Wednesday, June 16, 2010

What's your definition of "fat"?


First off, I'd like to share with my readers that I am typing this naked in the middle of the day. Because my brain never turns off, my mind wandered to the look of my own body while I was in the shower so I sat at my computer in my towel and started to write. In the shower, I came to this conclusion: I think there is an invisible weight limit for each individual where you cross the line from-
"skinny" to "trim"
"trim" to "healthy"
"healthy" to "curvy"
"curvy" to, gosh, there's so many, "plump", "chubby", "chunky", etc.
"chubby" to "fat"
"fat" to "really fat"
and finally, "really fat" to "I can't lift my legs out of bed fat"

I am the second to last one. Really. I'm not some tabloid mag that shows Beyonce with jiggle and proclaims "FAT!!!", I'm the one you would say to a friend, "I can't believe she got so big!" or "she always had such a pretty face". I do have a pretty face, damn it, it's just hard to see the actual shape of it.

I'll lay out the grim, uncomfortable details: my thighs don't just touch, they stick together. I'm starting to get stretch marks on my knees. My knees! The stretch marks I was blessed with when having my son have actually risen upward and backward. That horrible back fat near the bra area some of us are plagued with? Mine actually rests on my lower back fat. My ears are fat. (No, not really, I just wanted to break the gross visuals with some comic relief.) It's hard to lift up my body, like when you pull the blankets out from under you when you are lying down. I walked the other day to our mailbox and by the time I got back my back was aching. The worst part about my fat is that I got passed down an apple shape via my grandmother. I'm all stomach. My ex said I was "shaped like a boy", because I carry all of my weight in my middle, as opposed to actually hot fat girls who have boobs and booty. I'm still a C cup. I used to have to buy jeans that were tight up top but baggy everywhere else because I didn't have big legs. Now I wear track pants, which is ironic because I've never been to a track in my life. My feet are fat. I wear slip-on because tennis shoes are too tight.

By the way, I'm not writing this for you to feel sorry for me. I heaped this on myself. Mr. McDonald and the Colonel and Jack were merely accomplices. The thing is, I want to be invisible. I want to walk somewhere out in the open and not have one person lay eyes on me. When I am in the grocery store, I make my husband go with me because I can make him be the culprit if we put Oreos in the basket. People may look at him and pay no mind, but I feel like if I grab cookies, people are like, "doesn't she know how she looks?" I only go through drive-through, because you are anonymous and people can assume all that food you are buying is for a family of six waiting for you at home. I feel instantly guilty whenever I say "and one Reeses McFlurry". I refuse to eat a hot fry or take a sip from my milkshake in the car while waiting for more food. Even one fry in public means I am a fat, lazy cow who belongs in Wal-Mart on a Jazzy scooter. Of course this is the main thing we talk about in therapy, because my outside is what I convey to others. I can be whomever I want on the inside to anyone, because that is what I do. I can't hide my outside. I can only hide inside-I mean, in my house, away from any eyes.

When I was younger, 130 pounds was fat. See how fat I was?
(Face covered to protect the innocent fat people. Namely me.)

I wanted to slap my 90 pound friends when they said they were fat. Where??? I used to work in a plus-size clothing store, and I loved it, even though I was a size 12-14. So many insecure girls would walk in and it was like the store was a safe haven. It screamed "look at everyone around you! You are not alone!!!" I wasn't the smallest girl that worked there and I wasn't the largest. Other than my stomach, I was okay with my body. I still had food issues back then though. I would try and hide the food I would eat when I had to leave the store on lunch and go to the food court. Us big girls always had plenty of snacks to go around, and I would make sure I would only eat either in private or when another girl was eating the same thing. After that job I started in the restaurant business, and as a manager I got all my food for free. For free. I would buy the massive desserts all the time because I knew that my servers would offer to split it or I could half it right away so I wouldn't seem like a fat pig. That way, instead of them looking at me eating, it would be like a reward for them and take the emphasis off myself. Fried foods were a daily indulgence. The cooks were so awesome, and I could ask them to make special stuff with the ingredients they had that weren't on the menu, like patty melts or crunchy fish tacos. Even after a ten-hour shift, I would still pick up fast food on the way home. It's like it was never enough.

I've tried to rationalize to myself that overeating is self-destruction, so it wouldn't be a big deal if I became bulimic or started to starve myself. Bulimia is out-I can't believe some people get a high after they puke, I feel awful and shaky and just want to lie down. And starving myself? Fat chance (pardon the pun). If I don't eat after eight hours *BAM* instant migraine. If I block out foods they become all I think about. If I only drink liquids I crave solids. I can't take ephedra or fat-burning supplements because of my medications and my somewhat bum ticker. I don't know what is scarier: walking into a public gym or being in the same room with a cockroach. They are both paralyzing.

I'm not gonna lie: I want the surgery. I want something that forcibly says, "you want that slice of cheesecake? Oh hell no! *Puke*". I know the drill people. I can't expect to succeed even with surgery if I don't change my routine and eating habits. When I buy a candy bar, I tell myself, "just today. Tomorrow I will cut out a sugar item". Then I eat another candy bar. It sucks. I have an addiction. It's not like crack, where you can learn how to recover from the dependency. You have to eat to live. And I live to eat.

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