My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

When my ex and I were together, I used to joke (or, honestly, wrap the truth in a joking tone that fooled no one) about how after we had kids I’d probably need “a re-up” on my gastric bypass surgery. I was terrified of regaining the weight I’d lost – I’d already regained about 20 lbs, give or take another 15 on any given day, and I knew from reading about longer-term GB patients that it was common for them to regain all of the weight, even going over their original weight in a sort of pendulum reaction. This is true of diets in general: they screw up your metabolism and cause more gain than loss in the long term. So why any of us should imagine that literally starving ourselves would lead to long-term, maintainable weight loss, I’m not sure. But despite all my jokes, I was in no way prepared to actually face the reality that science told me was coming. But I’m coming up against it now. I haven’t regained all the weight (yet), but I’ve been steadily getting larger – a combin...

There's been a lot of chatter in the media lately about the trials and tribulations of traveling under the influence of a couple (hundred?) extra pounds.  And somewhere between Kevin Smith being kicked off Southwest Airlines and the constant barrage of fat-fear and obesity epidemic outcry, a few pieces have emerged that put a chubbily human face on the matter (without too much whining or crying).  I think I'm going to start linking to such pieces (if only to keep the blog alive for a while as every remotely interesting original thought goes straight into the 'book' file).  First up, Traveling While Fat , from last weekend's NY Times.  It's a pretty good start down the 'fat is human' road, although I have to wonder whether a woman could write something so matter of fact, with so little apology for her size. Lord knows I couldn't.  Hence, the GB, and now, the memoir in which I constantly express a need to apologize for my still-unacceptable size. ...

A couple of days ago (on Valentine’s day, in fact), Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest Airlines plane for being ‘too fat to fly.’  You can read the details on Kevin’s blog , if you haven’t already been following the debacle on Twitter (I say debacle in seriousness– Twitter crashed at least twice last night as a result of ‘too many tweets’). This isn’t a post about that occurrence specifically, mostly because it’s already been hashed out to death but also because Smith’s whole point is that he doesn’t actually qualify as too fat to fly; he fits in the seat with the armrests down and the seatbelt buckled, unextended.  What I want to talk about is the policy, held by multiple airlines, that those ‘customers of size’ (I think I threw up a little just now) who can’t fit in the seat with the armrests down must purchase two seats at full price. Look, I get it.  It sucks to have someone encroaching on your space, especially on an airplane, where space is already at such ...