Thoughts on Fat

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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(cross-posted from my LJ and sanitized for the MPSIMS viewing audience. )

I’m fat. And I’ve been fat for my whole life, pretty much. Kept getting fatter until a couple of years ago, but have been pretty steady since. I’m about 5’4" and I last time I checked, a year or so ago, I weighed about 245 lbs. I wear a size 24. So yes, I am fat.

I am content with this. Me being fat is entirely my own fault. I don’t have an illness, as far as I know there’s no blubber gene I’m stuck with, as the rest of my family isn’t like this. I am fat because I like eating and don’t like exercising. That’s about it, really. If I really wanted to lose weight, I probably could. But that would require effort, and I’m fat in the first place because I’m lazy and I don’t like effort. See the conundrum here?

But I’m okay with being fat. Honestly, I’m content with myself. It took a very very long time and one wonderful boyfriend to get me to that point (the boyfriend then dumped me, but the lessons remain…), but I actually look in the mirror and go “Hey, you look pretty sexy today.” sometimes, and the rest of the time it’s usually “Not bad, Tara, not bad.” I’m proportional, no random huge parts or random tiny parts. It’s all big. I’m like a skinny girl with a whole bunch of extra padding. I have curves. I have a waist, I have hips, I have an ass and a really awesome set of boobs. I have a killer face, with apparently perfect cheekbones (according to some friends), a beautiful smile, and drop-dead-gorgeous eyes. Seriously, I have really pretty eyes. And honestly, all around, I think I’m really pretty. I like myself just fine the way I am, and I know for a fact that there are guys out there who think I’m f*cking beautiful.

I don’t understand other people sometimes. My friend Sarah complained to me at one point this summer about how fat she was. “Oh god, Tara, I weigh 200 pounds! I’m fat! I’m so fat! 200 pounds!” My only response to this is, “Um… so?” Seriously. Why does this matter, especially when you’re like Sarah and you’ve got a fantastic boyfriend who’s willing to move all the way across the country to be with you, as well as like 3 other guys who would fck you in two seconds if you asked. So you weigh 200 pounds. What’s your freaking point? Am I supposed to go "oh my god, Sarah, you really are a fcking whale, (even though I weigh 50 pounds more than you) you’re revolting, it’s disgusting, you’re soooo fat!" Or am I supposed to go, “Oh, Sarah, no, you’re gorgeous, blah blah blah.” Sarah is pretty, and obviously she’s sexy, because she has guys driving in from hours away to be with her, plus she’s just a really nice person. Generally. I find the “oh my god I’m so fat I’m disgusting” sht really offensive to me, seeing as how I’m a whole freaking lot bigger than her. If she’s a revolting ugly pig, then what the hell am I? Answer? Neither of us is revolting, she’s hot, I’m hot, and the only one who gives a flying fck about her weight is her. And she’s not doing anything about it, so she really should shut up.

Seriously, my philosophy about complaining is that if you have the power to change a situation, and you’re not exercising that power and doing anything about that situation, then you have no right to complain. Sarah and I are both not skinny. We are both not doing anything to make ourselves skinny. The difference? Sarah bitches about not being skinny, when she very well could be skinny if she worked at it. I don’t complain about being fat because I know that if I tried to lose weight I probably could, but I’m not trying. I’m fine how I am. Yeah, occasionally I’ll see a cute outfit I like and go “Man, I wish I could wear that.” But I’m not really wishing I was skinny as much as I was wishing that somebody on the freaking planet made cute clothes for fat people.

And I’ve kind of gone off track here, I think. I guess it all boils down to these points:
1.) I am fat. And that’s okay. I am still damn pretty, I am still damn sexy, I am still an intelligent, wonderful, unique, talented and interesting person. There’s just more of me than there is of you.

2.) If there’s something that you’re unhappy about, and you have the power to change it, and for whatever reason you are not exercising that power, then shut up and qwityerbitchin. Either fix it, or stop complaining.

3.) Don’t go “Oh, I’m so fat and ugly!” to a friend who weighs more than you. It’s not very nice.

Now that I think about it, I would really like to make a PSA about fat people, you know, like they have about parents letting their kids know they shouldn’t smoke. Similar format, you know how they have a bunch of people and the film them all saying the same thing and then cut back and forth among them so they repeat the message? I’m thinking something like that, and have the girls saying something like, “I’m fat. But that doesn’t mean I’m not pretty, and it doesn’t mean I’m not sexy, and it doesn’t mean I’m not a wonderful, beautiful, very cool person. All it means, is that I’m bigger than you.” ::grin:: That would be freaking awesome.

Kinda rambly, but thought I would like to share here.

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Wouldn’t it though?

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Why does this matter, especially when you’re like Sarah and you’ve got a fantastic boyfriend who’s willing to move all the way across the country to be with you, as well as like 3 other guys who would f*ck you in two seconds if you asked.

Sarah should feel good about herself because she has plenty of male approval? If so, what if she didn’t have guys hot for her? What would her reason for self-esteem be then? Or yours, for that matter? You talk way more about your looks than you do your intelligence and all that other cool stuff that stays whether you’re fat or not.

Just wondering. It’s late and maybe I’m overanalyzing.

But yeah, your PSA would rock.

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From another person who would last minutes longer than a super model if both were tossed into the Bering Straits:

exercise is very good for you; you can exercise without being a slave to the bulemia faction

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Ok, I really want my wife to have a friend like you.

My beautiful, intelligent, caring wife of 14 years is a few sizes larger than you are. She beats herself up constantly about her weight, but rarely takes any real steps to change it. Then, of course, about the time she starts to either feel ok about herself, or tries to lose some weight, someone will make some crack (the most recent one was a god-awful offensive bit in Fark about the wonderful practice of “hogging”), and her newly built ego comes crashing down.

I try (I really do!) to let her know how beautiful, sexy, and desirable she is. Near as I can tell, my opinion doesn’t count because I’m her husband. Either she assumes that I “have to say that”, or she figures that I’m blinded by love or something. The fact that I work the graveyard shift as well as another job, so rarely have the chance to, uh, “show her” how sexy I find her isn’t helping either.

Now that I think about it, I bet all of her closest female friends throughout her life (definitely during the time we’ve been together) were even worse than your friend Sarah - I doubt that any of them were bigger than a size 12 or 14, and I know that all of them considered themselves fat, and verbalized that opinion frequently.

And I REALLY wish they made decent clothes for larger-sized women - one of the worst things that happens is that she can’t find a damn thing she likes in her size, so she keeps wearing the same (by now pretty threadbare) clothes she has been, which of course is a secondary issue for her self-esteem.

Of course, I suppose I could be totally selfish in my rant here, and mention that my beautiful, sexy, desirable wife has started having issues with my seeing her nekkid. Now THAT is a problem!

So, then there’s j66’s point:

This hits a little close to home, 'cause my second job is as a personal trainer. I do get concerned, not so much about the weight itself, but about the sedentary lifestyle that has caused the weight (her mom had a heart attack at 56 or something)…although I make it a point not to be the one who brings this up.

To top it all off, we have a 12 year old daughter who we REALLY want to have a healthy body image (a healthy body, too, for that matter). So, we almost never talk about fitness in the context of “physique”, but rather in terms of having a body that does what you want it to do (we also limit the movies she watches based on not giving her the idea that teenage girls are supposed to be built like Brittany Murphy).

So, what the Hell am I trying to say here? I guess that I wish there were more women like you around (and fewer assholes like in the Fark comments!) to be a good influence.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent!
Jon

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I couldn’t agree more about how important it is to have a healthy body image as it’s somehting I have to fight to maintain. I am not fat, I’m a size 12 (US size 8 or 10, I think) and a healthy weight for my height. But my mother and grandmother are both tiny, fragile builds and I suspect suffer from undiagnosed eating disorders (Grandma’s 80, but still weighs herself everyday, diets constantly and panics if she puts on a pound), and they constantly tell me that I’m too big. The last time I was a weight my mother considered acceptable, I ending up in hospital after collapsing at work - I hadn’t eaten in days. Now, I eat healthily, exercise regularly and try to make myself believe I’m beautiful. But after every conversation with my mum, I look in the mirror and feel disgusted with myself. I think your attitude is fantastic Tara, and if I ever have a daughter I hope I can instill a similar one in her.

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No kidding!!

You don’t have enough money to do/buy things but you won’t take a second job or find a better job when both are possibilities…
Your SO treats everyone else better than you and won’t listen when you mention it…
This, that, or the other diet doesn’t work because you don’t like to cook…
The reason you can’t get a job is because “they” don’t like you…

GAH!! If you’re not going to make an effort to solve your problems, shut up - I don’t want to hear it anymore!! Whether it’s related to your weight, your relationships, your health, your job - do something or just go away.

I finally got worried about my health, largely due to my weight. I’m now doing something about it. It took nearly 50 years, but, by golly, I’m going to keep eating right. Somehow, sleeping better and feeling better is giving me more pleasure than a hot fudge sundae - who’da thunk it??

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AntaresJB, I’ve always liked your posts. You seem like a genuinely happy person, and sometimes it seems as if there are few genuinely happy people in the world. I do hope you decide to do something about your weight someday, though. Not because you’re unsightly, of course, because you’re not, but for your own health.

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I suppose the point I was trying to make with that part about Sarah is twofold: First, she is the only one who seems to care about how much she weighs. All of her friends think she’s beautiful, every boyfriend she’s had thinks she’s beautiful, and pretty much the only person who thinks she’s fat and disgusting is her. And that should change. Second, it kinda goes along with the “Don’t bitch about your weight to the friend who’s heavier than you” thing, it’s kind of hurtful to be saying how revolting you are and how sad it is, when you’re talking to a friend who has had sex less in her whole life than you’ve had in the past week. :slight_smile:

And this post was about my looks. But there are other posts on the board where I make it clear that I’m intelligent, talented, creative, fun, and just awesome. But you know, I lived the majority of my life hating the way I looked, and now that I don’t, it’s always good to celebrate that.

And I’m pretty sure that once I get out of college and get settled in life, I will eventually get around to the whole “healthier lifestyle” bit. At the moment, that’s just not what’s most important to me.

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If Sarah’s unhappy with herself and her body image then the entire world can wear their “I love fat Sarah” t-shirts and it’s not going to make her feel better. If Sarah thinks she’s fat and disgusting and wants to do something about it in an intelligent manner, then as her friend I think you ought to encourage her.

Why is it not very nice? She’s not saying you’re fat and ugly. She’s saying she is. Any inference that because you weigh more you’re also fat and ugly is on you, not her.

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Antares/Tara thanks for my warm fuzzy of the day.

I am weighin in aroud 200-205 these days. And working out twice a week at the gym as well as at home. It’s finally starting to help firm things up! YAY ME! chuckle

My mom was 60 when she died… thats only 22 years away for me. And I have planned to live to 101 since I was 12 so II guess I better do something to improve my odds!:wink: And as I am approaching 40 I suppose there’s no time like the present… Mom’s health problems started around 45 -50 for her.

I love the PSA idea. As my friend Jen says “Fat girls need love too!”

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The point is that she’s not doing anything about it in an intelligent manner. She’s not doing anything about it at all. She’s just complaining about it. There’s a difference. I would be the first one to encourage her if she actually tried to change it. But she’s not, all she’s doing is bitching about how fat she is without making any effort to rectify that. And this is just aggravated by the fact that she’s the only one who thinks there’s really a problem. (I think she’s about a size 14, which is pretty much average, AFAIK.)

And as for the complaining to a friend bigger than you thing, I think it’s… well, not exactly tacky, not exactly rude… something along those lines… to whine about your weight in the first place, in any situation. If a friend goes, “Oh geez, I’m so fat!” that leaves the other person in the situation of either disagreeing with them, saying, “Oh, no, you’re not, you’re beautiful, blah blah” or being a bitch and saying “Yup, you’re right, you’re a hog.” or ignoring them, which is a sucky situation to be in. Complaining about things like that always comes off to me as either fishing for compliments or serious self-pity, neither of which is a lot of fun for the person listening. And the inference as far as what that means for a person heavier than you doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to me, especially when you’re giving numbers, like Sarah did (“200 pounds! That’s really really fat!”)

Oh, and Krisfer, yay for you! It’s great that you’re taking steps for your health and happiness. Best of luck on staying healthy and reaching your goals. :slight_smile: