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So I’m currently making my way through Marilyn Wann’s Fat!So? (the book) and I really love it, but it’s raising some questions for me. Since I did this thing sorta backwards (self acceptance first, then reading all the Fat!So?s, etc.) a lot of it is a repeat of what I already know, but I just got through her section on health (and how being fat doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy) and here’s what I wonder: what does eating right mean exactly? Maybe Marilyn talks about it later in the book, but as of now, she says a lot about eating right and exercising regularly, but never specifies what eating right means.
Now, I must admit something. I’m asking this question because, though I don’t plan on dieting, I know I need to get my health under control. I am a fattie, but I’m a fattie who hasn’t really been exercising regularly (about to change), and a fattie who has high cholesterol, and a history of heart disease in the family. It’s a pretty serious thing for my dad that I eat well, and exercise, but his idea of eating right is very particular. He himself eats majority meat, and veggies. I, on the other hand, looooooovvvveee carbs, and never plan on giving them up. Give me a good plate of spaghetti any day!
So my question is, what does it mean to eat right? I hate meat. Really don’t like it. I eat chicken sometimes because supposedly I need more protein in my diet, but I think I’d rather be vegetarian, if I can be. Problem is, if I go veggie, I eat, seriously, ALL carbs. Now, my cardiologist, and everyone tells me this is bad. And my dad would agree. He has read about ten thousand books that tell him all about food and what to eat. For instance, he’s figured out, through all these books, that it’s CARBS and SUGARS, not fat, that cause fat, and bad health. I don’t know that much about it, but he’s pretty convinced. The Atkins, in theory, he says, is pretty good. Now, he doesn’t eat really fatty meats. He eats lean meats–turkey, chicken. He also eats entirely organic if he can (he’s actually ordering his chickens from a farm, and he just ordered a quarter of a steer from an organic farm for next month). But I don’t like meat. So what’s “eating right” for me?
And I have another question, an opinion question for all of you, where do you draw the line between going on a diet and eating right? Is it a diet for me to say, “hey, I eat too many carbohydrates. Let’s see if I can cut down on those a bit?” Is dieting only when you limit something? Or take something away from yourself that you know you want?
I want to be clear that I want to change my diet to get healthy, but I don’t want to cut out things I love. I love cake, noodles, cookies, Doritos, Cheetos, everything that tastes so good. I don’t eat all of that stuff too often, but I love it. And I intend to continuing loving and enjoying those foods. How does that fit into “eating right?” I don’t know. But I do know that I watch my dad every day restricting things I know he loves to eat. He won’t really eat mashed potatoes, or pasta, when my mom makes it. And it makes me sad because I’m afraid that’s what I’m going to have to become to get my cholesterol under control.
So I guess you could say I need help. I have a conflict between what the medical field (and my father) are telling me, and what I want to do and eat. I have a conflict between the way I think about this stuff, and my health. My mind is telling me “don’t change everything because they tell you to,” but then, I know that I have to make changes for my health. It will help once I’m exercising regularly, and really, that might tell me whether I’m eating right better than anything else.
But I want to know, what is “eating right” for you? And where do you personally draw the line between diet and right?
So my sister got a call from an old friend this week asking her to host a Mary Kay party so she could do a demonstration. My sis, K., got really excited and called us all up, so I ended up at her apartment last night for a Mary Kay party. Now, those of you who know me know that I don’t wear a lot of makeup. But I thought, eh, what the hell! It’s free!
So I went. It was fun, and interesting. K., our brother’s girlfriend B., and our cousin E. and her friend (F.) all came. We were sitting around beforehand and eating chips and dip, when F., who is athletic and stick thin, said something about how she “had better eat all this dip now because next week she was going on Weight Watchers.” We all replied with mild outrage at the thought, saying that she was so thin, and that’s just absurd. She replied that she wanted to do it so that she could control what she ate. She says she eats “mostly carbs and no vegetables.”
This, sadly, launched a whole discussion about how Weight Watchers was the best diet. I put in my two cents, saying “I think the best diet is NOT dieting.” to which someone said, “Well, Weight Watchers is good because it teaches you how to eat.” I responded, “Hell, I know how to eat. No problems learning that one. I can eat just fine. See?” And proceeded to eat my cookie. My comment about the best diet being NOT dieting merely started everyone into justifying why Weight Watchers was so good. Ugh ugh ugh. What can a fat girl do?
I sorta just sat there and tried to debate a little against it all, but it just got tiresome. So I just listened. I thought it was really absurd. And sad. And I didn’t know what to do.
Next thing I know, we’re all sitting down around my sister’s table with mirrors and makeup in front of us. The Mary Kay consultant (we’ll call her MK, hee hee), is a sweetie, an really believes in this stuff. And thus she began her presentation. Right away she talked about how great Mary Kay is for women, which I believe, and how their sales are good, and make women millionaires. She said:
“The thing about Mary Kay is that, even in times of economic crisis, like right now, our sales are still booming. In times of economic crisis, sales boom on three things: alcohol, cigarettes, and makeup.” We all “Oooo” and “ahhhh” at that statistic. She continued: “Think about it, if I just lost my job, I’m gonna drink, I’m gonna smoke, and I’m going to want to wear makeup to my job interviews.” Interesting. And a little sad.
But I have to admit, their products are good. We did all the cleansing, and moisturizing, and then put on their quick day to day makeup. Their foundation was light (though way more than I’m used to), their eye makeup fantastic, and their lip treatment (including first a scrub for lips that exfoliates your lips, and an oil-based lip balm that lasts hours) was heaven. MK was so great, and really knew what she was selling. She told me afterwards that she really does love the product, and the fact that she can make money off of sharing it with others sincerely makes her happy.
I also got some interesting beauty tips:
1. You should always wash your face and neck in an upwards, outward motion, to prevent wrinkles.
2. For your eyes, you should always clean in an inward, downward motion to prevent crows feet.
3. You should change your mascara once every 2-3 months to avoid getting pink-eye, etc.
Anyway, my sister was delighted. She bought a ton of stuff (after getting a hosting discount). Today she sent an email to my mother saying that my mom should “see how beautiful she looked” and that she really loved hosting a party like that. E. and F. also bought some stuff.
Now I think this post might display some conflict in feelings on my part. And here’s why: I’m all for makeup. I’m all for enhancing what you consider your positive attributes. I’m all for a little bit of glam for something special. But I feel immensely sad that my sister, and a lot of women, need makeup to boost their self image. And it falls back to the usual suspects: low self esteem, trying to fit into an unreal ideal. And it makes me sad. I loved the Mary Kay demonstration, but I hated that my sister has never sounded happier, felt more beautiful, than the day after she bought, and therefore the first day she wore, all this Marry Kay makeup.
I think we need a message to women. One where we’re all clean-faced, fat, and happy. But then, if a bit of makeup makes you feel better about yourself, and how you look, more power to you. I support anything that makes people happy. I just wish that the superficial weren’t it.
I’ve wrote a little about this before, but here’s the skinny (haha!): I am currently surrounded by people getting married. This weekend, I was Maid of Honor for my friend K. My sister got engaged a month or so ago (and I will stand for her next spring). One of my other friends has been engaged for years and has finally set a date for next July. And last but not least, I have a fourth friend who, in all the wedding talk, has admitted she really wants to marry her current beau. Altogether, that’s a lot of wedding talk for me to handle, but I think I’ve been doing pretty well, except on these points:
For K.’s rehearsal dinner, we went to a nice restaurant that had very generous portions. Me and my friend G., a fellow bridesmaid, navigated our way pretty well through the tons and tons of food, only to arrive at dessert, and almost die at the size of the cakes we ordered. K. made a comment, as she picked at her carrot cake (OMG, the most delicious cake I’ve ever had) that she wasn’t going to fit in her dress the next day. She had explained to me earlier that the dress had a corset, and that she couldn’t breathe when putting it on. I said, (in a way that might have come out a little wrong), that the carrot cake would not, by any means, affect how well she fit into her dress. If she fit into her dress before that cake, then she’d fit into it after that cake. Her mother, a bit controlingly, commented a couple times on the fact that K. was actually eating her meal. I was thrown off, and G., who has become more and more aware of FA as me and my friends talk more and more about it, kept throwing me conspiratorial glances. Needless to say, we both tried, very hard, to eat our entire pieces of cake. I succeeded. G. got very close.
The next morning we arrived at the church bright and early for the 10:00AM wedding, and were there when K. was getting stuffed into her dress. We stood back and let K.’s mother and aunt dress her, but the entire time, while K. was trying not to breathe, her mother was saying, “You shouldn’t have eaten that carrot cake.” G. and I broke character at the moment, and looked on a little scathingly. K. did make it into her dress, and looked absolutely beautiful, but I couldn’t shake the cake comments all day.
This ties in nicely with my sister freaking out a bit about her weight and her dress size. She’s already started trying on dresses, and when she went, she realized that not only are wedding dresses a size larger than a regular dress size, but she has also, in the past year of great happiness with her now-fiancee, gained some weight. I, personally, think she has the perfect body for wearing wedding dresses. She has beautiful curves. And obviously her fiancee doesn’t mind them. But she does. When she called me to tell me about the dress-trying-on experience, she made a comment about how much she hated her body, to which I told her how perfect I thought her body was, and she actually got mad at me, and said something about how she had to lose weight.
I am distressed by all this obsession with looking your best on your wedding day. I mean, yes, find a great dress, get your hair and nails done, but this is your body. You shouldn’t have to mold it to some ideal version of you, when this is you.
The icing on the cake was something I heard on a morning show on the radio this morning about how instead of a bachelorette party, bridal parties today go to some sort of health spa bootcamp to lose weight before the wedding. The radio show pointed out that while men are “drinking, getting fat, and looking at strippers” women are “working their butts off to look like those strippers.” Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Why can’t we all just accept that what makes you look beautiful on your wedding day is when you’re beaming with happiness. You won’t be happy if you’ve been starving yourself and working your butt off. You won’t be happy if your dress is too tight because you bought it to fit the so-called ideal you. On my wedding day I hope to be in heaven because I’m happy. It’ll make me glow, it’ll make me more beautiful, and it’ll make my fat glimmer and shine. No one will care how I look when I’m beaming with joy.
See Joy Nash’s amazing new video below. I’ve noticed everyone else is posting it, and I just HAVE to. Because it makes me squee with joy! (ha ha…no pun intended.)
I know I haven’t posted all week, and I’m sorry. I’ve been unpacking from school, cleaning, organizing, and preparing for one of my best friend’s weddings (in which I’m the Maid of Honor, woah).
Anyway, better posts next week. Wedding’s tomorrow. Friends here all weekend. Monday I start working at the Avenue (wooo! It’ll be different this summer, I think. Since I’ve accepted myself…etc.). More good stuff later.
Anyway, here’s the Joy Nash joyousness to tide you over! She is my goddess!
I am now a 21-year-old Fattie.
Expect a post lacking in substance on Monday! They’ll be pictures!
I don’t think I’ve yet outed myself on my blog as a enormous Harry Potter fan, but “Hello, my name is Chrissy, and I’m a Potterhead.” I am one of those kids who made HP what it is today–part of the originals, mind you. I was 10 when I read the first book, and I grew up with Harry and the gang. My love of HP and Ronnie the Bear (don’t understand the reference? See this.) has only slightly dwindled since the release of the Seventh Book. I am no longer regularly reading Harry Potter fanfiction ( I was an avid SS/HG Shipper, if anyone cares…oh the sadness!). I am no longer rereading HP 1-6. I am no longer craking HP-related jokes a puns all the time. But I love a good dose of HP when I can get it.
In honor of officially finishing my exams for this quarter (and thus, my junior year of undergrad), I am going to bask in the squee of Harry Potter for a post. Please indulge in the non-fat with me. I’m excited about the fluff.
This week, I had a couple of Harry Potter jump-up-and-down-fangirl moments. First of all, Jo Rowling spoke at Harvard’s Commencement. Which made me vehemently wish that I had ‘to Harvard. And started a year earlier. As turns out, I’m not at Harvard, and so instead we relegated to read the speech after the fact online. I am a super-fan of JKR, and her words hit home for me. This was right after I had posted My Biggest Fear, and JKR’s themes went right along with it: the benefits of failure, and the importance of the imagination. She made me squee. I don’t want to get into all the gobbly-gook of the speech, since you should really just read it all, but it was fantastic. I can only hope the speaker at my commencement will be as delightful.
My second squee moment was the other day when JKR auctioned off a “prequel” of Potter for charity. She wrote briefly about the studsy James Potter and Sirius Black. Oh joy! It was so short, but felt like Harry Potter, and I was happy for the short time it took to read it! I miss my Harry Potter fixes! I didn’t bring any of the books with me to school this quarter…
Anyway, I just wanted to post some fluff for fun, and bask in the joy of Harry Potter, the love of my life. Do any of you read HP? How has it affected you?
I was on the way over here to post when I stopped by the F-Word and read Rachel’s post on postponing weddings due to desired weight loss. What do you all think?
I really came to post a bit of fluff, which I found on YouTube today. I wanted to distract myself, and decided to YouTube. After watching the “Target Women” on Yogurt that made its rounds a few weeks ago, I searched to see if there were more: THIS is what I found! Enjoy!
The Belly Dancing Documentary is done! And my poetry collection is almost done, too! Huzzah! Expect posting after Thursday (still have to write a paper for then!).
I just took down my post “Simple Thoughts from the Lunchroom”. A couple people commented on it and pointed out how condescending and just generally privileged I was being, and I agree with them. I’ve taken it down so that no one else has to put up with my crap until I figure out how to apologize.
Sorry. 
I have finally remembered to re-post this after oh-so-long. For follow-up on this, please see the apology post.
An update that will clarify a bit of this post: I’m currently doing summer research at the University of Michigan.
So, on Thursday I ate lunch in the University’s student union. There is a Wendy’s, a Subway, a Mrs. Field’s, a fruit smoothie place, and a convience store, for food. I’ve been eating Subway at least every other day, it seems, since I got here, so I went for Wendy’s.
A while after I sat down to eat, another lady came and sat at a table near me. She’d gotten Subway. She was also fat. And I found myself wondering if she got Subway because that’s what she felt like eating, or because she was worried about what other people would think if she ate at Wendy’s – something I, as a thin person, do not have to worry about.
Now, I’m mindful that, in my opinion, Subway (when I”m not sick of it) tastes a hell of a lot better than Wendy’s. So there’s a fairly good chance she chose that food because she wanted it. But did she? This bothered me while I was eating, and it bothers me now. I hope she was secure enough in her self that if she’d wanted Wendy’s, she’d have gotten it.
A related thought that came to me while I was eating this same meal was, “What happens when Fatties are denied service at, for example, Wendy’s because of the vendor’s ‘conscience’?” à la birth control and pharmacists. Scary thought, no? They’re already in that zone to an extent with social services taking children away from parents because of “concern” about fat.
The feminist in me also wants to comment on how a fat construction worker dude (of whom there were many in the union) wouldn’t get or give a second thought for eating at Wendy’s – it’s dudely not to care for your health. But thank goodness, this has been covered ad nauseum thanks to the recent Hungry-Man issue, so I can just provide links and give my fingers a break.
After reading the overwhelming response on my last post about my biggest fear, I feel the need to respond with a large hug to everyone out there in the Fatosphere. I’ve never, in my life, gotten such a positive reaction, such helpful, concerned responses, such beautiful compliments, and kind words. I was feeling very vulnerable when I posted that last night. I’ve read similar posts elsewhere, but I’ve never been able to admit that to anyone.
For me FA and this blog have had an extremely positive impact on my life. I went from hating my body, hating myself, to accepting my body, and loving myself. Yes, I still have those moments of fear, but with my maturation, with the wisdom of the wiser women who commented on my last post, and with the support of this community, I will more forward. I will find my place, and I will hold tight to it. This is what we do, for each other, for ourselves: we support, we lend arms and ears and shoulders, and we share wisdom. We are fighting hate by spreading love, whether that’s self hate in exchange for self love, or worldwide hate exchanged for worldwide love. And I am proud to call myself part of a movement of such positive, optimistic individuals.
Thank you to everyone who has been here and supported me. This is what we do. And I’m glad I found you all. To the wise, to the fat, to the self-hating, to the optimistic, to the men, to the women, to our morement, thank you.
Letting out the Jigglies