Dealing with the Demons

I was working on a building site for a few weeks.  It was awesome but exhausting.  The minute I hit the site each day, someone wanted my attention, something fixed, a problem solved, more information.  I would have three and four people waiting for me to be available to help them at times, people interrupting my train of thought, stopping me mid-task, dragging me off to something else so that the task that was at the front of my brain fluttered away from my attention like a half read newspaper on a windy day.  Tempers were short, folks were tired and stressed.

Don’t get me wrong, I was loving it.  I was learning so much every day, working with a new type of colleague, having to think on my feet and problem solve.  I was feeling challenged and stimulated.

But one cannot main that kind of intensity.  And things started to slip.  Firstly I was finding myself too tired to come home and follow my yoga DVD, a regular ritual of stretching my body and guiding myself into relaxation.  Then I wasn’t eating properly.  I grabbed a coffee as I rushed on to site.  I didn’t take breaks.  Lunch didn’t roll around until 2pm, 3pm.  I was too exhausted to cook at night.  And soon weekends disappeared into two days of sheer exhausted collapse, trying desperately to catch up on sleep and recharge enough for the next week.

Rationally I knew this wasn’t a good thing, but I kept telling myself “Just get the job done.  Just get everything over the line for the deadline, and then you’ll be able to go back to the routines and strategies you use to keep yourself strong and balanced, physically, emotionally and mentally.”

But my body, and my brain, didn’t want to let this happen.  It threw itself into disaster mode, because that’s what it thought was happening.

The critical moment came one day late in the job, a few days before deadline.  I realised at about 1.30pm I was really hungry and just wasn’t getting anything done.  So I slipped out to go and find a quiet spot to have lunch.  There was a nice little carvery cafe, so I ordered my lunch, a steak sandwich with the works (steak, lettuce, beetroot, onion, pineapple, tomato, cheese, bacon and egg with a few chips on the side) knowing that I hadn’t eaten anything of substance for a few days, and who knows when the next real meal was in this crazy schedule.

Just before they brought my food over, and I was just sitting there reading tweets on my phone when one of my colleagues spotted me and sat down with his lunch.  I didn’t mind at all, we didn’t talk much, just sat quietly and kind of did our own thing.

As my lunch arrived, another one of the guys I was working with on the project spotted us, and came and asked if he could join us.  The answer was “Of course!”   I really liked this guy, he’s great to work with and has a great sense of humour.  I was more than happy to have him join us for lunch.  He sat down and we talked about nothing much in particular, savouring a little time to not talk shop, just have a laugh and chat.

After about 10 minutes, it hit me.  I wasn’t eating my lunch.  I was pushing it about my plate, occasionally eating a chip, picking at the sandwich, just not actually eating the damn thing.  You have to remember, I was really hungry, and this was a damn good meal, tasty and with lots of variety.  I wanted to eat it, I really did.  But I couldn’t bring myself to either pick up a piece of the sandwich (it was cut into quarter triangles) or even use the cutlery provided and cut a piece off and bring it to my mouth.  It’s not that I didn’t want to, I just couldn’t.

I started to feel self conscious.  I started to lose thread of the conversation, because I was thinking “Why am I not eating this?  I want it.  Just pick it up and eat it.”  Soon the project colleague had clearly noticed that I wasn’t eating my lunch.  I could tell he was trying to be polite and not pay attention to the fact that I was pushing my now cold lunch about my plate, almost entirely there, except for a few small bites.  I tried to pick some of it up to eat it, but simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.  This went on for almost 45 minutes.  Eventually the guys said something about going off to the shops before they had to go back to work and left me.

And then I was faced with a stone cold lunch that was edible but not exactly tasty, feeling hungry, but more tellingly, feeling ashamed and embarrassed.

The real irony is that neither of the dudes I was sitting with would have given a fuck if I had picked up that sandwich and chowed on down.  In fact, they’d never have noticed… it was my NOT eating it that drew attention.

What the hell is wrong with me?  I’m 38 years old.  I’ve been doing this fat acceptance stuff for a couple of years now.  I’ve been in therapy for self esteem and eating disorder issues for 5 years.  Why does shit like this still happen?

Now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, I know why shit like this happens.  It happens because I am STILL in recovery from a lifelong eating disorder.  It happens because when I’m tired and stressed, the tiny voice inside my head that says that fat women shouldn’t be seen eating, that women should take dainty little bites, that a steak sandwich with a few chips on the side was “too big a meal” for me to be eating.

Because no matter how far down the fat acceptance road I get, I still hear what is said, I still see what is written, about women and food and fat.  No matter how hard I work on my self esteem, on recovering from that lifelong eating disorder, on learning to be an intuitive eater, I will always carry the old burdens with me through my life.

But that doesn’t mean I am a failure at fat acceptance.  It doesn’t mean that I’m permanently broken.  It doesn’t mean that my life will always be ruled by those factors.

It actually means that those things, the low self esteem, the lifelong eating disorder, the pressure on me as a fat woman, have merely been contributing factors to who I am today.   Those factors are the things that have led me to do what I do today.  The fact that they sometimes crop up again is a very handy reminder of why I am committed to fighting for the rights of fat people, in particular fat women.

Most importantly, they serve to remind me that I am not alone, because I can talk about them here and if I connect with just one of you, it’s worth it.

New Year’s Revolution

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you may have seen the New Year’s Revolution campaign started by Marilyn Wann and Amanda A Evans.  The idea is to put an end to the ridiculousness of setting New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, or diet, or any other body loathing goal.  If you’d like to learn more, you can have a look at the campaign page set up here.

Most of the campaign has a Health at Every Size foundation, but since I don’t believe HAES (or even health) is compulsory when it comes to fat/body acceptance, I’m going to skip that bit.

I am however going to talk about fat acceptance and body acceptance as a New Year’s revolution.  I like the idea of “revolution” instead of “resolution” because, well, let’s face it, actively working towards NOT hating your body is radical, revolutionary.  When the mainstream media is flooded with ZOMGOBESITY CRISIS stories, magazines and other popular media tell us in one breath how to love our bodies, then how to diet them away, and then look at these yummy desserts you can make, stepping out of that flooding stream of body negativity is a radical act.

We are taught that loathing your body, no matter it’s size, is normal.  From being too fat, too thin, too short, the wrong shape, too wrinkly, going grey, having visible pores (let alone actual “blemishes” like freckles, scars, zits, moles, and all the other completely normal things that human bodies have), being too hairy, not having lush, flowing locks on our heads, having curly hair, having straight hair, having big breasts, having small breasts, from being apple, or pear, or whatever other fruit they can think of shaped bodies, you name it, you’ll find a magazine article, or a news story, or a television advert about it being “wrong”.  We’re bombarded with these messages from as early as we can hear and see.  We hear them from our parents, our colleagues, our friends, everyone in our life.  We are told what clothes to wear to be “flattering”, what shoes will elongate our legs, what makeup will hide our “flaws”, what diet will get us “bikini ready”.  Fitness, and increasingly more loudly, the moralising of “health” (to be exact: thinness) is the message that is hammered home over and over again.

Is it any wonder that when a new year rolls around, and the cultural meme of setting resolutions for the coming year kicks in, so many of us just default to body loathing to spur us on to our goals?

What if you were to just not do that this year?  What if you were to not set any goals, or if you feel you need to, set a positive one?  Or one not even related to your body?  What do you think would happen?  Do you think that your life would suddenly get worse if you didn’t diet or if you just stopped engaging in body hating activities?  Would you die?  Would anyone go to jail?  Would the zombie apocalypse happen?

I’m totally ready for the zombie apocalypse if it does happen, by the way.  No really, I’ve got it covered.

I know what would happen.  You’d not have to worry about the disappointment of failing another diet.  You’d not have to beat yourself up about breaking another resolution.

You know what else might happen?  You might actually feel good about yourself.  You might have more time to spend on living life, because you’re not fussing over diets or having to get to the gym when you hate it.  You might actually look in the mirror one day, and not feel bad.

I can tell you what has happened to me since I stopped buying into body shame and loathing.  Now, just like Pantene, it didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.  Let’s see:

• I’m a heck of a lot happier than I was when I bought into all of that diet and body shame and loathing.
• I can look in the mirror and not feel worthless, ugly, repulsive.
• I can go shopping without it being a major exercise in self loathing.
• I save a whole lot of money that I used to spend on diet pills, meal replacements, diet magazines, “fitness” gadgets, and a bajillion other expensive things designed to fail at losing weight and getting fitter so that I would just spend more money on them.
• I get dressed in the morning and feel good about how I look, and if someone doesn’t like how I look, then tough shit to them!  I still feel good about how I look.
• More people compliment me than ever.  Now that my shoulders are back and my head is held high, people feel they can approach me, they smile at me and I smile back.
• I just smile more often than I used to.
• When someone makes a rude comment, or is downright nasty, I now realise that’s their shit, not mine.
• When the black dog of depression does bite my butt, and I find myself either depressed or anxious, I am better equipped to work it through than I was when I was full of body loathing and self hatred.  It still happens, but it is usually shorter and less severe.
• I’m better company when socialising around food.  No more agonising, no more causing a fuss because “there’s nothing I can eat” (because I was eating nothing and hated being around food), no more self loathing and guilt trips for actually letting any food pass my lips.
• The range of clothing I will now wear is far greater than it ever was.  All those things I told myself I was too fat to wear… just get in my wardrobe already!
• I have so much more confidence with dating.  I hold my head up, look a dude in the eye and smile.
• I save a shitload by not buying magazines.
• I only watch TV without any ads… I can watch twice as much in the same time.
• When I have conversations with people, it’s about INTERESTING stuff.  Not diets and how fat I am and blah blah blah.

And there are no doubt dozens of other benefits that have come my way since I got off the body loathing roller coaster.

Look, I can’t promise you that all of this is going to happen to you.  I can’t promise you that any of it is going to happen to you.  But don’t you think it’s worth a try?  Don’t you think that if you get just ONE benefit from giving up on all of the self loathing and actually being kind to your body, and therefore yourself, the experiment is worth it?

Would you give it a try?  Just for 2011.  Come on, the water’s fine.  Jump on in.  We’ll look after you.

A Letter to My Body

Dear Body,

I owe you an apology.  I’ve not been very kind or accepting to you in our relationship.  In fact, I’ve downright hated you for most of our life.  I realise now that the hatred I had for you was very unfair, and that you were undeserving of it.  You deserve more respect than that.

I am sorry that I did so many things to hurt you over the years.  I’m sorry that I starved you, exercised you into the ground until you simply failed to function in several ways, and that I punished you for just being yourself.  I’m sorry that I cut you, filled you full of pills and other substances that affected you in so many damaging ways.  I’m sorry that I didn’t give you what you needed, that I forced you to ingest things that you hated, or that made you feel bad, simply because I hated you so much.  I’m sorry that I picked you, tore your hair out, chewed your fingertips, and didn’t listen to what you were trying to tell me.

You’ve given so much to me through all the hard times.  You kept me going when depression really, really tried to stop us in our tracks.

You didn’t deserve to be hated so much.  You’ve looked after me for over 38 years now, mostly uncomplaining in the scheme of things, and how have I repaid you?  By hating you and trying to force you to change, by picking you apart as if you’re not a whole being, by desperately trying to reduce you and starve you away, and at times, I tried to kill you.

But you kept on going.  You kept on doing your job, and doing it very well, for all these years.  Even when I wore you down to exhaustion and pain, you still kept going.  You patched yourself together as best you could, even though you tried to tell me you were exhausted and in pain, I wouldn’t listen, so you just did the best you could.

You’ve done so much for me.  You’ve allowed me to do every single thing in my life that I’ve ever done.  You’ve allowed me to experience love, and joy, and happiness, and laughter, and fun.  I’m sorry that I never acknowledged you for giving that to me.

I tried to make you do things you simply couldn’t.  Like be completely different to what you actually are.  I measured you by other people’s standards, tried to change you to be something you’re not, and tried to force you to perform in a way that you’re not designed to, just because other people’s bodies behave differently.  I realise now that I have been completely unreasonable in my demands on you.

I want you to know that I am deeply sorry, from the bottom of my heart.  I ask you to forgive me for hating and punishing you for so long, and know that I will work very hard to never do that again.

I want you to know that you are beautiful in your own way.  You are strong, powerful and healthy.  I don’t hate your big belly, or your fat arms, or your thick legs any more.  Your rolls and bumps and lumps are not objects of loathing to me any more.  They are now things of beauty.  They always have been, I just recognise it now, where I didn’t before.  You are a feminine body.  I never used to see you in that way, but now I do.  You’re all woman baby!

I don’t hate that you are hairier than other bodies.  I don’t hate that you pump out more hormones of all kinds than the average body.  I don’t hate that you sometimes have trouble keeping your skin smooth and clear.  I want you to know that I am not ashamed of you any more.  That I will stand up for your right to be as you are, and if anyone tries to change you when you don’t choose to change of your own volition, then I will fight them from doing so.

You and I, we’re going to work together.  Because we are together.  We’re one and the same.  You are me, and I am you.  We’re going to take care of each other, and make each other happy.

I love you.  You are beautiful.  Please forgive me.

Kath

P.S.  I’m going to shave your head in January, but it’s for a good cause.  You might feel a bit naked for awhile, but let’s just show your pretty scalp off and rock it huh?  We might have some fun.

On Women and Enjoyment

It was a small comment on this great post by meowser on Fat Fu that set a lightbulb off in my mind.  While talking about food shaming, this really jumped out at me:

Seriously. I will never be able to understand how the same women who (rightly) opine that women should have the right to drink like men frequently balk at the idea that women should be allowed to eat like men. Sure, you can inhale a thousand calories’ worth of Cosmopolitans or Coronas and fall off your barstool and that’s badass righteous, but gods forbid you should indulge in a cheeseburger. On a bun made with white flour. With fries. And a full-sugar soft drink. (You food slut, you.)

The emphasis is mine.

That’s what this is all about isn’t it?  That’s what the objection to fat women really boils down to.  The perception that women who are fat, must eat a lot, so therefore they are food sluts.  Because if a woman enjoys ANYTHING, be it food, sex,  shopping, alcohol, working, you name it, then she must be enjoying it to excess, be gluttonous, addicted, enslaved by her enjoyment, and by extension, a slut.

Of course, feminism steps up for most of these things, and says that women should be able to enjoy things as much as men, but as Meowser rightly says, often not when it comes to food.  The slut shaming is still there, only it’s not sex or drinking and so on, it’s food.  Because so many people believe, and some of those people are feminists, that fat is still the most disgusting vice that one can have.

The idea that women enjoying anything, regardless of how much they are enjoying it, is somehow un-ladylike is antiquated and offensive.  Surely we’ve moved past the age where women were expected to be “dainty” about everything in their lives?  We’re not allowed to please ourselves in any way, instead women are expected to be pleasing to others.  And it’s not just men.  A lot of the most hateful vitriol that women suffer comes from other women.  The piece that Meowser is responding to in her blog post is by a woman who calls herself a feminist, published on Feministe.  It was really disheartening to read this from a feminist, when it’s hard enough fighting the narrow minded expectations of misogynists, without having to deal with it from within our own sphere.

Until we can shift the thinking that women enjoying themselves in any way is somehow un-ladylike and unfeminine, we’re still going to be oppressed as a gender.  It doesn’t matter if it’s sex, or food, or anything else – slut shaming is still slut shaming.

While women are forced to feel guilt for what they eat (or what they are perceived to be eating by their body shape/size), they’re not free to be equal human beings, and disordered behaviours and damaged body image will run rife.

Activism is Never Resignation

I have another fantastic post to refer you all to.  This one is from the wonderful Spilt Milk, who writes on how Fat Acceptance is not about “giving up”.  Go read it now.  Go on, I’ll wait here while you do…

Did you read it?  Good.

See, isn’t it a fantastic post?  She writes that well all the time, blows my mind and inspires me no end.

Anyway, on to the topic that I want to talk about, which the Spilt Milk post led me to think about, is my experience around discovering Fat Acceptance (FA) and deciding that it was the philosophy on life and health and my body that I decided not only works for me personally, but is something that I need to be actively promoting.  That post got me thinking about how little “giving up” I personally have done when it comes to my health, happiness and body.  In fact, resignation is the furthest from the choice I made in taking to Fat Acceptance.

One of the things I think the critics of FA fail to grasp is that choosing a FA lifestyle is not something you just fall into, that you give up and then it happens to you.  It’s a conscious, intelligent choice that one makes.  It has been a lot of hard work, introspection and decision making that has led me to FA.  I didn’t just decide one day “Well I couldn’t be arsed any more with this whole business of trying to lose weight, I think I’ll become a Fat Acceptance activist.”  It took months and months of reading and thinking and journalling (later blogging) and even discussing my thoughts and beliefs with my counsellor.  The more I thought about it, the more I looked towards making a choice of how I wanted to live my life, the more Fat Acceptance began to fit me.

Then came the realisation that not only do I need to live this way, but I need to share it, to advocate it, to take part in activism for it.  That was a massive decision, because it’s a coming out of sorts – Fat Acceptance is confronting and challenging for most people, and to become an activist meant that I personally had to start confronting and challenging people, attitudes and beliefs.  This is so far from resignation to me that I can’t express it.

The very word “activist” means someone who intentionally takes action.  Action is never resignation.

Of course, there is the health/body side of things.  Yeah, we’ve all heard it.  By adopting a Fat Acceptance philosophy, we’re just giving up on taking care of ourselves, we’ve given up on our health, we’ve given up on trying to look good or be active.

Let’s call bullshit on that one too.  I don’t know about the rest of you FA folk, but I’m far more active in my health than I have ever been.  Instead of shutting out my body, I listen to it.  Instead of denying my physical feelings and the needs of my body, I use those feelings to tell me what my body needs, and I respond appropriately.  Not to mention that I have gone from someone who avoids doctors at all costs (because I couldn’t handle any more of the shaming from them) to one who actively sought out a good GP and now takes the time to know my body and work with my GP to be the healthiest I have ever been in my life.

Physical activity has also become something that I engage in far more than I ever did long term in my life.  My method of physical activity, or exercise (which I refuse to do these days, I don’t engage in exercise, I engage in activity that I enjoy) in my body loathing days was to exercise binge like a madwoman until I either collapsed from whatever illness I brought on myself from poor nutrition and overwork, or hit a wall of depression so big that it would literally cripple me.  Or I would be so ashamed of my body that I wouldn’t get out of the house, I’d hide away feeling hatred towards myself, too ashamed to be seen exercising.

These days, I do whatever I enjoy, as often as I feel like it, which is fairly damn regularly.  I walk, I cycle, I dance, I do yoga and anything else that pleases me at the time simply because it’s fun.  It feels good.  My body likes it when I keep active.

As Spilt Milk says, Fat Acceptance is anything but giving up.  It’s about improving your quality of life without waiting around for your body to change size (or shape) to do so.  It’s about embracing the here and now and living your life to the full.

There is no resignation in that.

The Easter Bunny Brings More Than Just Chocolate

Happy Easter everyone, regardless of your spiritual beliefs.  Welcome to Spring in the Northern Hemsiphere, Autumn in the Southern.

This Easter has been a bit rough on me.  Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a good time and had some lovely celebrations with friends over the past few days.  But at a time when chocolate is so central to many celebrations, among other foods, I’m feeling a bit worn down by all the food is morality and disordered thinking/behaving that is swirling around me at the moment.

You see the Easter Bunny brings more than just chocolate.  He brings the all the strings that are attached to food.

It is no secret that I am recovering from eating disorders.  It’s taken me years to retrain my brain to think of food in a different way to how I have done over the first 30 something years of my life, and it’s hard work to keep thinking that way.  I have to keep very conscious of the thoughts around food I have and pull up those that are disordered very quickly, to prevent relapses into disordered behaviour.

So it’s very difficult for me to be around others who have disordered attitudes towards food and eating.

From the woman who sits near me almost every day at lunch time with her diet shake or “meal” (I hesitate to call those things food really), staring longingly at my lunch and going on and on about how good she is being to stick to her diet products.  Yet she is miserable and asks me things like “Is there chicken on that sandwich?” and when I say yes, sighs longingly “Oh I miss eating chicken, but I’m being good.”

Then there were those starving themselves and repeatedly justifying how they could go to an Easter chocolate buffet that was to be the celebration of a 50th birthday.  I sat amongst this for about two weeks, listening to how they wouldn’t eat anything in the lead up, or “I’ve been so good for weeks, I can go along.”

I went, though on looking at the menu beforehand noticed that there was NOTHING savoury, so I had my lunch beforehand and went to it as a dessert, as I can’t bear the thought of all that sweet stuff for a meal, my tummy protests just at the thought of it.

I probably shouldn’t have gone, not because of the food, but because of all of the disordered behaviour around me.  The hardest to deal with of those being the ones that starved themselves beforehand then binged when they got there.

I felt terrible all afternoon, despite  having a lovely lunch and then some nice dessert afterwards.  It wasn’t the food, it was having to deal with and process all the feelings that other people brought to the fore in my mind.  I had a whole mix of guilt, shame, anger, depression, anxiety and simple exhaustion swirling around in my mind all afternoon, that I am sure I would not have had if I hadn’t been in the company of some people who have really messed up attitudes about food.

It doesn’t help that these people are far less fat than I am either.  I can’t speak up because if I do, I know the thinking is “That’s why she’s so fat, she must be a pig, I don’t want to get like that.”  Some of them have even said so, in less harsh terms.

I was lucky however with Good Friday, I spent the day with friends by the bay, talking over a barbecue lunch and the day spent in good company.  Nobody had screwed up attitudes towards food, or none that were apparent anyway, and I could feel my soul floating back to where it should be, and my mind at ease and comfortable.  Being around people who do not beat themselves up about food was very healing.

However I will confess there was a hangover from the disordered talk of the day before.  The friends who I visited on Friday happened to have a set of scales in their bathroom… which, despite my promise to myself that I would never do so again unless it was medically vital, I weighed myself on.

And I survived.  I surprised myself by not hating myself for the number I saw on the scale.  I saw it, thought about it for a bit, and let go of it.  So I am getting better, I am recovering.

Of course Easter is still here, still happening.  On Twitter and Facebook I am seeing status update and tweet over and over again of messed up attitudes towards food.  People are “pigging out” and hating themselves for eating chocolate.  There are all kinds of crazy bargains being dealt, where one can have chocolate now if one does something later, or has “been good” up until now.  Then there is the remorse after eating the chocolate, or the hot cross buns, or whatever else they have deemed as “sinful”.  Talk about how they’ve been bad, how the chocolate was evil for tempting them.

I just want to scream “It’s just chocolate people!  It’s not the anti-Christ!!”

I have got a ton of chocolate in the house.  People have been so kind giving me Easter gifts.  I am being very conscious of reminding myself that it is not Kryptonite or nuclear waste, it’s just chocolate.  It won’t hurt me, and I am not a bad person if I eat some.  I can have some any time I want some.  Strangely enough I don’t want it much, I prefer cheese to chocolate any day.

How do you cope when the people around you are displaying disordered behaviours and attitudes?  Do you struggle with it?  What are your coping mechanisms?

Eating Normally

Continuing on from the topic of Fat Folk and Food, I’d like to talk some more about the whole minefield of eating when you’re a fat person.  We’ve talked about how other people perceive and treat fat folk around the subject of food, but how about how we treat ourselves?

Just as a bit of a background, I’ve been on every diet you can pretty much think of, including some I’ve made up myself at the time, thinking it made sense to me.  I also now identify as in recovery from an eating disorder, as the more I learn, the more I realise that the behaviour I exhibited over about 20 years of my life was definitely disordered eating.  I was a starvation fan, followed by bouts of purging.  Between that and eating weird shit (or weird combinations), food was always a fucked up thing for me.

About four years ago, I somehow stumbled across www.normaleating.com and a light went on in my head when I read about the principals of removing the emotion from food and eating, and learning to just eat because as a living creature, I require food.

Over the past few years, I’ve done a lot more reading about the subject, on to intuitive eating and of course health at any size.  I have been working to train myself that I don’t have to have a terrible guilt/hate relationship with food, and that if I just stop and listen to my body, it tells me what I need.

When it needs red meat, it tells me so (I suffer anaemia).  When it needs leafy green vegetables or lots of potassium or magnesium for example, it tells me.  When I need some chocolate it tells me too.  I am learning that if I give it some of what it asks for without agonising over it, or punishing myself, then it only asks for as much as it needs, until it realises it needs something else.

That’s not to say that I totally get it right, that I’m “cured” of all the disordered eating.  I still have times when I feel guilty just for eating anything, when I get self conscious about what other people think about me when I am in public and am eating, times when I wake in the night thinking “Oh God, if I just give up *insert food here* maybe it will make a difference.”  I still find myself denying myself food when I feel bad about myself.

But I think now I’ve learnt to recognise it for what it is.  It’s shitty self esteem, depression and self consciousness that makes me think like this, not the food.  Food is not good or bad, it’s just food.  It has no moral value.  Food is what fuels our body and we must eat.

Since I have been learning to eat normally, I’m noticing a few things.  I’ve become a major food snob!  I am very lucky in that I have a good income and good quality food available to me.  I realise a lot of people don’t have that, in fact there were times in my life where I didn’t have that.  But now that I do, and I’ve been learning to eat in a normal, sensible way, I have discovered that the thought of eating a lot of the cheap, quick fix things that I used to crave so desperately when I was eating disorderly really grosses me out.

A prime example is chocolate.  Oh in my starvation years, I would dream of chocolate.  I would think about it all the time while I was on an exercise binge, I would torture myself with visions of chocolate in my head.  I would cut pictures of chocolate out of magazines, I would buy things shaped like chocolate and that smell like chocolate.  I was such a bitch to myself with denying myself chocolate, but torturing myself with thoughts and images of it all the time.

Consequently, when I DID allow myself to have chocolate, I would eat ANY old chocolate.  I tended to buy really cheap chocolate, generic brands and mass produced stuff.

I have noticed that now I have told myself I can have chocolate any time I want it, I rarely think about it.  From time to time I think “Damn I’d like some chocolate.” so I go and get some.  And I have noticed that I have become a massive snob about it.  I turn my nose up at the cheap stuff.  I won’t even touch Cadbury any more, it’s horrible.  Lindt is the only chocolate I will buy from the supermarket, but I far prefer the hand made stuff from the markets or one of the boutique stores.  It just tastes so much better, and consequently you get twice the chocolate  happy buzz from the same amount, because it’s not full of vegetable filler and cheap ingredients.

But it’s the same with everything.  I’ve stopped shopping in supermarkets for most of my food.  I now shop at my local farmers markets (it’s cheaper anyway) and have farmers co-op fruit and veges delivered to my house (also WAY cheaper than the supermarkets).  I buy meat that has a name, because it comes from a local farm, cheese from a cheesemaker, eggs from an egg farmer.

Do you know what?  It tastes a million times better than the supermarket stuff and you feel so much more satisfied and nourished after eating something made from decent produce.  Not to mention that eating food without pesticides, colouring, additives and without being gassed or irradiated to make it ripen quickly is far better for me than all the crap you get from the supermarket.

Did I mention the taste?  Seriously, go buy a banana from your local supermarket, then one from a farmers market, and eat the farmers market one first, and taste the supermarket one.  I bet you will throw the latter in the bin.  If you don’t like bananas, try it with anything else.  I hated apples until I tried one from a farmers markets.  HOLY CRAP!  It tastes like happiness!

I really think I have had to re-train myself to actually taste again.

I’ve gone from someone who lived on Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine “meals” (or should I say reconstituted slop)  to someone who buys bucketloads of fresh fruit and vegetables, high quality meat, cheese and eggs, and prefers to dine out at places that use these ingredients.

That’s not to say I don’t love Maccas chips (McDonald’s fries for those of you outside of Australia) or pizza from time to time, but for every day eating, I much prefer produce that is local, fresh and free of all the chemical junk.  It doesn’t have to be wholly organic, just direct from a farm is far less polluted than the supermarket stuff, believe me.

The funny thing is, the minute I slip into the guilt and denial mode again, what do I dream about?  Cheap chocolate and junk food!  So it’s quite a simple equation for me to remember:

Don’t eat properly = crave rubbishy food.  Either starvation or shit food makes me feel shit.

Eat good quality food when I’m hungry = happy tastebuds, sated appetite, healthy body, clear skin and eyes, and yes, even a happier wallet.

Isn’t Christmas Supposed to be MERRY?

Ahh, here we are, less than a week away from Christmas.  It’s the silly season, that time of year we’re all meant to be celebrating, being grateful for all that we have and spending happy time with the folks in our lives, be they friend or family.  You know, being merry.

So why am I hearing SO much heartache from so many people right now?  Or should I say, again this year.

I can’t count the number of times over the past few weeks that I’ve heard someone say something like “Ugh, Christmas – the time of year my family declares open season on criticising me for my weight.”  Or agonising over people judging them at the office Christmas party for whatever they eat.  Or perhaps saying that they can’t enjoy Christmas because they are on a diet and can’t have all the things other people are having.  Not to mention the merry remorse – the whole “Oh I’ve eaten so much tonight, I’m going to have to be so good after this!”

And then there is this malarkey about Santa being a global ambassador for obesity. Pardon my frankness… but oh for fuck’s sake!

Christmas means a lot to me.  Not only because I am Christian and it has spiritual significance, but also because I believe it is a time where goodwill is actively encouraged (rather than the usual sense of “me entitlement” that is flourishing in our current culture) and where I make even more effort to spend some time with the people that matter to me.

I say give yourself a Christmas present.  Relax.  Be kind to yourself.  Do not accept anyone criticising your body, your eating, your exercise regime (or lack of one).  Enjoy the treats of Christmas time, listen to your body and when it tells you it’s had enough, believe it.  For those of us in the Southern hemisphere, go easy on yourself in the hot weather, have a swim if you enjoy it.  For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, stay warm.  Indulge a bit.  Laugh with people you care about.  Don’t sweat over what to buy people for gifts, buy what you know will make them feel good.

Spend the most time with people who make you feel good about yourself, and try to avoid those who don’t.  If you have to endure people who don’t make you feel good, remember that their shitty comments and attitudes are worth nothing.  What matters are the people who you love and who love you.

Let go of the guilt.  It accomplishes absolutely nothing good for you, and prevents you from getting anything constructive done.  So what, you ate too much.  You now have a belly ache and know not to do it again!

Leave Santa a treat.  Not a diet treat.  The poor bugger has so much to do in 24 hours, he needs all the fuel he can get.  If he is in a hurry and doesn’t have time to eat the treat you leave for him, eat it yourself on his behalf.  Santa hates waste.

I know what I’m doing this Christmas.  Spending time with friends whose company I enjoy, talking, laughing and enjoying good food and drinks.  Then cranking up my air conditioning, plugging in my shiny new Wii and playing some Wii tennis!

Shame on You…

I bet most of you have experienced this one:

You’re in a doctor’s office. You have a cold, or you’ve hurt yourself somehow, or perhaps you’ve got a rash. You tell the doctor about the owie or the icky, and he/she shakes her head and says in a stern, disapproving tone “Well, you do need to lose some weight, don’t you?”

Or what about this one:

You’re in a public place, say a restaurant or food court of a shopping centre. You’re having lunch, nothing special, just lunch. Someone passing by or at the nearest table says “Look at that fat pig. People like that shouldn’t eat, that’s disgusting.”

Maybe this one:

You’re watching the news. The newsreader comes on with an article about how fat people are costing the public health system lots and lots of money. Whoever you’re with turns to you and says “Don’t you ever feel guilty about that?”

Ever experienced anything like these situations? If you’re fat, I’m pretty sure you have, or something similar. These are all examples of fat shaming.

Fat shaming is a tactic that non-fats, the medical profession and the media have all been using for a long time. Because they all figure that if we’re ashamed of ourselves as fatties, that we will go on diets and lose the weight and then we’ll no longer have an OOGA-BOOGA-OBESITY-EPIDEMIC.

Here’s the thing. Fat shaming has been a tactic for a very, very long time. I’ve had it directed at me since I can remember, which is long before I was actually fat. Once I actually got fat, it was ramped up even higher. So if I can remember it from the 70’s, that means it’s been going on for over 30 years right?

Actually, I’ve seen examples of fat shaming in vintage ads from the 50’s. You know, the “Sally can’t get a date because she’s a big fat lardass.” kind of thing.

So if fat shaming has been out there for more than 50 years, and we’ve got a “growing OOGA-BOOGA-OBESITY-CRISIS” these days, as the media will have you believe, does this not tell us that fat shaming actually makes the problem worse?

When I look at it, it tells me that fat shaming does a whole bunch of things. It makes fat people embarrassed or intimidated about going to the doctor to get decent health care, which would lessen their risk of being of high cost to public health. It causes fat people to avoid being active in public because of the fear of ridicule that they not only “might” suffer, but actually do suffer. It forces many women and girls into the cycle of eating disorders and exercise obsessions that are a) not sustainable and b) do more long term damage to bodies than they do any good. It causes high levels of stress in fat people so that they are at more risk to things like high blood pressure and heart disease.

And these are just a few off the top of my head.

If fat shaming actually worked, wouldn’t we be finding that the rate of obesity in western culture was actually lower now than it used to be, because we’ve been sold the same line for a good 30+ years now? Surely if fat shaming was effective, the obesity rate would be decreasing, rather than increasing.

So here’s the thing. It’s a crock of shit. If you hear doctors, the media, and the general public (which includes your family, friends and colleagues) using fat shaming to try to guilt you/anyone/society in general into somehow miraculously making yourself thin, question it.

That goes for you too non-fatties who might be reading this blog.

Ask the questions about why they do it. Are they doing it because it is known that it actually works, or are they doing it because a) it’s so ingrained in our culture that fat people should be ashamed of themselves that it’s just what’s done, or b) because they’re projecting their own fear of being fat and self loathing onto the people who represent the things they are afraid of/most loathe about themselves?

If you’re a fatty that is on the receiving end of some fat shaming, maybe it’s worth thinking about the damage that actually accepting and carrying that shame is doing to you. Maybe it’s time to refuse to accept and carry that shame.

The little trick I’ve found is to think of that fat shame as a big steaming pile of shit. And don’t pick it up if it’s offered to you! When I am handed a stinky pile of fat shame shit, I think to myself “Ummm… that’s YOUR fat shame shit, not mine, I’m not going to carry it, thank you very much.” Where it’s possible, I challenge it to the person trying to hand it to me, but sometimes it’s not possible, so I just raise my chin a little, think to myself “No thanks” and move on, be it literally or figuratively.

Fat shame is pointless and there is no reason you have to accept it. It’s not even going to help you if you did.