I've been ignoring the scale..

...pretty much since I last wrote about breaking up with the scale. That was what, two weeks ago? I hopped on the scale this morning and I was up maybe one pound since I last weighed myself, which all in all is not too bad I think. The jeans I recently moved into the "wear" drawer are still fitting.

I've been paying attention to how my body actually looks when I go to my kickboxing class and I think I am still slimming to some extent. I've just been thinking that I'm really not that uncomfortable with the size I am at currently. My reasons stem more from the fact that I had put some of the initial 65 that I had lost back in the day and I am scared shitless of gaining it all back. And that I just kind of want my clothes to fit. That, I am getting closer to. But I feel happier when I'm not constantly thinking about everything I eat.

There are still things I need to do, however.

• Keep active. I can't slack on that shit. The more active I keep, the less I will have to think about food all the damn time.
• Keep cognizant of my reasons for eating. Make sure when I eat it's because I'm hungry, not because I'm bored or sad or pissed off.
• Recognize my hunger signals and recognize when I am full. Let go of the idea that I must clean my plate Every Time.
• Keep trying to make better choices. Don't neglect my fruits and veggies. Meal plan and such. 
• Make sure when I eat it's worth it.. As the line in Ratatouille goes "I don't like food, I love food and if I don't love it, I don't swallow." which essentially means if I'm going to have treats on occasion, make them good treats, not processed crap. 

These are things I can do to make sure I don't fall back into really bad old habits.

But as far as the weighing and the tracking and the self-flagellating every damn time I have a cookie (or a Lemon Poppyseed Muffin from Timmie's... Holy crap, crack in delicious fluffy yellow form) I'm just not sure I can do it anymore.

The Perils of Navigating Dieting Lifestyle Changes While Raising Little Girls

So, this article gave me quite the sad, and a bit of rage-face as well.

Mom Puts 7-Year-Old on a Diet in the Worst Vogue Article Ever

Be warned, it could be a bit triggering for both both eating disorders and child abuse.  The article basically outlines how this woman was concerned about her somewhat chubby seven-year-old and instead of taking a reasonable route like buying some healthier snacks and maybe putting the kid into dance lessons or team sports, she decided to send her kid on the path to a life-time of disordered relationships with food by putting her on a strict diet and brow-beating and shaming said kid for going off said diet.

And then selling her story to Vogue.

Little girls are under so much pressure from such a young age.  I have to wonder how much we help perpetuate it.  Hell, half the time we aren't even cognizant of the way the media constantly picks at us and tells us how we can be thinner, younger, smoother, and all other manner of adjectives, so how do we know when we are pushing these same unrealistic ideals on our daughters and more importantly how do we cushion them against the same toxic messages when we DO recognize them?

This is something I've struggled with along my weight-loss journey.  I try to recognize what kind of messages about self-image and self-worth I am sending to my daughters, who are at the particularly vulnerable ages of 8 and 10.  The way I negotiate my own weight-maintenance can have long-reaching effects on their own relationships with food and their bodies.

I try to be mindful about emphasizing how I want to feel, that is, healthier and more confident.  I hate when they see me weigh myself, and I tend to wear a pokerface if they are around, regardless of whether I like the number I see or not. In a house full of girls, privacy in the bathroom hasn't been a huge issue so sometimes they will walk in while I weigh myself.  Point being, I don't want them to get the idea that whether or not I have a good day or bad is tied in with whether I am feeling fat that day.

When dealing with food choices I try to always speak in terms of some foods being 'better for you' rather than relying on a 'good/bad' dichotomy.  I don't want them to feel guilt for having treats, or to berate themselves for not always choosing the 'healthy' option.  I do enjoy the idea of 'sometimes' foods.

If I have to restrict them on some items (for example, we can have cookies.. but we're not going to have six cookies in a day) I don't EVER frame restriction in terms of the "EFF" word (eep.. FAT!) because I want to keep them from worrying about their weight as soon as humanly possible.  Instead, I'll limit them to two or three a day because "Mommy isn't made of money and can't go buying cookies all the time!"

Financial insecurity is better than Body image insecurity, isn't it?  I sure hope so.  I'd rather see them grow up annoyingly cheap than with a life-threatening eating disorder.

I love my mom to death, but I will acknowledge that watching her struggle with her weight as I grew up, as well as the on-going concerns for my own health that were often expressed, not maliciously mind you, in terms of my weight when the real concern was not how much I ate, but the fact that I ate shit, did a number on both my body image and my relationship with food.  And I have tied a lot of my self-worth in with my weight.  I didn't totally internalize it, but I did spend a lot of time under the impression that I was A) grossly fat and that B) this meant I was a less worthy human being.

Just to clarify, because like I said, my mom is awesome and I don't want to pin it all on her.  She never said I was less worthy because I was overweight, but that is how I felt.  The truth is, these are the kinds of messages we are bombarded with every single day so that even many people who don't have a 'weight problem' per se see themselves as potentially fat, which to some is a fate worse than death.

No seriously.

Bea Beautiful posted about a woman a while ago who cited 'getting fat' as her worst fear.  Worse than shark attacks, worse than giant spiders, worse than being bludgeoned to death by an friggin' axe murderer.

That, my friends, is some fucked up, if y'all will pardon my French.

This is what I want to avoid for my children.  I don't want them to fear getting fat.. not because it 'won't ever happen' to them because it totally could.  But if it ever does, I want them to know they are still worthy human beings.  Whether we all here succeed on our respective journeys to lose weight and/or be healthier we are all worthy human beings and deserve to love ourselves as we are and as what we become in the future.

I want my girls to know that they are worthy, no matter their size and I think the longer I can keep them from thinking negatively about their body and reinforcing that they are beautiful inside and out, then maybe the idea of unconditional worth will stick with them.

I can only hope.

Book Review: All of Me - A Voluptuous Tale

Hey all. I'm kind of phoning it in this week. Long story short, it was pointed out to me that work time should be for work and in an effort to remain employed I'm trying to take that to heart. So between renewed efforts at being productive at work, a more active than usual love life, and the pain that is typing by touch-screen, my blogging time is more limited. This is a repost from October 6th, 2011. I hope you enjoy it.

My mom recently lent me the book All of Me: A Voluptuous Tale by Venise Berry. The cover puts me in mind of something that would be on Oprah's book club. Upon recommending it to me, she told me that the main character reminded her a lot of me.

I had a bit of a"Gee, thanks mom" moment when I began reading as it starts with the main character, Serpentine Williamson, in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt. However, this is not what she was getting at. Serpentine is a black woman who has struggled with her weight all of her life, and recounts the events in her life that led up to her suicide attempt. She deals with fat-shaming from her family, her lovers, her workplace and from society around her.

This book pissed me off to no end, but in the way I think the author intended. I was angry FOR Serpentine and I could understand her frustration at the world around her for treating her like she was a less worthy human being for being fat.

The book also deals with the issue of not only being a fat woman, but a fat black woman. It was an interesting perspective for me to read, being white, since it's my understanding that there can be some significant differences between white women and black women's experiences with fat-shaming and body acceptance. These issues stem a lot from privilege, society's ownership of women's bodies, access to healthy food and activity, and media representation.

I related to Serpentine in her personal life - feeling less than worthy, feeling insecure and jealous of the thin, pretty girls (although in some cases the 'thin girls' were not too far off from me - when I lost the first chunk of weight, I had a few friends point out that we were almost the same size, even though I still felt like the fat girl of the group). I always felt incredulous when someone professed to be attracted to me.

The message of the book focuses a lot of being healthy. While being aware of all the external factors that have affected her, Serpentine also acknowledges her own responsibility in getting where she is, and uses her experiences to better herself and live a healthier life.

It was an enjoyable read. I recommend picking it up.

Does Fat-shaming Really Help Anyone? I'm Gonna Go With No..

Disclaimer: Some people may be put off by my use of 'fat' as opposed to euphemisms such as chubby, husky, fluffy and whathaveyou.  I use fat because it's all-encompassing and because I'd like to see it become more of a neutral descriptor and not an insult.  And because I'm not a thesaurus.

Around the interwebz there has been some mixed reactions to the campaign coming out of Georgia right now for Children's Health Care of Atlanta that features stark black and white photos of fat kids with captions about how hard it is to be a fat kid.  Some people think it's brilliant because parents need to know how terrible and difficult it is to be a fat kid, like we have no idea at all.

I have a really, really hard time with this campaign. First, because these kids may find themselves associated with these campaigns for a long long time. Kids, and hell, adults can be cruel.  How many of these kids are going to go into high school known as 'The Fat Kid Poster Kid' or something similar?

Also, and I'm probably going to get crucified, but being obese isn't a problem in and of itself.  It's the issues related to (related to, not necessarily caused by) that are the problem.  Problems like Type 2 Diabetes and high cholesterol, which are related to shitty eating habits and lack of activity.  Two things that are also correlated with being obese.

Obesity?  Not the problem.  Shitty eating habits and lack of activity in kids?  Yes.  That is a problem.  Let's put it this way - let's say your kid is fat. So you take them to the doctor.  If you take your kid to the doctor and checks all their vitals and blood sugar and cholesterol and blood pressure and all that stuff and everything is fine, and you know they eat plenty of good food, fruits, veggies etc. and that they are active, then they are healthy.  And that is good.

So give a kid a break.

All you can tell by looking at someone is if they are overweight.  You can't tell someone's health by looking at them. You cannot tell if they lack activity or have shitty eating habits.  You can't tell if they have high cholesterol, or blood sugar, or a glandular issue that is actually causing weight gain (because yes, sometimes poor health causes obesity, rather than vice versa).

Which leads me to my main issue with this campaign. This campaign seems to rely on shaming kids and shaming parents and if anything, puts kids at risk of eating disorders later in life, which is going to be way worse for their health in the long run. All it seems to do is point out that being a fat kid sucks.

NO KIDDING.  Really? I thought it was a freaking amusement park ride.  (You know one of the things that makes being a fat kid suck?  Public shaming and ridicule. Oh, and restrictive diets. Those suck too).  The health issues are something to worry about, yes.. but we can focus on health issues without body-shamign little kids.  Do fat kids get bullied?  Oh, hells yes, many of them do.  That's an issue, however, that I think is better resolved by teaching kids not to be jerks, and not teaching kids that fat people are to be an object of shame and ridicule.

What the Children's Health of Atlanta campaign DOESN'T do is offer any suggestions as to how to deal with childhood obesity, other than to get all Mrs Lovejoy and shake a finger at parents as if to say "Stop letting your kids be such fatty-fat-fat's."

Source

Instead of a campaign pointing out how awful it must be to be a fatty-fatty-fat-fat how about we have more programs dedicated to pointing out how awesome and fun being active is.. regardless of whether it makes you lose weight?

How about some initiatives to make healthy food more accessible and reduce the number of food deserts in low income areas?

How about we encourage more community cohesion so that kids can go outside and play like they used to, instead of constantly reminding people through the media that if they dare let their kids out of their sight for more than 2 minutes they will die or get kidnapped or molested?

How about we put more pressure on school boards to cap salaries for admins making over 100K a year, so that programs such as Physical Education are at less risk of being cut?

How about a cost-of-living increase for minimum wage so that people aren’t forced to work ridiculous hours at 2-3 part time jobs just so they can put cheap, processed food on the table because it’s the only shit they A) can afford and B) have the bloody time to make.

There's got to be about a million ideas that would be better for combating childhood obesity or the associated risks than billboards saying “Your kid is fat, and that’s bad.”