MAKING MY FAT ASS SWEAT

A lot of people hate exercise.  I do – and I don’t.  It depends.

It depends on what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

A sure way to make me hate to exercise is to tell me I’m doing it for weight loss.  I used to go to Curves – really enjoyed the circuit training; but could NOT stand all the diet and weight loss talk.  Drove me nuts.  And because of the nature of circuit training (you have audio cues of when to change machines and when to check your pulse), you can’t just put on your earphones and tune it out. 

And if the form of exercise is something I don’t like to do (i.e., walking – I just don’t like walking for exercise), forget about it – it’s just not going to happen; at least not on any kind of regular basis.   However, I recently had a blast spending a day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium – lots of walking – a full day of it.  So I guess I don’t mind walking, I just need a different goal.

I do much better if my goal is to feel better, move better, become stronger and more flexible, as long as I’m doing something I enjoy (dancing, swimming, etc.)

But what works best for me is to exercise for one or more definite goals.  Getting ready for an audition or show, learning a dance routine – bring it on. 

And I have found a new goal that is working for me right now (at least) –having a clean(er) house.  Heavy duty housework is exercise!  Scrubbing floors, moving furniture, hauling boxes of stuff to take to Good Will.  It makes you sweat, it gets your heart going – don’t tell me this isn’t exercise.  So I’m getting stronger, more flexible and end up with a cleaner house (triple win)! 

I keep falling for the proposition that exercise has to be something specific.  It has to be something clearly recognized as exercise – and that’s nonsense.  Exercise is whatever works for you, where you find it, and what you make of it. 

You don’t have to join a gym or invest in special clothing or equipment.  If you like that, go for it, but if you don’t have the funds, time or desire – find something else.  Go rake your yard, give the shower a good scrubbing, – give your cat or dog a bath (that will make you sweat for sure!).  Or not. 

All I’m saying is people often think they don’t exercise – but they’re not looking at everything they do that is exercise.  Movement is movement.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Why I don’t diet

During some online brainstorming the other day about reclaiming the Fat Poz ReVolution (which is aparently being stolen by a weight-loss reality show), Pattie Thomas suggested video blogging “a brief bio on who you are, what your story is and why you [DO NOT] want to lose weight.” (Quote is from the reality show producers except for the added bit in brackets.)

Well, I’ve never video blogged, but the topic of why I don’t diet sounds like a good blog post to me.

So here goes. I’m the youngest of five children, and all my siblings plus both my parents have dieted. Amazingly, my mom lost the weight and kept if off. She was fat for a few years during the 1960s and 1970s, and maybe her fatness was going to go away anyway. But my dad, three sisters, and one brother have each tried dieting over the years and it never works. And each one of them keeps trying. (My brother has probably not dieted much, but he has done it.) Coincidentally, all of them smoke or have smoked, and I never got hooked on that either.

Am I lucky, or just smart? Well, I sure am lucky, but I also like to think that I learned from their experiences, which add up to the fact that diets don’t usually work. It’s hard when I go to the doctor and he wants me to lose weight. But after gaining a few pounds a year for several years in the 1990s, I’ve been at a stable weight for a long time. And, I’ve added whole grains and a greater variety of foods to my intake. But, no, I don’t diet for weight loss.

How would you folks answer the question “Why don’t you want to diet?” Or, getting back to Pattie’s original (slightly different) question, “Why don’t you want to lose weight?”

Filed under: Body image, health

MY OLD ASS IS DRIVING UP HEALTHCARE COSTS

 David Stipp thinks that my fat ass is what is driving the increase in healthcare costs.  But he’s wrong – it’s my old ass that’s doing it.

 http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/obesity-aging-cause-ballooning-health-care-costs-31879/

 It is clear that Mr. Stipp doesn’t like fat people – to the point where he doesn’t even see the irony in his own article.  In one paragraph he tells us that more than a third of the US population is “obese”.  In the very next paragraph he tells us that the CDC attributes $147 billion in US medical costs to obesity – and he tells us, that’s 9% of all medical healthcare costs.

 So wait.  We comprise 30%+ of the population, but only 9% of all medical healthcare costs are attributable to our “condition”.  Fuck, yeah.  We must be a pretty healthy bunch.  So much for the ideas that if you’re fat you must be unhealthy and that fat is a disease that must be treated.  

 Mr. Stipp is all in favor of “healthy” (i.e., thin) people living long lives, but he seems to feel keeping the old fatty alive is just a waste of money and resources.  After all, what kind of quality of life could we have?  Never mind that his ideas for living longer include long term dieting and use of diabetes drugs by non-diabetics. 

 Well first of all, if you aren’t meant to be thin, we pretty much know how dieting ends up.  And second of all, I consider the pleasure of eating as part of my quality of life.  I also would not be happy with a life that entails a disordered relationship with food, where I count every calorie and weight each morsel, etc.  No thank you.  Not my idea of a good time – especially not if it’s a life sentence. 

 Again, we all die, sooner or later.  Longevity (much like fatness) appears to be tied more to genetics, environment, and socio-economic status. 

 Mr. Stipp says the proof of what he is saying can be found in a 2003 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. 

 What Mr.Stippfails to say is that a 2010 CDC study (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr024.pdf) refutes what he is saying.  The CDC report shows that older men and women have, on average, the same number of hospital admissions and doctor visits regardless of size. 

 In trying to find the study to which Mr. Stipp refers, I went to the NEJM website, and searched through the 2003 issues for the term, “medicare”.  I got dozens and dozens of results – articles, book reviews, editorials, and correspondence.  So then I searched for “medicare”, “obesity”, and “age” and I think I found the study to which Mr. Stipp refers – Health, Life Expectancy, and Health Care Spending Among the Elderly.

Only the Abstract is available for free – but this is the conclusion for the study:

 ”The expected cumulative health expenditures for healthier elderly persons, despite their greater longevity, were similar to those for less healthy persons. Health-promotion efforts aimed at persons under 65 years of age may improve the health and longevity of the elderly without increasing health expenditures.”

 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa020614

 Looks to me, live long and healthy or live short and unhealthy – the healthcare costs balance each other out.  Am I missing something here?

 No wonderMr.Stipp did not include the cite for the study, since its conclusion does not prove what he is saying at all.

 And once again, this is why we need to be informed fatties, and not take for granted what we are told by the fat-haters.

Filed under: Fat Activism, health, Science, Size Acceptance

OUR FAT COMMUNITY

 Over the 4^th of July weekend, we attended another science fiction convention (Westercon – we don’t usually go, but it was in our neighborhood, so what the hey).

 One panel was talking about the effect of technology on our lives, and the subject of non-geographical communities was brought up.  I started thinking what a change non-geographical communities have made in my life and how important they are.

 I wonder how different my life would have been if I had access to the fat acceptance community when I was a kid.  And while I did not have a rotten childhood or adolescence, it was far from perfect (Thank you Mom for marrying the bat shit crazy step father, but such is life.)

 The support and information offered by this community is so valuable to me now, but it would have made a huge difference for me when I was growing up.  To know that there are fat and happy people in the world, that I’m not the only one, and that I’m not some sort of freak of nature because I am able and willing to live in my fat body.  Yes I was constantly dieting and constantly judging my body harshly, but I also was out there living and doing what I wanted to do (or at least as much as I could get away with without my parents finding out).

 To learn that diets don’t work, that it’s not my personal failure would have been amazing.  Think of all the time, effort, and money I could have saved not trying to turn a fat person into a thin person. 

 Not everyone can afford to attend a NAAFA Convention.  There are a lot more size-acceptance dances and other events, but they are not everywhere.  Some people are tied to an area because of mobility issues, family responsibilities, etc.  But with the internet, fat people no longer have to feel isolated.  There is a big fat size-accepting community out there waiting to welcome you with a big warm cushy hug. 

 So remember, you now have choices when it comes to the community (or communities) you want to be a part of, you are no longer restricted by what is available in your geographic location.  We are everywhere and yet we are a community.

Filed under: Size Acceptance