There's no denying I'm having a full-on crabby attack this evening. It's been an accumulation over the last few days from being out of my element, feeling misunderstood and trying to regulate my eating and exercise in an environment where it's difficult to keep my head above water. Visiting family and being "home" in Southern California for an extended period of time... it's not for the faint of heart.
I remember the moment I knew I was fat, or more precisely, that fat was a Problem. I was all of 10 years old and the biggest fad of them all was Jordache jeans. The popular chicks at school had 'em and there were endless ads in my sisters' Sixteen magazines for 'em. Thus, I WANTED 'EM. NOW. I thought the biggest hurdle would be talking my parents into spending the money on them, my parents being, respectively, a SAHM and a music teacher with a penchant for being hella cheap no matter what the annual household income ever was or is. But, nope. The true problem was that they didn't make Jordache jeans in my size. That was a really shitty day at the mall in 1982, let me tell you. There was no turning back. (And here we sit today... me writing and you reading about big, fat issues.)
You know those times when you learn about something that apparently everyone else has been talking about rabidly, and then all of a sudden that thing is everywhere you turn? Just happened to me a couple days ago at Starbucks in Kettleman City off I-5... Cake Pops. (Who the fuck knew about cake pops and mini desserts? Not me!) That day and the ensuing ones in 1982, I learned that you need and want to be thin - for myriad reasons other than just impressing your peers with Jordache ownership - and everywhere you turn that message is up in your grill.
Aside from the proliferation of french manicures, orange spray tans, Uggs, strip malls and pinner burritos, this is my main problem with Southern California. The second my ass hits the 210 from the 5, every other billboard you see touts the Lap Band or some other crazy weight loss surgery. Not that people in Nor Cal are necessarily any more gracious about fat folk but at least there I don't get packs of frat boys overtly mocking my appearance and size. The worst part of it for me is the irony of it all. People drive everywhere here, you can't fling a tennis ball without hitting a fast food restaurant and damned if I've seen anyone exercising in the several parks I've been to over the past few days. Bah!
On Sunday morning I was reading the Press Enterprise over my breakfast and came across this article. It's remarkably restrained and objective for such a conservative newspaper and one residing in So Cal, so I'll give it props for that. Otherwise, I'd like to slap everyone interviewed within.
1) Oh, you won a lame "Biggest Loser" knock-off contest by losing 68 pounds in 16 weeks, which averages out to approximately 1.5 lbs lost per day, and then accidentally gained all the weight back after the contest? Wow, that is SO shocking. Thanks for giving the general public more fodder for the fat stereotype fire, dude!
2) As for the Beaver Medical Clinic, they can go fuck themselves and their stupid, manipulative contest to engage desperate people wanting quick weight loss and free money. When businesses and "free money" are involved, don't fool yourself... it always comes down to gaining more customers.
3) And yes, let us not forget the "rising cost of obesity". How about all the supposedly well meaning health professionals and researchers, lobbyists and insurance companies (and hey, Michelle Obama even) target patients for the rising cost of treating their cancer and see how far they get before they offend the shit out of pretty much everyone. Obesity is an umbrella term encompassing the potential for a set of diseases. Not everyone who's fat - oh, excuse me, OBESE - has high blood pressure and high cholestorol and is one cheese burger away from dying of a heart attack. Thin people sometimes have just as many genetic, habitual and/or environmental risk factors, and they don't have the pleasure of being called "obese" because their BMI is under 25.
The rising cost thing is what wrankles me the most when I hear about the epidemic and problem of obesity. No lie, fat people DO need to exercise more or start exercising to begin with, and/or they do need to make better choices about types of food and portion size. Most of all, fat folk need to be aware of their own risk factors, whatever they may be and try to offset those factors if they can and want to. After that, I'm not sure that us fat people bear any more responsibility than anyone else to make sure we're not burdening the collective kitty, or our employers or insurance companies with our health care costs. It always comes down to money in a capitalist system. I'm not a person... I'm a goddamn potential waste of dollars to those in power and those who hold the purse strings. That's what really is cared about in this scenario and to quote one of my fine coworkers: it pisses the shit out of me.
When it comes down to it, we all are humans. We're faulty and foolish. We court death and we cheat death every single day. We love some and we hate others. Sometimes we condone unnatural behaviors while condemning natural ones. We're breathing, walking ironies most of the time as much as we don't want to be. It's just how life is, I suppose.
As for myself, I'm really struggling with my weight loss attempt at present. I was lamenting to Honey Bunny the other day that, "I'm stuck at only 15 lbs lost." He replied, "Don't you mean to say that you're proud of yourself for having lost 15 lbs, which is quite an accomplishment?" Nothing like a little perspective; I love that man.
I'm in So Cal for a week with my family, with the associated many, many foodly temptations therein, and without a scale in which to check myself daily. I'm good with 15 lbs as long as I maintain it because, at the risk of sounding like a fat hating clone, there is nothing worse in weight loss than having to lose the same 5 lbs over and over and over again. For me it's more like the same 3-4 lbs but still. It's freakin' irritating and frustrating as sin to have come this far and to feel like I'm barely maintaining not only my weight but the headspace that got me here to begin with.
Let me just get this last thing off my chest, like so many other things. Earlier this evening I rooted around in both bathrooms and all four bedrooms of this house I grew up in for a scale, like a junkie looking for a hit of heroin. Somehow, some way, I need to be checked - and I'm not talking about the act of checking my weight on a scale. Trusting that I'm going to do that for myself (ie. the only person that can rightfully, genuinely and effectively check me) in due time, at the right time, scares the crap out of me. It will happen and I will get there, though. Patience.
