On fat acceptance, self-worth and plus-size clothing companies...

First off, I have to say I hate the term "fat acceptance".  Like it's some burden on people to be ok with someone else being fat.  That I don't like.  Even if it is introspective, as in someone accepting that they are fat...  can't there be another term?  Like can't we just use self-acceptance?  Although, I guess that doesn't really work because you can be sel-accepting without being content about how you look or feel.  So maybe "fat acceptance" is as good as it gets and so long as it's on the introspective level, I guess it's ok. 

That said, I have the utmost respect for my compatriots of the chubba who have reached the realm of "fat acceptance" (FA from here on out because I even hate typing it.)  I wish I could get there.  I wish I could just be happy with being healthy and not let the number on the scale get me down.  I wish I could.  I can't.  I've tried and I can't get there and I'm not sure I want to. 

Make no mistake, I do not tie my self-worth to a number on the scale.  I'm nice and funny and kind, sympathetic and fiercely loyal - until you give me a reason not to be.  I know I'm someone worth knowing and worth loving and I know I have something to contribute to this place for as many turns around the sun as I'm given.  I'm telling you, as soon as I figure out what that something is...  I'm going to set the world on fire.  So I know my weight doesn't define me and I don't think about it all the time.  But I'm not cool with it.  I'm just not.  I want to wear the cute pretty clothes, I want to be perceived as on the ball and not prejudged as being lazy or not in control of myself.  I hate the stigma that comes with being overweight and I do wish I had the gumption to fight it.  But I don't.  I'd rather be trim.  Or even just average sized at this point.   

This is another reason why I wish I could find a career that earns a decent income but doesn't take me away from home for 13 hours a day.  I want time to prepare the right foods.  Time to exercise.  Time to get a full nights' sleep.  I feel like there's just no way to get it done.   Yes, I could exercise at night I suppose.  After I return home after the super long day away from home.  After I've spent 8+ hours at the most stressful job I've ever had that is not rewarding, not inspiring and that I hate.  But you know what????  I'm tired.  I want to spend the last few hours of the day doing what I want to do instead of what everyone else wants me to do.  And I certainly don't want to spend it sweating my ass off, huffing and puffing and just generally being gross.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  Probably.  It's more than likely my fault.  

I would never ever do it, but I daydream about grabbing a fat roll and a knife and just cutting it off.   Again...  never would...  don't send the men in the white coats to come gather me up for my own good.  I may daydream about it, but I also hate pain and blood and anything to do with pain...  and blood.  So fear not.  self-mutilation is not on my agenda. 

All I know is I watched my grandmother spend the last 7 years of her life in a chair and the last 5 months of her life in bed because of her health and being so overweight her whole adult life.  I don't want that for me.  I don't want that for my husband.  And I don't want that for any future children we may have.   And while I'm on the subject of kids...  I want to have a healthy pregnancy and I know stuff can always go wrong regardless of size, but  I don't want to increase the risks by something I can do something about.   Plus, I've had some issues already back in my 20s when I had to have a procedure to try to shrink, but not remove a good-sized benign tumor.  Why not removed?  Because it goes from the inside to the outside of my uterus.  Meaning if it wasn't there...  there'd be a hole and my doctor said she's had two women with the same kind of internal to external tumor and both of them had it removed and it weakens the uterus and they both miscarried around 17 to 20 weeks and she had no desire to make it 3 and if I got it removed, that was my choice, but she wouldn't be my doctor when and if I ever got pregnant.  That was enough motivation for me to not have it done.  I already know if I have a baby it won't be a vaginal birth and it will be a higher risk pregnancy, though not high risk.  Do I really want to add to that with the issues that I invite by being this weight and getting pregnant?  No.  That would be the answer.  No. 

So, I just don't know.  The easy answer is to lose weight.  The hard part is the execution.  I suck at it horribly and, as you can tell, I don't really go into it with a positive attitude.  Oh, I used to.  Like the first 16 times.  But now?  I think I'm so scared to fail that I don't even want to try.  But I DO want to try and I DO want to succeed. 

I haven't made it to the top of that FA mountain.  And I have no intention to.  So what to actually do instead of that is the question.  If I'm not going to accept my body as it is, then I'm going to have to do something else because my other choice is just to stay miserable in relation to my body.  And I don't want to dwell in that place anymore.  I've been there for about 7 years and as far as I'm concerned...  I've overstayed my welcome.  I'm ready to go.  I'm face to face with the next step.

Along these same lines...  while I'm trying to figure all this out, I still do need to clothe my body.  So I have to buy plus size clothes.  Can SOMEONE please tell me WHY in God's name companies who specialize in plus size clothing think it's a good idea to use effing size 2 models to display the clothes???  They're not going to look like this  on me.  It's just not.  All this does is make me feel like crap when my new clothes arrive and they don't fit.  If you're going to sell plus -size clothes...  use plus-size models so we have SOME WAY to make a judgement on how this stuff will actually look on our NON-size 2 bodies.  Seriously.  I'm looking at you Woman Within, One Stop Plus, Roaman's and many many others.  On and ya'll charge me $6.50 every single time I have to return something because my mind couldn't increase the size of your models by 8 sizes to know if they'll work out before I buy them.  Yeah, thanks for that.  Jerks.  

sigh

Hamlet's Mistress

4 comments:

Chibi Jeebs said...

I'm... torn over the whole FA thing. It feels like being for it means I can't want to improve my HEALTH (yes, including weight loss). Now, I know a lot of the FA proponents out there would argue that point with me and say that I most certainly can be an advocate and work on my health, but that's not the overall *feeling* I get from the majority of stuff I've read out there. Like you, I'm NOT content to have a sore back, for my knees to crack when I walk, to be out of breath when I get to the top of the stairs, and NO ONE gets to tell me that I *should* be okay with that.

As for the exercise thing? It's HARD. Honestly, I rarely *want* to work out, but I know if I want to increase my fitness and improve my health, I *have* to do it. For me, that means making time, telling myself I want to do it, and pretending to enjoy it (at the very least, I can tell you that I feel like a freaking rockstar when I'm finished). Basically I try to look at it as something I do to take care of myself, like relaxing in a bath (not *quite* the same, I know, but I tell myself what I have to in order to get off my ass). Unfortunately, sometimes it's a matter of choosing the... lesser of two evils, I guess?

And the plus size clothing thing is RIDIC.

hamletsmistress said...

YES!! That's how I feel when I read some of the FA blogs. I have a friend who is on the FA bandwagon hard core and I don't feel like I can talk to her about weight loss stuggles anymore because I just get "that's why I don't do it anymore" instead of the dialogue we used to have. And my husband HAS lost weight. 135lbs. He gained about 50 back but he's still way ahead of the game and his answer is always the same. Exercise. And yes, thank you, I know that. But for me I think it really has come down to being too scared to fail AGAIN and thus just not starting again because I don't want to fail again. When I fail at losing weight IS the ONLY time my weight does have an impact on my self worth. I always see it as a failure to follow through on something which to me, in my eyes, is a character flaw of mine so I definitely get all judge mentally of myself about it. So between my husband and my friend, I feel like I have no one to communicate with this about and that just makes it so much harder.

Fat Loss 4 Idiots said...

Same feeling arises with me. Such that I am very fat and it seems to be burden on me also. But now I am trying to reduce that.

hamletsmistress said...

Good luck!!

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