Tag Archives: Health At Every Size

Why You Don’t Have to be the Perfect Example of Anything

On one of the list serves I regularly read, a person came on asking for support. She has secured some very important opportunities to share Health at Every Size and is herself a person of size. She is very excited about these opportunities. She is also, understandably, terrified. I wrote back to her with some thoughts and have decided to share them with you here.

My dear Chicklettes, I have a confession to make. My work as an advocate for exercise for people of all shapes and sizes and as an advocate for body love and size acceptance almost never happened. For a long time, I was paralyzed by fear. I dipped my toe in the water, but I was very afraid to go public in a big way. Why? Because in order to represent people of size, I felt I had to be the perfect example of a healthy, happy, fit and fat person.

I asked myself a lot of questions. What if I get sick? What if I injure myself and can’t exercise any more? What if I get diabetes? People might point at me and say, “see I told you fat people can’t be healthy!” People will disbelieve everything about Health at Every Size(TM) if I am not the perfect embodiment of HAES(TM). People will publicly deride me and call me names! What if I’m not strong enough?

At one point, I worked with a great coach Mary Jo Thatcher who helped me understand one very important thing. Even though I represent an idea, and even though I’ve given myself a moniker (The Fat Chick) I am a person and not a persona. That means I’m not perfect. I am a living, breathing, individual being who has fears and strengths and problems. I will get sick sometimes. My body will age. I will get hurt both physically and emotionally. And I will ache.

Being imperfect makes me vulnerable. Sometimes I am yelled at by doctors, by well meaning relatives and by pumped up (but very insecure) small-minded people on TV. Some of the comments that I moderate out of my YouTube channel and blog and website are just so unbelievably mean and stupid. And they hurt–every time. I am stronger now. This meanness doesn’t quite hold the same power over me that it once did. But it still aches.

However, this very thing that makes me imperfect and human also gives me power. It gives me a way to relate to the other imperfect humans that I work with. It allows me move beyond the need to be perfect and move into the need to be flexible, and open and LISTEN to those around me. And it allows me to help others accept their own humanity and right to be loved and respected right at this very minute: not when they’ve reached some arbitrary goal I’ve set up for them, and not when they’ve created a suitable “after” picture to help me hawk whatever product I have for sale, but right now.

So my dear Chicklettes, if you’re afraid to represent for people of size, or if you’re waiting to be perfect in order to earn the right to share your thoughts and your energy I have some sad news. You will never be perfect. You will never be the perfect embodiment of anything. All you can be is you–as hard and as joyfully as you can! Fortunately, that’s enough.

Love,

The Fat Chick

ROUND numbers: Fit Fatties Forum nears 1,000!

You Can’t Buy Fitness: Why Buying Lots of Stuff Won’t Get you Fit

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How much did you spend on that device for hanging laundry?

How many of you out there started a fitness program by buying something expensive like a big piece of exercise equipment or a long-term plan at the gym? And how often did you think, “If I paid all this money for it, I’ll surely stick with it!”? Did ya think feeling guilty about your purchase would make you work out? Did it work? Or do you have an extremely fancy place to hang fine washables otherwise known as a treadmill?

Look, I myself have gone down this path many times. And it has failed me many times. Because there is a very annoyed little kid inside me that resents being coerced into exercise based on guilt. And she rebels. That kids says, “No way! I ain’t gonna play!”

This cycle of spending money, feeling guilty about spending money, trying to use that guilt to fuel an exercise routine, not exercising and feeling extremely mad at myself went on for a long time in my life. In fact, I had to declare a moratorium in order to stop the cycle. I can remember for a period of two years here in Los Angeles, I took a moderately-priced and absolutely fantastic dance class. You could for the classes one at a time, or pay in groups of 10 or 30 classes. Of course the more classes you bought at one time, the cheaper the class was. One day, the teacher finally asked me, “Why do you not buy a group pass, when you come week after week?” I finally admitted, “You know, I think I come week after week because I never bought a group pass.” Yup, this was a cheap Jedi mind trick, but it worked for me. I went to that class two or three times every week for nearly two years.

I think this is because handing the money over for each class allowed it to feel like a treat. I had saved up for that class and was lucky to get to dance rather than fulfilling an obligation. It may seem crazy that I went through all of that and paid extra money because I couldn’t get my inner kid to stop pouting over my previous and devious attempts to fuel exercise with money. But that kid pouts to this day. And I still pay for exercise options a little at a time.

Now that I teach exercise and sell books and DVDs and sell training, of course I’d love for people to make big investments in exercise. But I really just want people to work out and learn to love their bodies and love exercise again. And I’d rather that folks just buy a book and then read it or buy a DVD and then watch it, than have them buy a gabillion dollars worth of my stuff and never use it.

So my little chicklettes, I’m encouraging you to dip your toe in the water. Try before you buy. Just buy one book or one DVD. Buy one week of training or consulting. Find a gym that doesn’t penalize you too heavily for paying weekly or monthly. Because working out is not an obligation to be dreaded, but a very special treat.

Love,

The Fat Chick

What Everybody Knows

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I got yet another comment on the video of Julianne and I on Fox News as posted on my YouTube channel congratulating us for saying that plus-sized people should feel good about ourselves, and then chastising us for saying that fat can be healthy when “everyone knows” that fat can’t be healthy.

I replied, “please review some of the evidence listed below refuting the idea that everyone knows fat is unhealthy”. You see, somebody had started an argument earlier on the very same thread about the very same thing and a lot of size acceptance folks (including me) posted links to scientific studies that indicate fat people can be and often are healthy.

Within just a few short minutes of my reply, the poster withdrew her comment from my channel. I’m not sure what to make of this. Did the poster change their mind? Did the poster just not want to argue? Were they embarrassed? I’m just not sure.

I do know this. I hear this “everyone knows fat people can’t be healthy” argument a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. But just because someone says the earth is flat doesn’t mean I have to believe it. Just because somebody points to the horizon and asserts that I will fall off the edge of the world, doesn’t mean I can’t get in my boat and go sailing.

It can be hard to argue with folks who bring up the “everybody knows fat people can’t be healthy” argument. Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough sanity points in the whole world to deal with this nonsense yet again. But maybe the best way to deal with the fallacies that “everyone knows” to be true is to stand up and say, “Not me! I don’t agree, and here’s why.” Because throughout history, “everybody has known” one lie or another to be true, until enough people stood up and said “Not me. I don’t believe it.” Or at the very least, some people stood up and said, “Oh yeah? Prove it!”

My dear chicklettes, don’t allow yourselves to be bullied by what “everyone knows”. Get your hands on the facts. Do the research. And don’t allow yourselves to be stressed out by arguments from those too lazy to actually support what they are saying with statistics or numbers or citations. Because what I know is that you are awesome and deserving of respect.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Some Athletes are Notably Missing from NBC’s Creepy Bodies in Motion Video

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An Olympian woman licks her lips accompanied by a boom chicka wow wow 70’s soft porn soundtrack in NBC’s Bodies in Motion clip on the NBC website.

I’ve admitted it before and I’ll admit it again. I am complete Olympics junkie. I LOVE watching the Olympics and cheering for people who have devoted a serious percentage of their lives to be incredibly good at something. But I have to admit how sad and disappointed I’ve been with the NBC coverage which seems intent on objectifying women and shows a ridiculous fetish-y need to show off the rear ends of incredibly talented women athletes.

First, there was the concern over the London weather being too cold for the beach volleyball players to wear their bikinis. Then there was the uproar over Gabby Douglas’ hair. And if that wasn’t enough, NBC felt the need to post a totally inappropriate video called “Bodies in Motion” that along with it’s 70’s soft porn style soundtrack featured a whole lot of women’s bodies, often without faces, in loving slow motion that featured, a lot of women’s butts. Not that Olympic booty isn’t wonderful. But seriously, these women train hard every day of their lives to be excellent at their sport. So why oh why do we need frame-filling close-ups of beach volley-butts?

Probably most distressing to me about this video is who ISN’T in the video. Weight lifters? Nope. Boxers? Uh-uh. Fencers, Judo Competitors, rowers, horseback riders, in short anything where women sport bodies considered slightly less movie-star-ready or wearing slightly more clothing? No, no, no, no and no.

And what really frosts my fridge is the effect that this desire for conventionally attractive bodies has on sponsorship dollars for women athletes. Sure if you’re gorgeous, blond, bouncy, ponytailed and razor thin, money can often be found. Meanwhile serious athletes like Sarah Robles often have to get by on a few hundred dollars per month and help from neighborhood food banks.

Let’s face it, not all athletes look like porn stars. Not all of them were considered worthy to star NBC’s soft porn video (which has since been pulled due to public outcry). Nope, lots of athletes look just like you and me. And nearly 1,000 of them participate in the fit fatties forum that I host with the ever-awesome Ragen Chastain.

So my little chicklettes, even if your rear-end is not bikini-clad or featured in barely safe for work fetish videos, don’t despair. Remember that fitness comes in all shapes and sizes.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Ripples on the Pond

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At the Blogging Panel at the NAAFA Convention with some amaaazing ladies!

One of the things I loved past about this past weekend at the NAAFA convention was the blogging panel. I shared the table with the authors of Dances With Fat and NotBlueAtAll and the fabulous moderator Julianne Wotasik.

And one of the common themes that came up again and again at the panel was the way that none of us, on the panel or in the audience, ever seemed to know ahead of time how we were able to impact other people. It always seemed the small things, the innocuous things, the tossed off things that would find someone and change the way they felt about things. And this held true when it came to blogging or even just an off handed compliment we paid a stranger or a moment of kindness that came at a critical moment. You just never know how much you can help somebody just by doing your thing.

I was astonished to hear a story told by Ragen Chastain of Dances with Fat shared with the panel about the effect her blog had on a person of size who had contemplated suicide. This woman had decided to use pills but wasn’t sure about the appropriate dosage for a woman of size. This woman went on the internet and searched “fat suicide”. It turns out that Ragen’s blog had had so much hate mail suggesting that fat people should commit suicide that Dances With Fat came up in the search engine. The woman spent the entire night reading past blogs on Ragen’s site and in the morning decided to send Ragen an email explaining why her blog had helped her decide not to end her life. Because Ragen had been so bullied in the comments section of her own blog, that woman is alive today.

So my little chicklettes, you don’t have to save the world. You don’t have to write a best-selling novel or be a movie star. Someone asked the panel how to help people find happiness and body acceptance earlier in their lives. And the answer was this: just be yourself as hard and as completely as you can. That’s it. And you can make the world a better place for you and so many people around you.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Thursday Theater: Nike Ad Featuring Fit Fatty Runs During 2012 Olympics

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I have to admit that I was pretty excited to see this Nike ad pop up during the Olympics. When the jogger trotted into view I held my breath waiting for them to say something nasty. After watching all those perfect bodies in spandex, this kid was a breath of fresh air. And I have to say, that for the most part I think Nike got it right.

To me, this kid embodies the awesome spirit of the joy of fitness that I try to share on The Fat Chick website. He embodies the nearly 1,000 Fathletes featured in the Fit Fatties Forum which I host with the amazing Ragen Chastain. He’s out there doing it. He’s not limping along. His pace is steady. His breathing is even. There’s nothing tongue-in-cheek or sarcastic about it. He’s just going out for an every-day training run. And kicking butt.

The voiceover reads: “Greatness, it’s just something we made up. Somehow we’ve come to believe that greatness is a gift, reserved for a chosen few, for prodigies, for superstars. And the rest of us can only stand by watching. You can forget that. Greatness is not some rare DNA strand. It’s not some precious thing. Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing. We’re all capable of it. All of us.” Cue the logo text that reads: “Find Your Greatness”.

Now, I imagine, given the assumptions of our culture and the placement of the ad within the Olympics with its flood of conventionally beautiful and chiseled bodies that some viewers will add their own subscript stating “this kid needs to lose weight to be great.” But luckily nothing in the V.O. or text that says anything about finding greatness “within”. It’s talking about finding your greatness and is part of a group of ads featuring other unconventional athletes like this one, and this one and this one. Frankly, I wish the voiceover from this ad could be on the ad with the fat kid, but still. For the most part, I found myself giddy with excitement when I saw this one.

And yes, Nike could make a lot more fitness clothes in much bigger sizes. I wish they did. Although they do have a few pieces of plus-sized wear that are 1-3x (generously sized) that I have purchased and I absolutely adore. But there’s not a whole lot to choose from.

So, perfect? No, far from it. But I think, with this ad campaign, Nike displayed a potential for greatness.

So my little chicklettes, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what YOU think.

Love,

The Fat Chick

OM: Using Meditation to Help Manage Stress

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For better health, find a few minutes per day to just breathe…

The idea of meditation may seem a little “woo woo” to my Midwestern upbringing, but there is more and more evidence that it actually does lower blood pressure, improve attention span and help manage stress. There’s even new evidence that indicates that meditation actually changes physical aspects of the brain over time as well. But our lives are crazy busy, and sometimes it seems impossible to add even one more thing to it. So how do we add meditation to our lives without stressing out about adding meditation to our lives?

Many experts suggest that you begin by adding just ten minutes per day. Meditation is an incredibly rich practice which can be deepened and enriched over years of practice. But you can get your start by simply focusing on your breathing. I sometimes use a really terrific iPod app called “Breathe Together”. It’s a very simple app that simply provides a breathing noise. You just synchronize your breathing to the app with the added benefit of knowing that you are synchronizing your breathing with others who are meditating throughout the world. At certain hours of the day, a specific focus for your meditation like “peace” or “joy” are suggested. One word of caution, it can sound a little odd to innocent bystanders. The first time my husband came across me using the app, he was convinced that either A) I was dying or B) Darth Vader had taken over his wife’s body.

Meditation is simply a time of quiet directed focus and can encompass many things including introspective prayer, repetitive prayer (like saying a rosary) or even a guided relaxation. In fact, I’m currently creating a special body love-inspired guided relaxation track. It will be available free for members of The Fat Chick Clique, so if you’re looking to get your OM on, hop right over to my website and join already.

In any case, my little chicklettes, I want to invite you to find just a little time, maybe just a minutes per day to take a deep breaths and relax your mind. It’s a little bit like bicep curls for your brain. You’ll feel better and be better able to manage stress better. Both of which are powerful tools for better health.

Love,
The Fat Chick

Thursday Theater: Knee Stress

The Stress of Stigma and Body Dissatisfaction

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Loving your body can really help reduce stress in your life!

Over the past few weeks we’ve been talking about satisfaction and stress. Today I’m going to stand at the intersection of these two ideas and talk about how feeling bad about your body is bad for your health. There’s no question that many of us are dissatisfied with our bodies. The cult of media and celebrity focuses our minds on a body ideal that is not even achieved by the most beautiful of the “beautiful people”. The vast majority of images in magazines are digitally altered to even more impossible beauty standards. And it’s a not so carefully guarded “insider secret” that a number of film and television stars demand that the image be “vertically stretched” to make themselves appear even taller and thinner on TV and the silver screen. It’s no wonder that so many of us have negative thoughts about our bodies. We’re not talking about a few minor thoughts now and again. A recent survey suggests that young women have an average of 13 seriously negative thoughts about their bodies per day–nearly one for every waking hour. And a surprising number of us have a lot more negative thoughts than that with 35, 50 or even 100 brutal thoughts about our bodies every day.

Unfortunately, all this body hatred is very bad for our health. Aside from the well known ties to depression, anxiety, and even suicide, body dissatisfaction leads to increased stress and ultimately to poorer physical health. Research at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver links women with poor body image with increases in the stress hormone cortisol. And increases in cortisol can lead to higher blood pressure, sleep disturbances, digestive problems and can negatively impact virtually all body processes.

So one important element in dealing with stress in our lives, is learning to love our bodies as they are, rather than constantly comparing them with impossible ideals. One way to do this is to put yourself on a media diet, and minimize exposure to fashion magazines and prime-time television. Another is (not surprisingly) to get regular exercise, as women who exercise tend to feel better about their bodies. And finally, don’t hesitate to seek advice from amazing healers like Golda Poretsky who help you make peace with your size and shape.

So whenever you’re stressed my little chicklettes, consider the notion that body dissatisfaction might be a central cause. And resolve to love the skin you’re in.

Love,

The Fat Chick