14 - Latifah and Jenny: An Awkward Union

Whether it's an eating regimen, a magic pill, or an exercise machine, companies selling weight loss products tend to feature the users with the least typical results. In fact, that's one of the most smirk-worthy features of every weight loss ad—the tiny white print on the bottom of the TV screen: "Results not typical." From the 50 year old grandmother strutting around bikini-clad in old Bowflex commercials to Kirsty Alley's amazing (though disputed) shedding of 70 lbs, none of these people are an accurate representation of what will likely happen if you try this product. People desperate to lose weight fail to think through the fact that for any 50 year old woman to look that good, she's either got amazing genes or an amazing plastic surgeon...in addition to her Bowflex. I would hope that new users of the Jenny Craig program would pay attention to the fact that Valerie Bertinelli's JC blog is littered with asterisks indicating that her results aren't typical. In fact, all weight loss numbers shown on the JC site are listed as "not typical" because what's typical is that you'll lose and gain the same five to ten pounds for four months and then you'll quit the program no slimmer and a bit poorer. What it amounts to is false advertising, but what else is new?

However, if we want to talk about typical and atypical in the realm of people who actually lose weight and keep it off, most of us don't look like runway models when we're done with a weight loss program. Most people lose their weight and look like the typical size 12-14 woman that is the majority in North America; not the size 0-4 woman who entirely populates TV land. The former is about reality and the latter is about wish fulfillment. People don't pay good money for a product to produce reality in their lives; they pay for the fantasy. And that's why it's effective to show all the women who got down to size 4 (from a 12) in the NutriSystem commercials, or the incredible shrinking waistline of Valerie Bertinelli in the Jenny Craig spots.

It's this weight loss advertising reality that makes Jenny Craig's campaign featuring Queen Latifah really interesting. Admittedly, when I first saw the Queen in the Jenny ads I was dismayed. I was dismayed by the "urban" setting of her first ad, just to ensure that we know she's still "street" or whatever they were trying to convey. It bugged the hell out of me that the fan base that Queen Latifah first appealed to, the fan base that made her famous, probably can't afford to use the program. However, my objections to her role in the campaign aside, I have to be impressed with the tack they've taken: someone who's results actually appear attainable or even typical being featured on TV. Someone who is considered a success story who still happens to look like the rest of us. On her JC blog, Queen Latifah notes that she's lost 20lbs and her cholesterol has gone down 20 points. While the "cover our asses" asterisks also appear next to her results, deeming them atypical, from where I'm standing losing 20lbs is a lot more attainable than 40 or 70lbs—in fact I'd consider it almost typical.

One of Queen Latifah's JC ads has her grooving away on a treadmill talking about how much she loves feeling healthy. In fact, in all of her ads she is shown mostly speaking to "feeling good" or being a "size healthy." The amount of weight she's lost is referred to but unlike the ads featuring Bertinelli (the other Jenny Craig celeb spokesperson on the go at the moment) there are no before/after shots. In her blog she says that she thinks her body was fine the way it was and is fine now, but she's using the program to improve her health. What becomes clear very quickly is that the ad campaign featuring Latifah is not about wish fulfillment.

I would venture to say that this is the reason that Queen Latifah's blog comes up in a new window when you click on her name on jennycraig.com. I believe this is about reeling in a new, but smaller, group of clientele. The client who isn't interested in a dramatic weight loss (or isn't willing to admit that's their interest anyway). The client who has probably dieted so many times before that they are simply looking for a healthier lifestyle. The client who isn't willing to be openly disparaging about her body as it is. Typical Jenny Craig is about atypical results in order to sell the product. The Queen is about appealing to the consumer who thinks they're smarter than that. We're all getting duped but some get to walk away thinking they're above our weight obsessed society. At the end of the day though, it's Valerie Bertinelli's blog that's emblazoned all over jennycraig.com—not Queen Latifah's. Clearly featuring a woman who's lost weight, but still sort of looks like everyone else, remains a risky business.

13 - Bad Shirt

So in a mere 22 hours, barring any major delays, I will be sitting on a plane headed for Charlotte, North Carolina, where I'll then board a connecting flight to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We are excited--very, very excited. As a result this post is being done so fast and dirty that it won't even be seen by the editor. I can only offer a thousand apologies in advance for any misplaced commas and typos.

So Paul McKenna's book finally showed up on Tuesday last week. I spent three days eating only when I was hungry, eating what I wanted, eating consciously and stopping when satisfied. By Thursday I was too irritable to even go and see my therapist. My stomach felt off, I was headache-y, my blood sugar was on some sort of magic carpet ride, and I was feeling plain old pissed off from not being able to ingest something delicious to cope with every emotion coming my way. I haven't quite tackled the visualization techniques that he recommends yet but I did begin listening to his vaguely hypnotic CD at bedtime. Hopefully he's working some kind of mojo on me while I sleep. Despite his strictly forbidding you to weigh yourself before you've been doing the program for at least two weeks, I figured I wanted a little numerical encouragement before I headed south. Having to buy an even bigger tankini this year (over last year's) to accommodate my enlarged girth was making me feel a little blue (even if this tankini is smokin' hot). The funny part is that I worked to be disappointed. I pulled out the scale from its place of shame beneath my wardrobe only to find that the battery was dead so I couldn't get a reading. I made a special trip to the drug store to get a battery and laboured over getting it installed properly. It was with great confidence that I stepped up onto the scale. After ten days of having to actually cope with anxiety, boredom, and mild sadness, I haven't lost a pound. I was 230 the last time I weighed myself and I'm at exactly the same spot. Now I suppose something could be said for the fact that I haven't gained and I should be glad that I'm not hoovering down enough food for three other people in a day and thus avoiding that awful "my stomach hurts 'cause I'm so full" feeling. But c'mon! Do my efforts count for nothing?! So I hope that in time Paul McKenna will make me thin but clearly it won't be happening at the speed I would have preferred. Whatever happens, you'll be the first to know about it.

And as if the number on the scale wasn't depressing enough I have the vague impression that the teen-aged boy who gave up his seat to me on the bus last night might have done so thinking I was pregnant. I was wearing one of those empire waist line shirts that all fat women are supposed to wear; the ones that are supposed to hide our bellies. The problem, of course, is that not all fat women are shaped the same way, though plus size clothing makers would have you think so. I am one of those fat women whose weight sits at the top of her belly. So an empire waist line in most clothing, unless cut very specifically, makes me look pregnant. I thought I’d lucked out with this shirt though. It appears that I may have been wrong. Seriously, some days it’s best to not get out of bed at all.

12 - Till Heft Do Us Part

As I’ve made my latest foray back into the dating game, it’s gotten me thinking about my weight in the context of a relationship. On one level I really want to meet someone now, at my heaviest, so that should I lose weight it’s just sort of an added bonus; and if should I gain weight again it’s not a massive shock for Mr. Right. While I’m presently in no danger of losing any weight (my damn book still hasn’t shown up yet), it does concern me that if I entered a relationship 30lbs lighter, that person, the slimmer me, would be the person my significant other signed up for, not the one I am now. This begs the question, if the person that I am now reappeared would Mr. Right be entitled to get outta Dodge for that reason alone? In other words, when a person gains weight in a relationship is the other party entitled to leave for that very reason? Have they been subjected to a bait and switch and are they well within their rights to go and find someone who will maintain a little better?

I sat down with my good friend Candy[i] to ask these very questions. Candy has been married since before I even realized boys were good for something. While Candy’s body has changed and morphed since having children she is pretty much the same weight that she was when she got married (if not a little lighter). Her husband however, has put on a significant amount of weight since “I do” and I wanted to pick her brain about what that’s like for their relationship.

Before we dive in to the interview, I want to thank Candy for her honesty and forthrightness. The blog is blessed.

Heavy: At what point did your husband’s weight gain become an issue for you?

Candy: When we first started dating he was 196lbs and he still had a little bit of a belly—he basically needed to do some crunches to lose it. I don’t know exactly what the number was but I know I reached a day when it just started to irritate me. I realized I had put on weight and he’d never complained about it—so I was probably not saying anything for a while but feeling that way for some time.

H: Do you remember how long ago that was?

C: Maybe about six years ago.

H: You said it started to "irritate" you—can you elaborate on that word?

C: I think when I became annoyed was in moments when he’d already pissed me off in some way. So you know how we are, we always bring up the past; and all the other baggage would come with it. His family would say stuff like "when are you going to get on the treadmill" or "you could stand to lose a few pounds," and I would feel the need to defend him, in the back of my mind knowing it was true. I was torn because I had to defend him but I was feeling the same thing that his family was.

H: How long have you been married now, eight years?

C: Eleven years (laughs).

H: Someday I’ll remember! You’ve been married 11 years – so this has been an issue for almost half the marriage.

C: Yeah. The other thing that annoyed me was buying him clothes. You go into Moore’s to get someone to help you and they ask if you’re buying for your father. You’re 25 or 26 and it’s like you’re buying for your husband.

H: Did you feel stigmatized?

C: I felt the stigma because I’m there buying a 2x or 3x shirt or 44 or 46 waist pant. Also around that time I had just had our first child and I felt like he needs to be active for the one-year old child who’s running around.

H: Did it affect your sex life?

C: Absolutely.

H: Do you want to get into the nitty gritty?

C: Oh I can.

H: Okay, go for it!

C: You always get stuck in the same positions. Especially after you have a baby, sex is really uncomfortable if the person is on top is a lot heavier than you. Especially if the woman has had stitches and they’re still sore. Even with me on top I still have to get my ample thighs around his ample belly.

H: How about from behind?

C: There’s still a belly in the way even if you have the biggest willy in the world.

H: I know there was a period of time when your husband had just left a job and so that was an issue for him. Do you think that affected the issues around the weight gain?

C: Having job troubles contributes to your activity level and if he’s not feeling good about where he’s at, the whole weight thing is an easy excuse to start an argument.

H: Did you bring up the weight when you were pissed off about something else?

C: Oh yeah. You certainly don’t fight fairly. We all do it so we might as well just fess up to it. And I’m always the one who starts talking and then that’s what starts the fight. I’m the woman and emotionally I need to get it out. So it comes off like I’m doing a lot of nagging, which maybe essentially I am.

H: Do you feel that a person’s physical appearance and the maintenance of that is part of the promise one makes at the altar?

C: Yes. It’s the unspoken promise. But as we age, guys get more nose hair, they go bald. Do you really expect that at 25 years old unless they’re already going that way? No. [Looks are] important when you’re young but as you get older you hit a certain age and you mature and you go through life enjoying the experiences that you’ve had with that person. It’s not so much about the nose hairs and the bald head but the person you’re with. You grow to love those things. If you ask a younger person they’d say yes, that’s important, but an older person would say no. It’s certainly been an issue in our house.

H: Do you feel like as you’ve gotten older it’s been less difficult?

C: No, more difficult for me personally.

H: That totally flies in the face of what you just said!

C: I know!

H: Why do you think that is?

C: Because part of me feels entitled. I’m 34 years old and I have this 40 year old husband who should still be taking care of himself. [Who should] be more conscious of how he dresses. There are days when he doesn’t care that he’s not cleaned his ears or shaved his face in three days. I don’t get that, I’m just the total opposite of that. And I don’t just do that for him—I do that also for myself. Maybe it’s a vanity thing. I don’t know. When you go to the gynecologist, you do some work “down there.” You’re not really doing it for them but to make sure the opinion that’s formed is a good one. Maybe it’s part of vanity.

H: Is a person entitled to leave the marriage entirely if someone’s appearance changes dramatically–whether they just entirely check out emotionally or actually get divorced?

C: If someone were to say that a man left a woman because she got fat after having a couple of kids we’d think that guy was the biggest asshole in the world. But I’m not naïve enough to think that there isn’t a whole lot of that happening in marriages. That one person is feeling that the other has given up and they’re feeling frustrated and end up wanting to have an affair or having some other vice.

H: Whether people are admitting to it or not it’s happening then?

C: It’s happening. I’m sure.

H: Is that guy within his rights to do that though?

C: I don’t think anyone should leave a marriage over just that. But I don’t think anyone leaves over just that—it’s not just that someone got fat and it was over. It’s not like everything else is fine and then someone gains some weight and so the other person leaves. Other things are always going on whether it’s a bad sex life or emotional problems, money troubles….whatever.
And people don’t just eat because they like to eat—there’s usually depression that comes along with it. Weight is an easy one to fight about because people have to eat.

H: Do you feel like your husband’s weight gain was selfish?

C: Yeah, sure it’s selfish.

H: Do you think he’s conscious of that?

C: Yes, in a way, because it’s a choice to either get up and exercise or feed your face or not. But I also think that when you struggle with weight, you feel bad about overeating or not exercising and you end up doing the same activity that made you feel bad all over again. So it’s a vicious cycle.

H: Would you say your concern is equally about your kids and you or no?

C: I would say equally. For me, my concern comes from a personal or sexual viewpoint. For the kids, it’s about being healthy for them, healthy enough to play and eventually see them have grandchildren. Kids pick up on their friends’ parents being different from their parents. Kids notice these things and sometimes they verbalize their fears/concerns and sometimes they don’t. And that’s where it becomes a sticky situation.

H: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

C: I definitely think that there’s a difference between a man harping on a wife about weight and a woman harping on a man for the same reason. Usually women gain weight because of children so they sort of have an excuse. But then again why do men get fat? Is it because he’s providing for the family and job stress, that sort of thing? The reasons people get fat might really be the same; it’s just that women also have children. In a way people don’t necessarily badger women quite as much because we usually do hold on to some of that weight after we’ve had kids. It doesn’t necessarily make us an overweight person but things are gonna look or feel different afterwards. With guys there’s a different standard because there are no children. Guys get less lenience. Why does a guy just put on 40lbs? There’s no physical reason for it. I also realize that as we age we are more prone to put on weight because we are less active, so I’m not talking about all of the 60-90 year olds out there. I’m not speaking of putting on weight because of medical issues either. Even though he is losing weight, I’m still not all that into him when he’s naked because I still see all the places he needs to lose weight.

H: At this point are you interested in him sexually or are you, for lack of a better phrase, taking it for the team?

C: Taking it for the team. If I met him today I wouldn’t be sexually interested in him, unless he had an amazing personality or did something really amazing for me. If I saw him today I wouldn’t give him a second look. I might think "oh he’s handsome, but he could stand to lose a few pounds." I’m just not into that type of body. It’s a harsh reality but it’s a fair question. You didn’t marry the person at this weight. If you didn’t know this person would you still be in to them? Honestly I’d say no. Most people are too wishy washy to answer that question.

H: In a perfect world where he loved his job and there were no money problems, do you think the weight thing would be as much of an issue?

C: If everything was perfect, he liked his job, and we didn’t have to worry about money, he’d probably carry himself differently. He would care if he put on twenty pounds because his confidence would probably suffer. If they’re confident, most people will start doing something on their own without someone nagging them. When you feel bad about other things and you’re depressed, you body aches and you physically feel unwell. At that point it is hard to get up to exercise because your mind is not into it, your body certainly isn’t feeling like exercising, and your heart might not be into it.

---

[i] Same old, same old. Candy is not her real name. Is anyone named Candy anymore?

11 - News and Other Hearsay

I had planned to come back from my hiatus all triumphant and “Here I am, rock you like a hurricane” (which, incidentally, I sang to everyone who would listen when Hurricane Isabel hit a few years back). Unfortunately, my comeback can neither be described as triumphant nor remotely rocking.

I spent most of the last month and a half commuting three hours, twice a week for adult education classes in order to get some web design know-how under my belt; the point was to perk up my resume so I can get out of my fairly shite job. Now I have to go ahead and see if I’ve actually learned anything by attempting to apply the know-how for the next few weeks. When that phase is over (after I’ve built a couple rudimentary sites by the sweat of my brow and my html skillz) I then have to go back to job hunting in earnest. In the mean time I continue to train new people at work which makes me feel like 32 going on 40, since they all seem to be 28 going on 12. And as if that’s not enough to suck one dry of mojo, the oral surgeon excised a portion of the underside of my tongue last week for testing purposes making it hard to yawn or even talk at points—we are not amused.

So I’m sure you can understand why I’m a little less than effervescent these days. Am I glad to not be commuting six hours a week to have it made clearer and clearer that the barriers to entry for a school board run class are depressingly low? Yes. Does that mean that the climb to the life I’d like to be leading is remotely over? No. I’m just no longer perspiring blood over the whole thing. In light of all this, however, some things are a-changin’.

First, I will post when I can post. I’d love to post something insightful or controversial every day but that’s not reality. In fact even posting something of that nature every two weeks (my original goal) isn’t always achievable. So sometimes I’ll post more often but sometimes it’ll mean you won’t hear from me for a month. Secondly the Google Group is no longer. That damn thing nearly caused my untimely demise. Instead, a brief e-mail from heavymefanatics@gmail.com will arrive at your inbox and instead of the entire post being there you’ll get a teaser and a link to the blog (just like you’ve received this time). There’s one main reason for this—diminished inbox clutter. If everyone reads and posts comments on the blog itself (you can post anonymously) no one gets any more e-mails than they signed up for. So, yes, please post comments on the blog itself unless they’re super personal, in which case you can feel free to e-mail back to the heavymefanatics address—it only goes to me. Third, I won’t be writing something to rival the length of Psalm 119 every time I post. Anything that’s really long will likely be serialized for readability. And lastly, I hope, by summer’s end, to move this blog to the domain www.heavyme.com which is presently parked on my behalf—but that remains to be seen. If the url changes, you’ll of course, be informed.

I think that’s all the business, so let’s get down to the fun stuff.

Anyone who has dieted more than two or three times knows how tempting it is to jump back on the band wagon again—and how scary it is as well. Presently I live in this sort of no man’s land where I’m too scared to go on another diet or “life change” plan, but I’m scared of what will happen if I don’t get this whole food thing under control in the near future. The fear of the diet is all about the possibility that I won’t maintain the weight loss and we all know that the “gain back” phase is generally worse every time. I am the heaviest I’ve ever been by about five or ten pounds, and while I’m not moving up the scale, I’m not moving down either. I think the scary number “they” throw out is that you only have to eat about 30 extra calories a day to gain an extra pound per year (and I’ve heard as low as 10 calories for the same result). Do you know what 30 calories amounts to? A third of a cup of 1% skim milk, a third of a cup of All Bran Buds cereal, a piece and a half of melba toast, a third of a portion of a Jello Gels cup. I mean we’re not talking a phenomenal amount of food here. An extra pound per year over a twenty year period and it’s suddenly clear why your high school physique is a distant memory, or in my case, a sign post from a past life. On the other hand, if I don’t start watching those 30-calorie servings, I’m going to be in a much more difficult place both physically and emotionally before I know it.

I haven’t tried “everything”—I won’t claim that, but I am getting a little exasperated at this point. As we all know, I’m a four time failure at Weight Watchers, one of the more respectable programs out there (speaking of which, we will be getting back to our guinea pigs very soon), and the Weigh Down Diet requires some level of faith in God—difficult since I’m agnostic (though it did work for a while when I was Christian). I’ve never tried anything that sounded remotely like a crash diet because I’ve always wanted to be responsible about it, but no matter how responsibly you lost the weight, when you gain it back the yo-yo has the same detrimental effects on your body. While exercising is a good thing and you should do it, I haven’t yet managed to find a form of exercise that I don’t loathe. I’ve “learned to run” with the Running Room three times now. One would think I’d actually be capable of running at long last. Walking buddies have kept me going for a time but that’s never quite stuck for me either. I have owned a variety of helpful DVDs in my time. The most amusing of the lot is one by Carmen Electra. I lasted two sessions of yoga before boredom forced me out of the room. African dancing is next up on the chopping block. Having said all that though, most experts agree that long term permanent weight loss has more to do with diet than exercise. Ultimately, if I’m to be victorious, I have to resolve my screwy relationship with food.

I eat when I’m hungry like most people. But I’m also very likely to ignore hunger and be all martyr-like about it when I’m busy, especially at work—kiss of death for a fat chick. Eating to deal with hunger is incidental; in fact when I’m not eating, even though I’m hungry, I feel this wonderful sense of control. But when I’m bored, or watching TV, or rewarding myself for surviving some form of stress, or anxious, or wired at two a.m., the urge to eat is seemingly uncontrollable. I don’t know if I can actually sit through a movie in a theatre without something to eat. I could have eaten a seven course meal just before the movie and I still *have* to have my popcorn. And it’s not like I’m eating my way through a vat of ice-cream in one sitting or anything outrageous for the most part. But taking into account that I only need to eat 10-30 extra calories a day to put on some pounds, then that 200-calorie personal size serving of popcorn, or that 300-calorie cup of ice-cream, or 100-calorie chunk of sausage, or the 270-calorie shandy—and oh, do I love a shandy—really add up to something special.

I’m not under any illusion that my weight gain isn’t in direct correlation to how much I eat, but I also know that the drive to eat is all in my head and has little to do with the actual food itself. So being all super strict about what I eat and how much I eat solves the problem for as long as I’m willing to feel punished; but at some point I have to change the relationship between me and food.

Enter neurolinguistic programming. It’s the concept behind that creepy fucking show that aired on TLC earlier this year, I Can Make You Thin (with host Paul McKenna) and the book of the same name. Some of the techniques pop up in The Weigh Down Diet but with God added to the mix. In general NLP has a pretty good reputation and it makes good sense at least theoretically: change the way you think about food and you change the habits around it, thus making the weight go away. So despite the creep factor of the show, the somewhat hard to find book is on order and will hopefully have me feeling a little more positive about this whole thing in the near future (4-14 business days according to the “seller” on Amazon). Unfortunately NLP ain’t gonna have me thin by the time I roll up in Myrtle Beach in my generous tankini at the end of July, but I hope that by the end of the year I’ll be seeing some concrete results. You will be kept posted.

As for the other fear—that if I lose weight and meet Mr. Right, he’ll dump me if I gain weight again—well that’s for another post. For now, let’s see if Paul McKenna can, in fact, make me thin.

10 – The Young and Curvaceous

It’s 9:11pm and I’m sitting here wondering where the evening went. I’m also thinking that I don’t have it in me—“it” being a blog entry. I have all the mental ability of a toddler right now and I’d crawl into bed in the next five minutes if I had my way. There is light at the end of the tunnel: 3:00pm on May 24, when I finish the courses I’m taking and hopefully have two new trainees at work up to speed; but that light seems very far away right now. I seriously can’t fathom how I’ll come up with two more posts in that time frame; as such, I’ve decided that I just won’t. I will be taking a six week blog hiatus so that (a) you aren’t subjected to crap writing and (b) I don’t become a crazy person. But I promise, it’s just a break, and I’ll be back with a vengeance mid-June. For now, however, read on.

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Last week a couple young ladies became finalists in the Miss England contest. Normally this wouldn’t register on my radar as I don’t go in for the whole “women are really being empowered by beauty contests” BS. Ultimately it’s a bunch of gals being judged, in great part, on their physical appearance. If contestants wore mumus and bags over their heads, then I’d believe it was about their talent. Until then I’m not convinced. So why did this register for me at all? Well one of the finalists, Chloe Marshall, is a size 14. Now that’s a European size 14, which translates to a size 10 or 12 here, so my excitement does dim somewhat. I mean really, size 10 or 12 is just normal people in my books, but I suppose in the face of a lot of size fours and sixes as the competition, that’s pretty cool. But that’s still not the reason that I even know about this girl.

The newly crowned Miss Surrey had a lot of support. Many people felt that it was a good thing to see such a lard ass (Kidding! I mean seriously, size 12 is a plus size now?) in a contest like this; they felt it was brave. Well, not former pageant judge, Monica Grenfell. No, she was outraged at Ms. Marshall’s inclusion in the contest at all. In the Daily Mail, she wrote (this is fucking comical): “Who does she think she’s kidding? What’s she’s demonstrating isn’t bravery but a shocking lack of self-control.” She went on to say “It makes me mad when people like Chloe are allowed to glamorize obesity.”

Bitch, are you for real?

Now just for some context, Ms. Marshall is all of 17 years old. And Ms. Grenfell is…well way too old to be slagging a teenager. To read the entire dip-shitty article, go to:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=554870&in_page_id=1879 target=_blank

You’ll get to see pictures of the delicious Chloe and read the silly ravings of “her-career- depends-on-selling-books-to-make-people-thin” Ms. Marshall.

I’m reminded of another recent skirmish a little closer to home involving ’07 American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and National Action Against Obesity founder, Meme Roth. Just as in the first situation, a woman who had to be twice Jordin’s age set to picking on the then 17-year old, about 20 seconds after she won her dubious victory.

Now what both Chloe and Jordin will always have going for them is that they’re freaking cool and beautiful, whilst both Grenfell and Roth will always kind of come off like suspiciously angry older women in search of someone to attack. And frankly, in my books, that’s plenty of reason for both Roth and Grenfell to enjoy a big serving of STFU, but in the name of serious blogging, I’ll actually provide some other reasons for invoking a serious gag order on the two of them. There are five (add your own in the comment section of the blog at will): age, bullshit, success, gender and fear.

Age – Attacking Teenaged Girls Is Shitty and You Know It

This one is fast and dirty. Publicly attacking someone who is still too young to vote over their weight is tacky; doing so when you’re at least twice their age—tackier still. There’s nothing more to say really. Roth and Grenfell should know better.

Bullshit – Monica Grenfell Knows about a Fat-Friendly Fourth Dimension and She’s Not Sharing

Monica Grenfell would have us believe that teenaged girls today don’t just think that it’s okay to be heavy but are, in fact, being pressured to pack on the pounds. Really? I must soon find this parallel universe of which Grenfell speaks, where I will have the emotional space to perhaps work out my weight issues whilst accepting food being foisted upon me by envious thin people.

I have spent a significant amount of time with teenaged girls within the last six years and I can tell you, the ones that I’ve met are not thinking “Well since Chloe Marshall is heavy, I’m going to work towards that.” What I see more of is that the girls who will gladly accept a heavier role model are already struggling with their weight. And I’m not about to begrudge them the assurance that it’s okay to feel good about themselves while they work through it.

I’m not saying that there aren’t a shit load more heavy kids walking around today than there were twenty years ago, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s not because they saw someone fat on TV and decided that was the life they wanted to lead. I’m sure it had a lot more to do with the X-Box their guilt-ridden and divorced parents got suckered into buying, and the fact that their moms and dads work a job and a half each to keep the mortgage paid, and consequently haven’t fed their kid a home-cooked dinner since sometime in the early 90s. I’m really, really sure that Chloe Marshall, whose name I would probably never have known had Ms. Grenfell not written her dumbass article, had nothing to do with it. So are the six overweight women represented in our media making our girls fat—not fucking likely.

The idea that Grenfell and Roth feel they need to publicly open up a can of whupass on two teenaged girls in order to protect other teenaged girls from being pressured into becoming overweight is as ridiculous as it is disheartening.

Success – “We Hate It When Fatties Make Good!”

If Jordin Sparks hadn’t beaten out beat-boxing-Blake for the American Idol title, would Meme Roth have given a shit about the young lady’s weight? I think not. Would Ms. Grenfell be falling all over herself calling Chloe Marshall fat, lazy and deceitful (about her diet and exercise) if the teen hadn’t won the Miss Surrey crown and made it to the finals of the Miss England contest? I’m going to assume a big “no” on that score too. It’s only when a fat chick makes good that people like Roth and Grenfell get all hot under the collar. It’s like somehow, with all the discrimination overweight people face, it’s still not okay for us to have a victory here and there.

I get that Roth has a cause she’s fighting for but I don’t know when she got it in her head that attacking someone slightly overweight who has experienced 35 seconds of success makes her cause look good. Amusingly, the Fox News interview where she made the original comments about Sparks is not on the NAAO site and no longer appears on YouTube from what I can tell. You know, the one where she called Sparks the “vision of ‘unhealth.’” What is available on the NAAO site is the Inside Edition interview in which she does a bit of a back peddle. This would have been after the death threats, I guess.

As for Grenfell, it’s bizarre to me that a woman who’s entire success is predicated upon heavy folks buying her books, can’t manage to be nice in the face of a heavier woman’s success. I guess it’s only okay to be successful once you’ve lost the weight.

Gender – “What, Reuben Studdard, Fat?!”

So I’m late to this band wagon, but back when Meme Roth came out swinging at Jordin Sparks, every fat blogger in the world asked in shock, why she hadn’t burst a blood vessel when an even bigger role model, Reuben Studdard, took the American Idol crown back in season two. It does seem a wonder that she went out of her way to make an example of slightly overweight (another size 12-14 girl) Jordin, while undeniably quite overweight Studdard got a pass. I guess big boys don’t register on her radar.

But this is an old story and one that is not exclusive to Roth and Grenfell. The covers of US Weekly, People, Star et al rarely feature the weight issues of men in Hollywood. They’d have you believe that male celebrities don’t ever actually experience fluctuations in their weight. My sister and I used to laugh about the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because as the women on the show got thinner the leading men (excepting James Marsden) all got heavier. To this day, Nicholas Brendon (recently guest spotting on Criminal Minds) remains a little soft around the middle. And frankly I wouldn’t care if all the men in Hollywood decided to put on thirty extra pounds if their female counterparts weren’t held to such a ridiculously stringent standard. What makes me peevish is the lack of equality.

It saddens me, given how much women are still objectified in the media and in their every day lives (some 100 years after universal suffrage), that two women make it their mission to objectify us all a touch further. Sometimes you just shut up for the sake of the team.

Fear – It’s Us or Them

Maybe I’m imagining it, but doesn’t there always seem to be, in an attack like this, an element of fear? Fear that if one does not clearly delineate who the enemy is, one might accidentally be associated with said enemy. It makes me wonder if Grenfell worries about putting on weight some day or if Roth was a chubby kid. I just think it takes a special something to launch an unprovoked attack. And I think that special something is usually fear.

I was on the train last night and a fella boarded who was built like a tank; he was frightening looking and kind of dirty, so I went back to my magazine and avoided eye contact. Well then he turned on this beaut, black, fledgling queen and started calling him a faggot. And not in a nice way. Said fledgling queen responded with questions about scary fella’s self-esteem (how cute is that) clearly putting his health and his kick-ass wardrobe in danger. That’s when said scary guy started screaming “you fucking nigger” over and over again. I can’t tell you how un-Canadian that is. Everyone just stopped dead in their tracks. While the queen did his bit standing up for himself I think we were all afraid it was going to get physical and very, very bad. Luckily it didn’t; big scary fella turned out to be way more interested in making his way home and probably avoiding getting picked up by the cops than he was in fighting the queen. Ultimately he was all incredibly offensive bark and no bite. I had a mind to do a drive by insult on my way out but his stop preceded mine.

The point of that aside though, is that it’s pretty clear that somewhere in big, scary guy’s heart is some sort of enormous fear of a young, black queen. Maybe it’s the enormous cock that he fears. I don’t know and I don’t really care, but it’s the fear that makes him act that way. It’s the fear that makes him think he’s being rational to boot. And I believe it’s the fear that makes Roth and Grenfell act the way they do and think they’re being reasonable while they do it.

To add grave insult to much, much injury, they do their crazy in the name of helping the heavy-weighted.

At one point in a back peddling interview, Roth spoke about how great it would be if we could “get [Jordin] more healthy,” as if she was offering help. Well if someone wanted to offer me help with my weight, the easiest way to do this would be to have a direct conversation with me. Going to Fox News and saying I shouldn’t have won American Idol based on my weight would be amongst the least likely ways to get me on board. This seems rudimentary. But Roth would have us believe that she is concerned about Jordin personally. Bullshit. She was never concerned about Jordin Sparks personally—and that is part of the problem.

Monica Grenfell must think that all the food Chloe Marshall allegedly eats insulates her from the insults of others (ah the irony). If Grenfell was really just disturbed about the inclusion plus-sized women in the beauty contest she could have privately spoken to the judging officials. It was absolutely unnecessary to launch an attack on Marshall in the Daily Mail. And ultimately that’s pretty damn unfeeling—especially when you’re talking about someone’s body.

The idea that Grenfell or Roth are really concerned about the thousands of overweight people that they claim to want to help is laughable, juxtaposed with the way they treat individual overweight people, people who would ostensibly fall within their cause. Instead, what Roth and Grenfell seem most interested in is shame—that tried and true method for shedding pounds. Apparently no one has informed either of them that the “shaming method” of weight loss usually comes with an emotional price tag that’s unfeasible for the long term. Instead of setting up an environment where Marshall or Sparks might seek out Grenfell or Roth if either ever felt like losing any weight, they’ve reinforced the adversarial relationship between fat and thin in our culture. And that’s not a dynamic that needs to be encouraged.

It is possible, Meme Roth, to talk about obesity without denigrating anyone. It is possible, Monica Grenfell, to encourage people to lose weight, without attacking a teenager who doesn’t want to do so. I have to be kind of grateful for them though—if their behavior wasn’t so terrible, I might have nothing to write about.

9 – Gainful Employment, Sickness and Men Hurt Us All (and the blog)

I’m going to talk about my method for a moment. In order to, some day, score that book deal based on my blog that’s going to lift me out of the pink collar ghetto in which I exist, I try to post entries consistently—in my world that means every two weeks. Week one is devoted to research (or in the case of “Big Lust” consolidating weeks of research) and week two is about writing, tweaking, editing, re-writing and then having that prince of a man, my proofreader/editor, take a looksie—at which point, I post (and for those of you combing entries for typos and misplaced commas, he's only been on board for two weeks). The problem is that last week—the research week—was a total write off. Here’s why.

On March 25^th one of my colleagues announced his impending departure for a new job. In the normal world this isn’t a big deal, but in my world it means that the one other person who’s been helping me hold down the fort at work just jumped shipped. To add insult to injury I’ve been job hunting since August of ’07—which is only about a month longer than he’s been looking, but I can be petty if I want to be. This announcement came after another colleague bailed just a week prior. In addition to the shock of being left alone, there was the feeling of crushing despair about being the first to sign on ten years ago and being, obviously, the last to leave. Frankly, given the spiral of depression into which I fell that day, it’s amazing the last blog entry was posted at all.

Then on the 28^th I missed my dear friend’s 30-something birthday because I started feeling nauseated. The nausea progressed into some unholy cold/flu-like sickness that left me with only some of my hearing for a period of time, a snot-filled head, horrible hacking cough, all the focus of an infant and the wakefulness of a sloth. I had to use up 1 ½ of my eight precious sick days per year to beat this thing.

And lastly—men. Need I say more? There have been skirmishes on that front in the last couple of weeks that make my brain tired. And unfortunately, unlike during puberty, this kind of stress doesn’t make me all angsty/creative and thus prolific—it drains me like an alkaline battery in a digital camera[i] because now there are shriveling ovaries and the understanding of my mortality in the mix.

Now I will admit, things at work are not as abysmal as they were last week because they can’t afford to lose me right now; hence on the 31^st concessions were made and demands were almost met resulting in a decent raise, my own cave-like office and a promise that once the new folk are trained I will never again have to speak to another ungrateful, lazy, snarky, illiterate, insipid, shit-eating customer.

Unfortunately, however, this still amounts to zero research. So today, I speak to you from the heart. (Why do I feel like Celine Dion right now?)

I was overjoyed to see the hoopla that my interview with “Greg” caused. In addition to helping me get a better of idea of what y’all want to read and giving me lots of ideas for future entries (when I’m not too sick or depressed to research them) I was forced to think about my own feelings on this issue of discrimination against the heavy weighted.

Now clearly, as disgruntled employee of the month, I’m in no position to make any decisions about anyone’s job prospects based on their weight, so no one need fear me on that level. But if I didn’t admit that I have mean old nasty thoughts about people who are overweight, it would be completely dishonest.

So full disclosure: sometimes I’m as big a hater as the people that I resent for being haters.

Firstly, it’s all part and parcel of my, so far, absolute inability to accept myself as I am in this body. There are certainly times when I think I’m hot but the bulk of those moments are tied to my sexuality. While I’m thrilled about the verging-on-ridiculous enormity of my breasts at my present size, they’re only really the main event when my clothes are off—which is not the bulk of my day (in fact, I’m dressed right now!). And frankly, I do feel more secure naked than I do clothed. But it’s when I have to get dressed and be compared to everyone else in the world that I lose my cool. And while we all have days when we just think we’re the ugliest creature to walk the earth (or am I the only one; or is it just a female thing?) my days like that—when they aren’t revolving around my hair—are completely bound up in my weight. So yes, I hate on people because I kinda hate me.

But I don’t hate on heavy people across the board. As one reader brought up last week, it seems to come down to how people carry themselves. It’s all about the “fat slob” syndrome. For some reason, in my head, skinny slobs get a pass of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m looking to make friends with a slim guy who looks like he hasn’t bathed in a few days, but the judgment that races through my head when I see a heavy person seemingly not making an effort, is scathing to say the least.

While I applaud the heavy woman or man who dresses impeccably, part of what I’m often thinking is “Well you’d better dress well—you can’t afford not to.” And the irony in all this is that I’ve convinced myself that I look stunning in sweatpants (well two people told me I did so I’m sticking with it). I don’t think I’m quite a slob but the days when I don’t make a concerted effort are certainly numerous. I work across from a transfer station for Pete’s sake[ii]. I’m the youngest of six kids and the other five have spent the better part of 32 years trying to get me to dress up a little more. So clearly I’m not really “representing” on behalf of heavy folks but for some reason I think I get a pass. It makes zero sense, I realize, but I think I know why my brain works this way. I’m a mid-ranger in denial. I’m certainly not average, (and I’ve been called “fat” in no uncertain terms by people before) but so far I can still squeeze with another person into those freaking small public transit seats and I can still choose a side of the escalator. The result—I think I’m closer to average than I am to “fat.” Though, if I’m clearly in a certain amount of denial now, I wonder, if I put on 50 more pounds, would I still think I wasn’t “fat?” Food for thought.

I have too many friends who carry extra weight to think that generally people who are overweight can’t get the job done or that they lack ambition or that they’re lazy or so many of the negatives that have been brought up in the last couple posts; and frankly I know myself and I’m not like that. But I’m more critical of the passing stranger who is heavy than of the one who is slim. And that’s not cool.

It occurs to me that I get sad when heavy celebrities lose weight because I feel I’ve lost an ally. It’s like if they just maintain their size, then maybe it’s okay that I do too; or it’s at least okay for me to be accepting of myself, whether I eventually lose weight or not. But on the flip side, I’m definitely one to applaud the average person who loses weight; I applaud their moving closer to “normal.” It’s the same me who’s green with envy when some old high school acquaintance befriends me on Facebook and I realize they’re a shadow of their former selves while I’ve become 1 ⅓ of what I was.

So in a bid for further self-acceptance, as promised, a candid photo is posted below. I had never planned when I would post this picture after I made the promise to do so, but now seems an appropriate time. When I’m feeling like even more of a champ I’ll post the side shot—right now I still feel like my back fat is too cringe-worthy. Actually scratch that—no promises there. Baby steps, baby steps.

Come back in two weeks. I’ll let you know if I’ve made any movement towards accepting myself and by extension my heavy brothers and sisters. And by then I may even have researched something interesting for you to read.

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[i] Yes the analogy sucks but this is what I do for a living—gimme a break

[ii] A transfer station, for those of you not in the know, is where regional trash is consolidated before it is taken to the landfill. Now imagine what it smells like walking in to work on a day when it’s 35 degrees with the humidex outside—yeah, sweet.

8 - Big Hate

Last week was crazy busy for me, and busy in my world entails a certain amount of fast food. On Monday (the 17^th) that fast food was procured at McDonald’s, where I gobbled down two chicken snack wraps, small fries and a small iced tea. As I ate I couldn’t help but think of a comment that my interview subject had made the day prior: “It freaks me out to watch [fat people’s] food choices.” I have the distinct impression he would have been freaking out a whole lot had he been sitting with me that evening.

This week’s post is about the haters—that relatively large (pun intended) group of people who have a problem with other people’s weight whilst not actually carrying it around. A week ago Sunday I sat down with my friend Greg[i] to talk over what it is about bigger folk that gets so far under his skin. I met Greg years ago at a party; we’re Facebook friends and we socialize here and there, so we get along well enough—which is what makes all this so weird. By nature I want to hate anyone who automatically thinks less of me based on my weight, but Greg is a likable guy and thus I don’t. So knowing that I don’t hate Greg and I’m far from out to demonize him in this post, let’s talk about what goes on inside that head of his.

One of the first things that Greg wanted me to know was that, to a point, he was speaking representatively. Representative of what you might ask? Well actually the better question would be “who.” If money makes the world go ‘round, then those that control the money would, by extension, be those that have the most control over the spinning of our fair planet—and those people would be your CEOs. “CEOs are the stereotypical six foot tall, lean, white male” says Greg. Though not a CEO himself, Greg is white, about six feet tall and doing well for himself financially. So he figured (and I agreed) that he could reasonably bring some insight to the table. And with that in mind, we dove in.

We talked definitions for a bit and I found this bit terribly ironic. In my last post, trying to define the term “BBW” in a narrow way proved fruitless despite the fact that the tastes of the men interviewed were quite specific. In contrast, it seemed really easy for Greg to define what overweight meant to him: “Any man whose stomach extends past his chest is overweight. And for women if the belly fat exceeds the belt line by an inch or more, then she’s overweight.” “Cottage cheese thighs” were also mentioned as problematic. I did put up some fight when he mentioned another litmus test: “If you can’t see your junk to know if you need a shave or whatever, there’s a problem.” I parried with the fact that the point when a mirror is needed to help check out the pubes for a woman is far earlier than for a man, but Greg was unsympathetic. I figured maybe I wouldn’t bring up that I’d arrived at the mirror stage some time ago.

Of course definitions--even with someone as unequivocal as Greg--have some fluidity. When asked if a great personality would make an overweight person seem, well, less overweight, he answered in the affirmative. He even mentioned that the term “Rubenesque” evokes the idea of someone with a certain amount of personality as opposed to just the idea of a certain body type. For women Greg named further distinctions as well. For example, there is a definite difference between women whose breasts can be distinguished from/extend past their bellies and women who do not have this kind of body shape. Women who lack such physical definition, and thus a certain amount of femininity, will simply not get the same level of acceptance in Greg’s opinion.

As in many things though, definitions are usually the least of one’s problems; it’s connotation that causes all the trouble. In my last post I listed a number of ideas that many people associate with the word fat, but I figured I might be missing some so I got Greg’s list too: “unhealthy, will die young, lazy, don’t care, low self-esteem, not career-minded, play the victim, feel they are a victim, not in control of their own lives, not getting sex, unkempt, sweaty, frumpy, not well-dressed, will be likely to have food stains on their shirts” (this last one is my personal favourite for sheer funny factor). Now while my list was longer there were some that I had never thought to include and one that we parked on for a bit was “not career-minded.” At this point, we inevitably came back to the issue of who’s running the show. Assuming the world is run by gym-going, low-cholesterol eating, lean, white, male, six-foot CEOs, then the likelihood that an overweight man or woman is going to succeed in an organization run by that guy can decrease dramatically. Now admittedly there are fields where weight may be less of an issue than others, but Greg brought up fields where I wouldn’t have immediately thought that it would be such an issue. “In a law firm someone overweight might not make partner because he or she doesn’t fit the image of what a partner looks like.”

To make his point, Greg told me about a situation that had occurred in his own workplace. During a down-sizing he noticed a manager continually circling back to one overweight employee. It soon became apparent to Greg that his manager had no clue what this employee actually did all day, but the idea of the “lazy, fat guy” had managed to so severely cloud the employer’s thinking on the topic that this employee’s job was on the line. And of course this kind of discrimination grows in proportion to the amount of extra weight a person carries. In fact, Greg agreed that if I wanted to get ahead in many a work place, I’d be better off cutting out an hour at the office and replacing it with an hour at the gym. When, in a session months ago, my therapist told me that my weight would be a factor in my job hunt, I just kind of tuned her out; sitting with Greg that sunny Sunday afternoon, it was pretty hard to ignore.

But Greg doesn’t necessarily have a lot of pity for people in my position, even if he doesn’t think the discrimination is right. Ultimately, in Greg’s opinion, I’ve made my bed and I can’t blame anyone else for only having that bed to lie in. “I think the idea of genetics making people fat is a fallacy. No one forces you to eat what you eat or forces you to eat how much you eat. Genetics are a factor in body shape, but not weight. It’s about activity, lifestyle and discipline.” Greg’s overall feeling is there is a lack of self-respect in allowing oneself to get very overweight and that people simply don’t care. One concession that he did make was in the case of the stereotypical workaholic who doesn’t take care of themselves. “I’ll admit fat people are probably more apt to put someone else’s needs before their own. They end up not taking care of themselves; like people who are overworked and don’t take care of their health. And then I guess there are emotional eaters.”[ii]

Now “health” is one of my favourite buzz words when it comes to talking about weight, so I had to ask, ‘does a thin person who clearly eats a whole lot of unhealthy food freak Greg out as much’—and the answer is no. He figures they must be active enough to offset that choice which somehow makes it more acceptable. To further complicate the health question, Greg doesn’t mind a roll in the hay with someone unequivocally heavy (to a point) as long as they’ve got a cute face; in a weird twist, Greg could have been a survey participant in my last post whilst still being the interview subject for this one. “I couldn’t date someone overweight in the long run. I just couldn’t watch them keep making unhealthy food choices all the time; ‘like no, I don’t want an ice cream, I just ate’”

Some of you are now screaming that Greg is only one person and I need to take his words with a grain of salt (whilst others nod vigorously in agreement with him). Well don’t worry; I’m not buying it all without reservation. But I also don’t think Greg is that much of an anomaly. He’s a country boy who had the kind of active childhood often associated with rural living. He’s never been anything other than slim and agrees that his family ate well (by which I mean healthily). He’s 35, active, and strikes me as thinking harder than the average about his food choices (certainly harder than I do); but being super food conscious is kind of all the rage right now. When asked how long his issue with overweight people has existed, he recollected the fat kids in school. “These kids were different because they didn’t dress like the rest of us. Everyone was wearing jeans except the fat kids who wore stretchy pants because they couldn’t fit into anything else. They seemed to always be fat, lazy kids from ‘town.’ You certainly can’t run around and play sports at recess when you can barely fit into your pants. They were always eating junk food. I guess I teased them too.”

Thinking on Greg’s response makes me say, on the one hand, hurrah for stretchy jeans. But on the other hand I have to wonder if maybe what seems like this complex and involved form of stereotyping and discrimination is as simple as school yard preservation instincts that we haven’t shaken. Is it just a good old case of teasing the fat kid in elementary school; a continuing saga of excluding the person who’s different? I mean, really, the action is the same. The difference seems to lie in rationalizing it. In elementary school protecting our social status is more than enough motive to exclude or malign another person. It’s in adulthood that we have to find reasons to rationalize this behavior. And so we say things like “the burdened health care system” and “type-2 diabetes” and “shorter life spans” when we maybe really just mean “I don’t like fat people.” Ten and fifteen years ago we were all alarmed about smokers being the burden to our health care system, but it was still generally acceptable to discriminate against heavy people even back then. The only thing that seems to have changed from where I’m standing is that now that someone can voice concerns about my health, their discrimination has a good cover. Understand, I’m not denying health issues exist—I’m simply saying that I don’t think every person on the planet who has a problem with my size is really that concerned about my cholesterol or my triglycerides (both of which are great, thanks). Instead, I have to wonder if the man not hiring me is simply engaged in some form of bullying motivated by how he felt on the school yard when he was five and assumptions he’s made about me way in advance of meeting me. I want to think that humans aren’t that base. But time and time again we seem to prove that we are.

Greg has offered to lead me further down this path of non-acceptance, and if he reads this and still wants to hold my hand I may take him up on it. Frankly, I hate thinking too damn hard about what others might think of me; doing so brings up all the insecurities that I have about my body right now. But I’m trying to believe that facing the monster will make it less scary in the long run. You’ll just have to stay tuned and see. In the meantime this post ends on a bit of a downer; but I think the reality is a bit of a downer.

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[i] Of course that’s not his real name—we can’t have survey participants from the last post trying to find Greg and beat him down.

[ii] At this point I nearly fell down laughing because emotional eating is like an afterthought to Greg and is an enormous part of my every day existence; as I am fond of saying, another topic for another post.