Why Hate Your Body?

By Valerie X Armstrong

They tell us not to compare ourselves with others...But I find that it sometimes helps us to put our situations in proper perspective. If you hate the way your body looks, consider for a moment, people who have chronic pain or who are blind or are battling a deadly disease or have been disfigured or crippled in accidents. Consider the people who have never been given the chance to live past childhood. There are so many, many people who would trade places with you in a heartbeat. Don't dwell on society's idea of what you should look like. Be grateful for what your body can do. We are always our own worst critics, but everyone is beautiful in their own way. To me a person's beauty comes from within. In my opinion, if you are beautiful on the inside you are beautiful on the outside. 

I've always been fat except for a few times when I starved myself into thinness.  I never liked my body, until recently.  I tortured myself for years trying to change it permanently, to no avail.  My body, although it didn't live up to society's narrow standards, was and still is, a good body.  There wasn't and still isn't much I can't do.  I've enjoyed relatively good health, and have done most everything in life I've ever set out to do. Some people can mold and sculpt their bodies however they want, and if you are able to do that and you want to, then do it.  But if you are like so many of us that can't, all is not lost.

 It's a wonder I didn't kill myself with all the bizarre things I did to my body to try to fit in that elusive ideal that society has set for us.  Instead of loving my body and caring for it, I abused it. I was young and wanted to fit in with the crowd at all costs.  One thing I've learned from maturing, is that we should be glad to have a body...and especially one that works fairly well and doesn't hurt too much. 

 Life is short and there is nothing wrong with wanting to have a good life...but you can do that without looking any particular way.   I do size activism...hoping to make things better now and in the future for fat people, some of whom, hate their bodies because society doesn't embrace fat people and makes life difficult for them. We shouldn't hate our bodies, we should hate society and try to change it.  Fat people are not the only group of people that has ever been oppressed.  But we have to fight the enemy ..not agree with them and acquiesce to their demands. We can change the paradigm if we work together.

 Everyone has a choice whether to love or hate their body...and if you want to be miserable all your life, thinking you don't measure up, that's up to you.  Some of us try to offer an alternative, that if you follow, you will most likely be a much happier person.  I can't make anyone do it, no one can, and if anyone resents my trying, please save yourself a lot of hassle and don't visit my Facebook page or others like it, unless you really DO want what we have to offer.

My sister was born with a severe disability and legal blindness.  Her bones were very brittle causing a deformity and she had to wear very thick glasses.  She didn't choose that.  That's the hand she got dealt...But she was never held back by it.  She was happy, cheerful, and glad to have the body she did have. 

 Once in a while she would tell me she wished she had good eyes like mine, or nice legs like mine...I used to think why would anyone want to have my big thighs...She did occasionally say she wished she could be more active like I was, but she did the best she could with what she had, and never whined about her predicament.

 Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to have those big healthy thighs and strong bones and eyes that could see with out glasses.  We have no guarantees in life.  I've lost loved ones that were healthy, at very young ages, from accidents.  I have one person very close to me who was struck down by a debilitating disease that will never get better...He is young, handsome, talented and very brave.  One day he was healthy and the next in misery and barely able to move, and the doctors can do nothing. People like this would give anything to have their biggest problem be their looks. 

Life is temporary...We are all going to die...every one of us.  In a hundred years no will know or care if your  skin sagged or your thighs rubbed or what size you wore.  If a person, doesn't like you because of your looks, screw them.  They are not worth a moment of your time.  Get involved with something creative or something outside yourself and help others...Don't be so shallow and self centered as to close yourself in and lament over certain perceived body flaws or how you think you look in a short skirt.   There is a big world out there.  My sister used to say, "I cried because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet". Carpe Diem.  Seize the day... Tomorrow could be your last one.. why spend it hating yourself?

I'm not trying to discredit  or minimize anyone's personal experience, and all of this is just my own  personal opinion.  Perhaps counseling might be in order if someone were to hate themselves to the point where it affected their enjoyment of life.

Reparations

By Valerie X Armstrong 

In the years to come, when it is finally realized by medical science, that genetically born to be fat people can no more permanently control their weight than a person can control their height, color or sexual orientation, I think that we should be able to demand reparations for all the indignities that we have suffered. Not only in the way of humiliation and lack of respect, but for not being afforded basic accommodations on our own planet. We have suffered financially by not being hired for jobs that we are qualified for, based on our size alone. We have been denied admission to certain colleges, because we didn’t fit the “image” they wanted to uphold. We have been denied medical insurance, which has caused the sickness and death of untold thousands, and we have been denied life insurance to provide for our families. We have not been accorded access to public places because the booths/ seats/ desks/rides, don’t fit our bodies. We have been made social outcasts by the totally untrue stereotype that has been perpetuated about us as being lazy gluttons. The medical equipment, should we be lucky enough to get medical treatment, wasn’t made for us either. Doctors, with few exceptions, are rude and bigoted toward us and blame us when their “treatments” don’t work. The day is coming when it will be brought to light that it’s not us, it’s them. They are going to owe us big time for ignoring us when we tried to tell them, and chiding us like we were bad kids who are making excuses for ourselves. As I write this it becomes increasingly clear to me that even when the truth is uncovered about us being irreversibly programmed by nature to stay fat, the information will never be made public. Maybe they (the researchers) already know! It would put a lot of people out of business if the truth were revealed. Right now we are “cash cows” for the medical field and the diet industry. I am continually amazed by fat people who continue to diet and regain the lost weight over and over year after year and still blame themselves. I did it myself! Then one day a light bulb went on in my head. I knew I was doing everything right and it wasn’t working. I would have given anything to be “average” weight…I have all the will power and tenacity in the world. I am a strong and capable person. I’ve lost hundreds of pounds and maintained the losses for up to eight years at a time. But, it always, always, comes back, regardless. It dawned on me that just because some authority figure in a white coat told me it was MY fault, it really, truly, wasn’t! I wish I had figured this out before and saved myself years of deprivation and torture. I am so sorry for all that I have put my body through, and for making my kids and grand kids mistreat their bodies by dieting as well. I’m done, finished, completely over with being told it’s my fault, being told I’m weak willed, or a liar, being deprived of privileges that thin/average people take for granted. It’s NOT my fault and I demand restitution for all the bad stuff I’ve been put through because of the ineptitude of the medicos. I want my restaurant booth, my theater seat, my school desk, my airplane seat. I want my jobs, my insurance, my dignity and the respect of my fellow Earthlings. I don’t want to be the goofy sidekick in all the movies…I want to be the heroine. I want cute clothes at a reasonable price. I want to go to the beach without fear, eat in a restaurant without rude remarks and walk down the street without ridicule. I want what’s rightfully mine that’s been stolen from me…Every genetically fat person should receive a long overdue apology and a big FAT check!

You Either Get It, or You Don't

By Valerie X Armstrong

 I thought my book, "The Survival of the Fattest/ A Fairy Tale for Fat Kids", was pretty simple. But it has been misinterpreted so much. It's really amazing to me that this book can be seen so differently by different readers.   It's like Aesop's "Bat" fable.   To some it's a bird and to others a mammal.  It has the tendency to polarize people, as can be seen by the reviews.  They are either five stars or one star, nothing in between, at least, so far.   They either love it or hate it.  It's not unlike the story of the elephant and the blind men where each one felt  a different part of the elephant and each one determined it to be something else altogether. The same with my book.  Certain readers took it piecemeal and read into it their own past experiences and biases and formed opinions that had nothing to do with the story as I had intended it.

I was told by someone holding a high position in a well known fat advocacy organization that my book wasn't "fat positive" enough.  I don't know how much more "fat positive" it could be than having the only humans left alive on the planet be the fat ones.  The argument was that the heroine had lost weight before she found love.  Hello??? There had been world wide famine.  Her fat saved her life.  That's why she lost some weight, from surviving off her body fat. She was by no means thin at the end of the story as the picture on the last page clearly illustrates.

And another thing, Maya, the heroine of the story was happy, working, dating, and enjoying life while she was still fat.  Once she got out of school, things changed for her.  She just happened to find the man of her dreams, also a fat person, after the nuclear holocaust.

Then, there are the complaints from the opposite camp saying that it's bad for me to advocate being fat.  I NEVER advocated the idea that one should become fat or stay fat on purpose to survive a famine,  but, in my story, if you happened to be fat, then good for you.   I'm not encouraging kids to overeat.  Some people are just born to be fat and some people are not.  In some scenarios thin works better than fat, but, in my story, it did not.  The fat haters, some of whom are actually fat themselves, believe that people of size aren't supposed to thrive, survive or be happy.  They are supposed to be punished for letting themselves "get that way". They think fat folks aren't supposed to be portrayed as heroes or heroines, but as buffoons.  They think they should hang their heads in shame, and it really irks them whenever it doesn't turn out that way...

Then there are those that think the story is too gruesome for kids.  No one batted an eyelash when God wiped out all of humanity, good and bad alike, plus every other living thing, except for one family, and a handful of animals, in the beloved tale of Noah's Ark...It's even represented on nursery furnishings and baby clothes.

No one cried "foul" when an innocent grandma was eaten by a big bad wolf in Red Riding Hood's story.  Nobody became irate and screamed "elder abuse" when an old lady, minding her own business, in her own home was baked alive in her own oven, by two home invading hoodlums in the story of Hansel and Gretel...That was deemed okay for kids to read.  Then there's Snow White, whose very own step-mother wanted her killed and her innards brought back to her as proof that she was actually dead...and Jack and the Bean Stalk...a selfish kid invades a big guys home, steals his prized possessions and when the giant tries to catch him,  the brat kills him....And lest we forget,  the infamous tale of Blue Beard where a whole room filled with bloody corpses of his ex-wives was discovered  by his next victim....and these are just a few.  Come on now, if these stories pass muster for kid's reading, how can my story not?   How is reading about a couple of young fat  people surviving a fictional nuclear incident in my book,  going to damage kids psyches if the old classic  time honored, fairy tales don't?  Give kids some credit.  It's just a story, folks...fiction...nothing more...nothing less.  Kids know it's not real.

  I'm grateful for those that actually "get" the book and understand what the story is about and don't try to make it into anything other than what it is. I want to thank them all right now.

My book, if anything, advocates world peace, by illustrating that if people, even kids in school yards, can't get along with each other, then bad things, like a world war can happen, and the ones that start it don't always come out on top.  Kids need to learn, early on, to be nice to each other, even if someone looks different than they do, or is different in some other way. The moral here, if there is one, would be a basic karmic one:  Always be nice to our fellow man, and we will never have to worry about my fairy tale coming true.

The Five Stages of Accepting Myself as a Fat Person

By Valerie X Armstrong

Everything I’ve gone through with my lifelong struggle with my weight reminds me of “The Five Stages of Grief “ by  author Elisabeth Kubler- Ross  in her book, "On Death and Dying"...Here is my version as it pertains to finally coming to terms with being fat:

1. DENIAL-  I will NOT be fat!…I refuse to accept this…I’m going to beat this… I’m going to fight it with everything I’ve got.  It won’t get the best of me.  I’ll get every book on the subject, I’ll seek out the experts, I’ll devote my every waking moment to getting my body the way it “should” be. I’ll starve myself, I’ll exercise until I drop.  I’ve got the will power and the tenacity and I’ll be so thin and gorgeous, I’ll put Barbie to shame.

2.ANGER-  What is wrong with me…I’ve done everything possible to stay thin and the weight keeps coming back…I’m like an air plant!

I can eat practically nothing and I still can’t lose an ounce or even maintain…I was doing so well and now it’s all coming back…None of my cute new clothes fit me.  Why, why, why?  The doctor doesn’t believe me and neither does anyone else…They say I’m cheating on my diet and lying about it.  Even these diet pills don’t work.  I hate myself!

3.BARGAINING- I’ll do anything, God…Please just let me be thin…I’ll never eat again…I’ll run 5 miles a day…I’ll give every cent I own to charity…I’ll go to church twice every Sunday and devote my life to helping others, just please, please, please, let me be thin.

4.DEPRESSION- My life is over…I weigh more than I ever did.  Nothing fits me…People make fun of me…I hate going out of the house…What’s the use of even living if it’s going to be in a hideous fat body like mine?  If I wasn’t scared of dying, I’d kill myself.  Nothing I do helps.  I’ve been dieting all my life and I’m still fat. I am just worthless.

5. ACCEPTANCE-Okay, here’s the deal…I’m fat, and apparently I’m going to stay that way. I’ve done all I possibly could to change myself, but I guess I am genetically programmed to be this way.  If I am going to have any kind of life, I’d better make peace with that fact.  I’m going to embrace my body and look for the good aspects of the situation.  I’m healthy and I’m smart, I am relatively good looking, and a nice person.  Why is being fat such a big deal after all?  I’ll seek out like-minded people and start enjoying myself.  I’ll get new clothes that fit me and I’ll go out and about and not be ashamed of myself because of my size.  I’ve got a lot going for me that lots of thin people don’t have.  I refuse to spend one more minute of my life hating myself…Look out world, here I come.

Being Fat and Hungry

By Valerie X Armstrong

To a casual observer, I most likely fit the stereotype of a person that  gives full rein to their appetite and totally lacks restraint in that regard.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

As much as I would like to indulge myself, I cannot ,or you would, no doubt, find me on a flat bed trailer on my way to the Jerry Springer show.

My body is the thriftiest when it comes to counting every calorie.  It keeps saving up for the day when famine might strike, and it wants me to be ready.

Some of the people that write about eating anything you want and your body weight leveling itself out, don’t know my body. 

 If I didn’t monitor my food intake and keep my body moving , there is no telling how fat I would become. 

 My body lacks the satiety sensor…I do not know what it feels like to have enough to eat or be full…I have no “off switch” where my hunger is concerned.  It amazes me when people can leave a half  plate of food  and say they’ve had enough…That is a totally foreign concept for me.

I don’t eat junk food. I eat moderate portions. I eat as close to naturally as possible. I eat low carb and low glycemic foods, to keep my blood sugar low and level…I eat plenty of veggies, fruits, nuts and lean meats.  I exercise daily.  I am not a compulsive eater or binge eater…

My hunger is true physical hunger, not emotional.  I just lack the apparatus  that most people have that tells them they’ve had enough…The regulator thingy. 

 I’ve told this to many doctors and they just stare blankly at me. I  HAVE  to count calories, and make a concerted effort to space my meals, or I would want to eat all day. 

 I’m not a mental case and I don’t have Prader-Willi syndrome, that causes insatiable appetites in some of it’s victims, to where they will go to great lengths to satisfy their cravings.  My thyroid tests all come back within normal range…I have plenty of energy.

 I have a happy fulfilled life and am not trying to make up for anything that’s lacking in my life by eating excess food.  I’m not in any sort of denial .  I am a “normal” person  in every respect, except that I’m  missing  the hunger shut-off valve.

I’ve spent most of my life searching for answers to this dilemma…No one knows why I’m like this.  I never see this issue discussed anywhere. I can’t be the only one. 

 It’s bad enough being stigmatized for being fat, but it’s even worse to be hungry the whole time you are being picked on.

I can and do control my urges to eat, and it’s a struggle for me to maintain even the high weight that I do.  I would love to give myself free rein to eat all the things that are so delicious and tempting, but sadly , if I want to remain mobile, I’d better not.

I probably eat less and get more exercise  than most of the thin people who make hasty assumptions about what I eat and my level of activity…Explaining to them is useless, they don’t think I’m being truthful.

I’m glad I’m able to maintain this weight, for the most part, but actually, the older I get, even a little more slowly creeps on.  I thought I’d have some magic thing happen to me when I got this old and I’d turn into the mythical “little old lady”…Not so far anyway, I’m still a “big old lady”.  I’m happy that I’m healthy and strong ,despite my size…I’d hate to lose weight from illness like many people do.

 I’m meant to be a big gal.. I’m genetically programmed to be mountainous, however, and I have to watch each bite just to be able to remain at a functional weight…I don’t want to spend my life in bed being waited on by others if I can help it.

 

But, please, make no assumptions that I am scarfing boxes of bon bons while sitting on my tuffet all day…Nope…not me….I’ve gone to bed hungry every night of my life.

A Call To Arms

By Valerie X Armstrong

Since starting my Facebook page, "The Survival of the Fattest/ A Fairytale for Fat Kids", I have been reading more articles on obesity so as to stay informed and also be able to pass on some items of interest to the page members.

 I always read the "comments" section of the articles, as well, to see what other's opinions are. One thing that has become overwhelmingly obvious to me is the abject hatred of fat people that most of these commenters have.
 If there were a KKK for fat bigots they would fit right in. It matters not to them why a person is fat. They all believe the stereotype and they are disgusted by it. They have no compassion for fat people whatsoever.

 I often wondered how Hitler could recruit such heartless henchmen, but now I see. If they had their way, we would all be eliminated and they would gladly volunteer to do the eliminating. I don't know why they think like that, but they do.

 I knew from my own personal experience of living in a fat body that there was prejudice, but I didn't realize it was so widespread and heinous. The hatred spans all walks of life, from people who write intelligently and claim to be MD's or PHD's to people who can barely get their nasty message typed out because of their stupidity. They all have one common ground, their hatred of fat people. 

This my friends is a call to arms...War has been declared against us. Take every opportunity available to you to respond to these comments. Fight this oppression every chance you get, in every way you can, within reason. No one is going to give us our human rights unless we stand up and demand them. It can be done but we must ALL work together, not only for our own sake but for future generations

Trolls Be Damned

By Valerie X Armstrong

“Anyone can speak Troll. All you have to do is point and grunt.”
― J.K. Rowling

 I have been fat since I can remember…Childhood pictures of me show me as a fat  baby, a fat toddler, a fat child, and a fat teen.  My brother was average size and my sister was thin.  I have no known medical cause for my fatness. I’ve always been physically active and not a big eater..My family didn’t have much money and food was sometimes scarce so we didn’t eat a lot.  My mom was a little heavy and dad was normal size.  I have seen pictures of other ancestors that were quite heavy. I have been on diets since I was ten or eleven years old.  I have lost and gained hundreds and hundreds of pounds.  My first substantial weight loss was fifty pounds.  It took me six months to reach goal. I was about fourteen or fifteen years old  and was put on an eight hundred calorie a day diet.  I stuck to it with out ever slipping off.  After I reached my goal weight, I went back to eating normally and all the weight came back in a couple of months.  I gave it another go in a year or so and lost another sixty pounds on a canned diet gimmick of the day called Metrecal…People were supposed to have four cans a day which totalled one thousand calories, but my doctor only allowed me three cans..totalling  seven hundred and fifty calories. They were chocolate shake type drinks with a medicinal after taste.  I had nothing else but water.  In six months I had reached goal again…And again as soon as I started eating the weight rushed back on.  The subsequent years were a combination of  using diet pills, joining weight loss clubs, hypnosis, abusing laxatives, exercising excessively, getting shots of pregnant mare’s urine, and buying every conceivable diet book and attempting them all to no lasting avail.

The first real success I ever had at losing weight and actually keeping it off was when I was around thirty. I lost one hundred and sixty five pounds in a year and a half by eating one thousand calories a day.  As I neared my goal, I had to cut to way below one thousand calories and exercise much more to arrive at the upper end of where the weight chart said I should be.  I looked skeletal, but the scale said I was still too heavy for my five foot seven inch medium frame.

I started teaching aerobics to pay for my gym membership and exercised several hours a day. I got a job demonstrating exercise machines and became their spokesperson.   I was back on laxatives and only eating about eight hundred calories a day or less..trying so hard to maintain my goal weight.  I did maintain that loss for nearly eight years…Then the weight just started coming back on it’s own, without my increasing my caloric intake or lessening my activity.  I went to my doctor and got checked for thyroid or other medical issues and I was deemed okay but  I was chastised for my weight gain.  Everyone was noticing my increasing size and was assuming that I was binging.  I quit going to out as much because I was doing everything according to my doctor’s food plan  but my body wasn’t cooperating.  I was mortified, as I had been on TV and radio and and there was a huge full page article about me in our local paper quoting me as saying, “I’ll never be fat again”.

I  have never given up trying to be a “healthy” weight.  I have been dieting over and over for years since then with substantial weight losses, but it invariably returns.  I eat healthy, lean meats and seafood in small portions, fresh fruits and veggies, rarely do I exceed fifteen hundred calories a day, yet my weight is ever on the increase unless I cut back to practically nothing. I don’t eat pre-packaged foods or “fast foods”…I get plenty of fiber and take vitamins…and get lots of exercise…I should by all current theories about why one is fat, be a stick figure.

My doctor recommends the Gastric Bypass, as he says it might alter my physiology so perhaps I won’t gain weight so easily,  but I have never had good luck with general anesthetics so I am concerned and have put off having it.  Another thing is, I feel fine, for my age…I look younger than my years, I’m active, my numbers (blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol) are where they should be.  I wouldn’t even know I had a “problem” if it weren’t for others telling me that I was too fat.  I’ve been told I was going to die young for so many years if I didn’t lose weight. I’m now too old to die young … so much for that crapola.

I was promped to write this because of all the pompous know- it -alls who write the nasty comments on the articles that promote size acceptance or any articles about fat and obesity .  Those guys don’t know squat, for all their pontificating…They are just parroting what some credentialed idiot has said.  Unless they have lived in a genetically fat body, they have no room to say a blasted word or offer their ignorant opinions…They are completely brainwashed by the media and are too stupid to realize it.  Losing weight is one thing…but keeping it off is another thing, altogether, when your body insists on staying at it’s natural high set point.  “They” say you can change your set point, but that is also a crock.

I’ve dealt with people like this all my life and my kids and grand kids are going through it now…I’m dedicating my life to try to enlighten people about genetic fatness.  I realize there are many causes of obesity and no one should ever be treated badly because of their size, but some people actually CAN lose weight and keep it off if they can find a method that works for them.  My concern is for those who have tried EVERYTHING and are still fat.  If willpower worked, or if eating correctly helped or activity or whatever, worked then I would be thin. I promise you that.  I have the worlds greatest willpower and tenacity.  I have lived this saga and I am here to tell you that all fat people are NOT the same.  Some of us are intended by nature to be fat…Period!  So shut up trolls or your karma might make your kids  or grand kids genetic fatties…Let’s see how you’d like that.