Tag Archives: Health At Every Size

Dealing with Stress

It’s so interesting to me that so many discussions about health begin and end with losing weight. As I mentioned, the need for a decent night’s sleep is rarely discussed. And the need for managing stress rarely gets even a passing mention.

This is astonishing to me because there is so much research indicating that how we manage stress can have a profound effect on our health. There are many kinds of stress. Some kinds of stress seem to be positive, giving us an immediate boost of adrenalin to deal with something dangerous or just exciting. But some kinds of stress, especially chronic stress, seem to cause a lot of problems in the body.

Chronic stress has been linked to changes in t-cells and a weakened immune system. Other studies link chronic stress and anger to higher incidence of cardiac arrhythmia and sudden cardiac arrest. Chronic stress is also linked to higher incidence and poorer management of a host of other diseases including diabetes, cancer and hypertension. I’ve heard statistics suggesting that over 90 percent of doctor visits can be linked to stress. Yet how often has your doctor asked you about stress? So many of my doctors have repeatedly asked me about how much I exercise and recommended a diet. I have had doctors repeatedly recommend pills and radical, invasive surgery. But I’ve only had one, truly amazing doctor, who regularly inquired about the stress levels in my life.

I’m not entirely sure why this is. Maybe discussions about stress take too long for our overscheduled and overworked medical professionals to manage. Maybe being “stressed out” is still something of a badge of honor for our amped up, caffeinated, type-A culture. In any case my little chicklettes, we’re gonna talk about stress here this week. Because getting your heart thumping because you’re shaking your tail feathers or looking at a particularly hot and sexy bird can be a good thing. Getting your heart thumping hard all the time because you’re anxious, worried or stressed out–not so much. So this week we’ll take a deep breath, search for our Zen and cultivate peace.

Love,

The Fat Chick

The right to bare arms

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In my previous post declaring body independence I asserted “I have the right to expose my fleshy arms as I embrace my freedom”. And I firmly believe this. Yet I sometimes still have trouble doing it. I am now coming to love my upper arms after a long time of disenchantment. I have what my dear friend calls “hello-goodbye arms” (because they just keep on waving). But you know what? It’s HOT out there! I don’t like hot and I certainly don’t like wearing extra clothes when it’s hot. I’m coming to terms with my arms. Instead of “hello-goodbye arms”, I’ve got “guns” (pew, pew). I’ve got biceps. They are powerful and strong. I can lift babies. I can lift groceries. In fact my arms are almost strong enough to hoist my insecurities.

So my little chicklettes, ask yourself in these sweltering days? What gorgeous part of you are you hiding from the world? What are you keeping under wraps? Why not use this summer heat to shed a little insecurity, and just a little more clothing?

Love,
The Fat Chick

Thursday Theater: Choosing what Kind of Exercise is Right for You

Too Pooped 2-pl(a)y? Get some shut-eye!

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It’s hard to run around and have fun if you’re too sleepy!

Whenever I talk about the many dimensions of health (aside from and beyond body weight) I always mention getting enough sleep. As a nation, we in America suck at getting enough sleep and there’s no doubt in my mind that it has affected our health.

There are more and more studies showing an association between getting less than seven hours sleep with various conditions including diabetes, heart disease, and certain forms of cancers. More work needs to be done to determine if the link is causal, or if there are other mitigating factors. However there is some concern that chronic deprivation affects hormones in the body which in turn affect how our bodies cope with appetite, threats to the immune system and managing disease.

Aside from the studies, I know this. If I go without sleep for too long I’m not as creative as I could be. And I’m very, very crabby. (Just ask my hubby.) So this morning you’re getting your blog post a little late. Not as late as yesterday’s post pizza afterglow, but late nonetheless. Because I slept in. I enjoyed it. And I feel great!

So my little chicklettes, if you’re not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, you may want to focus some attention on this area of your life. Find ways to find time to sleep. Manage coffee and soda intake. Meditate. Whatever it takes to get enough ZZZZzzzzs and wake up fresh as a daisy. You deserve it.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Exercise Animals: I Cannot Tell a Lie…

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A kitteh haz to do what a kitteh haz to do…

Sure, I did some exercise today. I taught my class, and it was super fun and awesome. But sometimes you just need some pizza. I did that too. Went to Zelo, pretty much the best pizza place EVAR and had a slice. It was heaven. So my little chicklettes, I highly recommend that you get regular exercise. I ALSO recommend that you get a piece of pizza pie every now and again too. Cuz’ when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s amore. And amore means love. Which is what I feel for you, and, er, pizza.

Love,

The Fat Chick

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

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

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