Monthly Archives: October 2012

Never Good Enough: How a Big Body Means “You’re Doing it Wrong”

One of the things I find deeply frustrating as a fat woman is the assumption by many complete strangers, that I am not doing enough for my health. And the more I appear in public and on television, the more I hear this criticism leveled at me. No matter what I’m doing for my health, clearly I’m not doing it enough, because, well look at me. And if I should claim to be doing something far beyond what another person is doing, then I must be lying.

For example, I am a fitness teacher. I exercise pretty regularly and moderately. But many people believe that clearly, I’m neither exercising hard enough, nor the right way, because look at me. I’m still fat. I should lift more weights. I should exercise at a higher intensity. I should do Fred the Celebrity’s Super Insane Fitness Plan. Forget that I might get injured. Forget that I would hate it and quit after a few workouts. The folks that know everything about everything are glad to let me know that since they are thin and I am fat, I’m not working out as well as them. And when I tell them, that when I was training for the marathon and walking/running up to 35 miles per week I still maintained this weight, they tell me I was eating 4,000 calories per day, or lying. People who are conventionally thin, don’t get this treatment. If a conventionally thin person says that they exercise 45 minutes per week, they are usually told, to keep doing what they are doing because they look great.

The same is true with eating. Many people assume that since I am big, I eat nothing but junk food, I eat large amounts of food and I eat all the time. In pre-interviews for certain public appearances, I am grilled over and over about what I eat, when I eat, how much I eat, and so on. No thin woman is asked these questions. It is assumed that if they are thin, they are eating well. But the producers ask these questions of me because A) they think their audience will wonder (and they are probably right about this) and B) they just can’t imagine that I’m not eating the whole house because, well, look at me. We have been conditioned so deeply to believe that fat people do unhealthy things and fat people do healthy things that we assume that we know, by looking at someone what their habits are. In the name of full disclosure, I would say that my eating habits are pretty average. I eat more than some and less than some. I eat more junk food than some and less than some. Some of those who eat less than me weigh more than me. And many people who eat more than me weigh less than me. As comforting as the idea is that we can control every aspect of our appearance and our health outcomes with our behaviors, it just isn’t true.

So all we can do is what seems to be best for us at the time. There is no perfect exercise regimen. There is no perfect diet. There are no perfect people. There’s just people. So the next time you look in the mirror and decide that your size means you aren’t doing the right healthy things or doing enough healthy things, maybe that’s the time to just stop. You don’t have to put yourself into the same box that society does. Make your own plans and build your own life. Build a life that is joyous and right for YOU.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Big Girls on the Red Carpet

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Jeanette working the Red Carpet with the two directors of the Haute Curves Fashion Show for LA Fashion Week: Angela Rene’ AKA “The Purple Diva”, CEO of PurpleDivaDesigns.com and Jasmine Epperson, CEO at Kris Eliza Boutique

On the list of things we big girls are told we will never experience, you can add wearing beautiful clothes. As a kid, I never thought I’d get to wear gorgeous things and the idea that there would be plus-sized models seemed extremely remote.

So in my week of saying “neener, neener, neener” to the list of stuff we fluffy folk “shouldn’t expect to enjoy,” I’m telling you that the models ROCKED THE HOUSE at this past weekend’s Haute Curves fashion show for LA Fashion Week. For over two hours we watched unbelievably gorgeous men and women of all sizes, small to super-sized, strut down the runway in some extremely gorgeous clothes. And folks, these were not your mama’s muumuus. There was an awful lot of extremely beautiful clothes from delightfully weird to sporty to super sexy on that runway. Angela and Rene put on an absolutely spectacular event!

The Fat Chick near the runway at the Haute Curves fashion show.

So besides the need to feed my considerable ego by showing you pictures of the cool thing I got to do on Saturday night, why am I sharing this with you? I think it’s important to bust myths about what people of size can expect for their lives. I know for me, the panic over the things I thought I would miss as a plus-sized woman, like true love and a kickin’ black leather skirt I could wear, once filled me with feelings of panic. And I think in some cases our loved ones (especially our parents) are unduly fearful of the things we will miss out on or can’t have if our bodies are larger than societal ideals.

It took several decades, but I now realize that there is virtually nothing completely unavailable to me as a person of size. (Well maybe a comfortable coach-class airplane seat, but I’m not sure ANYBODY feels comfortable in one of those.) And it has taken several decades, but those who love me most have come to realize that I can do all that I want and have all that I dreamed of without losing 100 pounds first. And let me share with you, it has been an absolute blessing and a joy for all of us to just calm the heck down about the whole thing.

Yes Virginia, there is a Sexy Santa Claus costume just for you. There’s even a fabulous black leather skirt in your size, just waiting for you to claim it.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Love and Marriage, Size XXL

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Celebrated my 17th wedding anniversary with the most amazing man in the world yesterday! What a lucky, lucky duck I am. All together I have spent over 25 years and more than half my life with this super awesome guy. Color me completely and totally grateful.

Now why am I telling you about this? Well one reason I’m telling you about it is that I AM grateful, and I want the whole world to know that. But the other reason I’m telling you is to remind you that a lifetime of love with a fabulous partner is possible at any size. I’d call it “Love At Every Size”, except for the somewhat unfortunate acronym generated by that title. Let’s just say that sex, love, marriage, kids and the whole 9 yards are possible even if you aren’t a size 2.

Finding this out was a very important part of my journey to loving the skin I’m in. As a young person, a lot of my frantic dieting was driven by panic. I was terrified that, as a person of size, I wouldn’t or couldn’t find someone to love me. And even after meeting and falling in love with and marrying the “best man in the whole wide world” I was terrified that he would wake up one day, realize that I’m fat and leave me.

So I’m sharing this with you as a reminder. You can find the best partner in the world and even keep that person in your life even if you’re fat. And whether you are ten pounds over what society calls your “ideal weight” or several hundred, there’s someone out there for you. Yeah, I know you may have dated a few duds. Honey, it happens to all of us. But according to the US Census Bureau, the world has a population of over 7 billion people. That’s billion with a “b”. So you met a few potential partners that are less than ideal. Maybe you’ve dated a baker’s dozen. So what? That’s 13 down, and 6,999,999,987 to go.

We need to teach this to our kids and share it with the world “at large”. Your ability to find, give and receive love is not dependent on your BMI. And there’s someone out there for every BODY.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Thursday Theater: Sometimes You need a Boost

Filling the Barns

On being a Shameless Woman: How Forbes Got it Right

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Ooooo, I’m so excited about THIS article from the Forbes.com site She Negotiates! In this piece, author Brooke Axtell talks about why shame doesn’t make us thinner OR healthier, and she rounds up an amazing group of experts including Dr. Michelle Segar and Dr. Linda Bacon. And I’m resonating so deeply with what is said here that I’m ringing like a big old bell! The article starts out asking a simple question:

The U.S. Diet and Weight Loss Industry produced over 60 billion dollars in revenue last year. With all the available information and products, why do many intelligent women continue to diet and exercise without achieving lasting results?

Good question! Why do we keep banging our head on this same wall over and over again? Why do we keep doing the same things we’ve always done before and expect different results. Why are we behaving in a way that could be defined as insane?

The article goes on interview Dr. Michelle Segar. And while I don’t intimately know her work and can’t comment on her personal feelings about weight loss, I couldn’t find much to fault in her interview here. Basically, her research indicates that if you start trying to change your health and wellness from a point of self-hatred you are doomed to fail before you even start. The article goes on to state:

Many of the behaviors that improve health, such as getting more sleep and making better eating choices, also lead to experiences, such as reduced stress, that contribute to happier lives. It is the positive experience that we crave and it is far easier to measure on a daily basis. Although many claim that their health is a priority, the truth is that we are far more motivated by wanting to feel good than to improve our health.

Yes, yes and YES! In my experience with all of the folks that I work with, it’s the immediate pleasure of having fun, of building relationships with classmates, it’s the better sleep and higher confidence and improved sex life that comes with exercise that keeps them exercising. You can create charts. You can pull out your calipers and scales. You can give the “deathfat” speech all you want. You can even give them a “gold star” for being “good”. But what keeps exercisers coming back for more is having a good time and feeling good both during and after exercise. Period.

This is such an important idea. So often people ask me why I call myself The Fat Chick. They ask why I can’t just skip over the issue of being “curvy” and tell people to have fun while they are losing weight. They ask why I can’t just “suggest” that they could or should lose weight. But I can’t. Because telling people to have fun while they are on the way to being worthy, while they are in the process of becoming okay just doesn’t work. I have to tell them that they are okay now. I have to let them know that they are worthy even if they never achieve the BMI or number on the scale they are seeking. I have to let them know that we will experience joy right from the beginning of our work together, not after some magic number or arbitrary goal is achieved. As the article states:

Ultimately, it matters why we exercise and eat healthy foods. This is important not only to sustain our efforts of authentic self-care, but also to resist the toxic messages of a 60 billion dollar industry that depends on women feeling ashamed of their bodies.

Amen, sister. Amen. So I’ll keep calling myself The Fat Chick, and I’ll keep focusing on feeling good and having fun. I will refuse to fuel the industry built on shame that keeps us down and holds us back. I’ll keep working with people of many different ages, weights and abilities. I’ll call myself and all of my students worthy on the first day and the last day and every day in between. To put it simply, that’s what works in the short term, the long term and the whole term.

Thanks for listening.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: World’s Biggest Pumpkin

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Well it IS fall even if the weather in Southern California doesn’t seem to reflect it. 106 in October? Are you kidding me? It makes me sad for the kids that go and buy pumpkins to carve in early October. Sure, where I grew up in Wisconsin, the weather is cool enough for those pumpkins to last a week or two. But here? In 100+ degree temperatures? A carved pumpkin has a shelf life of a day or two at most.

Speaking of which, did ya see the pumpkin in the video up there? Did ya? Now that is one giant gourd! I love watching how excited everybody is at the weigh in. And it is pretty amazing. This pumpkin utterly crushes the previous world record holder–outweighing its nearest competitor by over 200 lbs. These pumpkins are really amazing–growing by 40 or even 50 lbs. per day in peak growing season. In fact, rapid growth can lead to bursting, which is one massively messy problem to have.

I think even Linus would agree this is one Great Pumpkin!

I don’t have a lot of stats for this one other than the fact that the pumpkin is the first ever to reach the one-ton mark. And at 2009 pounds the world’s heaviest pumpkin weighs more than me.

Thursday Theater: The Fat Chick Talks About Bullies

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My response to Jennifer Livingston’s amazing video and my entry for Ragen Chastain’s Amazing New Project.

:o)

Jeanette

PS: We. Will. Win.

The Ongoing Costs of Bullying

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It seems like everybody is talking about what television anchor Jennifer Livingston said on air on WKBT in La Crosse, WI. If you haven’t heard it yet, go on up and watch the video. I’ll wait. In her video she talks about how we not only need to stand up to bullies, but also be an example to our children and show them how not to be bullies.

October is National Bullying Prevention month, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that Jennifer has helped bring bullying about weight to the forefront. It seems to me that much of the discourse on bullying has been dominated by discussions of race or gender or sexual preference. It also seems to me that in many of the discussions about bullying, weight has been left right out of the equation. So I’m thrilled that weight is coming into the discussion and that “concern trolling” is being called out as a form of bullying.

I admire Jennifer so much for standing up to bullies in such a public way. She’s not only standing up in public, but she’s standing up at work. And working in television news is no picnic. I know she worked very hard to get that coveted morning anchor spot. She undoubtedly won that spot over a lot of other competitors. A lot of those competitors were probably thinner and more closely mirrored current societal standards of appearance for a television anchor. Just doing her job every day in such a public and competitive sphere is pretty darn brave. To risk all she worked for, to risk the wrath of television viewers and pundits alike, for ‘coming out’ as a fat person, takes amazing strength. And as a Midwestern girl, raised in Wisconsin, I can tell you that calling attention to herself in this way, putting herself forward like this in the town of La Crosse, WI flies in the face of a lot of our “nice girl” training. It takes unbelievable courage.

As a fellow producer, I also want to call out the producers at WKBT for having the guts to put this on TV. I’m talking about morning show producer Kelli Hoff andnews director Anne Paape as well as the rest of the producing team. News at the local level is an extremely competitive business. Allowing Jennifer to take that much airtime to share an extremely controversial and polarizing viewpoint takes serious guts. That producer’s job is on the line for this. It was a big risk, but luckily the response seems to be largely positive.

I am so glad that a light is being shined on this bullying business. Because I think it’s time that we understood the real costs associated with it. There’s the cost to kids concentration levels and education. Can somebody who’s being tortured every day really focus on school? Can they get the grades? Can they do what they need to do to compete for those rapidly dwindling and extremely valuable spots at their favorite college? Will they even survive school? Or will they take their own precious lives and thus deprive the world of themselves? And if they survive school, will they survive intact? Or will they commit suicide a little bit every day by being smaller, being less than, blending in, and not being noticed? Will these kids be what they were meant to be? Will they dare? Or will they let that part of themselves that is responsible for seeing that torture never happens again, that they are never hurt that way again, take charge?

That is what is so very exciting to me about what I saw morning anchor Jennifer Livingston do on television yesterday. She wasn’t just standing up to bullies that are after her now. She was standing up to every bully she’s ever faced. She was standing up to that part of her that told her that she had a good thing going with her anchor job and she shouldn’t blow it. She was standing up to the part of her that told her she should be quiet and blend in. She was standing up to the part of her that said she should be lesser so as to present a smaller target.

I want to thank both Jennifer and WKBT for standing up not only to the bullies they face now in the public and the board room but also to all the bullies they have faced their entire lives. Your courage is an inspiration.

Sincerely,

Jeanette DePatie

AKA The Fat Chick

Why does doing good sometimes feel so bad?

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In yesterday’s post, I shared with you a glowing report about an amazingly awesome activism event–Take Back the Beach. It was powerful and wonderful and moving. It was a special and discrete moment in time where things went well, everyone got along, and changing the world seemed not only possible, but inevitable.

And then I came back home to my email inbox. And that mailbox was filled with the real-life frustrations that come when many people within many groups try to make the world a better place. Along with the magic moments of transcendence and transformation come many days of messy arguments over who holds what power and who is making the rules and who is following the rules and who gets the credit, and who gets to speak and who is heard. Sometimes it’s really hard to hold the thread and keep the focus. It’s easy to forget that it’s really about making the world a better place.

I wish I could say this experience is unique to one group, but I’ve experienced it in so many places and with so many organizations. Sometimes it’s tempting to go off into a corner and just try to do activism all by yourself. But that doesn’t work either. To make change you need a lot of people, all working at the top of their game, all sharing to the best of their abilities. Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone needs to be recognized. And each and every time, you have to realize that there is no group of people, anywhere in the world that is going to get it right all the time. People are fallible and relationships are messy. We are all by turns proud, defeated, aggressor, and victim. All you can do is try to build groups with enough strength and elasticity to bend and not break when the wind blows through. And then you try again. And then you try again some more. Wash, rinse and repeat.

That’s why it’s so helpful to have those special moments in the sun, like Take Back the Beach. It helps me so much to have these memories to treasure and hold close and remember why the heck we’re doing this in the first place.

My little Chicklettes, please remember that the road to making the world a better place is never a smooth one. Sometimes reaching a wing out to help somebody else simply results in two feathery butts bouncing on the ground. But sometimes you and the entire flock will soar! Here’s to remembering your days of high flying.

Love,

The Fat Chick