Me and my fat

Y'all! I wrote a real thing that seemed to get almost a following on facebook, so maybe I should put it here. Why not?
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It keeps happening. I sit down on the bus, with relatively low ridership.

Someone feels the need to sit next to me.

 

The first time, it was apparent VERY quickly that she wasn’t feeling comfortable, so I tried hard to make myself smaller. To become less than. I try turning my shoulders inward and putting both hands together between my legs, I don’t dare move. I don’t dare take my iPod out of my pocket to switch songs. Because I might bump into her or knock her out of the seat she is so delicately perched on. Because my ass is larger than she thought. It’s cute how people will move when I say excuse me, but only a slight movement. If I know you well enough, I laugh and tell you how cute it is that you think my ass is actually that small.

 

She looks kind of frail. I’m immediately sorry I chose this seat. Should’ve sat ANYWHERE else. No clue why she wanted to sit next to me. My face is only momentarily friendly, until I think you might talk to me. I don’t want to talk. I am either psyching myself up for making it through another workday or I am congratulating myself and trying to relax on the way home.

 

I find myself trying to telescope in. Trying to be less. Trying to make sure I’m allowing others ample room. Like the origami I fold, I try and crease my edges to make myself smaller, prettier, something new. But my edges are not sharp, they are soft and padded and it never works. I will never be origami, something created anew from a flat boring piece of paper.

That’s not really the first time. Every time someone sits next to me I am sure my fatness is putting them out.

 

The only time I’ve traveled, I asked my mother to buy me two plane tickets for myself. I was less than I am now, and yet I was still large. I spent the rest of my flights telling the baffled ticket people WHY I had 3 tickets for 2 of us. I finally just laughed and said I bought the extra one for my ass. Because it’s funny. And if I joke first, it’s better? Being fat is funny. It’s laughable. We’re allowed to make fun of fat people, because it’s their own fault. They could be thinner. Less than. Fit in better.

I often wonder if I will be one of those stories. I finally had enough and so I worked out all the time and lost half my weight. I’ve never been thin, but maybe I could be. I could have my after story. So where is my catalyst? Do I shrink into myself to not be an inconvenience to others? To not let my fat be their problem? Do I shrink so that I can avoid detection? Do I shrink because if they can’t see me, they can’t hurt me?

 

YES. All the above. I shrink because I was taught to shrink. My step father joked about my weight issues and my own mother obsessed. We’re taught to obsess. To feel less than, even when we are physically MORE THAN. Because weight matters.

Weight WEIGHS on us.

 

Even when we are presented with people who are in the public eye. Otherwise healthy, exercising regularly people who’s only crime is to be bigger then us…these people are publicly shamed for making fat okay. For glorifying being fat. For making these unhealthy choices seem okay.

I got news for anyone who says that. We aren’t saying YOU HAVE TO BE FAT. We are merely trying to be at one with our NOW bodies. Our fat bodies. To not hate the skin we are in, we look to the few role models. But, no, we are “glorifying obesity”… Because our looks matter the most. More than who we are as people. More so than our brains.

 

Another shocker, thin people aren’t always the healthiest. My kidult has a better metabolism than I and age on his side…we eat pretty much the same, except his heavy ice cream habit. His father and I ate the same meals all the time, but I got fatter and fatter and he never did. Still can’t gain weight.

 

Meanwhile they would tell me (they being well meaning people, other fat people, etc) that it was all about fat grams. Eat “lite”.. now sugar is the enemy. Olives and avocados are fine, whereas it didn’t use to be. Eat more carbs than anything else. NO. NO. That’s not the answer, it never was. The real answer was probably not eating so much processed foods, but I couldn’t control my food when I was younger. I’ve learned awful habits. And been taught wrong. Because no one knows and the science keeps evolving behind food and why some people are fat and some people aren’t. The real answer here is that one thing does not/CAN NOT work for everyone. We are all too different. Metabolisms, activeness, genes passed along? All these are factors in a person’s weight. Add in medications and/or surgeries which can also slow your metabolism. Bad news guys? Last I read (on the internet, so take it with a grain of salt), keto isn’t really the end all answer either. It’s near impossible to stay in ketosis and even if you can, your body is eating your muscle. It’s not something that can be sustained forever, much like any fad diets. So instead I try and make modifications. Things to change that are life sustaining. A forever diet.

 

Will I succeed? Who knows. But I never seem to succeed at the fad diets either.

All this is weighing more heavily (ha) of course because I went to see my doctor recently. The doctor who I found after asking anyone and everyone if they knew a doctor who would not blame all my problems on my fat. My calling them and saying “I need a new script for my blood pressure meds” and “I hate my current doctor, she blames everything on my fat” turned into “You are here because you are worried about your blood pressure and because you want to lose weight” and so my doctor was ill informed and I just went with it. Because OOOOOHHH, she’s doing Keto and she’s lost almost 50 pounds and nothing worked for her before and MAYBE I CAN TOO. That was all almost a year ago, a little more than that actually. And I’ve stayed pretty much the same weight, with some small fluctuations.

 

There is no perfect answer. If there was no one would be fat.

People would have you think they have the answer and I’ve certainly been conned into pills and then chickened out on even taking them. Magical, miracle weight loss pills that worked for “so and so” and then I get screwed out of money because the diet industry is like that. It’s booming. No one wants to be fat. They are willing to pay whatever price. All too often people get the trial for so cheap and then are charged the real price before they’ve even used the trial up.

 

I went to see my old terrible doctor after I broke my leg. “You’re down ten pounds” she said, beaming at me. “Yeah, have you seen my wasted sack of a leg? Pretty sure that’s all the muscle I had in that leg.” Once I might have crowed over those ten pounds, been excited that my doctor wasn’t just looking at me in the sad disapproving way, but that was in October 2015 and I had a lot more serious shit I was dealing with. Too much to care about the number on the scale. In that moment, I strengthened my resolve to find a better doctor. Because I missed my muscles. Call it vanity; but my legs must carry around my potato of a body, and so they are muscular.

 

So I shall continue my quest. Will I ever be one of “those” stories? Will I ever be thin? Would it matter? Would I love my body more? Why do I harbor so much hate for the fat? So much blame for it? I’m part of the problem. Of course I am. We all are. Every rude meme on the internet of a fat person furthers the notion that fat is the worst thing you can be. Not a rapist, not a murderer, how DARE you be fat in front of someone? The nerve of some people, to have excess body weight and go out in public. No, most people aren’t this bad, but there are some. My favorite fat hate was when I wrote out a piece for my blog many ages ago about how much fun I had at the beach and included some photos, only to have someone feel the need to leave a comment to tell me I was fat.

Guess what? I KNOW I’M FAT. I have a mirror. I get on a scale when they make me. But that this person felt the need to stop with their day to make sure I knew I was fat? I tried to brush it off, made some flippant comment, but they then wanted to make sure I knew how concerned they were and if I was aware how UNHEALTHY being fat was/is. 

 

I’ve dealt with it. I live it. I see others and I feel for you all. Please know that no matter how down you feel, or how fat you think you look in that cute shirt or skirt or shorts, I’m looking at every one of you and seeing something cute and hoping you know how adorable you are. You probably don’t know it, because I know I don’t believe it. But you’re not alone. And I’m not either. That counts for something.