Love the Body You've Got (Take it From a Fat Girl)

I've never seen anyone like Beth Ditto in
the limelight before; I think her beauty is
absolutely magnetic. Hooray for confidence!

I recall a time in elementary school when a friend tried to defend me from a few bullies by saying that I "wasn't fat, just big-boned." A few years later, I had a teacher who — probably in an attempt to keep my ego intact — wouldn't let kids say "fat" in class, only "fluffy."

To set the record straight, I do not have abnormally large bones. And I am not, nor have I ever been, a rabbit. But whether it's these sugar-coated terms or the painfully unoriginal "ugly fat girl," I've never quite been able to shake my overweight status for long.

Despite a few traumatizing events (i.e. falling off the jungle gym, losing my paper pilgrim's hat on Thanksgiving, etc.), I have relatively good memories of elementary school. I was about a foot taller than everybody else and began experiencing all the joys of early puberty (ah, training bras!), but I still don't remember those days in terms of my body. Rather, I remember going insane on Field Day (I still have the ribbons to prove it), competing with my classmates to see who could write the most numbers (we had to sprawl our lists out in the hallway to measure them), and playing "The Magic Scrap" when our teacher needed to trick us into cleaning up our messes.

Middle school was a different story. I don't know what they started putting in the Capri Suns the summer between my 5th and 6th grade years, but everybody got meaner while I became more and more self-conscious. I was significantly - shall we say, heftier - than my classmates, and there were always those intent on reminding me that I was fat and they were not.

I was an emotional wreck. Whether people recognized it or not, I was basically writhing in my own skin, caught between trying to wear clothes that were "hip" (and feeling awkward), and falling back on dingy jeans and band t-shirts (and still feeling awkward).

I love Adele. But whenever I go on
Youtube all I see are comments
saying how "fat" she is. Tell me
this woman isn't beautiful.

High school, I am proud to say, is much better. No overweight teen is going to escape the negative comments that inevitably bounce through high school hallways, but I've found a comfortable niche among friends and clubmates where I feel almost immune to that sort of thing. I've been living by the mantra "If it won't matter in five years, don't worry about it."

But last week, after a several-month streak of body positivity, somebody really hurt me. And I don't even think they meant to.

Long story short, this person (who is probably a size 4 or smaller) complained about how much weight they've gained and, in a not-so-subtle way, alluded to the fact that I was unhealthy. Really? You're going to complain to me about how much weight you've gained? And then you're going to criticize my health, despite the fact you know how hard I bust my butt for school, projects, and all the stuff I'm involved with? I was literally thinking: "Sorry, insert-name-here, I haven't had much motivation to exercise lately. Hard to imagine why."

Needless to say, I felt really crappy when I got home that day. But then I found these posters in the Love Your Body Day section of the NOW website and immediately felt better.

My favorite poster.

To top it all off, I also found this quote in a random comment on the Ms. Magazine website:

The less we judge each other by the contours of our bodies, the more clearly we will see the true content of each other's characters.

Isn't that awesome?

It reminded me that in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter what we look like, just what we do. We're not going to be remembered for being a size 4 (or 24), so we might as well make the most of life without letting insecurities "weigh" us down.
______________________________________________________________

You may not know Beth Ditto (pictured above), but she's the lead singer of a band called Gossip (which originated only 30 miles from my hometown). Ditto is apparently well known for her outspoken support of both LGBT and feminist causes (according to the all-knowing Wikipedia), and is also an advocate of body positivity. Even if this isn't exactly my type of music, it's cool to see a bigger girl rock it out for once!

Random Thoughts for a Friday Afternoon: Abortion, Diets, and Krispy Kreme Donuts

There have only been about two days in the past few weeks where I actually got some free time, so while I regret not writing for a while, I don't blame myself. After all, it's hard to write anything interesting (let alone coherent) when your eyes are about to fall out of your head from exhaustion. But anyway, you know when you get into one of those crazy "thinking" moods? I've been like that a lot lately, just thinking, thinking, thinking. Here are my random thoughts for a Friday afternoon:

Abortion. I realized the other day in an epiphany-kind-of-way what being pro-choice is really about. People make pro-choicers out to be inhuman baby-killers (and I'll admit, I would never want that stereotype on my head), but it's a lie. When a woman has an abortion it's not as if she just bops out of the clinic whistling "Singing In the Rain." Having an abortion would tear anybody up inside.

Pro-choicers don't celebrate the act of ending a baby's life, but they do respect women enough to allow them to make their own decisions about their own bodies. That's what we're celebrating: the fact that we are intelligent creatures capable of intelligent, rational thoughts. Why should I let some governor in [insert state here] dictate what I can and cannot do with my body?

I'm not sure if the statistic "77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant" is true, but if it is, dang. How can they make decisions about something they will never, ever experience for themselves?

Maybe if we did more to make abortions unnecessary in this country - like amp up sex education in schools; make contraception more accessible to at-risk couples; and make it easier for single, pregnant women to receive report (financial and emotional) - women wouldn't have to suffer so much.

Overall? Being pro-choice doesn't mean that you're anti-life.

Diets. I haven't really blogged about my weight loss struggles before, but I'm horrified to admit that I've gained back nearly three-fourths of the weight I spent nearly a year losing. I let stress and school get the better of me, and used that as a (lame) excuse to drown my sorrows in Oreos and cheesy enchiladas. Well, I hopped back on the weight loss bandwagon two days ago, and I'm feeling a load better. I'm approaching things differently this time, and believe it or not it's all because of what I read in a random Yahoo! article.

The article said that when women try to lose weight, we're way too hard on ourselves. Instead of "Oh wow, I lost a pound!" we tend to say "Aww man, I only lost a pound?"

Well, no more.

I'm going to start celebrating little successes. If I get it in my head that this is a short-term "diet," I'm going to crash and burn. It's way less pressure to think of this as a lifestyle change, something I can stick to from now on. I'm going to make good choices and drink lots of water, of course, but if we're having pizza one night - dammit, I'm having pizza.

If you want to get healthy and start tracking your food, check out Livestrong.com. Sign up to use one of its features called The Daily Plate - it's great!

For an A&F clothing ad,
something invariably seems
to be missing.

Operation: Anti-Discrimination. Okay, this doesn't have a ton to do with Krispy Kreme donuts (though my group and I will be enjoying them on the day of our "operation"). What is this "operation," you say? On December 18th the girls from Real Beauty Revolution and I will be going under-cover at a nearby mall as different stereotypes to see how people treat us. I'm completely stoked because I'll finally be facing my demon: Hollister.

Whenever my brother and I walk past Hollister we plug our noses and make "snooty" comments. I absolutely abhor the store.

As an overweight woman I'm really interested to see how they react to me, if at all. I'm going to wear sweatpants, a sweatshirt of some sort (I've got a lovely one with my brother's face on it!), a cheap-looking bag, and no makeup. I might pretend that I've never been in the store before, and innocently ask if they have my size...

A part of me hopes we won't experience discrimination in any of the stores we target, but a larger part - a biased, immature part - wants to bust some suckers.

Am I biased against stores that routinely judge and treat customers like crap (i.e. Hollister, A&F, Nordstrom)? Yes.

But that'll make the results that much more interesting when I post them on the 18th!