Features
Jul 2, 2014 at 4:00 am
This Time of Year Is About Frivolity and Fun and Being Alive and I Hate It
candyboximages / istock
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
@1 successfully convinced me not to post it.
Not because I felt @1 succinctly made my point for me, but because I identified with the article.
Sorry I'm fat. I'll try not to think about it for another year.
Money
Money
Money & personality
Count your blessings, because a fat chick is always a fat chick.
Rude and obnoxious is rude and obnoxious no matter what size.
"I have been struggling with my weight for most of my life"
Sorry Auntie, i'm pretty sure with some money, he'd would touch your fat ass.
I've struggled with watching my weight. So what? How do you know I'm fat?
And once again, my answer to rich pigs and trolls is NO.
Yes! and when I wake up, a gorgeous doctor is looking down at me, adoring me....
Doesn't have to be a coma; a nice, wasting illness that I totally recover from works...
So just chill out and enjoy the nice weather, jeeze.
There is nothing lucky or mystical about it. Everybody can learn how to not give a fuck, after they give up vanity.
Walking in I followed a man in a bathrobe and a woman in a wrap. Excellent, I though, someone will be naked in the audience. The sponsor was a club for nudists and the rep was naturally naked. Some more naked people came out of the bathrooms after changing.
What I wasn't prepared for was going into the performance space where it was a sea of naked flesh. Ninety percent of the audience was naked. I had to scan, quickly, furtively, to find a couple empty seats where I thought I could perch my clothed self. The theater filled up and the previously clothed couple next to me even took their shirts off just to feel more in with the crowd.
I considered taking my shirt off, but even with the panoply of bodies in the space including many with guts like mine and some which were quite obese, I simply felt less uncomfortable being in a weird clothed minority than joining in.
If you're overweight and feel "shamed" exposing yourself in public, then do something about it! Losing weight isn't that difficult. It all boils down to calories in, calories out. Diet and exercise. Simple.
If you're overweight and don't want to feel "shamed" exposing yourself in public, but don't care to lose the weight (or can't for medical/genetic reasons), then ending that shame starts with you! Get over it! Who gives a fuck what other people think? They aren't you.
If you're overweight and don't feel "shamed" exposing yourself in public, then great for you! Do your thing and own who you are. You're probably a happier and better person than 50% of the suckers out there.
My point is- Don't complain about shit you have the power to change. You can either change your body or change your mindset.
Holy?? Hardly. I just figured out a long time ago that I have more important things to do with my life than worry whether I'm providing acceptable eye candy to people I don't know and don't give a damn about. If I want to wear something skimpy because it's hot out, or my sweetie likes it, or it just pleases me, but you don't like looking at it--look at something else. Problem solved.
First of all, no one has the right to tell you what to do with your own body other than yourself (and I do mean yourself, not the voices in your head from the billions of dollars of advertising spent on making every person feel unattractive and desperate to get higher in the imagined hierarchy by buying their shit). Secondly, if people keep hiding and avoiding life, those with more socially-approved body builds will never be comfortable around fat people and your shame/paranoia/reclusiveness will just add to their sense of wrongness and negative stereotypes.
I am not going to wear heavy clothing in hot weather just to please some asshat who doesn't want to see my arms. Stop avoiding people, stop avoiding life, stop avoiding photos and do what pleases you. People you never expect to be happy that you are doing that will surprise you when you stop hiding in the shadows and anyone having issues with you not wallowing in the darkness can go find a shrink to deal with their own insecurity issues (usually what is going on). Stop giving your power away.
Yes it is a pain to have so much nastiness working against us in our dysfunctional society, but showing them who you are and not letting the negative folks get to you really is the best way to go. And if anyone is enough of a jerk to give you grief openly, give it back to them--they are expecting you to buy their garbage and oftentimes totally are shutdown by someone not giving them the reaction they expect/want. You have a mind, you have a heart and neither are made of fat, so stop viewing that as your primary identity and go have fun.
Sometimes it just plain creeps me out. Someone who is 70 pounds overweight SHOULD NOT be wearing "leggings" (or whatever they call those things that look like leotards). I mean, c'mon.
From what I understand from friends around the country, this looks to be a "Seattle" thing perhaps. Remember kids, gluttony and sloth are two of the 7 Deadly Sins. Ye shall reap as ye sows.
I used to be where you are. Now I'm one of the holies. I worked hard to get here, as hard as all the assholes thought I should be working to lose weight. It was the best thing I ever did. As Virgie Tovar says, lose hate not weight. xoxo
No one is entitled to see only thin, symmetrical, or conventionally-attractive people. No one.
Those of you who feel so entitled to have no one but the thin, young, healthy, and whole fill your field of vision--so entitled that you are angry and disgusted when you see other kinds of people (#29, I'm talking to you)--please STAY OUT OF PUBLIC PLACES. Don't get on planes. Don't go to the beach. Don't go to festivals or concerts. Because really, the problem is YOU and YOUR fucking closed mind. Stay the F*** home in front of your TV, where you'll see nothing but the thin, telegenic people you apparently feel entitled to see all the time.
Guess what: it's a big, diverse world out there. All kinds of people in all kinds of bodies, for all kinds of reasons that are none of your fucking business. All ages and abilities, all levels of health. If you can't accept that, the problem is WITH YOU.
I have always (as long as I can remember) considered myself ugly and fat, and here I am wearing the biggest sized clothes I have ever worn in my life. I try to tell myself that I'm healthy (I work out 3 - 4 times a week and eat sensibly), but I also want to puke whenever I see myself in the mirror. Anyway, some days are better than others, and my mood has a lot to do with just how strong the compulsion to puke is.
Please consider these suggestions: read Health at Every Size & start incorporating the suggested practices, try dropping your food anxiety and eat what you wish when you want to. As you begin to listen to how you feel physically, your satiety, hunger, and fullness signals will get more noticeable. Your appetite will self-regulate. And, stop hating yourself. It is actually possible.
Finally, food and body size are not moral issues! Being fat is not an "epidemic"!
ep·i·dem·ic
ˌepiˈdemik/
noun
1.
a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.
"a flu epidemic"
synonyms: outbreak, plague, pandemic, epizootic
Fat is a description, like tall or old. It is time to stop moralizing body size, even those who hide behind the "health" argument do this. I've got news for these folks: "health" is a dynamic state, and changes all the time. Your judgements about another's "health" status is none of your damn biz, unless your opinion has been specifically invited by that person.
Body size does not equal health, no matter what that size is; except at the two most extreme ends of the spectrum, and even then, those impacts are between an individual and their chosen medical consultants. Gratuitous BS comments about health is just so much fat bigotry, so stop it.
And as expected, a lot of you commenters are real dicks and/or completely missed the point.
Isn't Madison lousy with hipsters from Capitol Hill in the summer? Many of those guys seem to exhibit a hate-on for anyone who doesn't fit in their little clique. Although I'm going to laugh forever if it turns out those pretentious douches don't/can't recognize Sean Nelson.
All of you assholes proclaiming that all Sean needs to do to feel right with himself is to get in shape have it so fucking wrong I can help but suspect that you know you're wrong, that you know a fat person can't ever hope to get in shape without finding some degree of body acceptance *first*, but you just can't keep your vicious bile from spewing out of your piehole and/or you *want* Sean and the rest of the fatties to stay fat.
P.S. You all will eventually be old, ugly, and infirm. I hope that drags you down into the depths of despair. You fucks deserve it.
Seriously, if you think we can just lose weight, like it's nothing, you're sadly a moron. It's a plight that many people deal with and is much more complicated that just "eat less, get skinnier".
That's called.... wait for it.... fat shaming!
However it must be noted that Sean's writing is absolutely amazing. So smart, original, and alive.
@1: Pearls before swine.
Not true. People are born with varying degrees of sensitivity to what others think. It's as much a part of their personality as, for example, introversion vs extroversion or the ability to empathize with others.
What a bunch of bullshit. When you look at the population of people, their natural, healthy weights are going to be normally distributed along a bell curve, just like height, shoe size, IQ, etc. The idea that we all should or could be all "average" weight is as stupid as the idea that we should all be average height.
And there's no way that you, personally, could gain or lose 50 pounds relative to your natural weight and maintain that new weight indefinitely. It would take far too much effort, probably consume your life, and eventually, you'd wear down and return to your natural range.
So now, in my middle age, I decided life is too short for that crap. My somewhat-fat ass was at the Colman pool yesterday along with a hundred other skinny, chubby, and fat people, and I really didn't see anyone giving a shit about what other people's bodies looked like. And it was glorious to feel the sun and water on my skin. I hope you can move past this anxiety, Sean. It makes for a very sad life.
Glad I'm not one of the statistics about the percentage of obese people around here.
Know why? I freaking CHOOSE not to be and DO WHAT IT TAKES. I'm no slave to the gym, but I'm in fairly good shape. You can be, too unless there's some genetic/medical reason you're not.
In the end, we reflect the choices we make in life. Call me whatever you want, but in 90% of the cases people that are fat are that way because THEY CHOOSE TO BE and I'm all for live and let live.
So, sure, I'm just tickled pink that fat people are bonding together to bolster their self-esteem. Knock yourself out. But think twice before choosing spandex, would you please?
And Speedos are just wrong, no matter who.
I do have a question, though. I can see a girl with pretty hair or pretty eyes or whatever and say, "Wow...look at those eyes!" which is an observation of reality, but if I say to a fat person, "Wow...look at your fat!" I just insulted them even though it's the reality of who they are and have obviously spent a lot of time and money to be that way.
Why is that?
I really dislike feeling this way but for now it is what it is.
Thank You So Very Much for writing these words.
Big Daddy Ken
Sean, @16 (re: inherited thyroid issues, recently detected, made a big difference in weight loss for me, too!),
@30, and @40:
Wow, can I ever relate to what you're all saying!
Shit, I get eye rolls from teens and twenty somethings--mainly because I live in a college town. Actually, it's a double-whammy--sometimes I get disapproving looks, too, from those over 55 because the yoga pants I'm wearing have gotten loose on me now.
It is internal (as @54 said), but also combined with "fuck what others think"---we're all as beautiful as we feel, and most of us will grow old one day.
At this point in my life, I'm living for me, and am out to have fun, dammit! If I don't take care of myself, who will (both my parents are deceased)?
Thanks, too, for the memories, Sean----I was a heavyset 15 year old when Meatballs came out in movie theaters. Add to that my being the one tall, broad shouldered female among small-framed, thin, petite women--left to feel like a St. Bernard among dachshunds for years.
Other than the presumed minority of people with a thyriod issue, being overweight seems to be an issue of not being in control of your body. When I go to the gym I certainly don't see the same cross section of people I see on the street. I know there are issues of shame involved with that, but honestly, when do we stop making excuses?
Beyond the subjective prison of your self-loathing, there is whole world of freedom in the natural world that is only available to the aristocracy of the fit. Vistas you will never see, green glades and unpeopled magnificent landscapes you will never know. The ability to stay comfortable in conditions of cold and heat and wet that is foreign to you.
I bring it up not to rub it in, but to emphasize our culture doesn't have the means to talk about it. We are optimistic, positive, ironic and that just doesn't serve us well when we inventory our loss and hopelessness.
You do not deserve to feel this way, no one does. There is a community of body acceptance and body positivity proponents (of whom I am one) that would be more than happy to embrace you and help you learn to love yourself. Your body is not wrong. Society is wrong to poison us against ourselves and others based on whether or not we fit into a narrowly defined physical "ideal". Bullshit to that, man! Life is too short!
I just want to reach out to you and give you a hug. I know how you feel, because I've been there myself. It is possible to feel better and it doesn't have anything to do with a number on a scale. Life is beautiful on the other side! I hope you join us :)
And yeah it's hard to lose weight. Really hard. People here not getting that are assholes. the point is to prevent people from getting there in the first place - and one way or another we had better do that or we're are going to have entire generations of twenty somethings with diseases that used effect adults in their 60's.
Look. I was exceptionally fit for most of my adult life. In the upper 10% athletically until I was forty. I boxed and kickboxed competitively. I lifted. I ran. I swam. I am intimately and professionally familiar with diet and cutting weight. I know exactly how hard it is.
Then I started coaching. I coached every type of person. Athletes. Fat people. Skinny people. I know pretty much everything you need to know to get people in shape. And everybody is different and everybody looks different being "in shape." There is no perfect body.
I stayed pretty fit until accumulated injuries - including a bad back injury - that wore me down. At 45 it forced me into about a two year layoff from any hard training (and 8 months of nothing at all but Yoga).
I didn't gain that much weight. In fact, not doing any lifting, I lost weight. I gained fat. Lots of it.
My metabolic rates and overall vitals were still on average much higher that most Americans my age. And Damn. I felt like SHIT. I wondered what's it like for everybody else?
In two years I went from a very fit 206lbs (at 6ft) and 11-13% body fat to 198 lbs 26-33% body fat. I lost lots of muscle. And gained lots of fat.
Yes. For a while I was still eating calories at the close to the rate I was when I trained. Only briefly. I am very careful about what I eat. Like extremely. But like everybody else in America I got fat.
When I got a hold of my calories I'm still WAY heavier than I feel comfortable at.
It has had deleterious effects to my overall health. Less muscle mass more fat means more joint issues. Then there is GERD, digestion issues. Sorry but getting fat is not healthy. This is settled matter in medical science.
And now that I'm training fairly hard again (though of course, at 50, not nearly like I was at 30 and no longer boxing), running, cross-fit — most of the negative health effects of the extra weight are under some control. But not all of it.
Getting rid of that extra 10% body fat? Really, I got an extra 20lbs of fat on me. It's not going anywhere. I can't build muscle like i used to. I can't lift heavy anymore. Best I can do is maybe hold steady. The damage I'll do my fifty year old self cutting down that much will just make everything worse. So this is the way it is.
And yes. Obesity is an "epidemic." Sorry. But epidemiologists study obesity just like they study gun violence in America. They are easily described and the data tracked as epidemics and with epidemiological studies.
One fat individual is not a moral issue. One single fat person is not an epidemic. But populations? Aggregates? A huge increase in children with type II diabetes in populations where that didn't occur before?
That's an epidemic. That's worth describing in scientific terms. And since it's life and death, worth some moral consideration. On the societal level at least.
I'm a white dude with dark hair on my back... a huge patch right above my hairy ass. And I fucking hate it.
I would rather have only one testicle than this back hair.
I don't think it's attractive at all. I don't think it's attractive on anyone. Ever.
None of this thinking comes from near-universal advertising with hairless white dudes. I have no problem with my copious chest hair.
It's just that I know, I KNOW!, that back hair is fucking ugly. It's as certain as the sky is blue or that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west.
And as a result, if I don't have proper opportunity to shave (I'm far too embarrassed to get it waxed), then I'm NOT taking my shirt off.
That's what Sean's getting at. (Yes, yes, of course it's tougher when it's something like fat that you can't just get rid of that morning. But my point is it doesn't have to be fat; Sean makes that most clear when talking about dressing in the mirror, etc.)
You can always move back to Kansas if you hate it in Seattle so much.
A decent lifting schedule three days a week, doing compound exercises that only take 30 to 45 minutes per workout, with decent but realistic cardio on off days, plus a diet similar but not exact to the one you outlined will see a marked improvement in their body in the same span of time and will be sustainable in the long run. That said, this is a SUGGESTION, not a requirement.
The bottom line is this: It is everyone's responsibility to themselves to do their research--serious research--if (and only if) they want to get in shape. If they don't want to get in shape, nobody is holding a gun to their heads forcing them to get in shape, but they should not be surprised at incurring societal consequences for that. I'm not saying negative social consequences and shame are fair for fat people, simply that they are a reality. I'm overweight (and fast losing that status, thank you free time & gym access! Thank you, middle class white college student privilege), I'm no stranger to the feeling, but I refuse to be helpless or to reject the opportunities that I am presented with. Obviously not everyone has gym access, and not everyone has the money to pay for the ideal diet, which is not fair, but is an issue of economic privilege first and foremost, and does not justify excuses by those with the opportunity to get fit, who want to get fit, but who lie about their habits. You know who you are. You don't have to be ashamed of your fat, just don't lie about it.
The bottom line is, there is no quick dieting fix. There is no diet that takes only X number of weeks, or diet of just X foods or "this one weird trick that really works!" There is no such thing as a diet & exercise routine which will get a person fit and then keep them fit once they've stopped doing it. Lifestyle changes must be realistic precisely because they absolutely MUST be permanent or else it will be nothing but a brief and underwhelming temporary break from poor health, and yes, being overweight IS a health problem, it is a public health problem and there are the studies to prove it no matter what people on Tumblr claim, no matter what someone's feelings are. Fat people do not deserve scorn, and they rarely deserve pity unless it is coupled with economic or educational barriers. They--and skinny people right along with them (being skinny is no guarantee of nutritional health or proper exercise)--deserve education and access to the opportunity to permanently improve their eating & exercising habits, because until then, it is not entirely their fault. It's just that it's killing them either way.
Saying everyone can control their weight is like saying everyone can graduate from college. What, for some, is quite easy, takes tremendous effort for others, for reasons not of their making.
I lost 50 pounds. It was hard. Many things in life are hard, this is not to say it's beyond your control.
It is a scientific fact that you, and anyone of X weight eating 2500 or 3000 calories a day, will lose about a pound a week if you reduce the intake and increase the outflow of calories by about 500 per day. 3500 per week. This is science, like the fact the earth is not flat; or hello, climate change.
Many people have this mystical belief that somehow not being able to do this is "reasons not of their making." This is baloney --
anyone can get off the bus and walk the last two miles to and from work, anywone can eat less calories. What, you live in a food desert and your grocery only serves junk food?
throw out half that bag of chips and cut down the intake by 500 calories.
guess what else is hard. being married. saving for retirement. studying to get in to college -- that's only partly analogous as college slots are limited while "Being a normal healthy weight" isn't. you don't want to be 180 pounds or 190 pounds as a male 6 1 or 2? you think 230 is okay? okay then, you may think that, but don't combine that with saying you just can't lose the weight. if people aren't putting guns to your head to eat, you can. if you are in jail you can do situps and jog in place hours a day. the what to do is not hard, and yes, many people find it hard to do, but this is for reasons largely within their control. to conflate easy to do with in my control and hard to do with not in my control is a huge phallacy. If this writer told us his weight and what he eats each day and what exercise he does I guarantee you there would be like 100 choices to note he is making that are causing his weight. because it's basically science of calories and energy. I often eat half a bag a large bag of chips and it feels gross but you know what? usually when I do I just did 900 calories at the gym so I am not in bad shape. Did this writer do 900 calories at the gym? Does he do it five times a week? Why not why is that impossible?
Yes, I can read. (lame assumption #1)
"he or she said there are SOME who can't control their weight." (opposite of OP's point)
I have ALSO lost 50 pounds too. Yes, it was hard. (lame assumption #2 that I'm just an excuse making fatty)
Your "scientific fact" example of rate of weight loss disregards individual metabolism (as well as fat loss vs. muscle loss and muscle gain) You're just plain wrong about that. It's nowhere near that simple. Look up the research.
Actual scientific knowledge about the very real challenges of weight loss, both physiologic and psychological is easily obtainable for free on the internet and yet you have chosen not to seek it out.
I think everyone who is overweight would be healthier if they lost the excess weight. However, since I'm not their doctor, I'm not going to assume I know what caused the extra weight or what they need to do to lose it. Furthermore, I don't consider it any of my business.
In fact I don't waste much of my time judging people on that weight, or on physical appearance, because I find it doesn't have any bearing on the quality of a person.
Like almost everyone, I have a number of weakness and shortcomings that I need to work on. I find that focusing my attention on self-improvement is far more productive than thinking about other people's imperfections.
I also find it interesting that it almost always boils down to "fat vs. thin" when for guys, it is not at all that simple. I think that fat women have it toughest, by far. They are bombarded by cruel stupid hate and judgement... And I imagine that it is tenfold during the summer months. Fat men have it rough too, but it definitely takes a lot more fat for a man to be considered fat than it does his female counterpart. I think that it is much easier for an attractive guy to be overweight and still be considered attractive than for an attractive girl. They just get stuck in the "It's too bad! She has a really pretty face." category. It's really not that unusual for women to be attracted to somewhat overweight guys, partially because women tend to be less critical of men's appearance, and partially because being big is a generally accepted as a masculine trait.
Now what most people don't seem to realize when this topic comes up is that being thin is not always akin to being dipped in magic, rolled in awesomeness and toasted to golden warm sexy superdupercality... If you are male. While it is very difficult for chicks to be too thin (provided they are healthy) being a skinny scrawny little dude blows donkey cock. Big time.
Now I'm not suggesting that small, thin men are treated as horribly and unfairly as big, fat women are... Because large, obese women are regularly dealt the most heinous, fucked up, soul crushing bullshit ever, and still they so often manage to be some of the warmest, most wonderful human beings ever. Kudos large ladies... I just don't know how you do it, but I can tell you from personal experience that one sure fire way for a guy to be sexually invisible to girls is for him to commit the unforgivable crime of being five foot five inches tall and weigh 100 pounds. Because that was me in highschool. I was constantly informed that I was inadequate, and being inadequate and sexually invisible isn't the most fulfilling way to spend one's formative years. It never once occurred to me to just love myself and embrace my scrawniness. Alas, there is no scrawny empowerment movement, and scrawny shaming is totally socially acceptable, so I was left with very few options. The option I chose was to go to the gym and eat a lot. I worked out hard, and I ate A LOT.
Nothing happend. Except that subjecting myself to being surrounded by bigger, buffer, more masculine young guys made me feel even more inadequate. So I worked out harder, and ate more. I knew that I wasn't acceptable, or normal, and that wasn't fair. It wasn't ok with me, so it never occurred to me to sit on the couch all day and play video games and learn to embrace my physical being (or lack thereof) I was a pretty unhappy little dude. Pretty disappointed at the cards I had been dealt, until when I was 17 or 18 years old, I grew 6 inches and gained 75 pounds. Of muscle.
By that point I was resigned to busting my ass in the gym to no avail, so when I actually started to get results, it felt really good, and looked pretty good too. Very suddenly, all of the girls who regarded me as the nice, funny, totally invisible little guy who was such a good listener whenever they needed someone to agonize to about the trials and tribulations of dating the captain of the lacrosse team, noticed that I was a person... A male person.
I will never forget what it was like to be a non-person though, even though that was just my immature, teenage interpretation of what it was like to feel, and to be viewed as, physically inferior to my peers. As a result, through my adult life I prioritize physical fitness, even though now, since I am pushing 40, I am far more likely to be mindful of staying trim, rather than desperately trying to build myself out of thin air, and I benefit more now from feeling healthy by staying in shape rather than just frantically trying to find a way, any way, not to feel like a misfit freak anytime the sun comes out and the clothes come off.
Some people, not most, but some, cannot ever ever ever get anywhere near what our society deems physically attractive, and some of those people are amazing, fascinating individuals... Some people are really really really pleasing to look at, and also manage to be amazing, fascinating individuals. Some people are worthless fucktards who get off on degrading and insulting others because of the way they look without clothes on. Wouldn't it be cool if as a society, we were less tolerant of worthless fucktards than we are of fat people? Or scrawny people? Feeling inadequate and unattractive isn't just a problem for fat girls... It's not just some paternalistic mysogenistic blah blah blahhhh... Judgemental ignorant worthless asshats can have a negative effect on anyone.