6 posts tagged “weight”

Why must you plague me with women who watch their weight AND food? Who are SO vocal about calories and whatnot? You're putting me off my food! And I know, you're looking pointedly at the size of my butt. Well, you can shut it, GOD, my butt is FINE. It's round, it's bodacious and it's ... okay, so in that one dress, it looked like something you would put tchochkes on.

But Beyonce wore a dress that gave her square hips one time so, once again, you can shut it. Plus? The sweater top made me look hot so yeah, I'm going back to buy the sweater when it comes in ::sticks out tongue::

And put down that lightning bolt. I'm not calling you names; I'm just calling you OUT. If you didn't want me to eat, you shouldn't have made food so delicious. Really? I'm supposed to turn down chocolate cake? Really?! Or, wait, did you want me to eat the cake but only have a slice so thin, no one could tell a piece was taken?

Whatever. It's chocolate cake; give me a normal sized piece. I'd like to enjoy it with some coffee. WITH MILK.

All right, fine, I might give up milk. But only because I think it's causing my weird skin condition.

But seriously, what's wrong with you? What's up with making women who are always so worried and unhappy with how they look that they aren't able to acknowledge how GOOD they actually do look? Where's the self-esteem jar, God? Did you forget to give us some? What about the self-worth one? Are you skimping on that one with women too? Or are you just starting to forget to include that one in for everyone? Cause I've noticed some people sadly lacking in both and it's starting to piss me off.

And please, can you make celebutards go away? I don't think they're helping us any.

Amen.

This past weekend (fine, Sunday), I watched a video on natural health. It's called "Get Healthy Now with Gary Null". It's about how, if you change your diet, you can make yourself look younger, live longer and not get sick, all of which are... good ideas, I guess. I mean, sure, I'd like to live a while longer and it would be nice not to get sick so often but look younger?

But:

Gary Null's website.

On a superficial note, in that picture, they airbrushed the FUCK out of him. If his diet makes him look younger, he must be 150 years old, while passing himself off as a 70 year old because DAMN. And during the video I saw, not only is he openly and ridiculously reading from the teleprompter (which is fine and I'm not making fun of him for needing one, even though... um, being healthy, shouldn't that help your memory too? ... fine, I'm making fun of him) but he's hunched over and crazy looking, like some insane bird of prey.

And not exactly GLOWING with health either with what looks like smoker's skin.

And that's my basic question: What's up with that? Why is it that so many of the nutritionists I've seen look freaking AWFUL, like their skin is trying to leave their body? How is that promoting your agenda in a manner that will make people believe you?

But you want to know when he really lost me? When he openly said, "It's not YOUR fault you're fat."

As a fat girl, I have to say this:

BULL. SHIT.

If it makes you feel better believing that there's some giant conspiracy out there injecting you with fat, that's fine. You go on with your crazy self.

Am I saying that there aren't medical reasons why some people find it beyond difficult to lose weight when they're doing everything right? Of course not. You could have a super slow thyroid etc. There ARE reasons why it's difficult for you to lose weight. But you need to actually be doing the right things in order to legitimately go to the doctor and have tests done, find what pills you can take or natural remedies you can try.

But if you're just sitting back and blaming others for your weight... well, then go ahead with your crazy self.

But for so many of us, the reason we're fat is because the majority of time, we eat things we shouldn't and we don't move enough. I know this. I accept this. I CONSCIOUSLY make food choices all the time, including eating things I KNOW will make me ill because I WANT TO. It's my fault.

What am I trying to say? Basically, YOU need to take control of your own health. Doctors are just doctors; they're not gods. They don't know fucking everything, even though they want you to think they do (trust me. Half of them can't fill out an application properly). But neither do naturopaths.**

YOU need to be willing to be willing to call bullshit on these people, to do your best to choose quality over convenience (and I know how hard that can be) and to keep yourself informed. If they say something you don't understand, ASK THEM. Make them explain it to you in a way that you DO understand. 

Now, I'm going to go home and make my own ketchup*. Do you know how much corn syrup they use in store bought ketchup?!

*I'm not really. I'm still at work. I will do sooner or later because I miss eating ketchup with my fries.

**Why do I go out of my way to piss people off? Do I really want them to all gather resources and try to kill me? Seriously, if any of you read about my death, assume it was either romance writers, Gary Null or ... anyone else I've written mean things about.

I know, it doesn't really narrow the suspect list down.

Exercise and eat right!

What? You thought I had a weight loss secret? WHATEVER.

However, if you're looking to maximize your work outs, I've been reading up on intervals, how to do them properly and how they help you burn more calories with the same length of work out time. But don't listen to me! I know nothing. Read this article. If you don't find it informative, at least it's pretty looking:

Burn More Calories In Less Time

I know, I know, you want to know more about me. I feel your love and interest, I really do so I'm going to give you what you're clamouring for.

Yes, I'm kidding. I've never really understood why people would want to read about my life in it's mind-blowingly boring minutae unless it was something I could make funny or as a crazy "Ooooooh! I'm cRAaaaaaazy!" rant. But today, I did something I never thought I would ever do:

I put on yoga pants.

I know! You're all probably completely flabbergasted that I would DARE to put tight pants on my decidedly not tight body. I'm completely flabbergasted as well. But I've been preaching this whole "love your body, love yourself" kind of thing lately and I thought, what better way to test my own preachiness than to do this thing that I've been putting off for... well, probably close to a year.

The pants I have on are from the lovely dee who lost so much weight she decided to discard them rather than flash people as she did her yoga (always a wise choice). She gave them to me with these two exercise tops that tend to rise above my pouchy stomach (the goal is to make my stomach less pouchy in the next while) but while I've worn the tops, I found myself rather frightened of the pants.

They're YOGA pants. TIGHT pants. Pants that would show off how weird my hips are shaped because the fat gloms onto them in a strange way (seriously, there's like a weird divet on each side so instead of softly curving hips, they're kind of more square. Bodies are strange).

But today. Today, I was cleaning, picked up these pants and thought, "Huh, well, trying them on would put off the cleaning I'm doing."

It's always about the lesser of two evils.

I put them on! And yes my hips are weird and square (someone needs to explain to me why) but at the same time, looking in the mirror, the first thought that came to mind wasn't, "Oh dear GOD. Where's the nearest plastic surgeon when you need one?!" It was more of a "huh, so this is me in yoga pants. Kinda cool. Could be less tight but not bad."

So, why have I posted this? No real reason. I was just really happy I've started to reprogram my negative mental voices and thought I'd share. Oh, and because I put on yoga pants and still think I'm pretty hot.

I'm still not wearing them out of the house. Small steps.

I was reading a book recently, mostly dealing with how we think and look at our bodies. One of the questions it asked was what we consider a healthy, attractive body. It’s supposed to get us to confront what we actually want our bodies to be, how we’d like our bodies to be rather than passively accept the images that bombard the media.

Please understand; I am NOT deriding women who are thin. Not at all, especially if they are naturally thin. (I have friends who are naturally under what the BMI would consider as “healthy” or “average.”) I’m not condemning them as unhealthy or unnatural or disgusting. I AM deriding the concept of thin, which means many things to many people. Thin shouldn’t be the only goal for a body; it’s too vague and too open to interpretation.

To me, it’s like the idea of “fat.” What does fat mean? To anorexics, it means any state in which their bones are not visible. To many, it means anything above a size 10. These terms are too vague. They don’t express EXACTLY how we see our bodies or how we want our bodies to look. They’re too easily turned into pejoratives and used to mock or shame others and ourselves.

So, I’m going to start with me. What do I consider a healthy, attractive body? (I’ll even try to provide examples). Let’s start with arms.

Attractive arms are: strong and lean. Body builder arms are not for me. I like the unexpectedness of a leaner arm. Have you ever seen sculptors’ arms? How they seem almost stringy? But when they work, their arms almost ripple with muscle. Their strength is almost unexpected. Their hands may be callused to hell and gone, marked with by their craft but their arms are amazing.

Strength is important to me. To me, it’s the ability to get a job done with a minimum of fuss. Have you ever seen a design show where the designer (typically female) struggles to move a relatively small piece of furniture because, while her arms are lean, they have no strength? I always find that so limiting, as though in order to get your work done, you need someone else there, wasting their time babysitting you.

It’s the same with legs. To me, skinny legs aren’t attractive. Skinny legs remind me of the girls in school who would clomp down the hall like elephants because the platform shoes they were wearing were too heavy for them to lift their legs properly. I don’t even want to get into the shuffling. Seriously, if your legs aren’t strong enough to pick up the shoes on your feet, THAT’S NOT ATTRACTIVE.

Basically, that’s it. An attractive body is strong and capable of doing anything you need it to do. Does it matter if you’re thin? I don’t think so. Does it matter if you’re fat? Only if it keeps you from doing things you’d like to do.

What does this mean for me? Well, it means I’m trying to lose weight, trying to get my body to the point of being strong and functional, to have the energy to do all the things I want to do. Hell, even to get myself to the point where I’m able to figure out what I’m passionate about.

But that’s a completely different entry, though I’d love to hear what you’re all passionate about. It might give me some ideas.

I was going to add something about the women I think are beautiful but I’m going to save it for another entry.