A 400lb woman writes about what it's like and how her life is & isn't affected by being very fat. Unlike most obese people, I actually look like the photos used to illustrate the "obesity epidemic" stories. 400 pounds, 400 lbs, 400 lb female, 400lbs female, 400lb fat woman, fat man, fat person, very fat, obese, obesity, morbidly obese, super obese, super obese fitness, super obese exercise, super obesity, very obese, death fat, supersize, BBW, BHM, Health at Every Size, HAES.
Some posts that may serve as an introduction:
Recently, I read a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in which 300 “moderately obese people” were followed on three different diets: the low-carb diet, the low-fat diet, and the Mediterranean diet (healthy fats, some dairy products, abundant fruits and vegetables). After the first five months of tightly controlled dieting, the dieters lost an average of 10 to 14 pounds.
However, by the end of the two-year study, all the participants gained back some of the weight they had lost. Two years of strict dieting and the end result is that you lose 10 pounds and gain back four? Hmm. There’s gotta be a better way to spend your time.
There is. It’s called: Live the life you have. Love the body you’ve got. (This is not the same thing as: Give up and binge.)
In a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the American Diabetes Association, 2,081 Americans were asked questions to test their diabetes knowledge. The results showed that several diabetes myths and misconceptions are common and diabetes remains a misunderstood disease.
[...]
Myth: If you are overweight or obese, you will eventually develop type 2 diabetes.
According the survey, approximately three in five respondents (59%) did not know that this is a false statement. In addition, more than half (53%) of respondents did not know that risk for developing type 2 diabetes increases with age.
Fact: Being overweight is a risk factor for developing this disease, but other risk factors such as family history, ethnicity and age also play a role. Unfortunately, too many people disregard the other risk factors for diabetes and think that weight is the only risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Most overweight people never develop type 2 diabetes, and many people with type 2 diabetes are at a normal weight or only moderately overweight.
Yes, I’ve posted this before, but it bears repeating: Not all fat people get diabetes. Thin people should still get blood sugar checks every so many years — especially if they have a family history of the disease. It’s not contagious, either.
…and from the search terms, some things that made me go “hm”:
pictures of 300-500lb. females in swimsu
in daylight savings time will it dark at
daylight savings 2009 darker or lighter
names of fat football players in the nfl
cpap felt like i was drowning
do fat women have sex?
how to tell a super obese person not to
I do wonder what the rest of that last one was. Ah well. May you all have a good Samhain, All Saints’ Eve, or Halloween, however / whichever you celebrate.
Part of why I started the virtual window shopping posts is that I’m not buying a lot of clothing right now. But I have been changing my wardrobe: I’ve been adjusting it. Or perhaps I should say altering it.
See, I had a pair of pants that had sprouted “wear holes” at the top of the side seam pockets. Not a huge problem, but I’d put off wearing them, or if I did wear them, I’d feel self-conscious. But they’re perfectly good otherwise and I felt silly for buying new ones.
So I got out the sewing kit and made repairs. It’s a small thing, but I felt much better wearing the pants I’d repaired. Partly because the holes were gone, yes, but also because I’d fixed them.
Then I started thinking about the others….
A pair of pants that had been torn at the crotch seam.
Another pair with holes on the side seams near the pockets.
Two beautiful tweedy knit cardigans that had each lost the second button from the bottom.
A gray French terry jacket that fit great, but the brass buttons just seemed to clash with the gray. (To me, at least. Drove me nuts.) So I avoided (or felt self-conscious) wearing it.
A white French terry jacket I didn’t wear because it was bit too big and people mistook me for a pharmacist when I wore it.
A workout shirt I bought on sale with 3/4 banded-bottom sleeves that pulled at my elbow when I lifted weights.
Now, yes, I accept that not all of my clothing is appropriate at once. The sundresses get rotated to the guest room closet each October, for example, because I’m not going to wear them til it’s warm again. But these are clothes I’d like to wear, but I feel too self-conscious to wear.
So I’ve been making a few more changes.
I took the gray jacket over to Joanne Fabrics and found black buttons that I love and fit the existing buttonholes of the cardigan. I spent an hour cutting off the old brass buttons and sewing on new black ones.
I picked up brown RIT dye at Michael’s and dyed the white jacket. It’s now a coppery brown and, due to the hot water used in the dyeing process, shrunk about a size. It now fits great.
I’d saved one of the knit cardigans’ lost buttons, so I sewed it back on.
The other had a spare inside it, which I sewed on.
I still have pants to fix and the sleeves to shorten. I’ve also had my “Oops!” moments. The coppery brown isn’t as dark as I’d like, though the man of the house loves it, so that jacket may be dyed darker or become his. Unbuttoning one of the knit cardigans on Monday I had 2 more buttons pop off (argh!) so I’ll probably be re-sewing them all. Still, I am getting more comfortable making minor changes and increasing my confidence. Yes, I can go to an alterations service if something beyond my ability is required — but it’s nice to be able to do it myself, too.
How I’m doing it: I have a well-lit, comfy place to work on these items (a corner of the couch) complete with a (coffee) table if need be. I have a basic variety of different-colored threads, a packet of hand sewing needles, and pins. Plus both a Joanne’s and a Michael’s within easy driving distance.
Anyone thinking of doing NaNoWriMo? I’ve done it in the past, but not this year.
Naafa quoted USA Today on flying while big — or tall! Kudos to the reporter who realized that it’s not just fat people who don’t fit in airline seats but tall ones too.
One of the frequent refrains in the discussion of Angry Gray Rainbow’s “I Hate Exercise” post was the dislike of exercise bikes, treadmills, and other “hamster-wheel exercise-for-the-sake-of-exercising”. I grinned when I saw it, because yes, I’d rather walk to someplace than walk in place or around the block.
But, then, there’s today. Today my leg is hurting. Uneven strides and uneven walking surfaces are painful…and the treadmill offers me a level walking surface and an enforced uniform speed. Trying to correct my slight limp as I walked over to the office’s mini-gym I wasn’t sure even that would help, but I did 20 minutes on the treadmill with no limping and no pain. I finished with a variety of stretches.
So…yeah. Boring, yes. Purposeless…depends on what your purpose IS.
Continuing from lastweek, my left thigh and knee are very sore today.
Saturday I went to the soccer game and found that walking a 1/2 mile or so, generally, wasn’t a problem — as long as I kept a regular stride and speed, and stayed on mostly level sidewalks. (Which is much easier on a treadmill or at a modern shopping mall than in Seattle’s Pioneer Square!) I had an occasional twinge here and there, but overall I was fine.
Going up the 40 or so stairs to the 100 level (which are visible beyond the gate in the picture) was a mistake. My left knee was hurting by the time I got to the top. Fortunately that was almost all of the stairs on the way to my seat. Everyone around me was standing during the game, so I alternated standing with sitting. Afterward I took the elevator down. The 1/2 mile walk back to the car went okay.
Today I ran some errands. Walking: Pretty good, as long as I’m careful to take even strides. Standing: Not so good.
The ache and movement issues I’m seeing with my left knee and quads right now are very similar to what I’ve seen with my right leg. What does this tell me?
The exercises that helped me deal with this in my right leg (leg lifts, leg extensions, chair squats, walking) will probably help with my left.
Increasing my walking didn’t mean I was ready to drop my leg strength training exercises.
It’s also not a good idea to let my stretching / flexibility drop either.
Emotionally I’m all over the map; castigating myself for letting walking slide; for letting strength training slide; for doing this again. I’m also reminding myself that I have dealt with this before and can again. At the back of the brain is a reminder that I will continue to walk this particular functional edge of good and bad unless I make changes, and worry about my upcoming vacation. Oh, and chagrin that a month ago I was thinking about how I can walk so far pain-free and isn’t it great I don’t have those problems anymore?
Head, meet desk.
BTW: The man of the house sent me the picture in this post because I’m in it. :)
The left leg (which has traditionally been the “good” leg) has decided to give me pain and occasionally not want to work. I’m not thrilled with this. I am exercising carefully and taking ibuprofen and trying to not freak out.
In the interest of not freaking out, I’m reading They Still Suspect Nothing: Two Lumps Year Four which came in the mail today. (It’s the 4th year of the comic, with commentary on each comic from creators Mel Hynes & J Grant.) I’d completely forgotten about this filk of the song “Ridin’” (which some know better as the basis of “White and Nerdy“).
This comic really worked for me today. Cats don’t *care* about whether they’re fat, they care about stalking and sunbeams and pets. :)
I’m usually the fattest person in the room. I’m often the only fat person in the room. [...] When I go to the gym, I’m fat. And there’s a part of me that knows people are looking at me and making judgements – about how hard or fast I’m exercising, about how much I should do, about why they think I’m doing it (no, it’s not to loose weight, but you can’t tell that by looking). [...] Whenever I go into a shop that doesn’t cater specifically to fat people, I know I won’t find anything to fit.
Some of the items she discusses, like assuming people will reject her on first meeting, are things I’ve trained myself NOT to do. Others are things I deal with every day. I think it’s a useful addition to the discussion of what it’s like to be fat.
Whether or not I am beautiful is immaterial in the face of what kind of parent I am, how I treat my fellow human beings, whether or not anyone’s lives are going to be enriched from knowing me or not — not how goddamned decorative I am. I am a living, breathing human being. The idea that because I’m female I should somehow be ornamental if I want to be valued drives me up a wall.
I’ve talked about how most fat people aren’t my size, but I know from comments and emails that many of you are my size. So, in the interest of fun, comes this:
I’ve also seen some speculation about how many folks
Read fat acceptance blogs, and
Are trying to lose weight.
So why not see what people say if I ask? (This doesn’t mean I’m going to open up most of the blog to discuss weight loss stuff because I do try to make this a weight-loss-guilt-free space. But I think it might inform discussion.)
Purchase not required to play. Void in some states, provinces, and lagoons. When the evening rolls around, I’ll go on home and lay my body down. And when the morning light comes streaming in: I’ll get up and do it again.
which came in the mail today. (It’s the 4th year of the comic, with commentary on each comic from creators Mel Hynes & J Grant.) I’d completely forgotten about this filk of the song “
