Reckoning.
I weighed this morning.
152.
Yowza.
Granted, my period is due later this week and what with my chronically broken digestive system, I’m sure I’m retaining all kinds of…well, you get the picture. So I know it’s not all permanent parts of me, not all bone and fat and muscle and gooey bits. But that number?
Again I say: Yowza.
Why did I weigh, you may be wondering. The answer is simple: Because I wanted confirmation that I was truly as fat as I suspected I was. I wanted a number. I wanted a reason to toss all this damn body acceptance shit out the proverbial window and I wanted an excuse to get back on some kind of Program. I wanted something to shock me so badly I could say, “Man, this past year was a horrible, horrible mistake.”
It kind of worked. It kind of didn’t.
I really want to lose weight. Really, really badly. Not a lot of weight. Just a little. Just…well…17 pounds. That’s not a little, is it?
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. I hate this. I hate feeling like I have to choose either hunger and exhaustion, or sadness and a pervasive sense of being icked out by my own chub. Where’s my middle ground, damn it? It’s like I’m not allowing myself any other choices: I’m either a disordered eater and compulsive overexerciser, or I’m a girl who feels regret over what she’s given up, who misses both her functioning colon and the tiny shred of social acceptance her smaller ass gave her, but who is too terrifed to pay attention to what goes into her mouth lest she spiral out of control again.
I miss seeing my abs. I miss feeling fast and light. I miss sitting in a chair and pulling my feet up and tucking my knees beneath my shirt, so lithe and bendy I felt. I miss feeling like I could trust myself with a freakin’ food journal when having digestive issues and trying to track down a cause. Now I feel lumbering. I feel Too Big for the kind of life I like leading. My abdomen hurts. I feel heavy and bloated and full of rage.
I don’t know what to do anymore. It all feels like I have to pick one path or the other. Do I fight the good fight on behalf of all the fat girls and eschew anything resembling restriction or dieting, or do I try to make this fat girl feel her best, even if that means a food journal and workout logs?
I want to be where I spent those five years between 11/01 and 1/07, where I worked out hard and ate mindfully, but didn’t beat myself up over pizza and beer on occasion. I felt good there, strong and healthy and fit, but not disordered or deprived or sluggish or bloated.
I guess to be there, I just do what I did when I was there.
I just wish it didn’t feel like a betrayal.
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“Do I fight the good fight on behalf of all the fat girls…”
I think you’ve answered your own question in your entry but if you’re still in denial about what you really want, the only fat girl you need to fight for is you.
Good luck.
If it’s what makes you feel good, and it’s not restricting or obsessive, then it just may be HAES for you. That doesn’t mean it’s right for anyone else, or that you’re advocating anyone else do it. It means it’s “right for you and your health”. It’s not a betrayal, it’s you taking care of you, as best you know how.
I hate food journaling, but when DH got put on insulin for his type 2 diabetes, I had to food journal for a while so we could see how what he ate affected his blood sugar and how to adjust his insulin dosages according to what he ate and how much he exercised (less insulin on days he works, more on days he doesn’t, less when he’s eating low-carb, more when he eats more carbs). Now that we have it figured out (after 6 months of journaling), I don’t track what he eats anymore (and by tracking what he ate, I was tracking what I ate also, since we pretty much eat the same food, I just eat smaller portions than he does). Journaling like that put me back in the dieting mindset, and it was a bitch for me to battle that mindset and convince myself that it wasn’t about me, it was about what was best for him (even though I lost 17 lbs when we first started doing the low-carb eating). I haven’t lost any more weight, and I’m fine with that, but it was a battle to not want to lose more there for a while.
oh wow do I hear you loud and clear. I’d guess I weight what you weigh, and I’ll tell you I’d like to lose what you’d like to lose to feel like I could put my legs under me in jeans and not feel the strain against me, to run fast and light as well (you know, running always seems to create fat/heavy/slow feelings for me now), to feel like things were so easy again.
But, like you, I can’t. And the fighter in me doesn’t want to, can’t go back to that b.s. I’m out of the country right now and I remember the last time I was in this place, and I weighed less, but I had to work so damn hard. Every time we ate I was worried. We spent so much freaking time making sure I could exercise like I was used to.
It sucked.
But I almost weighed at the gym last week for the same reason you did, and I didn’t–I don’t know if I could deal with it.
What’s my point? I think it’s good to let this longing come up. I think that’s where it’s at. I think that’s the next layer of work–why it’s so important for us. Why it seems like the mere thought of even caring about food intake feels like restriction which feeling like disorder…etc etc.
My other point? You rock. Thank you for sharing your journey. You’re waging the good war.
xo
ae
“I try to make this fat girl feel her best”
This is the distillation of it. Right there. Self inquiry is very important in the journey and it’s also the hardest part. To really look at ourselves and take inventory and really own it. You deserve to feel your best, whatever that may be.
One of my most motivating quotes is from Byron Katie – “You move totally away from reality
when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
For what it’s worth (and maybe not much), I’m not entirely sure that FA speaks much to the disordered *mind*. There’s this sort of… expectation that there will be some great relief if one can just get past dieting and that the only problem will be body image and so forth. But, at the end of the day, I have to live with myself. And my self is nuts. It demands. It demands regimentation and it wants rules. It wants to know what we eat and what we don’t eat and it feels no relief in letting go. It feels panic that never gets any better.
So. I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m not sure FA has a whole lot to say about dealing with repressed or controlled eating disorders – either the behavior or the mindset. Except HAES. And I kind of think HAES is… Look. The umbrella of HAES is pretty much all-encompassing. It says: “Whatever you’re doing, do that if it feels good and it’s GOOD! Just don’t diet.” So people may say that keeping a food log or whatever is HAES for you, if it means you’re not actively being an anorexic. And that would mean you’re still a part of FA, you know?
But god. If you’re miserable, what’s the point? It’s your LIFE. You’re not Ghandi; you’re already enough, just as you are. Screw anyone who says you have to live a principle for them. Fat, thin, whatever: be happy. Just remember that you weren’t happy thinner. That’s what worries me, I guess. Maybe work on the head with someone?
And eat some golden pineapple or baby carrots in ranch dressing or roasted sweet potatoes or something. Even if you don’t want them. You’ll feel better.
I don’t mean to be mean, but this is showing up on the fatosphere feed. Is there any way you could put a trigger warning at the top? Reading this kind of stuff can be incredibly triggering/painful for people struggling with/who have struggled with ED, and who are trying to move past the weight loss mindset.
If I could tell you how much I understand, you wouldn’t even believe me. Your story is my story, almost to the letter. It’s frightening, actually, the similarities. I have been following along, with every post you write, silently wishing you well, and wanting whatever is best/healthiest for you. My weight is the same as yours right now, and I want to get back to where you want to be too. I don’t know what else to say other than yes, I know, I understand, I hear you. Good luck. To both of us. With whatever path we choose.
I feel compelled to comment after reading that post and reading the comments. As someone who has suffered a similar fate, with disordered eating and compulsive over exercising I know how hard it is to walk the line you are walking. Thank you for expressing those feelings in a way I was unable to…I feel it was the exact opposite of what anon said, not painful or triggering but helpful and comforting to know I’m not alone in the fight.
Did you stop dieting on behalf of your own well-being or “all the fat girls”?
I miss seeing my abs. I miss feeling fast and light. I miss sitting in a chair and pulling my feet up and tucking my knees beneath my shirt, so lithe and bendy I felt.
I’ve never gotten to experience these things – a fat girl from day one – and I feel cheated somehow. ED recovery is getting me to a place of health, and I’m scared to death that might mean I’ll be this size forever – that I’ll never get to experience lithe and bendy; just awkward and lumbering forever.
I think the truth is that when you fight this fight for yourself, you’re fighting it on behalf of all the girls out there who struggle.
I too, understand how you feel and I understand the craziness you are going through.
I recently started a food journal again. Am I going crazy with it yet? No. Is it helping me with my crazy digestive problems? I hope it will.
I think you need to do what makes you feel good and healthy. There’s no reason why you can’t journal. You also said you’ve been eating past fullness, not eating well, etc. Well, part of taking care of yourself and being healthy is doing what’s best for your body. So, eating less at a meal, or eating more fiber-filled foods can be healthy for you without being “dieting,” can’t it?
It’s immobilizing, this place you’re at right now. I know. I’m still there. Dieting kills our spirit. But…
There has to be a way to balance the needs of the body with the needs of the spirit. I wish I knew what it was.
Just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone on this path.
Geez, that sucks that this is showing up on the fatosphere feed. When you said you weigh 152 and then said “Yowza” twice, I felt like I’d been punched. Talking about how fat you are at 152, gosh. I’m 220. I must be a whale, huh? WHY IS THIS ON THE FATOSHPERE FEED?
If my inner dieter is an unbending killjoy who pretends to love me while secretly wishing me dead, then I’ve decided that the voice of my ‘intuitive eater’ is a seven year old with no regard for the future or consequences.
Which is to say that I think both paradigms have issues. Eating a rich dessert shouldn’t make someone feel like a failure or send them into a tailspin of self-loathing, but dammit if I know that eating it will make me feel sluggish then I also shouldn’t feel guilty for passing it up.
Basically, it’s complex and I tend to be a firm believer in moderation – including moderation and balance of all the different ways to approach eating.
I feel like I should clarify my above question.
It strikes me as martyrdom if you are doing what makes you personally miserable for some projection of other people’s needs. If you are better off not dieting, then don’t diet. If you feel like you have to never use your head regarding food, then don’t. But don’t do it for others, or you’ll end up resentful and bitter, smearing them in revenge for your own unhappiness, when it was your choice all along.
You should be very proud of yourself for fighting so hard on behalf of yourself. I’m wondering–what did your food journals looked like in the past? What if you food-journalled more how you felt before and after every meal/snack (hunger/fullness, emotions) instead of focusing only on calories, fiber, fat? I really don’t know what will help you. Have you thought about talking with someone who has experience in helping people through this? ((((HUGS))))
I agree with Lala. I’m 170 pounds and it’s a fair bet I’m shorter than you (being, as I am, shorter then almost anyone.) I’m glad that you’ve figured out what you want to do with your body– that’s part of FA, but insulting your weight in a post that ends up on the Fatosphere feed? Especially when your weight is not particularly high? It’s discomfiting to those of us who read the feed to get away from that sort of thing.
I appreciate all the comments, and take the advice and support gratefully.
To those of you who found this post upsetting or triggering: I’m very sorry for that. I understand that feeling, and know that it sucks. But this is really important: I’m totally not sure how I even ended up on the Fatosphere feed. I didn’t request to be added and while I adore the Fatosphere and am proud to be in that company, I’ve often been uncertain if I really belonged given the content of a lot of my posts and maybe this post is proof I don’t.
If you have a clue how to get me off there, please go ahead.
But you know? At the end of the day? I write this blog to hold myself accountable to *myself*; I can’t really worry too much about where someone chooses to take offense, because then I stop being honest and the whole thing goes off the rails.
Edited to say: I looked around a bit and found the email address, so I’ll send a request to be removed from the Fatosphere since I’m triggering.
This fight is hard. Sometimes it feels imfuckingpossible.
As I read this post, I thought about how much I could relate, even though the last time I weighed 152lbs was over ten years ago, because in my mind I have limits for myself about what is acceptable for me…the “funny” thing about those limits though is that I am always just outside of them. It sounds like this is what is happening to you right now.
You’re a smart woman. You have written so many times about how miserable your dieting life was, so I know that you know that those 17lbs won’t really make you feel better…not in the long run anyway. I think that happiness is going to come in finding that middle ground: finding a way to eat foods that make you feel good and exercise in a way that makes you happy without feeling like any concessions you make to health are victories for the disorder, getting to a point where you don’t go hunting for that ‘yowza’ moment, that’s where peace is going to be. And perhaps it’s going to take a little help from someone else to get there, and if so, I say go for it. You have worked hard and long, and there’s no shame in getting directions to the next stop on the road.
As for the mini-debate about whether or not this belongs in the fatosphere feed…I think it does, though maybe it should have a trigger warning. This post demonstrates that the ugly, not-good-enough, voice lives in us all; unfortunately confronting it is a part of just about every FA journey. However, people might want to save this reading for their stronger moments because for so many it will sound like the discouraging voice in their own head.
(((hugs)))
I hope things turn around soon.
Oops, seems like I was writing my comment as you were posting, goodwithcheese. Consider my two cents about the appropriateness of the post being in the fatosphere withdrawn.
I know you will make the choice that seems best to you, for what you feel your mental health will react best to. I respect your right to do that.
But I do kind of wonder if you’ve given the (slightly) larger version of yourself the chance to do what It’s best at? And some of those things may even be the same, if you manage to respect it enough to give it what it needs.
Light and Fast? Maybe not. Perhaps the new version does Powerful better. And that may not be a bad thing.
Being bendy? Sitting curled up in a chair with your legs pulled up inside your t-shirt? Why on earth not? I certainly do, and I’m wandering between 185-200 depending on the phase of the moon, and the phase of my body.
Like I said, your choice is definitely your choice, I just felt the need to say something about the perception you seem to have that only smaller can you be … what you want to be.
Dear Cheese Woman,
You don’t owe us fat girls anything…you do what is right for you.
For me intuitive eating means eating what makes me feel good that I also enjoy eating. That means I don’t eat lots of fried foods even though I like they way they taste, because they make me sick. It also means I don’t eat oatmeal even though it is good for me because I think the taste and texture is yucky. Judy Halliday, who wrote one of the first books on intuitive eating in the 1980s, calls foods that we enjoy eating that also make us feel good “whole body pleasers”. For me to get to that place where I choose foods that my body calls for and that make me feel good(and I am not always there) sometimes it takes a period of time of eating things I think I want because they are “bad” or forbidden to let myself feel “hey, I feel really crappy when I eat too much sugar”. I believe there is room in intuitive eating to select foods that make us feel good without becoming trapped in a dieting mindset.
I love your blog. I admire your honesty and hope that you continue to just be real and be yourself.
I realize that you have a history of compulsive over-exercising so I’m saying this with great trepidation…
Is there a movement class that you could go to that wouldn’t be triggering of that? Hawaiian Dance or the like? Something that is about integrating your body and your emotions and your intellect rather than being about just exercise?
And do what you need to do for YOU. Keep yourself healthy and sane for you and that empowers all of us.
Along with several others here, I wish you the best and (for what it’s worth) I’m sending you positive energy right now. I understand why some might find this post triggering. However, I have to say that even though the number on your scale is a whole lot lower than the number I saw the last time I weighed, this post and the previous one are helping me to deepen my understanding of some of my own resistance to the weight gain that has accompanied my intuitive eating journey.
I agree with Jae that it’s important, helpful, and potentially healing for (some) others to read that it isn’t all pie and roses. Thank you so much. I hope you’re feeling better soon.
I’ve been at this intuitive eating thing for a couple of years now sometimes with succes and sometimes without and what keeps me going is the knowledge that I don’t want to go back to the obsessive, always thinking about food but never enjoying it, over-exerciser I was in order to be thin. As some others have said I don’t think it’s wrong to avoid food that doesn’t make your body feel good in the name of IE. There’s a good ebook available free from firstourselves.com that’d I’ve been reading recently.
Just found you a couple of days ago and totally hear where you are coming from.
Maddie
GWC, just wanted to send you some, well, love. This food stuff is so goddam complicated. Crack down and diet, and you’re miserable. But…see that number on the scale…and it’s hard hard hard not to feel like shit.
I spent three weeks in a wee farming village in Italy last year with my husband’s family, and the people there just ate. They loved food without making it into a false god, they ate beautifully and cooked with care and appreciation, and most of all…it was just dinner. With no bullshit attached. That’s what I want. But it’s not that easy when it seems like the rest of the world has no idea that that’s even an option.
Anyway, I’m rambling and I don’t really have a point, but I guess I wanted to tell you I think you’re really great and honest, and I thank you for describing an experience a lot of us share. Take time, be kind to yourself and you do what is right for you, no one else.
Thank You so much for this post, it seems you are asking many of the same questions as I have for a while now.
I love the fatosphere, and I check in every day for my dose of sanity in a world that is just cerazy when it comes to food. I love the community feeling of FA and HAES, and the support I feel it gives me.
However. I wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds. *Collective Gasp*.
I am happy with my body as it is, I am happy in my life, have a wonderful boyfriend, amazing friends and family, and am doing well in my career. I am aware that none of these aspects can be made better or worse by the number on the scale, and I understand that lsing a few won’t make me a ‘better’ person (and that’s fone coz I’m pretty cool as I am thanks).
But sometimes I feel that by admitting to this trechory, I am not ‘entitled’ in the Fatosphere and will be chased out by villagers carring pitchforks. Or something.
Do what makes you feel good. This blog is to hold yourself accountable, so if you want to lose 3 pounds, how abaout making a new pact to us all that you are going to try it, taking your own sweet time (the more gradual the loss, the less likely you are to become disordered)?
Then we can keep an eye on you, check you’re not succumbing to the crazyness!
GWC, if you really emailed Fu to request being taken off the feed, I’m going to email to request that you be put back on. (Unless you seriously object to that, which is why I’m posing here before doing anything.)
on a completely unrelated note, what is the ‘fatosphere feed?’
Er, posting, not posing.
I also meant to say: Please read your own archives before making any decisions. You’ve helped a lot of women, fat and otherwise, understand what havoc dieting is wreaking on their lives, and see that there’s a better option. You owe yourself as much assistance as you’ve given them — read what you wrote about being free of dieting before you let yourself get back on that track.
(That said, food journalling to track digestive issues is pretty legit… but it sounds like you will have a hard time doing it without relapsing. A suggestion: When you find yourself having gut troubles, can you then write down everything you’ve eaten recently, rather than writing down everything you eat just in case you have gut troubles?)
I hope nobody minds if I use this opportunity to make a little speech about the fatosphere.
1. As I responded to Cheese, I didn’t take her off the fatosphere feed. I put a filter on her feed so she can now control what content goes on the feed and what doesn’t. This is mainly for her own protection and autonomy, so she can post what she wants without worrying about drawing trolling and hostility from the feed every time she posts. If she has a post she wants to send to the fatosphere, she can, and I for one am delighted to read her thoughts.
2. As far as I’m concerned making a decision about your own body is nobody else’s business but your own. On the other hand, I don’t want a fatosphere feed filled with “OMG I just ate a twinkie I’m so bad posts!” It’s for thoughtful discussion about fat, not a public performance of weight loss ritual.
This is the exclusive reason I don’t put diet blogs on the feed – because they aren’t advancing understanding or discussion in any meaningful way. They are like advertisements or propaganda machines, continually reinforcing reflexive/automatic/conscious and unconscious prejudices and normative assumptions about fat and the body. It’s not that they’re “triggering” – it’s that they make it hard to think clearly.
3. But the feed is *NOT* solely fat acceptance. There are fat positive but non-f.a. blogs, and blogs aimed at eating disorders that have thoughtful discussion about body image. There are people on it who are thinking about fat vis a vis the medical and public health establishments who may or may not believe in fat acceptance, I have no idea. If a dieter came along with an interesting fat rights blog that was not a diet blog – guess what? I would put them on. Hasn’t happened yet.
4. By the same token, I do not believe that fat acceptance is the only way to ally with fat people, to think meaningfully about body image, or be an activist against discrimination and the dehumanization of fat people in this society. Fat acceptance is ONE WAY – it’s the way that I prefer for myself.
But I do not believe in fat acceptance as a moral imperative for others. Because, to be perfectly blunt, just as there’s no reason to think that dieting should be a universal prescription for every body, there’s also no reason to think that *not* dieting should be a universal prescription. Not only because people are infinitely varied. But just on the basis of how much is not understood and not known about fat and health.
5. There is an obvious need for other feeds. As I’ve commented elsewhere, no one feed can satisfy the diverse needs of all bloggers blogging about weight, any more than a single blogroll could.
There clearly needs to be a feed that’s exclusively aimed at people who are looking for a totally “fat acceptance safe” community – that is “non-triggering.” And bloggers who want to make sure that the widget on the side of their blog isn’t potentially triggering need to have something that they feel is safe. The fatosphere feed wasn’t intended for that, and I am probably not the best person to manage such a feed.
Likewise, I think there also should be a feed for people who haven’t made the decision (yet or ever) to identify with or accept their fat, who still want to discuss fat rights, discrimination and body image. Again, I’m not the best person to manage this.
6. The community is diverse, not monolithic. It’s like the queer community. There needs to be subcommunities that share more affinity with each other, and a larger sense of community where we can ally and identify with each other when our interests coincide. It doesn’t help any of us to divide ourselves into some false binary – where you either are totally f.a. or a total fat-hating dieter.
So, just to get back on topic. Cheese, when you say you feel like you’ve betrayed us – you only have if you allow that false dichotomy to be imposed upon you, and if you impose it on community. Although there are obviously people who will promulgate that position – they are one faction – they aren’t the whole community.
It is true if you’re going to be enacting a weight loss ritual on your blog – I dont’ want those posts on the fatosphere feed for the reasons I’ve stated above.
thank you for point 6 – it really cleared up a few issues i’ve had with the fatosphere recently
I relate to this A LOT. I don’t feel good in this current body but I don’t really know how to without going a bit nuts in the head with exercise and eating. I’m currently at a loss.
And thank you for these posts – I get so much out of your blog.
hey cheese.
to second fillyjonk, read back over what you’ve written here, I know I’ve read back through your posts when I’ve been struggling. Please don’t feel guilty about expressing your doubts, and take care of yourself (whatever that involves).
love h.x
Goodwithcheese, I’ve enjoyed your blog since I first found it a few months ago. For what it’s worth, I was a skinny skinny kid and adolescent, and I remember the first time my scale registered 152. It scared the hell out of me. I did diet and exercise my way back to skinny, and it was a “high” that lasted a few months, and I enjoyed it. It didn’t take care of things the way I thought it would, though, and there were these two little tiny pockets of fat on my hips? That I had ALMOST conquered (oh, they were small, but they were definitely on their way out when I went off the diet train) and I never did. I was THAT close to a perfect body. (Really, it was a work of art, except those two tiny things.) I wonder sometimes if anyone is ever completely satisfied.
Of course my metabolism changed 100% after I had my daughter, and I couldn’t keep weight off if I starved myself anymore, but for 20 years I’ve had this awesome daughter (and son) and husband and we’ve been through all kinds of life together (good and BAD) and except for the culture around me trying to make me crazy and take away my rights I probably wouldn’t think about my weight at all. The number 152 (funny, but it really was the same number) that scared me shitless when I was 17 makes me laugh now…it’s been pounded into insignificance by the tide of life events and by at least another hundred pounds lol. Though I can’t deny that I have those same weak moments that you do – when I think maybe I could or should (answer – no) – but I have the comfort of knowing that even losing 50 pounds wouldn’t hardly make a visible dent, so I don’t have to face the hard task you do of examining it much further. (Sometimes I do anyway, and the answer is still no on all counts – staring death in the face really changed me in some unfathomable way and I think that’s part of it, but I can’t always think about it because it’s so scary.)
And none of this was said towards any sort of goal – I read early on that you keep this blog for your own accountability to yourself, and I’m just trying to be just as honest as you have been, and if there’s anything in there that you can possibly use, please do.
hey cheese,
I hope today was easier.
h.x
I keep coming back to this posting and rereading it for many reasons, but primarily because this phrase jumped out at me: “who misses both her functioning colon”.
I was diagnosed with IBS some time ago. The only thing that has worked for it has been a style of eating that does greatly reduce a food group (which I started to address a different medical issue, not my weight).
If some friend, or political movement, or ANYTHING said that it was a choice between them or what I know works for me, they’d be gone so fast there would be skid marks.
After reading your site, I know I don’t have the same issues you do, so I don’t know where your balance point is or if there is one. But I just kept thinking about that phrase probably because it hit so close to home.
Sending hugs.
We’re all on a journey to loving and accepting ourselves, to figuring out what feels good and happy and HEALTHY. You’re at where you’re at, and so am I.
You know, you weigh less than I can ever remember weighing, and I’ve been aware of my weight since I was 8 or 9. I guess I just don’t get how 150 pounds is so damn heavy, since I feel fit and buoyant at 180 (and no, I’m not tall) and not bad at all at 210. I’m no distance runner, but that’s not something I’ve ever enjoyed doing, anyway. There are different ways to be active and different ways to feel fit (i.e. strength vs. ability to distance-run). Also, the fact that your muscles aren’t as visible as they used to be doesn’t mean they aren’t there – and if you use them, they’ll get stronger.
So, I guess I’m just posting to say, I can’t relate at all. I mean, how hard could it be to get yourself into good physical shape at 150 pounds, if you’re feeling a bit sluggish? It not as if you’d have trouble finding workout clothes in your size, or that people would yell insults at you if you’re active in public. It’s not as if you’d stand out at a gym or exercise studio.
I feel bad about posting this, because I’ve been told at various times that I shouldn’t consider myself fat (with a BMI of 32-35. ha.), and asked why on earth I’m involved in size acceptance. But, I’m not questioning your involvement in the fatosphere. It’s just hard for me to imagine that 150 pounds could in any way be heavy enough to equal unfit or fat-looking. But, everyone’s experience is different, I know.