tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42575882034131858812024-03-13T08:02:16.088-07:00SteatopygiaGreek for "fat ass." No, really.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-61375167294636183892009-09-29T11:58:00.000-07:002009-09-29T12:01:29.045-07:00Taking chancesLast year, I presented at the PCA/ACA conference. I'm thinking of doing this again, but I think that I'm going to work on doing something a little more radical this time. <br /><br />I want to do something fun, something creative. But it's a little outside of my comfort zone. And I sometimes don't think that I'm really that creative. Hmmmm....Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-11605402526177373382009-06-10T08:47:00.001-07:002009-06-10T08:51:30.180-07:00"Why don't she write?"I haven't written on this blog for awhile. Last year at this time, I really wasn't feeling well. My partner had gone crazy (midlife crisis, anyone?!), my stomach had gone sour, and I was just not feeling well.<br /><br />Well, my partner has leveled out somewhat. I found out that I can't eat gluten. And I think I'm in perimenopause. In other words, I feel more focused, but boy do I get angry sometimes.<br /><br />I've been using my facebook account as an outlet and will continue with that, but I also want somewhere else on the web that I can just rant. I want to have a little more anonymonity than I do on facebook.<br /><br />So I'm back. And I think I'll have some things to say on a fairly consistent basis. Yay! for me.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-61158470359526580792008-03-17T15:15:00.000-07:002008-03-17T15:26:29.629-07:00MisinformationI work with dialysis patients. It is a very difficult environment to work in regarding weight. Introducing a concept of Health at Every Size is HARD! (yes, it had to be capitalized)<br /><br />But today I felt greatly saddened. A patient of mine told me that she had been told, many years ago by a docter, that her kidneys were failing because she'd been fat for so long. I wanted to weep.<br /><br />Obesity is not a cause of kidney failure. There is a correlation between obesity and Diabetes or Hypertension, the two leading causes of kidney failure, but being fat has never been shown to cause someone's kidneys to stop working.<br /><br />And this is what a doctor told this patient.<br /><br />I often go back to my family when I am writing this blog. They are a good example of teh fat peeples. They live in the midwest and are from tall Scandanavian stock (I'm the shortest at 5'6"). My dad's side of the family is all fat. Not just a little fat, either. These are big people. I got this gene.<br /><br />But here's the thing...there is no history of kidney failure among this family. They have heart disease, sure. There is stroke as they age. And in one part of the family there is a rare bone disease that is unrelated to size. But in general, they tend to die of the things that most people eventually die of and usually pretty late in life (one great-great-aunt lived to 104).<br /><br />In reality the predisposition for many of these diseases is genetic: diabetes is often seen in families, as is (in my case) hypertension. If this is true of your family, it is important to be screened for this stuff because it can cause kidney failure. But, unless we learn something we haven't yet about the kidney, you won't have a doctor writing obesity as a reason for dialysis any time soon.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-46181871813385312082008-01-30T11:41:00.000-08:002008-01-30T12:03:52.607-08:00Feeding FrenzyIt sometimes feels, watching the ads pop up on my computer or in other media, like I'm swimming in the midst of weight loss sharks. The images of emaciated or overly buff bodies is more frightening than reassuring. And there are the ones with the sneak attacks (like Slim Fast) who pepper their adds with beautiful smiling full-figured women.<br /><br />These images, and the words that accompany them, eat away at my will. Because there are days, even though I know that such activities suck the soul out of me and make me unhappy, that I give in the seductive idea that this time I will be the one to beat the odds, lose the weight, and keep it off forever.<br /><br />But mostly, this constant bombardment eats away at my patience. I want to hurl these little models into a vat of donuts, and close them away until they are a healthy weight. I want to screech at the woman with the washboard abs that she really needs to get a life outside the gym. And I want to shake someone, somewhere, and make them understand that all this money spent on ads would be better used to feed children healthy foods - we don't even have to look to Africa to find malnourished children...they live here in this country, too.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-61882978753206775812008-01-23T14:05:00.000-08:002008-01-23T14:06:33.483-08:00Help!So I’m a therapist. I want to build my practice working with men and women around the model of Health at Every Size. What I’m looking for is help from the types of people who would get excited about working with a therapist in this way.<br /><br />You see, I spent part of my sick day yesterday looking at therapy websites, and, frankly, I started to zone out after the 2nd or 3rd. They all seem to say the same thing or are in language that a non-therapist might find off-putting.<br /><br />So what would you want to see in a therapist’s website that was targeted to you? Go ahead and e-mail me or leave a comment. In particular, I’m wondering if there is language or images that would catch your eye, although suggestions on the content you would want to see in a fat positive therapist are also helpful.<br /><br />Thanks, so much for your help, ahead of time.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-48140257990711669962008-01-23T08:52:00.000-08:002008-01-23T09:14:46.093-08:00HindsightI get so incredibly frustrated with our incredible blindness to the past. I do it. I am a historian to a degree, and I know that I read about the past with rose colored glasses sometimes. But the incredible, blind spot that seems to overtake people when it comes to health and diet is just absolutely amazing.<br /><br />We consistently hear that our diets are to blame for grave unhealthiness in this country, which of course is "caused" by obesity. It is true that our diets are more plentiful than they ever have been. But here are other truths:<br /><br />1. We have a more varied diet than at any time in the history of the planet. My people were farmers 100 years ago. They did not have olive oil (which is so heart healthy). They did not eat greens (jello when it came along was a salad). They ate corn and white flour. Their fruits and veggies were primarily canned for most of the year in sugar and salt. They used lard consistently and drank milk straight from the cow.<br /><br />2. There was no consistent refrigeration, yet, during the summer which meant that meat went bad more often, and people would sometimes still eat it (why do you think the French came up with so many heavy sauces?). Fish, unless your creek or river was stocked, was rare.<br /><br />3. Water was not purified very well. Most people got water from wells on their land. Since they also had their livestock and their outhouses on the same land, imagine how nummy that must have been. Water born illnesses killed a lot of people before modern water sanitation services.<br /><br />None of this was helpful to the overall health of people, indeed the life expectancy was about 58 in 1900, whereas today it's 77 years. That seems to speak for itself.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-57349990052748554362007-12-16T12:34:00.000-08:002008-11-13T13:19:50.013-08:00StuckI've had a recurring dream lately.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BM58_YVQBA8/R2WMFSD3LxI/AAAAAAAAAAc/r9NnlMvGb68/s1600-h/pooh.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5144672171715931922" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BM58_YVQBA8/R2WMFSD3LxI/AAAAAAAAAAc/r9NnlMvGb68/s320/pooh.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br />In the dream, I'm going up into this room in a tree house. It's a room I've been in before, but now the staircase is much harder to navigate and it becomes clear that I'm going to have trouble getting up around the stairwell.<br /><br />Last night, In my dream, I tried and got stuck. I didn't push too hard because I didn't want to end up like Pooh in the picture above: half-in and half-out.<br /><br />I'm sure that there is a deeper level to my dream, but the surface message is that I feel too big. I'm the biggest I've ever been and this time I've gained it around my stomach and arms and in my thighs (why does it never go to my breasts where I might be able to move up to a bigger cup...you see I can rarely find a 42B or 42C, but if I could just get to a D cup, then I'd have no problems finding a 42D).<br /><br />Clothes fit not so well and I don't like to wear uncomfortable clothes. I confessed to S that I was worried that he was not attracted to me anymore. This is patently silly, since he really has not changed his behavior. But I think what I was saying is that I don't think I'm attractive and I can't imagine him doing so either.<br /><br />I want to find myself attractive. Because I'm really not willing to diet anymore. There is too much evidence I'm finding that leads me to believe that dieting does dreadful things to our bodies and can cause us to get fatter in the long run. I want to learn this intuitive eating bit and really embrace my body. But it is so hard to do. I feel stuck. Can anyone unstuck me?Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-89989956114291007742007-12-06T09:08:00.001-08:002008-11-13T13:19:50.531-08:00AngelI got an e-mail from a friend today. It had the tagline "Because I care..." Then it was this:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Heaven has sent you an angel.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BM58_YVQBA8/R1gs1F_3EbI/AAAAAAAAAAU/-me8cVc7hQM/s1600-h/angel.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5140908265298137522" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BM58_YVQBA8/R1gs1F_3EbI/AAAAAAAAAAU/-me8cVc7hQM/s320/angel.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Heaven didn't want her, so they sent her to me. I don't want her, so I'm sending her to you!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br />I responded, of course I did:<br /><br />"Hey there: I know that this e-mail was supposed to be silly andfunny, but to someone who is obese, it feels a little like it's making fun of me and people my size. My body doesn't look like that, but S' body looks very similar. I find her beautiful. I'm not sending this to make you feel bad but to hopefully just raise your awareness that such things can impact people in another way. So I'll be keeping this angel because I want her. Peace, Spins"<br /><br />Now that I've sent it, I wish I'd worded it more strongly. I was so horrified at this. I can't believe that someone could send this and not see how offensive it was. Even more so because the woman in the picture is so obviously fierce and proud of her body.<br /><br />I recently had an experience with the person where I was left feeling invisible. I thought this was a random experience that was partly due to miscommunication. But again, I feel invisible and I wonder if the appelation of friend is appropriate, if she cannot really see me.<br /><br />I hope, at least, that she can see what I wrote and take it in.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-31832230109542345702007-11-28T09:39:00.000-08:002007-11-28T10:20:10.640-08:00Two conversations with the parentsI was in Minnesota to visit my family over Thanksgiving and I had two extremely frustrating conversations with my parents. I know, somewhere in the back of my head, that they are only to be expected given the all the hype, but I still wanted to pull my hair out.<br /><br />The first: My mother was talking about some recent knee pain that she's been experiencing. To put this in context, my mother is 67 and is obese. She hasn't always been obese. She was once terribly underweight. She's never been comfortable with the weight she gained and she's been a yo-yo dieter since her 40s. <br /><br />My mother commented that she was certain that her weight did not help her knee and if she could just lose 80 pounds (yes, she stated 80 pounds), it would be better. I was aghast - not that she wanted to lose weight or that she correlated weightloss with less knee pain, but that she expected at her age and relative dis-ability due to her knee pain to lose and probably maintain that loss.<br /><br />So I asked her, do you really think that's going to happen? It's good to test reality.<br /><br />Well, no, she said, but it would help.<br /><br />I pointed out that since this wasn't likely to happen that maybe other avenues of relieving the pain would be worthwhile...like physical therapy or something. It was apalling that she thought of weightloss as the primary means of alleviating her pain.<br /><br />The second: I pointed to my mother's cat, Max who is as big as a house, and said to my father that I thought that he was a good argument that not everyone is the same size or can maintain at the same size. Max is a supersize cat. He started out as a regular size kitten and in a year grew huge.<br /><br />Now we've had other cats. These cats have had the same access to the same amount of food as Max and, while they might have been slightly bigger than they would have been on the street, they weren't huge. In fact, the variety in cat form in our household has been amazingly diverse.<br /><br />My father's response to this was that he thought I was wrong. Everyone can lose weight and maintain a weightloss, was his argument, if only they are obsessed enough. <br /><br />My father is also 67 and obese. He's tall and large and has been tall and large since leaving the army in his 20s. He's bigger than he ever was, yes, but he's never been "normal weight" for his height.<br /><br />My father went on to explain that dieting was so problematic because you had to keep eating. If he could only figure out a way to stop eating, then even if he did slip from being obsessed, he'd be okay. He would have eliminated food.<br /><br />So, I responded, you should become an anorexic.<br /><br />Yes, he replied without irony, that would probably work.<br /><br />I think that pretty much speaks for itself. On a positive note, I'm pretty sure that my father will not stop eating and become anorexic.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-26638804063144395232007-10-03T11:58:00.000-07:002007-10-03T12:09:32.183-07:00CausalityI work in dialysis. The 2 leading causes of kidney failure are diabetes and high blood pressure. So I shouldn't probably be suprised when the "obesity epidemic" comes up as a topic, but as a social worker I find it hard for it to be discussed without its attendant issues of system of discrimination.<br /><br />We had a social work meeting for the social workers in our region yesterday, and a woman began talking about it as a cause. It was so frustrating. There was no space in the meeting to be able to challenge the idea of the "epidemic" or discuss with more nuance some of the social and cultural issues that go into size and the medical industry.<br /><br />It was dropped so casually, as though we would all understand and accept that large bodies = unhealthy bodies. I'm all for keeping track of your health. I'm going to more doctors lately than I care to. But I have excellent insurance and a job to pay for medication and co-pays. I have no fear of the medical establishment. I have had doctors who reflected what I looked like, what I sound like and what my lifestyle is for most of my life. I trust them.<br /><br />This to me - this lack of access, and lack of trust of the medical community for people of color is huge and needs to be addressed more urgently than does the so-called epidemic that is so hyped....then perhaps we can tackle lack of access to fresh, affordable foods and exercise facilities/resources.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-61153356372462769362007-09-27T13:47:00.000-07:002008-11-13T13:19:51.280-08:00Height and WeightOver at <a href="http://kateharding.wordpress.com/">Shapely Prose</a>, there is a challenge to share your body weight as a way to start being honest about what particular weights look like on people. <a href="http://www.therotund.com">The Rotund</a> upped the ante with a guess-her-weight exercise. I don't have a full-length photo or I might be tempted to do the same. <br /><br />But here's a picture of me at the Reno Balloon Races....<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BM58_YVQBA8/Rvwa8fqq53I/AAAAAAAAAAM/gw8HF96Ssgc/s1600-h/balloon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114992903380985714" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BM58_YVQBA8/Rvwa8fqq53I/AAAAAAAAAAM/gw8HF96Ssgc/s320/balloon.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In this picture, I weigh about 250 (I haven't weighed myself since I got sick, so it may be a little more). I am 5'6".Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-71400855908558353482007-09-17T15:38:00.001-07:002007-09-17T16:33:53.386-07:00Life ExpectancySince starting this blog, I've been very ill for most of the time. I think I'd like to write more sometime about weight and being ill, but the idea of writing about this thing that has sucked the life out of me (seemingly, not really) is a daunting proposition. So I'm blogging about something else.<br /><br />It's occurred to me, oh these many months, that there is something wrong with the scare tactics that are being used to draw people into weight loss. We are getting fatter, the "experts" insist, and this is bad, bad, bad for our health. Researchers write that we fat folks will die young, messy deaths if we don't lose weight. Never to mention the unmentioned Gilbert Grape-esque threat that we will be too large to move from our king sized beds when we kick it.<br /><br />I don't think I'll speak to the fear of dying fat right now. I'm on the scent of the living, if you will. You see, I'm a big fan of random internet-ness...most particularly quizes or things that tell me randomly that my porn name would be Missy Emerson. So several years ago, I remembered doing one of those life-expectancy calculators on the web. <br /><br />I was, at the time, in the midst of a weight loss endeavor. I was, also, almost suicidally depressed and drinking to solve this, rather than sensibly approaching my doctor for an antidepressant. I remembered, at the time, being safely close to the national average for life expectancy.<br /><br />So I started to wonder, had gaining back those 41 lbs really diminished my life expectancy drastically? Was I really going to die at young age? Was there a significant difference between my life expectancy at the weight I was currently at and the "ideal" for my height according to the BMI ranges?<br /><br />While I didn't remember the exact years I was told I could expect to live, I was easily able to re-configure the information on a calculator at MSN Money. My life expectancy at the time was 62 years old.<br /><br />So my life expectancy today, with added weight but no drinking? 67 years old. The calculator tells me that I would live to be 77 if I dropped 100 lbs. I should be impressed, I suppose, but does that 10 years really mean anything - or the calculators?<br /><br />Both my parents are overweight. They are both inactive, generally, although my mother still works. Both are considered obese. My mother has heart disease (long standing, she had her first heart attack at 41 when she was underweight and chainsmoking) and my father had cancer about 5 years ago (successfully treated with surgery) and has had several strokes. I would like to be more vigorous than they at their age, yes, but my sense is that this has more to leading an active lifestyle than it does to do with their weight.<br /><br />Indeed, the illnesses from which they suffered are what predisposed me to a lower life-expectancy. If my mother hadn't had heart disease and my father hadn't had cancer, I would be living to a fat and happy 88 years, according to the same calculator.<br /><br />The only immediate family members (even the fat ones) I've had who have died before the ripe age of 80 were the result of suicide. I've, happily, discovered the joys of antidepressants and feel the urge never again to succumb to that hell without a pharmaceutical fight. So I'm guessing that if I exercise, eat fruits and veggies, don't smoke or drink, I'm in for a long and feisty life.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-59030788735391770022007-08-01T10:34:00.000-07:002007-08-01T11:01:29.428-07:00On being ill and fatMy doctor's medical assistant weighs me everytime I go in for an appointment. There have been 2 times, now, in which I've been in to the office only a week after my last appointment. The first time, I was on either side of my menstrual cycle and it was amusing to find that my weight fluctuated by about 2 lbs during that time.<br /><br />This week, I'd been at home, in bed and sick all week. I had an apetite but no energy to do much of anything. I lay in bed, ate mostly convenience food and lot's of sugar...my body seemed to crave the sugar. I drank lot's of fluids, again mostly sugar, to keep myself hydrated.<br /><br />So when I was asked to get on the scale to be weighed (again a week after I'd been in for an annual exam), I had gained 3 lbs. As much as I wish it didn't, that weight gain is dismaying. And it's crazy-making that it is.<br /><br />I mean, I was sick FFS! I should be able to allow my body to do what it needs. I should be glad that the illness was not one that had me weighing less and allowed me to keep myself adequately nourished. But there is some cultural demon that lives in my brain...the one that says that weight loss when you are sick isn't really dieting. That's an acceptable way to drop some pounds. <br /><br />While I was ill, I was re-reading <em>Rachel's Holiday</em>, a story about a cocaine addict who goes into recovery. She not only deals with her drug addiction, but also has some seriously messed up ideas about her weight. She's described as always being "solid" and tall, but she aspires to being a size 0. So she and her friend compliment each other by saying things like, "you look anorexic" to one another.<br /><br />I know that a book like this may show an extreme example of weight obsession, but I don't think it's entirely off-track. There are enough pro-Ana websites to show that there is a serious movement of young women who aspire to anorexic thinness. They are literally making themselves sick to be thin.<br /><br />In that context, it's not at all surprising to find that I hope being sick will make me thinner. But it's disturbing nonetheless.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-81668699498072826662007-07-25T20:33:00.000-07:002007-07-25T20:48:30.296-07:00I don't apologizeAccording to researchers at the Harvard Medical School, being my friend or family member can make you fat. To my loved ones out there, I'm not sure I really am sorry.<br /><br />The researchers believe that the causation may be that seeing fat people who you care for is going to change your opinion or ideas about being fat, yourself. Gods, I sort of hope this is somewhat true. I hope that by seeing me, or reading about my journey to acceptance of my body, that you too will find yourself hating your body less. I hope that you will no longer feel the need to starve yourself in order to get approval in this world.<br /><br />I also hope that such changes will help you become more aware of the things your body wants and needs...a varied diet and to move within its range of abilities to keep it healthy and vital. We take better care of our cars than we do of our bodies (I mean really, would you deny your car oil or gas then try to drive it halfway across the country?). This needs to change. We need to recognize that our bodies are precious resources for ourselves, first.<br /><br />Do I really want you to be fat? No. I want you to be whatever shape or size you are. I want you to know that I love you for who you are, not what size you wear.*<br /><br />*<span style="font-size:85%;">Although, if we wear roughly the same size and you have extra clothes you're getting rid of, let me know. I do love me some free clothes.</span>Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-88914725301896604972007-07-23T10:35:00.000-07:002007-07-23T10:52:11.361-07:00Fat, dumb and uglyIt seems that these ideas always go hand in hand. Fat people are assumed to be less intelligent and less attractive. Both are matters of opinion...I and plenty of fat people I know are extremely intelligent and more beautiful than we realize. But these ideas are ubiquitous in our culture.<br /><br />A recent study out of the University of Texas at Austin recently found that obese girls are less likely to attend college than their non-obese peers. The <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070723095211.htm">article</a> in the <em>Science Daily</em> is an amazing piece of obesity-reporting denial.<br /><br />It reads:<br /><br /><blockquote>Crosnoe suggests a number of mental health and behavioral issues seem to play a significant role in keeping obese girls from enrolling in college. The study found obese girls were more likely to consider committing suicide, use alcohol and marijuana and have negative self-images.</blockquote> <br /><br />But nowhere in the following paragraphs does it discuss what could be causing these mental health and behavioral issues. We are, it seems, to believe that obesity itself (and therefore the girls who cannot control their bodies or their parents who cannot control their childrens' bodies) is to blame for these mental health issues.<br /><br />Was there a call to educate parents and children about size diversity and the utter insanity of telling children to engage in behaviors which study after study has shown to be futile and potentially damaging to the bodies of young women? No.<br /><br />Was there an expressed interest in looking into the types of discrimination that these girls, and their fat male peers, experience and its effect on overall health and well-being? No.<br /><br />Was there even an inkling that somehow the same pressures which infuence depression and behavior problems in obese children might also be inspiring eating disorders in their thinner peers. Absolutely not.<br /><br />It's absolutely maddening.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-73678176690292438092007-07-21T08:41:00.001-07:002007-07-21T09:14:16.544-07:00"You can dance, if you want to"I spent a good portion of my therapy session last night talking about exercise. It seems that I develop headaches when I exercise and it is hot. It probably has a lot to do with several things physiologically, but my therapist and I were interested in all of the psychological issues that exercise holds for me.<br /><br />I've always been chubby or overweight or obese (oh, the variety of words that can be used). For the most part, my family was not an active one. There were no camping trips or walks around the lakes. Neither of my parents went jogging or joined a gym. My dad golfed occassionally and there was the yearly trip to go fishing up north, but neither of those were terribly active.<br /><br />So my model of activity was what we did as kids, playing on our block, or the PE classes in school and playground activities. Either because I was chubby or because I wasn't terribly coordinated, I didn't do well with competitive sports. Run and chase games would sometimes leave me feeling anxious and I would just stop running and let myself be caught.<br /><br />I enjoyed dancing during PE - the schottishe, the Virginia Reel, square dancing - but the rest of that class was just painful for me. I asked, one time, if I could take ballet classes, but my mother sort of brushed me off. I was, after all, enrolled in soccer. Of course, I hated soccer. I was either one of the few girls on an all-boy team, or when I finally got onto a girls team, I was the worst player and got hopelessly teased.<br /><br />My dilemma was made worse by the fact that my sister excelled at these things. Or she was good enough and got on good enough teams to seem to excell. She got trophies and there were awards banquets. The tropies for soccer, basketball and golf took up the top shelf of the entertainment center. Those trophies are symbolic, not only of the way that I felt a failure in exercise, but how I felt in constant competition with her...and it doesn't take much to guess who I thought always won.<br /><br />In high school, I was able to do liturgical dance in my church. I loved this. I loved feeling like I was worshipping with my body. But if I had been more aware, I would have been able to acknowledge that I loved feeling graceful and coordinated. I loved this type of movement in my body.<br /><br />In college, I took a conditioning class. I was intimidated by the dance classes and yet I wanted to get additional exercise - I was already walking regularly around campus. The class...well, it was sort of like PE. There was no real pleasure in what we did and since I wasn't in great condition, most of what was asked of me felt really uncomfortable. There were no instructions about keeping things at your own pace or how to make things more comfortable. And the bodies of most of my classmates did not look like mine. <br /><br />The tragedy of this class is that one day, I was really getting into and enjoying a game of basketball. I hadn't played basketball for years and since I wasn't on a real team, I could enjoy the feeling of getting the ball and even the competition a bit. I jumped up to block a pass and when I landed, my foot rolled to the side and I went down. It hurt a lot. My teacher thought that I had a sprain and told me to walk it out. I wasn't allowed to use a phone at the sport facility (apparently this was their policy), so I ended up walking 5 blocks on what turned out to be a broken foot to get to a phone. It was awful, and in retrospect, I should have brought a complaint against the sports facility.<br /><br />I have discovered that moving my body is a challenge for me. I like the feeling in my body after I exercise, but it is always the case that I struggle with movement for the first half hour that I do it. The one exception is swimming. I had to rediscover swimming. I never learned, formally, to swim, but growing up, as I did, in Minneapolis, it was a thing that one learned. I loved the water. I could be strong and mobile in the water. I could be light in the water. When I came to CA about 10 years ago, I took a water aerobics class and I fell in love with the water again. Now I've learned to swim with a snorkel and I'm amazed at how far I can swim...and how good my body feels the whole time.<br /><br />I've also reclaimed my love of dancing. I'm taking a belly dance class and when I practice at home, I even put on a costume to feel authentic. It's silly, but it gives me pleasure and that's what's important.<br /><br />It's sad that it's taken me so long to realize that moving my body can give me pleasure. I think that a lot of big folks have lost their memory of this. Our bodies sometimes make this difficult, especially as we age and the longer we go without moving. But moving keeps us strong and supple. It can help us build a better relationship with this body that our culture tells us is ugly or unacceptable.<br /><br />I encourage you to think about the things that you used to like to do as a child. Did you like to dance or swim? Was playing on the jungle gym, your thing? Wrestling with your dog or doing somersaults? Is there some way that you can do something fun again with your body. Don't think of it as exercise, think of it as a way of playing and finding joy in your body again. I know it sounds silly, but recently I went rolling down a hill with my partner. I haven't laughed so much in such a long time.<br /><br />Move, shake, dance, laugh, run, ride a bike, swim, walk, wave your arms around...do whatever feels good.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-75357539200521215012007-07-20T13:58:00.000-07:002007-07-20T14:16:10.883-07:00So which is it?A new study has been released in Australia describing trends in the weights of children and teens. I don't have much to say about the study itself, but the sort of schizophrenic way that it seems to be reported.<br /><br />A Google news search presents first an<br /><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/childrens-obesity-rates-keep-rising/2007/07/19/1184559956554.html">article</a> from The Age. The title is "Children's Obesity Rates Keep Rising." But the rise in children who are overweight in a sample of 9000 went up only 1.3% in six years. Hardly an inflmatory number. They seem to miss the point of real concern in the study.<br /><br />The Brisbane Times seems to have <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/07/19/1184559940454.html">gotten it</a> a bit better. It seems that a significant number of girls, about 6% increase, have used such activities as vomiting, laxatives and smoking as ways to control their weight. <br /><br />This is no surprise to us who are not making ourselves crazy with starving ourselves anymore. Because, really, hypervigilance around weight and food makes you crazy (you do have to eat to live, after all). When we tell children that being fat is not only socially unacceptable but dangerous to them, we induce anxiety. When we tell them (they who are still growing and changing) that they need to control their "out of control eating" to remain thin, they use their best judgement sometimes based on input from their environment on how to enact this control. <br /><br />It is okay if you want to make yourself crazy by trying to control your access to a life-sustaining resource. It is not okay to encourage children to do the same.Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4257588203413185881.post-62453491313039594602007-07-20T09:37:00.000-07:002007-07-20T10:23:31.248-07:00Fat AssOn Wednesday, I was reading a Wiki article about Hatshepsut. In it, they talked about a relief of a journey to the Land of Punt which Hatshepsut had sponsored. The Queen of said land had a "condition" known as steatopygia and there was a link to another article about it.<br /><br />It turns out that a prominent rear-end is a genetic trait (um, yeah) which is common among Bush and Hottentot women. These same women have "unusual"* genital characteristics which seemed to have been of more interest to the white explorers. The two are often descibed in the same breath, as though they are somehow linked.<br /><br />My immediate reaction was one of utter recognition. Here in these photos and drawings was my ass. My fat ass that has been such a source, in the past, of shame and humiliation. That thing which consistently brings the most negative attention into my life. Only recently have I found someone who appreciates it as the lovely booty that it is. And here were two groups of people in Africa who had, obviously, appreciated it enough so that it was a prominent feature for all the women. What a lovely discovery.<br /><br />It's reflective, a bit, of my journey and why I am starting this new blog. I have another blog, you see, that is pretty personal and I have enjoyed keeping it that way. But in the past year or so, I have been on a journey of accepting my body for what it is. It has led me to question so many assumptions about what is being reported about overweight and obesity and has brought up all sorts of feelings about what I am reading and my response to others in the world.<br /><br />So this will be a blog about finding the things that reflect my reality in this world and sharing them here. It will be about questioning the standards of health and beauty in this world and giving voice to my anger, my joy, my anxiety, my humor, and...well, just all of me in the face of it all.<br /><br />I want to put out a caveat: I am a proponent of Health at Every Size. Although, I understand it to be a personal issue, I do not agree that weightloss in and of itself is the way to health. In fact, I believe that in several ways it is detrimental to one's well-being. That's my bias. So if you are looking for support for your struggle to lose weight, you might wish to look elsewhere. There are plent of places out there which will fit the bill.<br /><br />*Please note that those who find this trait unusual were white explorers. The women, themselves, were perfectly comfortable with it as, I imagine, were their partners.<br /><br />P.S. I'll be making this look more snazzy soon. I promise!Spinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11724733227363429223noreply@blogger.com0