The Thin Line of Fat: Fat and Fit--Health At Every Size

This article was surprising to some. Saying fat people can be fit is somehow seen as an oxymoron as we've cast aside the fat as unhealthy, sickly, disgusting or otherwise in an attempt to cleanse everything of the different.

Not so fast.

It turns out fat people can be fit after all, supporting years of advocacy by those in the Fat Acceptance and Health At Every Size movements. It seems that one's heart health has less to do with their weight than other factors. Being a size 4 or a size 24 doesn't determine heart health.

I'd like to think that this will finally start to seep in to the science of chronic pain and chronic illness. I cannot tell you how many times I've had doctors use my weight and size as a cop-out to doing any actual doctoring. It was even more frustrating when they used it two summers ago, when I was sixty pounds lighter than I am currently and, ironically, when all my chronic problems came to a head.

All of us fatties have stories about how doctors have used fat to determine the cause of an ailment. Being fat doesn't cause an upper respiratory infection. My weight is not relevant to determine whether I have pink eye. And young girls should not be encouraged to eat less than 1400 calories a day. (All things I have personally encountered.)

So maybe, just maybe, we can start to gain a little ground...or at least keep the ground that hasn't been taken from us yet.

The Thin Line of Fat: Happy No Diet Day (I'm So Down With This)

Today, May 6, is No Diet Day.

You're probably thinking why someone with a health blog is promoting a diet-free day. I will tell you: diets do not work and only serve to make people feel inadequate. Body acceptance and fat acceptance should be part of life--not everyone is what some people deem "Average".

Maybe it's time for a quick break to discuss what I mean when I use the term "diet" in this post. When I say "diet" I don't mean a lifestyle choice, I mean a decision to embark on a plan of starvation or self-deprivation for a period of time either definite or indefinite for the sole purpose of dropping pounds. Diets are usually disgused as lifestyle changes, so it's hard to know where people stand.

These things are lifestyle changes:
1. Eating low carb or low sugar because of a medical reason (insulin resistance, gluten intolerance, etc.)
2. Becoming a vegetarian or vegan because of moral or personal reasons.
3. Cutting out highly-processed foods for basic health and ecological reasons.

These things are diets:
1. Setting a maximum number of calories, fat grams, carbohydrate grams or any other measurement for a certain time period (i.e., 1600 calorie a day diet).
2. Measuring health by weight alone
3. Weighing food on a meal-by-meal basis to avoid going over set limits
4. Setting goals in terms of pounds lost without regard to basic overall health

So why shouldn't you diet? Here are ten good reasons why from the Counsel on Size & Weight Discrimination:

10. DIETS DON'T WORK. Even if you lose weight, you will probably gain it all back, and you might gain back more than you lost.

9. DIETS ARE EXPENSIVE. If you didn't buy special diet products, you could save enough to get new clothes, which would improve your outlook right now.

8. DIETS ARE BORING. People on diets talk and think about food and practically nothing else. There's a lot more to life.

7. DIETS DON'T NECESSARILY IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH. Like the weight loss, health improvement is temporary. Dieting can actually cause health problems.

6. DIETS DON'T MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL. Very few people will ever look like models. Glamour is a look, not a size. You don't have to be thin to be attractive.

5. DIETS ARE NOT SEXY. If you want to be more attractive, take care of your body and your appearance. Feeling healthy makes you look your best.

4. DIETS CAN TURN INTO EATING DISORDERS. The obsession to be thin can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing, and compulsive exercising.

3. DIETS CAN MAKE YOU AFRAID OF FOOD. Food nourishes and comforts us, and gives us pleasure. Dieting can make food seem like your enemy, and can deprive you of all the positive things about food.

2. DIETS CAN ROB YOU OF ENERGY. If you want to lead a full and active life, you need good nutrition, and enough food to meet your body's needs.

And the number one reason to give up dieting:

1. Learning to love and accept yourself just as you are will give you self-confidence, better health, and a sense of wellbeing that will last a lifetime.

So give yourself a break and break free of dieting once and for all. If you need a lifestyle change or desire one, make it, but don't rope yourself into this multi-billion dollar scheme perpetuated at the cost of self-respect and hope.

The Thin Line of Fat: A New Series

Those of us who have been fat our whole lives recognize the discrimination and prejudices associated with being larger than "normal." In fact, many of us have even used the terminology ("overweight," "obese," "thick," "big-boned," "large," "Ruben-esque," "full-figured," etc.) ourselves to conform to the outside world. It's a vicious cycle that often starts when we are young and usually never ends--a cycle of self-hate, bad habits, bad choices and lack of confidence that is more enveloping than a black hole.

When you have a chronic illness, there's even more to add to the fold.

For years I struggled with what I knew in my heart to be weight that I didn't earn. And by that I mean in no way to suggest that anyone earns the weight they have (though I'm sure some do), but only that my body was doing things that I knew I couldn't control. It was only years after I was diagnosed with PCOS and someone taught me about Insulin Resistance that I was vindicated.

In those intervening years, however, instead of questioning my body, myself and my sanity I decided to embrace who I was. This was in large part due to meeting one woman in particular who taught me to start loving who I was, regardless of how much I weighed. (Unfortunately and sadly for the younger versions of Me in this world, Heather MacAllister passed after a bout of cervical cancer.) Ever since then I have been on a path of self-discovery and self-appreciation. I am no longer fat-phobic (and yes, you can be fat-phobic even if you're fat) and I appreciate and patronize the online fat-o-sphere daily. (See sites like Big Fat Blog, Big Fat Deal, Angry Fat Girlz, Fatshionista, the Rotund, Babble, and more like those listed here courtesy of Big Fat Blog.)

Then I was confronted with the confirmation that my fat had a cause that could (and probably should) be worked on. I am insulin resistant. That has caused my body to improperly turn sugar into fat and store it indefinitely. Thus, there is a way to start to control it.

For a year I went on a low carb diet, worked out regularly and lost 60+ pounds. By the world's standards I was still big, but for my standards I was svelte.

Then IC hit (or at least what I believe to be IC, PFD and vulvodynia now after further investigation). I was put on medicine that derailed my progress indefinitely by forcing me to gain weight. For the first time in over eighteen months I craved sugar and carbs. And being that it came at the time where my emotional wellbeing was at the eye of the perfect storm (getting engaged, deaths of family and friends including both grandmothers, preparing for and taking the bar exam) I was lost.

Now I struggle again. Not because I don't know what needs to be done...that part has been figured out. But it's more because I'm torn about what it means to love myself. I've agreed for a long time that it doesn't mean I have to be thin, but somehow have I convinced myself that it means that I have to be fat? And is that right? It wasn't until I lost any weight (for the first time in my life successfully) that I recognized it as a burden when I put it back on. I never felt overweight until the past year and a half. I've been fat, big, rotund, large, etc. but never overweight.

I'm at a crossroads where I've begun to get some of my intervening chronic illnesses on some sort of path to recover. Do I get back on the train that derailed a year and a half ago? Or does that train have some drawbacks of its own?

My dilemma continues to be that while I think I'll never be thin, I'm afraid of losing my identity as a fat chick. It sounds bizarre, but true. And at the same time, it's easier for me to rest where I am because, let me tell you, the first month of a healthier lifestyle is a hard road to follow. I know that it'll help the PFD and will definitely help the PCOS and IR, but is that some sort of conformity to the "man" that I don't want to associate with? And I know I felt better 60 pounds ago, so what am I thinking about?

When one has a chronic illness, these are the identity traps we fall into. This is even more true when we are given meds for problems that cause us to gain more weight than the "extra" weight we've been carrying all along. I want to confront my health, but I've spent so long advocating the fact that being fat isn't a health problem. If I lose weight, do I lose credibility now too? But if I gain it, or stay where I'm at, don't I somehow mask the underlying problem?

So the next few months are going to be dedicated, personally, to that issue. I need to get healthier, but I also need to learn to confront my demons about fat and thin and about health and illness...about mental pain and physical pain and how to balance the two.

Maybe it comes down to the fact that I need to have some sort of agreement with myself that it's okay to lose or gain weight on my own, but if its the effect of an illness or its cure, it's not me and it's okay to work against that. Maybe I need to stop identifying myself entirely. Or maybe I need to realize that everyone has that perfect spot and though I'll never be a size 8, a size 20 would be nice.

I'm a big girl. I am beautiful. And I'm beleaguered with chronic illness. Where is my balance?

Only time will tell...