Basta! When you’ve heard ENOUGH about your weight.

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Sometimes being fierce is pretty tough my dear chicklettes…

So we’re going to extend our series on having enough to talk about when you’ve really HAD ENOUGH of hearing criticism about your body.  No matter how well adjusted we are, no matter how wonderful our friends and family are, there comes a time when you just have to say, “That’s it.  No more!”

There are many ways to handle this in many different situations.  And I can’t hope to cover them all here.  But I did want to share one strategy that I use with well meaning people who love me, who feel they need to “save me from my weight problem”.

Let me start by recognizing, this is very tough.  While complete strangers can be ignored, treated with disdain, shouted at, made fun of or even covered with jelly, buried in sand up to their necks with fire ants dumped on their heads, sometimes you actually want to retain relationships with those you love.  So even if you’re really, really mad at friends and family  for bringing up the weight issue again, the fire ants and jelly solution may be somewhat inappropriate in that situation.

It would be great to be, in all situations, fierce.  But truthfully, I don’t always feel that way–especially when I’m dealing with friends and family.  Sometimes I feel up to a three hour argument about size acceptance.  Sometimes, frankly, I don’t.  And in some situations, the timing just doesn’t seem right for a long educational lecture.

So one tool that I use with those I love is what I call the “border patrol” solution.  First, I thank the well meaning person for their concern.  Next, I tell them that I am aware of my size and am comfortable with the path I’ve chosen for myself.  And finally I tell them that I really don’t care to discuss it with them and ask that they please respect my wishes.  Sometimes I say that my councilor or therapist has “suggested” that I not discuss my weight with my family right now.  (For some folks, invoking a ‘doctor’ real or imaginary can help put them at ease, or at least shut them up.)  If they bring up the weight issue again or are unwilling to stop talking about it, I give them one warning.  I say, “I’ve asked that we drop (not bring up) this subject.  I love you, but if you can’t respect my wishes in this regard, I will be forced to leave.”  Then if they still keep it up, I quietly pick up my keys and my purse, and I leave.

So you set the boundary, let them know what will happen when they cross the boundary, give them one shot to hop the hell back over the boundary the first time they blow it, and then take you and your boundaries out of the situation if they don’t get your very clear message.  Now I don’t stay away forever.  But I let them know that this is my boundary and I’ve got sentries and guards on that boundary 24-7.  And I let them know that the next time we get together, the boundary will be the same.

Does this always work?  No.  Is it appropriate for every situation?  Of course not.  But this tool has served me well over the years and has allowed me to reenforce my dominion over my own body and has allowed many relatives and friends and I to agree to disagree on this topic and maintain wonderful relationships.

So my little chicklettes, the next time somebody you really care about is driving you nuts about telling you how to live inyourbody, try setting up a little border patrol.  Be consistent.  Be firm.  Try being, in your own time and in your own way, just a little bit fierce.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: Oregon’s Giant Mushroom

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I’m going to tell you right off the bat, that I don’t know how much this thing weighs. However, this giant mushroom, which has been described by The Independent as the “world’s biggest living thing” probably weighs enough more than me to offer a pretty hefty margin of safety.

Beginning with just a single spore, too small to be seen with the naked eye. This monster fungus has been growing for over 2400 years. And when I say growing, I mean and how.

Here’s the stats:

Diameter: 3.5 Miles

Area: Over 2200 Acres

Depth: About 3 Feet.

Conclusion: It’s safe to assume, this super shroom weighs more than me!

Getting Just Enough Exercise: Increasing Gradually

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Hi Kids!

For our Thursday Theater, here’s a video clip about how to safely and gradually increase your fitness until you are doing just enough!

Love,

The Fat Chick

Dieting: How Never to Feel Full Again

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There is no doubt in my mind that there are few things as expressly designed to make you lose the gift of sufficiency as going on a diet.  You may not lose weight, but you will lose perspective in a New York minute.  And that makes me sad.

I have found few pleasures in life as wonderful as being sated from a wonderful meal.  Not over full.  Not stuffed.  Not “I need the stretchy pants and a lie down”.  But it’s so wonderful to have eaten just enough of something delicious.

In order to achieve this balance of “just enough” (by any means other than dumb luck) you have to be in touch with your body’s satiety signals.  You have to know what your body wants to eat.  You have to know when your body has had enough.  And then you need to stop eating.  Seems simple, right?

In some ways it is simple.  Babies only a few hours old can manage it.  Baby wants to eat.  Baby cries.  Baby gets fed.  Baby lets you know he’s had enough.  Baby stops eating.  We are born knowing when we are full.  It’s a miracle of nature.

And then we start messing with it by going on diets.

Diets aren’t about listening to when your body is hungry or full.  Diets are about eating what’s on the diet when the diet tells you to eat it.  Diets tell you to have a piece of wheat toast and a boiled egg for breakfast.  It doesn’t matter if this is what you want to eat.  It doesn’t matter if you really only want the egg or if you want two pieces of toast.  It doesn’t matter if you eat the toast and the egg and are still hungry.  It doesn’t matter whether or not you really want to eat leftover salad from last night’s dinner.  Youwill eat a boiled egg and a piece of wheat toast.  So you tell your tummy and the rest of your body to shut up and simply refer to the chart in your brain that says, “boiled egg and piece of wheat toast.”

You know what happens next.  You get hungry.  You ignore it.  Your body gets mad.  You ignore it.  You want a cookie.  You ignore it.  You decide not to think about cookies.  Which makes you think about cookies a lot more.  You finally break down and eat a cookie.  Except it’s not one cookie, it’s two dozen.  And you go to bed feeling overstuffed, nauseated, guilty and angry.  Then you get up the next day and eat a boiled egg and a piece of wheat toast.

I’m not just saying this.  There is research to back this up.  In the famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment, men were observed eating normally, then intentionally underwent severe calorie restriction causing them to lose 25 percent of their body weight and then started eating again.  The results were astonishing.  Subjects suffered prolonged significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis.  The majority of subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression (even self-mutilation).  And during and long after the starvation period, the subjects were obsessed with food.   And many of the subjects found that they no longer, ever again, felt they had enough to eat.

A successful relationship with our bodies is like any other successful relationship.  It relies on communication, honesty and trust.  When your body gets hungry and you ignore it, your body stops trusting that you will feed it.  Your body makes you think about food all the time just to make sure it will get some.  And your body stops sending you the signals that you are happily and pleasantly full.

Which again, robs us of the gift of sufficiency and the joy of satiety.  Which kind of sucks.

So my little chicklettes, if you are on a diet or thinking about going on a diet or are recovering from a diet, take a moment and listen to your body talking to you.  It is asking you to listen.  It is telling you what it wants.  It is begging for your trust.  And it is saying it has had just about enough of this dieting business.

Love,

The Fat Chick

The Gift of Sufficiency

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There is no doubt that our country has been through some tough economic times lately.  Many of my friends are without work.  And many of my friends are working hard to make ends meet.  But I am continually astonished about how large a discrepancy there is among people I know who are struggling.  Some people, who seem to have plenty to get through today and probably tomorrow are in a deep panic about a slight economic downturn.  While some of my friends, some of my best friends, seem cheerful and at peace even when they have very little.  Those friends, who remain calm as they sell off the furniture and slap together another PB&J seem to know a special secret to happiness.  I call it the gift of sufficiency.  This is the gift of looking at what you have, atwhatever you have and calling it enough.

Now let me start by saying that the gift of sufficiency is truly a gift.  It is a privilege that not everyone is able to enjoy.  Not everyone in our world has enough to eat or to pay the mortgage or rent or to buy school books or doctor visits for their kids.  But that’s what makes it so vexing that some of us, who have so much, still don’t feel we have enough.

Now I’m not going to lie.  The gift of sufficiency is something that I’ve struggled with my entire life.  Not because I want a lot more stuff.  I have plenty of stuff.  And those closest to me can probably tell you, that I relentlessly get rid of stuff that is just taking up space in my life.  No, I struggle with the feeling that I won’t have enough to last through tomorrow.  I worry that I won’t have enough to help me deal with any financial emergency.  But I work diligently towards this gift of sufficiency.  Because when I look at the happiest people I know, they all share this gift.

So my little chicklettes, this week is “Basta” week.  We’re going to talk about having enough money, enough food, and how to cope when we’ve decided we’ve had just about enough of people trying to harsh our mellow.  But just for this moment, I invite you to take a little breath and be grateful for all the amazing things you have.  And just for this moment, thank the universe for giving you just enough.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: The Hollywood Sign

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In honor of our week of stepping out into the limelight, I thought I’d test the weight of a Hollywood Icon.  I wasn’t able to find exact verifiable statistics on the weight of the Hollywood Sign, but I was able to get enough of an estimate going to state definitively that the sign falls into the “weighs more than me” category.

When you see the sign on television or in pictures, it’s difficult to imagine just how BIG this thing is.  (Unlike most things that look awesome and large and fabulous on TV and seen in real life make you say, “meh.”  I’m talking about YOU Mann’s Chinese Theater.)  But seen up (relatively) close this thing is jumbo sized.

The back side of the Hollywood Sign, showing supports.

Each of the letters is about as tall as a 4-story building.  The letters are 50 ft. tall and are drilled 20 ft. into concrete in the soil.  Each letter is backed by 140 feet of steel I-beams with about 100 feet of crossbeams.  I-beam of that type weighs in at about 150 lbs. per foot.  Then you have to add in the weight of the facing material and other supporting materials.  This gives us enough for a basic, back of the envelope computation:

Letter Height: 50 ft.

Letter I-beam supports: about 20,000 lbs.

Letter I-beam cross beams: about 10,000 lbs.

Other materials: about 10,000 lbs.

Estimated letter weight: 40,000 lbs. or about 20 tons.

Number of letters: 9

Total sign weight: about 180 tons

Conclusion: The Hollywood Sign weighs more than me.

P.S. The Fit Fatties are contemplating a hike to see this amazing icon.  Any interest in going?  Comment below.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Thursday Theater: Exercise for People of Size

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Steppin’ out can include stepping into an exercise program. In this week’s video I talk about how to maintain physical and emotional safety while exercising in a big body.

So my dear feathered friends, find some exercise birds to flock with and shake your collective groove things!

Love,
The Fat Chick

4th of July Reprise–A Declaration of Body Independence

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Enjoy your independence my little chickies!

NOTE: This is a rebroadcast of a post I did in February. I’ve been thinking a lot about bodies and the rights we have to love them and care for them in any way we choose. I want to reiterate that health and happiness can be defined any way we wish and that nobody has the right to dictate what those terms should mean and how we should pursue them (or not). Enjoy your freedom my dear chicklettes.

Love,

The Fat Chick

The Fat Chick in front of Independence Hall

So on my recent trip to Philadelphia, I saw Independence Hall.  Besides being a gorgeous building, this was a site where some pretty amazingly radical things happened.  For one, the Constitution was created here.  For another, the Declaration of Independence was both written and signed here.  This along with an excellent blog post by ASDAH Secretary, Fall Ferguson, JD, MA.

All of this together got me thinking about the notion of body independence and how our current national obsession with the size and situation of bodies is so very antithetical to the ideas the founding fathers scribbled down in this building.  And being the type of person who will follow an idea to its furthest reaches, beyond all reason, and with a preemptive request for forgiveness from our founding fathers, I’ve decided to lay out a draft of a
Declaration of Body Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all bodies are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
My body is my own to care for in whatever way I wish.   No one has the right to tell me what to eat or how to move.  If I want a cookie, I shall have one.  If I want broccoli, I shall have it.  I shall boogie down with my bad self, or not as I choose.
I have the right to compassionate, competent and equitable health care.  This includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual care.  Whenever any Form of Medicine becomes destructive of these ends, it is my right to alter or abolish it and institute a new form of medical care–seeking a form that will seem most likely to effect my Safety and Happiness.
I have the right to look the way I look.  I may wear tiny prints or vertical stripes.  I may expose my fleshy arms as I embrace my freedom.  Fashion shall dictate no law that keeps me from dressing and expressing myself as I darn well please.
I am endowed with the unalienable Right to walk down the street unmolested by individuals (well-meaning or not) wishing to ply me with “cures” purported to change the size of my body to meet their ideal.
I am allowed to create my own definition of health and seek it (or not) as I see fit.
When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce me under the absolute Despotism of size oppression, it is my right, it is my duty, to throw off such Forces, and to provide new Guards for my future happiness.
So, my little chicklettes, cast off the chains of oppression!  Launch a body revolution!  Viva la resistance!
Love,
The Fat Chick

Haters Gonna Hate

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When you’re THIS awesome, some people just can’t handle it!

Yesterday, in our talk about stepping out, we discussed the notion that often you don’t know what’s in a person’s head, so you might as well imagine they are thinking well of you. But what happens when you think somebody is mean spirited and nasty and then they open their big mouths and remove all doubt?

In our not so genteel society, sometimes people are going to say nasty things.  If they don’t say them to you in person, they will certainly say them online in comments or on Facebook.  They may moo as you walk past or yell something like, “Just put down the cheeseburger!”  At some point in life it happens to all of us.

And that’s really the first step to recognizing that it happens to all of us.  Short, tall, round, thin–everybody gets something nasty yelled at them at some point.  Heck you can’t even be the president without worrying about somebody throwing a shoe at you.  The amazing Ragen Chastain gets so much nastiness thrown at her, she created a separate blog to contain some of the more ridiculous comments.  And even if you were model thin, and rich, and drove a fancy car, people would find reasons to hate on you.  Maybe they would find even more.

That’s because, believe it or not, the actions of haters really have nothing to do with you.  It’s about them.  It’s about them feeling jealous or inadequate or lonely or insecure.  It’s about them desperately trying to recapture their lost mojo by peeing in your pool.  And since you can’t fix the whole world, sometimes you just gotta accept that haters are gonna hate.  Bless them, and move on.  Sometimes I talk to them and give them a piece of my mind first if I’m feeling feisty.  But ultimately, after I’ve had my talk with them, I say, “Bless their hearts” and then move on.

Is it easy?  Oh my goodness, no.  It’s really hard.  And I know sometimes all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry.  But then, from a practical standpoint, I really don’t want to let that hater win.  I don’t want to reenforce that crappy behavior, and I don’t want to give that creep that kind of power over me.  So when I feel down, I go read Ragen’s hate mail and realize I’m not alone.  I call a good friend, get dressed up and go have coffee or an adult beverage somewhere fabulous.  I pull out my positive artwork and read some of the great things my friends have recently said online.

Because at the end of the day, my little chicklettes, you can only control your reaction to the world.  You can only focus on being fiercely and completely yourself.  Because at the end of the day, haters are gonna hate.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Stepping Out: Sharing Your Hotness with the World

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The Fat Chick and her fabulous husband on the red carpet at the New Media Vault Event at the W Hotel at Hollywood and Vine.

Last week my hubby and I went camping. We got really dirty and had to boil hot water for dishes. Then we came home, took baths and went to glitzy red carpet event at the W Hotel in Hollywood. Such is the life in LA LA Land. Last week we addressed the joys of camping and getting back to nature. This week we’re going to address the other half of our crazy week and talk about stepping out.

I think many of us have learned to hide our big fat lights under a bushel barrel. Many of us were taunted and teased as children.  As adults, some of us are still taunted and teased.  And just recently the situation of NY School Bus Monitor Karen Huff Klein demonstrated that it can be tough out there for people of size. (At least the school imposed a harsh penalty on those boys for their awful behavior.) When you have spent your life being singled out and taunted and teased and harassed and called awful names it’s human nature to want to make yourself less noticeable. It’s easy to see why we would try to make ourselves small and fade into the background.

While this sort of blending in is perfectly understandable, it’s also a little bit sad. We are big, bright, beautiful shining stars and we are meant to SHINE baby!  It’s hard and it’s scary, but it just needs to happen.  So this week we’re going to be talking about moving out of the shadows and into the light–starting with my appearance at the event pictured above.

I’ve been working in the film and media industry in Hollywood for over a decade now and have been in the public eye for even longer than that, but let me tell you a little secret. I still get nervous every time I go to a public event. I still wonder if people will judge me. I keep waiting to be “found out” and hear some body shout, “Hey, who let that short, chubby chick from Wisconsin in here?” You know it’s never happened, but I’m always aware that it might.

When I get nervous, I play a little game. As I’ve said before, I don’t really know what most people are thinking about me.  So I begin the evening by imagining they think I’m awesome.  It’s all in my head anyways so I might as well imagine good things, right?  So I grab my husband’s arm and a bracing (and ridiculously overpriced) glass of pinot grigio and jump right in.  And most of the time, I have a lot of fun.  But in order to have that fun and to shine in the light, I first have to overcome that moment of existential angst in my bathroom at home, gather my courage, put on my big girl Hollywood “playah” panties and get out there.

So my little chicklettes, this week we’re going to talk about donning some sequins and rhinestones and hopping out of the nest of your little comfort zone.  Because to deprive the world of your basic awesomeness for even one more day would be a terrible, terrible crime.

Love,

The Fat Chick