I was emailing Tess about reclaiming the “Fat Girl” and the word “Fat” and I thought I’d do an entry about it. I realize that I’ve alluded to being fat in previous entries, but here’s the whole shebang. An obligatory entry from a female diarist about her relationship with food, if you will.
I’ve thought of myself as overweight my whole life. When I was five, I remember my step-father poking me in the stomach and telling me that I needed to diet. I proceeded to gain weight from that point on. When I was 12, I remember that my aunt was talking about having a picture of me when I was “skinny” and I remember being clueless and desparately wanting to see the picture. When could that have happened that I didn’t notice being skinny? I thought. Then I finally saw the picture. My sixth birthday party. And I remember that day very well because my step-father didn’t want me to eat the cake because he put me on a diet. And I remember taking my birthday cake at the birthday party and going out to the garage to eat it, where he couldn’t see me.
Skip forward several years. I tried a big diet plan, lost 30 pounds, got anorexic (yes, people who weigh more than 200 pounds CAN be anorexic… it means that you’re not eating enough because you think your body is unnacceptable). I remember decreasing my food intake further and further. One day I ate four pieces of wheat toast and an apple. The morning after that, I fainted in the shower and crashed naked and wet through a glass shower door. Ok, that was enough of THAT shit.
For awhile, I was trying to conquer my whole obsession with food. I read a couple of books on the subject and they all said “Try to eat like you did when you were a child”. Um. Ok. But I don’t think I really want my wicked former Step-Father at my house threatening to beat the shit out of me if I don’t eat everything on my plate, ok?
So I think what they were trying to say is “Eat like a child would, a child who is not being threatened by a short-dicked, overly agressive scary stupid man.”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
I tried this for a couple of years. The principle is that if you want to eat something, you eat it. If you’re not hungry, you don’t eat. Even if it’s dinner time, even if you’re at a wedding or Christmas at the in-laws or what have you. And you carry little baggies of food around with you, in case you should get hungry when you are at a place where you can’t eat. And I did this. And I gained 60 pounds.
So I stopped doing that and went on a diet and lost 20 pounds and then gained 40 pounds (for those English majors out there, that leaves me 80 pounds heavier than when I started). Because everyone knows that diets don’t work and have a 99.98% failure rate. Just look at Oprah. Girl’s got a private chef, a private trainer and the thighs just don’t want to give up their winter storage, even though it’s 95 degrees outside.
And then I realized something. I was a happy kid and everyone ELSE started telling me that how I looked was unacceptable. And I wasn’t unnacceptable. They were. They were unacceptable in how they treated me. Fuckers.
And so now I’ve unconsciously started eating like a child. For instance, the whole McDonald’s incident is a sign of that. I went to Taco Hell yesterday for lunch and then I ate seven Oreos for dinner with a glass of milk. Now, normally, I’d WANT to eat the Oreos but my mother’s voice in my head would say “That is NOT a proper meal for dinner. Eat something reasonable!” so I’d go and eat a regular thing, like a piece of lasagne or whatever. And then I wouldn’t be satisfied, so I’d make a peanut butter & banana sandwich and a glass of milk. And then I’d still want the Oreos, so then I’d have the Oreos as a snack and feel like shyte because I’d eaten way too much and that was pretty much just a binge, so then I might eat a few more Oreos to try to feel better.
But it’s just food. Once it’s out of your mouth and down your gullet, it’s done. It’s like the biggest waste of emotion there is. It’s a ripoff. So why give it that much power? Just eat the goddamn Oreos and be done with it.
So last night, as I was lying in bed, I recapped what I had eaten that day (still can’t break myself of that habit). Bowl of healthy cereal, two tacos and a mexican pizza, and Oreos and a glass of milk. And I wasn’t hungry at all. It didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t actually eaten a real dinner until I did the inventory. And I didn’t miss it, either.
I am so bloody sick with this cultural ideal of the skinny beautiful chick. There are beautiful fat chicks too. Enough people don’t realize this. For instance, Star Jones is beautiful. So is my hairdresser, Staci. Gorgeous.
So stop seeing fat girls and just see them as girls, ok? That’s your assignment for the week.
And the next time you look in the mirror and think “Oh God I am so fat!” add “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” which sounds really stupid, but it works. And maybe eventually you’ll stop automatically thinking that when you look in the mirror. Life is too short to go around hating how you look. It’s just how you look. Just like there’s thin people, there’s also fat people and people with green hair, blue eyes, birthmarks on their butts, and scary amounts of back hair.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
This is not to say that I’m all Fat!So? or Fat Activist. You certainly won’t be seeing my bod on the beach wearing a thong bikini. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, I’m not living with the “ashamed to be seen” mindset that so many girls have.
It’s just how you look. Eventually, we’re all going to have grey hair, wrinkly skin, hunched Quasimodo backs and hair coming out of our ears. And then all we’re going to really have is to look back at when we were young and wish we would have done a little less hiding and self-hate and more living and being young. It’s like that graduation speech which was falsely attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. You’re going to look back and not believe that you looked so good.
You know, I think this is the Birthweek talking.
Edited to add that I almost deleted this entry because I felt like it was whiny, but then Amandabean left a loverly poignant message in the guestbook and I changed my mind and I’m keeping it up. If you’d like to see a 19-year-old Weetabix’s perspective on the subject, you can check it out here.
By the way, if you list amandabean as one of your favorite diarists, she’s offered to show you her breasts. Just letting you know.
