the show all about growing up and learning about life? I find Blair pretty annoying, watching the clips, and feel like a lot more could have been done with her. Apparently the writers had no such ambitions. People want pretty rich bitch, they should get pretty rich bitch.

Interestingly, the "fat" girl Mindy Cohn was told to gain weight one year when she had been "getting active". That's almost as bad as what they did with Whelchel. If she was growing up and getting leaner, naturally and of her own accord, couldn't they let her do that? Some fat girls grow up to be slim girls and vice versa. Maybe it would have been positive to show that to teenage girls watching the show? Not to mention what it must do to a girl's self esteem to be "the fat girl" in a show. Granted, judging by the clips I saw, Natalie was fairly positively depicted and her weight wasn't much of an issue. But the underlying idea of being "the fat one" - plus the comments she must have gotten from viewers - might easily be harmful. If I had had that over my head as a kid, I would have hated myself.

But then - I did hate myself. I wasn't shown in millions of homes, but I wasn't free. I wasn't allowed to have my baby fat, my teenage chubbiness, or later my grown-up fatness in peace. Nor was anyone else. There were mothers, gym teachers and school nurses; there were magazine doctors giving out diet advice. I remember us worrying about being "overweight". Someone was always on a diet, and there was much jiggling and tummy-flattening in front of the mirrors. The "I'm fat" - "No, you're thin, I'm the one who's fat!" conversations were constant. It would have been a bit weird and unacceptable to NOT hate our body.

In fact, you know what I find unrealistic about teen girl shows? That they talk so little about dieting. There may be a very special episode about eating disorders, where everyone's secret self-loathing is revealed, but the rest of the time, they're preoccupied by other things entirely. I wish it really were like that: weight being one of life's issues, but not the major one that looms behind everything else.

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