Author Archives: fatchicksings

Tutus, Wonder Women and Haters

Look at that fabulous picture up there. Does it make you smile? Think it’s a story about motivation and joy and taking back your own power?

Sorry. It’s a story about a “self help” magazine asking a woman if they could use her photo in their magazine and then pulling a total hater move and making fun of her in the captions.

Apparently Self magazine contacted San Diego runner Monika Allen seeking permission to use her photo in the April issue of the magazine. Monika said yes, and was understandably excited to see her picture in the magazine. The online version of the magazine is already out. And she’s excited all right, but not in a good way.

The photo appeared in a section of the magazine called the BS Meter. Next to the photo was this copy:

“A racing tutu epidemic has struck New York’s Central Park, and it’s all because people think these froufrou skirts make you run faster. Now if you told us they made people run from you faster maybe we would believe it.”

Cue rimshot. Slow hand clap. You see what they did there? Run from you faster. Makes you wonder why magazine circulation numbers are crashing, right?

Now I’m sure the writer from Self was feeling pretty proud for their little moment, except maybe there’s a little research this writer failed to do. Like the research that indicated this was Monika’s first run since being diagnosed with brain cancer. And she was wearing this costume to help her feel motivated to keep running while she was undergoing chemotherapy. And she makes and sells the skirts to raise money for Girls on the Run, a charity that sponsors exercise and confidence-building programs for young girls.

Whoops.

Not surprisingly the backlash online has been sort of epic. This is what we in the biz refer to as a public relations nightmare of epic proportions. This is a “hey kid, you’re fired” kind of maneuver. Monika sent an email to Self saying how upset she was for the way the picture was used. And she took to traditional and social media to tell the world how upset she was as well.

Since the story originally aired and went viral, the Editor in Chief of Self magazine “apologized” on her twitter account and sent an email apology to the local news station with this little gem:

“in our attempt to be humorous, we were inadvertently insensitive.”

“I have sincerely apologized both directly to Monika and her supporters online. At SELF we support women such as Monika; she is an inspiration and embodies the qualities we admire. We have donated to her charity and would like to cover her good work in a future issue,” the statement reads. “We wish her all the best in her road to good health.”

Let’s deconstruct, shall we? “We thought we were being funny but we didn’t know that she would have a disease that people don’t think is funny. Had we known that this woman had the “Big C” we would have written a tear-jerker style exploitative piece instead of a snark piece. I mean come on! How were we supposed to know she had cancer. If we had known, that would have meant we were overtly insensitive, but since we didn’t know, we were inadvertently sensitive. We have sincerely apologized in public because the public is mad and it hurts when people write mean things online. (Although when people are mad they do comment more and our engagement numbers are up, but you can’t have everything.) At our publication we support women like Monika when it suits us and humiliate women like Monika when we feel like it. We have donated to her charity because hey money makes everything better and we’re kinda terrified that we will get sued. We’d like to cover her in a future issue because usually promising “exposure” to people gets them to accept just about anything. We wish her all the best in her recovery, because frankly, if this broad kicks the bucket, a few of us are going back to copy editing at Pennysaver.”

Speaking of being sued, please note that the above paragraph is not actually quoted from anybody at Self magazine. I made it up. And if it’s insensitive, I did it very much on purpose.

I wish Monika the best. I think she is frankly going to sell a LOT more tutus after this. And I think she is a woman we can all admire. But I think this is an indicator. It is really, really bad out there. When a newsstand publication thinks that they can get permission to use a photo depicting a conventionally beautiful woman and shame her in front of the world, it’s pretty bad out there. And for those of us who don’t meet the conventional standards of beauty, it’s a field day. If you are a fat, gorgeous, tattooed woman who dares to post a picture of yourself in a fabulous polka dot bikini, you just might find your picture used without your permission to sell diet ads. And when you go after the company, they will just make some excuse about how it’s the fault of their affiliates. Because they feel pretty confident that they can do whatever they want to you. Because if you are not conventionally beautiful, you are fair game.

Weak!

In fact, no one is safe from being abused online. Nobody. Don’t believe me? Check out this amazing Ted Talk from the gorgeous and talented Maysoon Zayid, “I have 99 Problems…Palsy is Just One.” When you have a minute, I encourage you to watch the whole thing. It is well worth your time. It was especially touching to me to hear her say, at about 12 minutes in to her presentation:

“The doctor said I would never walk. Yet here I am in front of you. But I grew up with social media, I don’t think I would be. I hope that together, we can create more positive images of disability in the media and in every day life. Perhaps if there were more positive images, it would foster less hate on the internet. Or maybe not. Maybe it still takes a village to teach our children well.”

I wonder. I wonder how many powerful and world-changing people are being crushed under the need for some hater to get their three seconds of fame in the comments section. I wonder how the search for snark is helping to foster the utter disregard for people’s lives and their well-being. I wonder how many of our generation’s revolutionary leaders are smashed when their photos are misappropriated and tagged in an amusing meme. I wonder how much more I could accomplish if I didn’t get nasty comments and hate mail every freaking day of my life.

Here’s hoping we can be part of the village that helps to lift one another out of the battle ground of the comments section and fight the good fight of making the world a better place.

Love, Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want to join my list, get free stuff and be sure not to miss out on a single bit of the awesomeness? Click here to join.

Want to learn to face the spring holidays with more joy and less trauma? My dear friend and colleague Golda Poretsky is offering a HAES for the Holidays course just for spring. I am an affiliate, so if you join her class, you can support me at the same time. Win, win WIN!

The Red Handle, The Hot Button and Other Hair Triggers

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Recently I came across this article about Chris Christie and pulling the “red handle”. I remember clicking on it because I didn’t know what the “red handle” was. As I read the article, I immediately understood, in a very visceral way about the red handle and connected it to a number of recent conversations I have had with friends, family and coaching clients.

The article describes the “red handle” this way:

A lot of people have a red handle installed deep in their person, where if somebody yanks on it, it hurts. For some people, it’s some terrible mistake they regret, and for some people, it’s something they’re always trying to get better at that hasn’t worked, or a relationship they can’t repair, or a weakness that makes them self-conscious, or a memory that’s sort of awful. I’m not any better or worse off than anybody else in having something like this in my nature/history; the only difference between mine and anybody else’s is that mine is on the outside.

I get the concept of the red handle. Oh yes. In my life, I always referred to it as my hot button, but I understand the idea. The notion that, regardless of how well somebody does or doesn’t know you, they may freely assume that there is this one thing about you that is “up for grabs”. They see a target at which they can aim. And regardless of whether or not this is a deeply sensitive subject for you, they feel a sense of glee at being able to push your hot button or pull your red handle.

In a society that constantly hounds, harasses, embarrasses, traumatizes, cajoles and bullies people who don’t conform to an extremely narrow vision of acceptably attractive, it’s not hard to imagine body size as the red handle or hot button for many, many people. I’m sure that’s what was behind the “attack at the Mexican restaurant” I told you about, or the many, many hateful email messages and comments I filter out of my blog, YouTube channel, website, and facebook profiles on a daily basis. Because people are pretty sure this is my hot button/red handle. And even though I’ve become much tougher and it doesn’t affect me nearly as much as it once did, for much of my life their guess about my hot button, my red handle would have been pretty much true.

And that sucks. Because most of us have the ability to choose when we share our hot button with other people. Feel insecure about your education level? You don’t necessarily have a sign on you that says ,”I flunked calculus” that everybody in the world, including complete strangers can see. People actually need to get to know you, get to know a little bit about you before they discover that hot button. Your “I have abandonment issues” might not become apparent to even your closest friends or lover until your relationship deepens and becomes more meaningful. I have often reflected on the power inherent in exposing our hot buttons, our red handles, our soft underbellies to those who love us the most. The power that knowledge gives our loved ones to strengthen or destroy us. To build us up and gird our loins or to wound us deeply and permanently.

But fat people don’t always get this chance. Many of us have been bullied our entire lives about the size of our bodies and for many of us this is our hot button/red handle/soft underbelly issue. And that means that complete strangers, can yell at us across a crowded room and wound us deeply and even permanently without having to know anything about us or even give it a second thought.

Add to this, the notion that lots and lots of people still suffer under the delusion that wounding us this way will somehow help us. That it will shame us into “doing something about our bodies” as if we didn’t have piles and piles of proof that shaming people does not make them healthier, happier or thinner. And what you get is fat marathoners getting eggs thrown at them, cowardly people offering unsolicited advice before they scoot off subway trains, and a whole lot of nasty aimed at our soft underbellies from people we don’t even know.

I can say that this is no longer a primary hot button or red handle for me. And I’m not super eager to tell everybody in the world what the newer versions of those hot buttons are. I think I’ll ask you to know me a little better before I tell you–or at least buy me a drink first. I feel very privileged to have come to the point in my life that somebody calling me a fat cow is more likely to leave me annoyed, angry or even amused than devastated.

But it has made me more dedicated than ever to work with my amazing colleagues like Ragen Chastain and Golda Poretsky to help fat folks understand that they do not deserve to have their hot buttons pushed and their red levers pulled–and to help the world at large to understand that pushing this hot button, that pulling this red lever without permission in a complete stranger or even a friend is a form of psychological rape. It is not justified under any circumstances, and it is never, ever okay.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie AKA The Fat Chick

P.S. Want to join my list, get free stuff and be sure not to miss out on a single bit of the awesomeness? Click here to join.

In EPIC Wardrobe Malfunction, Target Creates Thigh Gap by Removing Young Woman’s Lady Bits

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Close up of gruesome wardrobe malfunction. EEEK!

In it’s quest to ensure that all its models are sporting an appropriate thigh-gap, Target PhotoShop artists appear to have removed a junior model’s vagina altogether. The image was pointed out by several watchdog groups and blogs not only for it’s garish wardrobe malfunction, but also for the fact that it appears the junior model in question may have also been mutated into an alien creature with a very long torso and very long arms, best seen in the larger version of the photo here:

The photographic evidence of Target’s tampering have since gone viral and Target has issued an “apology” stating:

“In response to your query about the swimsuit image on Target.com, this was an unfortunate error on our part and we apologize. We have removed the image from our Web site,” a company spokesman said. Asked how the mistake occurred, “It was the result of a photo editing error on our part.”

Which leaves me with a few things to say to our friends at Target. First of all, in your “apology” I have to say that I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Sure, your PhotoShop guy or gal messed up. I can certainly understand how that happened. I doubt that it’s some sort of malicious protest on the part of the graphic designer as some have suggested. I really don’t imagine that some designer wanted to point out the brutality inherent in the system of PhotoShopping images by blatantly messing up and releasing a picture. I’ve produced websites and games and DVDs. I understand that stuff slips through the cracks. That poor graphic artist is probably not being paid less per hour than your minimum wage checkers and is probably working 80 hours per week on “salary” in a web sweat shop somewhere. And the junior manager or producer doing Quality Control on those images is probably working just as hard and not getting paid very well either. And if anybody gets fired over this whole mess, it will probably be them.

Apology? Hmmm. Maybe not.

But I’m sorry to say Target, that you apologized for the wrong thing. Don’t apologize to me that a graphic artist messed up and released a photo that makes it blatantly obvious that you drastically altered a young woman’s body to convince 12-year old girls that they need to be seven feet-tall, size 00 and have a thigh gap that could hold a soccer ball. Don’t apologize to me that you got caught. Apologize to me for feeling the need to PhotoShop these images this way in the first place. Apologize to me for altering photos to create impossible beauty ideals to products aimed at 12-year-old girls in an environment where hospitalizations for eating disorders in kids under 12 are up 119% (see Pinhas et. al.) Apologize to me for being so certain that your model needs to sport a thigh gap, a trendy body trait that is nearly impossible to maintain for all but a microscopic percentage of the human race, that you were willing to graphically stretch her on the rack and excise critical bits of her anatomy to accomplish it. (You could consider the techniques shown in the video below. These are kinda cool actually.)

Target, you make me sad. I adore your wide, bright aisles and fun POP displays. I love your colorful and fun, yet generally affordable housewares, camping gear and sporting goods. But this has GOT to stop. It’s time for you to retract your fake apology and give us a real one. Then tell us how you are going to stop digitally dissecting the already beautiful bodies of your models to sell us a dose of unreality we just shouldn’t have to swallow.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

Don’t miss out on another day of body loving, booty shaking fun! Join me here.

Because I’m Happy…

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I think one of the most difficult barriers I’ve encountered on my journey towards self acceptance is the constant barrage of input telling me that people in larger bodies can’t really be “happy”. In stark contrast to the “fat and jolly” stereotype is the notion that all fat people are unhappy deep down. And this information is everywhere. From our television and magazine advertising to barroom pop psychology to well meaning friends and relatives, it seems like a lot of people are pretty sure I would be a lot happier if I would just lose weight.

“But I am pretty happy,” I tell folks. Their reply, “Not really. If you were really happy you wouldn’t be fat.” Sigh… One of the pieces of prejudice I find most daunting is the notion that all people who are fat are eating to compensate for some life deficiency. Either we were sexually abused as children, or didn’t get enough love at some stage or are facing some buried psychological trauma. “It’s not your fault you’re fat,” they state, while patting you on the head. “We just need to fix what is broken with you emotionally, and the weight will just flow off your body.”

Think I’m making this up? No lie, when I was getting one of my fitness certifications, one of the teachers pulled out a magic marker and headed towards the big paper pad she was using to sketch out the “fitness wisdom” she had to impart. She drew a picture of a fat person (small oval over big round body–it was no Monet). Then she drew another circle inside the fat tummy circle. “Fat people have a hole in their lives,” she stated. “There is something missing inside them that they attempt to stuff full with food.”

I was mortified. And I was pissed. This clearly wasn’t in any of the written materials that she or we had received with the course. This teacher was just making this stuff up and stating it as fact in a training course that is designed to train people to teach exercise to other people.

But most of the extremely thin people in the room simply nodded their heads knowingly and accepted it as fat fact. Along with this notion is the notion that if we lose weight, if we become visibly and socially acceptably skinny, all our problems will melt away and we will finally be happy. This idea is so pervasive that people spend billions of dollars in pursuit of the happiness level of thinness. I believed it. I got thin. For a little while after a ridiculous diet that made me very sick, I was thin. And I waited for the happy. And waited. And waited…

There was some euphoria over increased clothes shopping opportunities. There was some afterglow from the constant validation and encouragement I got about how much better I looked. (Although there was also frankly a lot of pissed off wondering what people thought about how I looked before.) But did I experience magical, mystical happy–smiling while eating a salad, orgasmic swooning over eating yogurt happy? I’d have to say that never arrived.

Oh God, I think I’m… AHHHHHHH!

And now that I’ve lived and loved in a fat body for a while, I can say I’ve found a modicum of relatively reliable happy. Am I happy all the time? Nope. Do I swoon over yogurt? What, are you kidding? But I’m pretty happy most of the time.

That is why I was so very, VERY excited to see this music video by Pharrell Williams and what seems to be half the population of Los Angeles. Take a look. I’ll wait…

Honestly, this music video is what got me on this whole subject with you in the first place. First of all, I have to apologize. This great song is likely to leave you with an earworm that lasts for days. Sorry about that. But on the upside here we have a video with lots and lots of people who are boogying down and singing about being happy. And remarkably none of these people look the same. There are kids, young people, middle aged people and old people. There are men and women. There are single people and families. There are people who are extremely mobile and some who are less mobile. There are people of all different colors. There are thin people, fat people and in-betweenies. They all look happy as hell, and there is not one single carton of yogurt or salad in the entire music video!

The video is actually compiled from a much bigger project called 24 Hours of Happy. Go check out the website. It’s the coolest! I’ll wait. The website contains a 24-hour long music video to this song compiled by Pharrell and his team. I have absolutely no idea how much raw footage they shot, but I imagine it must have been epic. The net result is a web-based clock. At any given moment, you can click in and watch Angelinos of all stripes shaking their thing.

Aside from being a super cool project, the thing I love about this is that it helps demonstrate an idea. Happy doesn’t look the same on everybody. You don’t have to be a particular color or size or shape to be happy. You don’t have to be young. You don’t have to be thin. You don’t have to eat dairy products of any kind. But it is still possible for you to be happy.

Now don’t get me wrong. Privilege and wealth and security and a lot of other things can certainly make happy easier. And there is absolutely no doubt that the rampant discrimination that accompany fat stigma can make it much harder to find happy. But I do know that I found it extremely helpful on my journey to learn that happy was at least possible at any size. It made it much easier for me to fight for happy for myself and for all my fat brothers and sisters.

So I will continue to blog, because, I’m happy…

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. If you like, you can join in the happy RIGHT HERE.

Why we need to “broaden” the Definition of Exercise

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If you haven’t seen it already, I am sorry to be the one to bring this to your attention. The news agencies have begun to pick up on a “study” that shows that fat women exercise, on average, for one hour per year. Now naturally, I found this highly suspicious. Nearly every fat person I know exercises more than that. It seemed extremely unlikely to me, so I held my nose and started reading the articles and checking into the study.

Now the articles that are reporting about this study sport headlines like: “Obese Women Get One Hour Vigorous Activity Per Year”. (Warning, link leads to article with obligatory “headless fatty” picture.) But let’s look at a few things here. First of all–the study asked the participants to wear accelerometers for 10 hours per day for 4 days. Based on the findings from the accelerometers they extrapolated how much “vigorous activity” each participant got over the course of a year. There were not a lot of participants in the study, and the participants were not all fat. In fact, nobody in the study got very much exercise based on how they defined exercise. Even those in the thin categories only got about 10 hours of exercise per year–far, FAR below what is recommended for good health.

So what is going on here? Well the main thing that’s happening, is the the study makes the definition of “vigorous activity” extremely narrow and then reports how few people fit their definition of activity. The study uses accelerometers which are known to only measure a very specific type of physical activity. Typically accelerometers are good at recording lower body movements of a certain type (walking, running, climbing stairs) and not really good at recording many activities of daily livings (ADLs). Further more, it appears that the study uses a short period of time to calculate the activity. (4 days is considered the minimum by some standards and below the necessary threshold of measured time by others.)

The main issue here is that while the study’s definition of vigorous activity is really narrow, may of the headlines don’t reflect this. I’ve yet to see a single headline that says “Fat people spend nine hours less per year running and jumping rope than thin people.” But in essence, that’s what we’re talking about here. It just gives the fat people a lot more ammo to throw at people of size.

It also gives people of size more reason to believe that they are both inactive and unhealthy. And believing you are inactive and unhealthy can help make you inactive and unhealthy. A recent study involved two groups of hotel workers who had moderately active jobs. In the study, one group of workers were told that their daily work “counted” as exercise and the other group were told that their daily work “didn’t count” as exercise. Then they took a host of health metrics down the road.

According to the study:

Although actual behavior did not change, 4 weeks after the intervention,the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before. As a result, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index.

In other words, if you believed the activity you are doing “counts” as exercise and will help make you healthy, it is more likely to do just that.

In this light, it is difficult to understand what good will come from narrowing people’s definition of what constitutes healthy activities. In my certification process, I was taught that there are three main categories of exercise–cardiovascular training (aerobic exercise), resistance training (strength training) and flexibility training (stretching). I was taught that all three of these are very important to health. But the “fat ladies get one hour of exercise study” only counts a small percentage of one of these categories as exercise. It doesn’t count resistance training or flexibility at all. It doesn’t count cardiovascular activity based in water or that primarily uses the upper body. It doesn’t count many forms of walking, cycling or jumping as vigorous activity despite failing to take body weight or heart rate into account.

In fact, of the 60 activities listed in the Fit Fatties Virtual Decathlon, less than ten of them would be likely to be accurately measured by an accelerometer. And it would be difficult to determine how many of those would be considered “vigorous” enough to count in this study.

But our bodies are smarter than this study. And our bodies love joyful, physical movements of all different types. We know that shame doesn’t work, and we know that believing you are engaged in healthy behavior makes it more likely that you will receive benefits from that healthy behavior. With that in mind, it seems like we should be actively working to expand the definition of what “counts” as exercise and providing as many examples of people of all ages, shapes, sizes and abilities, who are smiling and doing this stuff as is possible.

With that in mind we are going to be inviting you to tweet some of your absolutely gorgeous pictures of healthy, happy, and fabulous activities in an upcoming project. Stay tuned for the details. In the meantime, keep having fun and keep moving your glorious bodies in lots of different and happy ways. It all counts.

Love,

Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want to make sure you are the first to know about fabulous fit fatty projects and get some free stuff? Don’t forget to join my group!

the HAES® files: DIY Decathlon – Winter Games for Every BODY

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Here’s a post I did about the Fit Fatties Forum on the Health At Every Size Blog! Enjoy, and I’ll see you in the comments section! oxoxoxo Jeanette (The Fat Chick)

Protecting your Heart from new Weight Loss Drugs

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Well it’s that time of year again. The time of year that we talk about cupids and Valentines and love and stuff. And, as a good friend of mine on facebook pointed out, we’ve also reached the golden moment where post-Valentine’s day chocolate is 50% off. It’s the time of year when we think about our hearts.

So in this spirit, I thought I’d write about a new controversy brewing over two new weight loss drugs/combinations that have recently been approved by the FDA. In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration approved two new sets of magic beans, I mean “weight loss drugs” lolorcaserin hydrochloride (brand name Belviq, manufactured by Eisai Inc.) and phentermine-topiramate (brand name Qsymia, manufactured by Vivus, Inc.).

People have been pretty excited about these coming out, especially since a number of other “weight-loss” drugs have been taken off the market due to concerns over cardiac side-effects. Now one might think, in light of the fact that we put thousands of people at risk with the previous round of “weight loss” drugs, that the FDA might be extra careful not to release a new round of weight loss drugs with the same problems.

Not so fast, say a pair of doctors in an editorial recently published in the February 10, edition of JAMA. In this article, Steven Woloshin, MD, and Lisa M. Schwartz, MD, point out that these drugs were approved by the FDA despite an alarming number of side effects. In the abstract for the piece the doctors state:

The drugs have been associated with serious harms: Both drugs’ labels include warnings about memory, attention, or language problems and depression; for lorcaserin, the label also warns of valvular heart disease and euphoria; and for phentermine-topiramate, the label warns of metabolic acidosis, increased heart rate, anxiety, insomnia, and elevated creatinine levels. Neither medication is marketed in Europe because of safety concerns.

And as I read these words, all I can think is, “Here we go again!” The drugs were approved under the condition that the drug manufacturers would conduct studies looking into the drugs’ heart risks. According to the FDA, waiting until such studies were completed to approve the drugs would “delay effective therapy” for obesity. The post marketing trials that were required to begin 16 months ago, do not appear to have begun. And even once those trials begin, those studies are not scheduled to be finished for another four or five years. And in the meantime we’re prescribing drugs known to potentially cause memory, language, attention, mood and serious vascular and inflammatory problems because some trials have shown short-term weight loss improvements of 3 to 7 percent over placebo. There are no studies indicating long-term weight loss improvements in those who take these medications. Nor, as Doctors Woloshin and Schwartz point out, is there any proof that these medications prevent disease or help us live any longer.

In the meantime we play with people’s hearts both literally and figuratively. In a culture and a society where many of us are taught that being overweight is the worst possible situation, doctors are peddling hope in the form of these pills. And rather than rule out potential cardiac and other serious heart attacks before the drugs are prescribed, doctors prescribe these pills to hundreds of people and “expose a lot of people to it while sorting it out,” said Woloshin.

So we can hope that the “post marketing studies” will actually begin and show no serious, long-term side effects like the permanent heart-valve damage we’ve seen from similar drugs in the past. We can hope that we won’t market these drugs as the next great hope for people hoping to escape the pain of weight stigma in our society just to have to pull them off the market a short time later.

But I fear this is yet another page in the weight-loss-fantasy playbook likely to leave a string of broken hearts.

Love, Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

Love (for yourself) is in the Air

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Aside from being the week of the Winter Games, here in the U.S. it’s also the week of Valentine’s Day. It’s a week to think about love. And I would suggest, it’s a week to start loving yourself.

Now I understand. Yet another discussion about loving ourselves is enough to trigger a Stuart Smalley marathon viewing party.

But I have to confess that this past week, I came across an extraordinary video that once again got me thinking about what it really means to love ourselves. I’d like you to meet Sanah Javani, an extraordinary young woman who is coping with a disease that has caused her to lose all her hair. In this extraordinary video, Sanah recounts a little bit about what life was like for her when she started wearing a wig and how the other kids bullied her. She talks a little about years of agony and shame and self harming. But out of this experience, Sanah has decided to found “Natural Day”–a day to celebrate the fact that we are beautiful just the way we are. Why not take a look?

“I want girls to live their lives in freedom. And I want girls to love themselves the way they are. And I want girls to not suffer with eating disorders or cutting. I just want them to accept themselves. So on natural day, I am challenging girls all around the world to go without makeup and to love themselves for a day.”

Mature? Yup. Amazing? She sure is! Natural Day is the day before Valentine’s Day–February 13, 2014, and I plan to scrub my face clean and stand strong beside Sanah. I don’t usually wear a lot of makeup anyways, but I have to admit that a day without mascara and a little bit of lip gloss has me feeling a tiny bit anxious. But that’s an even greater reason to do it, right?

I’ve also been thinking a lot about love in general and about how difficult it can be to apply the kind of love we share with other people to ourselves. When people we love are hurting, we care for them. When we truly love people, we don’t berate them 24 hours per day. We don’t keep repeating the things we don’t like about them as a mantra all day long. We support them. We cut them some slack. We give them a break.

But how often do we fail to show ourselves even this simple kind of love? How often do we berate ourselves internally, all day long, about the size of our thighs? How often do we cut ourselves some slack? When do you give yourself a break? And why are we so terrified, that if people see the real us, unadorned, without control-top panty hose or self tanning lotion or hair extensions or a little bit of makeup, that they won’t like us any more? Why does “natural day” seem like such a scary idea? I’m not really entirely sure. But I hope to find out. And of course, my dear readers, I’ll let you know.

Love, Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

Why do we pay good money to feel bad?

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Look, you can buy your very own “Food Police” cookie jar. Click to watch the video…

Okay, I was reading through my email and I came across a wonderful new app that checks your BMI and hurls insults at you if you gain weight. Yup, drink an extra glass of water and this wonderful app might say things like, “Greetings, chubby human,” “Smile, meatbag” and “Prepare yourself to be judged”. Please note that there is NO WAY I’m going to link to this app or even tell you the name of this app on my blog. The dude who created this nonsense is already getting way too much attention and I won’t add to his traffic. But I’ll just drop off this here screen shot to give you an idea about just how awesome this thing is:

Nice. And this bozo (who conveniently places his press kit front and center on this site) is actually charging cash monies for this. Now I recognize a good attention-grabbing publicity stunt when I see it. And this “bad boy” has already garnered plenty of media attention. I’m not sure that he really has any intention of helping people at all. However, this approach to health and wellness is hardly new. Just check out the talking “cop” cookie jar in the video above. When you open the lid, the cookie jar says, “Stop! Step away from the cookie jar!” (Click the photo above to see the video). Wow, your very own, battery-operated, food police–available 24-7 from your very own kitchen. You can also get a pig-shaped cookie jar that oinks at you when you open it. And now you can even buy bed linens that fat shame you. How neat!

Yay, fat shaming while you sleep!

Why do we do this to ourselves? As I have said, literally a gazillion times on this very blog, shame does not make us happier, healthier or thinner. Shame makes us gain weight and engage in more dangerous behaviors. So why do we pay for the privilege of being electronically shamed? It’s not enough to face shame from friends, family, coworkers, medical professionals, the television shows we watch, the magazines we read, and virtually every other corner of the entire universe?

And even if we refrain from buying fat-shaming apps and cookware, are we free from paying good money for shaming ourselves? How many of the magazines we subscribe to have fat shaming messages in them? How many negative body images come to us each day as a result of the cable subscription? And even if we aren’t paying for those things, how often have we purchased expensive healthy foods, extensive long-term gym contracts and overpriced and cumbersome exercise equipment with the notion that if we pay for it, we will feel guilty enough to use it? How did that work out for you last time? Still drying your unmentionables on the treadmill downstairs? You’re not alone. You almost can’t give away a used exercise bike or treadmill on Craigslist any more.

And in case, somehow the previous gazillion mentions were in some way unclear, here it is again:

Shame does not help. Not at all. Not even if it talks to you in a hokey electronic voice. Not even if you pay good money for it.

Love, Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

By the way, if you want to buy a fancy cookie jar, I recommend the Tardis version (because it’s bigger on the inside!) And if you’d like a shame-free approach to fitness, may I recommend:

The Fit Fatties Virtual Events (Early bird pricing ends soon!)\

My book, “The Fat Chick Works Out!”

My DVD (all of which make wonderful Valentine’s Day gifts to yourself!)

And if you book me in February, you can receive 25% off my speaking services. W00t!

Why the First Ten Minutes of Exercise are the Hardest

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DISCLAIMER WARNING STUFF FIRST

It’s very important to know your body. There are certain warning signs that may let you know that your body is in distress. I talk about some of those signs in this document here. I call them the dashboard indicators. If you are new to exercise you should read up on these signs before you begin. If these dashboard indicators appear, you will need to STOP and figure out what’s going on before you continue with exercise. If however, you are not experiencing these dashboard indicators and just hate the first ten minutes of your workout, then please read on.

WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG…

It’s a common theme with my exercise students. They often say, “After about ten minutes of working out, I feel pretty good, but those first ten minutes, really SUCK!” First of all, let me assure you that the first ten minutes are fairly hard for everybody. And there’s actually a pretty clear and well-understood reason for it, too.

WARNING…SCIENCE TYPE STUFF AHEAD

When we go from standing or sitting still to exercising, our body demands far more energy in the form of oxygen than our body is ready to supply. Our muscles need a chemical called ATP in order to contract. But the aerobic systems in our bodies only have about ten seconds worth of ATP laying around at any given moment. After ten seconds your body needs to start making ATP. Your anaerobic systems can supply maybe another two or three minutes worth of ATP, but after that, your body needs to switch over to the aerobic system again to start producing more ATP. Your body doesn’t know that it needs to switch over to the other system until your oxygen is significantly depleted and your carbon dioxide levels have started to go up. And even after your body knows to switch to the aerobic system, that switchover from the anaerobic system to the aerobic system can be kind of rough. At this point, you begin to breathe harder and your heart rate rises. But by this point, you not only need to create enough ATP to keep moving, you have to repay your “oxygen debt” where your body’s need for oxygen lags behind your body’s ability to make oxygen.

This sloth may be experiencing an oxygen debt. Or not…

This period of time, while you are working through the “oxygen debt” can feel pretty yucky. You may feel a burning sensation in your legs and feel significantly out of breath. Your heart rate will ramp up pretty quickly and after just a few short minutes, you may feel like running right back home. But if you stay with exercise for just a few minutes longer, you may well find that your efforts “smooth out”. Your body’s need for oxygen lines up with your body’s ability to deliver oxygen and you feel a lot better.

Many, many exercisers (including me) experience this sensation. Being really fit may help you move through this transition a little more quickly and smoothly but won’t necessarily help you avoid this “oxygen debt” altogether. But there is something you CAN do to make this transition a little easier–a proper warmup.

Doing a gradual ramp up to exercise, starting slowly for a few minutes before you start to run or cycle or dance away can really help you through the “terrible ten” minutes at the start of a workout. Start with a walk, or a very slow roll on the bike or a very slow dance. This signals your body to “start the aerobic energy pipeline” without creating such a huge oxygen debt. Less oxygen debt means less discomfort and a shorter period of discomfort. Try a warmup before your next workout and see if you don’t feel better.

But it can also be extremely helpful just to realize that this is perfectly normal. It doesn’t mean that your body is defective. It doesn’t mean you suck at exercise. It just means that you have to get your body to accept, “hey, we’re gonna exercise now.” Your body may respond like a seven year old kid saying, “I don’t wanna go to school!” You may find it helpful to sneak up on your body by starting out with a warmup and gradually working into the whole exercise thing. But you may just have to accept that the first few minutes are gonna suck and slog through it. Better miles are ahead!

Love, Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

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