A little housekeeping first. I’ve decided to resurrect the Fat Heffalump Facebook Page. Come on over and “like” it, and I’ll share interesting links and stuff there that feed into the fat acceptance message.
Now…
I had a bit of an epiphany early this morning. I had been reading a few blog posts about weight loss, dieting and exercise last night and had been talking about my own experiences with trying to lose weight and the whole diet/exercise thing. I was mulling it all over this morning when I woke up before the alarm went off, when I realised something.
I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was at a friend’s place recently and they had a scale in their bathroom, which I just couldn’t resist, and weighed myself, for the first time in about 2 years.
At my most crazy starvation and exercise binge kick (between 4 and 6 hours exercise per day, I shit you not), I was exactly 7.4kg lighter than I am now. That was at my lowest adult weight.
When I was constantly dieting and going to the gym, which I hated with a passion (not necessarily to the starvation and exercise insanity levels I call my worst), I was 16kg heavier than I am now.
Today, I no longer diet and refuse to exercise, but only engage in activity for the love of it, not to “exercise”, I am 16kg lighter than regular diet and exercise! And only 7.4kg heavier than at my most extreme desperation of dieting and working out.
How fucking insane is that? All those years of starving myself and working myself into the ground with ridiculous levels of exercise out of desperation to lose weight, and for what?? SEVEN POINT FOUR FUCKING KILOGRAMS!!
And yet the real insanity? When I was in that completely manic phase, I got stuck at my lowest weight, and after two months stuck there I went to my then doctor, and cried my eyes out, telling her how I had no life and I was exercising up to six hours per day, that my friends didn’t want anything to do with me and that I couldn’t keep up with work. I cried that I couldn’t move off that weight (which was still fat) even after two months of working my arse off.
Her response? “If you just ramped it up a notch, you’ll lose some more weight.”
Yep, between four and six hours per day of manic exercising wasn’t quite enough for this doctor. She wanted me to add more. More than power walking before work, two sessions at the gym, two hours of swimming of an evening and then yoga before bed.
Which goes to show, even doing what they tell you to do and diet and exercise, isn’t enough. It’s never fucking enough, unless you’re one of the miracle few that get thin, and can stay thin. Even then they constantly berate you not to “fall off the wagon” or “slip up”.
Thankfully I stopped going to that doctor.
I get so angry when I think that not only doctors, but society at large expects fat women to practically kill themselves, or at least live in misery, to try to reach a goal that matters to them – not to the woman in question. It busts my arse when I think that I fought so hard for a shitty 7.4kg, and that wasn’t good enough. It was everything that I had to give, and it wasn’t enough, because I was STILL FAT.
So screw you calories in and energy out – you’re a complete lie. I’m going to eat however I feel like eating, and move my fat body in whatever ways I enjoy, but I’m not playing the “Get thin” game any more.
I’m still fat today. A mere 7.4kg fatter than my thinnest, but 16kg lighter than my very fattest. I’m happy. I don’t hate myself. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.
Life is good.
Fat Heffalump 
Holy cow girl! That must have been SO frustrating. Can you believe the things we have done to ourselves – all in the name of trying to FIT in and be “normal?”
I have managed to lose quite a bit of weight in my day (152 lbs was my biggest loss) – but, my body always quits losing well before I reach a “normal” weight and then gains it back. I’m done with dieting – even in the face of pressure from doctors and others.
Thanks for the inspiration – wow….the hard work and suffering that we do just to lose a few pounds. Ridiculous!
Guess what? We are NORMAL!!!! Our bodies are doing what they were made to do – despite our efforts to the contrary.
I forgot to add, the heaviest weight is only 25kg (ish) heavier than my lightest weight. By most doctors standards I had over the years, I should have lost double that with “a calorie controlled diet and regular exercise”.
I call bullshit!
Hell Yeah
Yes we are normal. And I’ve avoided the scale I have for a while now…it got shoved in the little nook under my shelves in the bathroom.
I have never ever had a doctor tell me I needed to really lose weight. I mean after I got started on my medication for PCOS I did lose about 20 pounds, but then it just stopped, and for a while I was a little upset about that. And my parents and sisters have pushed me to lose weight, but I never seemed to drop anymore. And I’m pretty sure I’ve gained a little bit back, but I can still fit into 99% of the clothes I’ve had for the last three years.
You’re lucky that you’ve not had the doctors pushing you Barbara – I’ve probably had your share!
I LOVE YOU!
Seriously, I relate to this sooooo much. Like when I started going to my gym regularly and the staff seemed to take my professional and social obligations less seriously than that of the thinner gym-goers. Like they fucking assume that fat people don’t have lives or anything? And that we’re supposed to just stop EVERYTHING we’re doing to fucking lose weight? Suck my balls! (philosophical notion of balls, that is.) Oh yeah, I have to skip my final exams to go to an exercise class and forget about deadlines for work and what about my family who’s wondering if I’m still alive…
At the height of my weight loss, when I was down there at that 7.4kg lighter figure, I had alienated all of my friends, except for the shiny new “friends” that preyed on my vulnerability at the time, couldn’t keep up with work, never socialised, and thought of nothing but trying to lose weight, through any means I could.
How is one supposed to maintain a life of that?
Exactly! I love my friends who have seen me through every kind of hell imaginable and I them; I wouldn’t trade them for anything. They’ve seen me through Oprah-esque size changes throughout the past decade, but know that I’ll always be Rachel the sarcastic workaholic who likes making people laugh, whether it’s at 275 pounds or 150 pounds.
I’ll take my awesome, motley group of misfit friends over these miserable fucks who think they’re better than me because they don’t eat.
I’ll take my fulfilling job as a tax accountant over spending 8-10 hours a day going “OMG! I ate a breadcrumb! Oh shit I have to do another 20 minutes of cardio!”
For crying out loud I eat better than most people period– but like in a few comments below, those douchehounds always think you’re lying, sneaking food, etc. Like the stupid reactions I get when I mention I’m a vegetarian! I know there’s other fat vegetarians and vegans out there who can relate to me on this. So while I don’t advocate eating something like cake every day, I’m not going to feel shitty about myself for having a slice of cake at a friend or family member’s birthday party. I’m not going to shame myself into a 6-hour workout for having some ice cream on the last day of school; like all those stupid diet guides want you to do.
Sorry about the rant, but my bottom line is in concurrence: what kind of life is that?
Do you know what? If someone wants to eat cake every day, then go for it. Or chocolate, or chips or any other food high in fat, sugar, carbs or whatever the no-no ingredient du jour happens to be.
It’s our lives, we need to live them and we get to make the choices when it comes to what we eat and what we don’t eat.
Oops, I meant to add this to my original reply but accidentally hit the Return button:
My quality of life increased hundredfold after I stopped giving a shit about all the stupid buzz around me. The stupid fad diets, don’t do X amount of this exercise, don’t eat bread after 6PM (but I work late nights, so suck it!)…
I eat foods I like when I’m hungry, I box and do weight training because I hate the “girl appropriate” exercises. I don’t get sucked into hating myself, or making myself and every person around me totally fucking miserable.
Not having that stress, and just eating healthy foods and doing the exercise I like, is what makes me feel like a champ! Even though I don’t have a smaller jeans size to show for it. Diet industry and fatphobic doctors, suck my balls. 🙂
Love this. This is what it’s about. Feeling good, being happy, having a life. That doctor didn’t get it. Most don’t. (Again, I have to admit I didn’t really get it when I was in the classic primary care mode… but please forgive me, I’ve seen the light and am trying to get the word out!)
If you’ve ever seen the People magazine, “lost half my weight and how they keep it off”, it sounds MISERABLE. Torture in the name of thinness, not health. So, I could lose weight (maybe) if I ate an egg-white and 6 almonds for breakfast, worked out two hours and three hours on MWF, ate 2 ounces of plain tuna with a fat-free whole wheat cracker. I’d be INSANE, isolated, depressed, crazy, divorced, HUNGRY, unhealthy, but thin so it’s OK? Some famous guy who wrote a book about losing a ton of weight was on Martha Stewart and she said, “I knew you were serious about losing weight when we were at Nobu and you just sat there and peeled and ate oranges the whole time!” Oranges at Nobu? Crazy, sad, what’s the point of life if you have to eat only oranges at Nobu, and a half a cup of fiber One with 1’/2 cup fat-free soy milk every morning. Ugh. Thanks for the reality check! Why does our culture celebrate that insanity, and not call it out for what it is?
It’s not just the misery either – it’s the pointlessness of it. All that for a mere 7.4kg? Bite me!
When I think about the ridiculousness of fighting tooth and nail in a pointless battle for something that I am not designed to be, I just can’t understand why anyone in the medical profession, who have supposedly studied for a long time, could think that logical?
My parents took me to a fat camp at 12. You had to record the exercise you were doing in a log (they wanted you to do 30 minutes a day 4 times a week).
At that point I was a competitive swimmer (which I loved for the competition, not because I wanted to be skinny) and was swimming about 12-14 hours a week and going to meets (where I was fast for my age) every weekend. The log was too small to record half the exercise I was getting.
Yet I wasn’t losing weight. It was like they didn’t believe me. I’ve encountered that as an adult too: if you’re not losing weight the assumption is that you’re not trying hard enough, even if you are getting way more physical activity than most skinny people.
Oh Gwen that’s a common one with all kinds of people – they don’t believe you. In short, they’re accusing you of being a liar, a thief of food, in denial. That makes me angrier than anything!
Wow. I had that same epiphany with you as I read this post. A doc who encouraged over exercising? I’m stunned by her stupidity and lack of ethics. I also like the idea of moving my fat body in ways I enjoy. I danced yesterday. It was only a few seconds but those few seconds matter to me. The shame of being big has kept me crippled for too long. Thanks!
Another one that relates. At my heaviest, I was 12kg heavier than I am now; at my lightest, 13kg lighter. For my most recent effort, when I got to my heaviest, I joined a gym and started seeing a (very expensive) personal trainer twice a week. I was on this crazy strict diet (drink nothing but water, only eat things if they “swim, run, or fly, or are green”, and then as naturally as possible, without processing) and working out 4-5 times a week. Yes, I dropped 15 kg, but I was MISERABLE. I went out for a work dinner at one point and had to ask for only beans with my steak, because the other veges they served were potatoes and carrots, neither of which I was allowed to eat…And my workmates CONGRATULATED me for being so serious about losing weight! I love my food, and so I hated it. So I stopped. In the 9 months since I stopped, I’ve gained back 3kg, but I’m not weighing myself any more, because I don’t care. Life is way to short to agonise over that crap. I want to live my life, thank you very much!
Life is way to short to agonise over that crap. I want to live my life, thank you very much!
Amen, Jen. A-fucking-men. *hugs*
It’s crazy, isn’t it?
My current doctor is brilliant, she comes out with the most blatant common sense. I still laugh at the way she told me it was ok to eat potatoes, because I was angsting to her over what to eat because you know, carbs are bad and blah blah blah, and she gave a big sigh, and blurted out with “Eat a fucking potato Kath!! It won’t kill you! If it’s a plant, eat the damn thing and I don’t care how much.”
Ah, but ur just doin it wrong! I was rightfully lectured by armchair scientists (aka “I lost weight, you can too!!” folks) over at Lara Frater’s blog today – the Laws of Thermodynamics will NEVER steer you the wrong way! Stop being an obesity enabler with your acceptance talk, because you’ll just discourage people from ignoring the Laws of Thermodynamics. And your genetics? You can FIGHT THEM WITH WILLPOWER!!! Your body is a math problem – get the right calculation, and you can LOOSE (sic) THE WEIGHT!!! But see, since we’re so massively fat, we’re just too stupid to figure out all this fancy math – we need to be lectured and shame about it on a daily basis by those who know better. Because who would know my own body better than a COMPLETE stranger with the science and math skills?
Sarcasm aside, great post. I’m going through a “diet” phase – I lost a magical 17 pounds (sorry, I’m American – we don’t have the metric system. Plus, fat people are TEH STOOPID because science says so) in a mere, oh, 7 months. I did all the stuff I was told to do – eat less fatty food and more “green” food, exercise until you pass out… The Laws of Thermodynamics have failed me. And no, I wasn’t starving myself. I did the calorie and fat tracking equations (because math is TRUTH!) that were suppose to lead me to greatness. But, gee, they failed. But I’m probably just lying to you right now, because all fat people lie.
Sorry – I’m in a bitchy mood today. But your post made it better. I just get tired of being reduced (HA!) to a scientific hypothesis or a math calculation. I am a human being. I would like to be treated like one.
This is why I rarely read comments in blogs nowdays unless I know the owner of the blog creates a positive environment for fat folk. I just have the time to engage with all the bullshit.
I just converted your 17lbs for you… about 7.7kg. Almost the magic 7.4kg I have to starve myself to my lowest weight.
There are worse things that being “overweight”. When I dieted myself down to 165 lbs, I blew out my gallbadder, resulting in surgery and completely crashed my endocrine system, resulting in being on hormone replacement therapy for over a year.
Did you know that gallbladder surgery is one of the most common surgeries in the world and after the gallbladder is gone, most people, myself included, suffer from excruciating irritable bowel syndrome after everything that they eat?
I should have kept the weight and realized that I was healthy, but that’s not how I learn, I have to screw up, do things my own way and learn from the consequences.
I know so many people who have had either constant yo-yo dieting, or WLS surgery that have had to have their gallbladders removed.
I forgot to write that gallbladder surgery is most common in people who crash diet = cutting back to under 1800 cals a day.
Yep, it’s sad. I’m sorry that you went through that. I have my own experiences of the yo-yo dieting, taking questionable diet pills, the regains and plateaus and all that misery…never again!
It took lots of deprogramming and meeting a diverse variety of people with similar stories to realize that healthy eating and exercise could be about feeling good, not losing weight.
For me personally, WLS would just be a cosmetic thing at this stage in my life. I don’t see the point when my organs work just fine, I digest food normally thus get all my nutrients that way…..WLS kills that natural process in our bodies, with dumping syndrome and all. But you know the mindset people can get into with the BS they’re sold by doctors– that your life will turn around and all your health problems will miraculously disappear simply because you’re smaller. Not…you will no longer get adequate nutrition to sustain yourself from the foods you eat.
And/or having to forego organs.
Did you guys see where the winner of “The Biggest Loser” lost 262 pounds in 18 weeks on the show? He started at 526 and ended at 264. He thinks that his life is forever changed. For his sake, I hope and pray that he’s one of those rare people that manages to keep that weight off (by the way, according to “the charts,” at 6’3″ and 264 pounds, he’s still obese).
This is so unhealthy. The amount of starvation and exercise that he must have endured to win that contest had to horrendous.
Here’s how I used to think before I stumbled upon the fat acceptance movement….I would have scared the crap out of myself, thinking about how easy it would be for me to get up to 526 pounds – I wouldn’t be able to walk, or work or have fun (or wipe my own butt for that matter). Then, I would have gone on yet another program to try and get some of the weight off. I did feel a small moment of panic when I read the story, but I managed to shake it off (I hope!).
We really have to guard ourselves from being lured into another weight loss scheme. The diet industry is called “industry” for a reason…..they make bazillions of dollars off of us fatties every year and we’re fatter than ever. The statistics alone tell us that we won’t be successful. Why mess up our bodies any more than they already are?
Yeah, I get bitten by that bug from time to time too. The “OMG JUST SHUT UP AND GO ON A DIET LARDARSE!” bug. Usually when I’m stressed, or I’ve copped some shit for being fat, or I’m just blue.
Thankfully I have the whole FA community to kick some sense into me at those times.
And I refuse to read, watch, whatever, anything to do with The Biggest Loser. I do not endorse that shit at all!
I refuse to watch it as well – seeing those poor people torturing themselves is just too much for me. Plus, I wouldn’t endorse their cause if they paid me!
I just noticed the “WOW – BIGGEST LOSER” headline online. I feel so bad for this guy. I cannot imagine how much damage he has done to himself with this thing – and, what pisses me off the most is that he will be glorified for hurting himself.
Blame intestinal bacteria. 😉
What did poor intestinal bacteria do to deserve the blame for anything?