My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

A lot has happened since my last post, and yet little has changed. My body still feels… alien to me in a way it hasn’t since my mid-twenties; I still haven’t seen a doctor (I actually did try, a lot, but it seems that post-GB follow-up is not something bariatric doctors are willing to do with people they haven’t sliced open personally); and I’m still struggling to find the balance between making healthy choices, like getting more cardio in, and making my peace with the changes in my body. One thing that has changed is my state of unemployment. Since we moved to Washington I’ve been in a kind of limbo where my career is concerned – you can read more about the writing side of that over on the author blog , but besides that I’ve been unsure what to do about a day job. The ultimate goal is teaching at the college level, but while I work on that I’ve been living off savings, and as I’m sure you can imagine that is unsustainable. So I picked up part-time w...

“If you think I’m hard on my body now, you should have seen me ten years ago.” My new boyfriend looks at me with his eyebrows raised, uncharacteristically disbelieving. Then he says, with a slight edge to his tone, “but I didn’t know you then. I only know you now.” I pause for a second to try to figure out why this irritates me so much, when he brushes off my explanations of my past as if it has no bearing on the person I am now. It’s always surprising to me when he does this, partly because to me it seems obvious that my past is a huge part of my current self, and partly because he’s usually so thoughtful and understanding, and this kind of invalidating reaction is unusual for him. I take a deep breath and try to articulate my frustration. “You have to understand that where I was then is important…it informs where I am now. And for you to say that the person you know, the particular body image issues of the woman you’re dating here and now, are all that matter…for you to say that...

“If you throw that in a hot wash and then tumble dry it, I bet it’ll tighten up a bit and fit you better.”   I try to contain my glee at the sight of one of my favorite skirts from college, a blue cotton floral number with a wide band that used to be snug on my hips, not-quite-falling-off T’s narrower frame.   Not only is it a pleasure to think that my friends might get some use out of some of the fifty or so items of clothing I’ve brought to the swap – most of them much-loved pieces that I wore over and over again until they were put away in storage by my mother and my style slowly outgrew them – but it is a surprise and an untold joy to see how many of my old clothes actually fit these girls. My whole life, I’ve been significantly larger than all of my friends.   Even when I lost the weight, I remained a good two to four sizes above my largest girlfriend.   The first time I went to a clothing swap, years ago with my friend Courtney, ...

As Jennifer Lawrence cried perfect, beautiful tears of rage onscreen, her home in ash and rubble around her, my gaze settled lower down on something inside the theater: my legs.   Tessa and I were sitting in the prime seats in the front row of the back section at the AMC, our feet propped up on the bar in front of us, and for the first time I could remember I had a moment of positive revelation; my legs are normal-sized , I thought, with so much surprise that the moment was instantly notable. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt abnormally large.   For much of my life, reality was at least mostly in line with this self-assessment – I was larger than average, or at least larger than any person I knew.   Later, as I got smaller, I still felt massive.   It took me years to force myself to believe that my idea of my body was out of proportion to how ‘freakish’ I actually was.   And even then, reality was often on the side of my ne...

My head fills with blood, pumping in a rapid thud, thud in my ears.  My shoulders and wrists ache, my hands are slipping toward the front of my mat, and my hamstrings refuse to budge further as I attempt to 'ground my heels'.  The bead of sweat that slipped down between my breasts during an earlier pose is now creeping back up my sternum, sliding past my throat and up behind my ear into my hair.  All I can think is how much longer, how many more breaths, oh right, breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth, breathe into the pose and try to relax because the next one will probably kill us. "Don't forget to relax your jaw."  The tall, handsome yoga teacher's big paddle feet go past the edge of my visual field.  I try to remain in the moment but I can't help cracking a grin.  He's been telling us to relax our jaws periodically throughout this class and every time I react internally like a 13 year old boy.  Same deal when he has us open our hips...

I've always said that being fat is harder on women than it is on men.  Not only is there a lot more societal pressure to be stick thin rather than just healthy, which men don't seem to get, but it's a lot harder to be seen as physically attractive if you're even ten or fifteen pounds overweight. Anyway, it seems I'm not the only one thinking these things.  There's an article in the NYTimes today about overweight and obese women doing worse than men financially, an interesting angle on the effects of obesity, and in it they say: Why doesn’t body size affect men’s attainment as much as women’s? One explanation is that overweight girls are more stigmatized and isolated in high school compared with overweight boys. Other studies have shown that body size is one of the primary ways Americans judge female — but not male — attractiveness. We also know that the social stigma associated with obesity is strongest during adolescence. So perhaps teachers and pee...

I had a total meltdown last night.  Some of it was triggered by the usual stress (I just got back from a wonderful trip to SF, and I'm homesick and worried about catching up with work, and I had a massively important writing deadline yesterday), but mostly it was about the doctor's appointment I have tomorrow.  And the weigh-in that awaits me there. I know I've ranted about doctors before.  And I've told you about this one , specifically.  The short story is that if my BMI goes up one more point I'll be cut off from using Nuvaring, which is the only form of hormonal birth control I've ever tried that hasn't made me feel crazy and disinterested in sex.  So I booked this appointment last month, making sure to make it for a day when I was unlikely to be PMSing and likely to be writing at home instead of in the office.  But I didn't factor in the vacation beforehand; suffice it to say, my weight is not low enough that I feel totally confident strutting i...

The other night, the bf and I were watching this show called “Inside Nature’s Giants,” which we didn’t realize at first involves dissecting the big-ass animals of land and sea.  We chose to watch the episode about whales, because they’re frickin fascinating and also because I love tigers too much to watch one get cut up.  But I wish we had chosen the tigers, because the whole time they were slicing through the whale, and the fatty, slippery flesh was sliding all over the beach, and the scientists were covered in grease, I kept thinking about my body.  How that was probably what I looked like when the doctors were slicing me up and pulling off hunks of my blubber.  How that's still what my body feels like in places: loose, slippery, uncontained . My classmates are always saying I have a very ‘descriptive’ touch when it comes to talking about my body, and my friend N pointed out that I frequently use food metaphors/similes, which is kind of interesting.  But ...

The lovely bf took me to Mexico a couple of months ago, and I started a blog post there.  Obviously, I never finished it, because I was distracted by the beautiful pool and our personal pastry class and the delectable food everywhere we turned, but I looked at it again today and realized that the subject I wanted to touch on is still worth discussing.  Basically, I started the post with a photo of the amazing resort where we were staying.  And I mean AMAZING.  I’ve never before in my life stayed at a hotel so beautiful and comfortable and just plain stunning that I didn’t want to leave the compound walls.  I’m all about real Mexico– the people, the culture, the food– but I had absolutely no desire to leave ever.  I could seriously live in this amazing place.  This is important for you to know, not so I can brag, but so you can understand how pissed off I was to still feel like such a fat cow.  I mean, here I was, with my own private villa w...

For a couple of years now, I’ve been a big fan of the TV show What Not To Wear.  I find Clinton adorable and Stacy just mean enough, and I almost always agree with their style choices (I seriously spend half the show trying to figure out where Stacy gets her dresses and shoes!).  And I was hooked for life when I realized that they’re not at all sizeist; they don’t even take sizes into account, almost like they’re wearing blinders to the number on the tag (fabric and fit take precedence). I think the moment I realized that my affection for Stacy and Clinton wasn’t just about the dresses (but OH the dresses!) was during an old episode with a woman named Kandis, who was more than usually obsessed with her size.  Within the first few hours of their tutorial, Stacy lost her patience with Kandis’s self-deprecation, and she said something that I thought was so interesting, I actually wrote it down verbatim (really, thank god for Tivo): “You know what worries me? You are only...

A couple of hours ago, I was lying in bed with my boyfriend, making out etc, and he whispered in my ear "your body drives me crazy."  Not only did I not respond by arching my back and grinning at him, the way I should have, but the way I did respond is just SO classic.  I sort of faux-smiled (cha grinned , as I like to call it), and said "that makes two of us." God, what a mood killer, eh?!  If it weren't for my boyfriend's persistance I would have just given up.  And to be honest, sometimes I do.  I don't write about sex much on this blog, I guess because it's one of very few subjects I'm not quite comfortable throwing out there into the internet, but I'm beginning to think I ought to change that.  After all, the bedroom (or the living room, or the kitchen, or the airplane bathroom, etc) is the one place where (in most cases) we can't hide our bodies behind clothes or under water. It's also one of the few places where sarcasm...

I woke up this morning, nose running, lungs itchy and swollen, and generally just feeling like shit on a stick. I got out of bed, topless, and turned to put on my robe, and there was my boyfriend, staring at me appreciatively. I was not in the mood, but all he said was “you’ve lost a lot of weight.” Of course, being the bitchy, complicated female that I am, I replied: “I don’t know how to take that,” and walked off to the bathroom, covering up on my way. He meant it as a compliment to how I look now, rather than an insult to how I looked before, and in his defense he’s never once in 3 1/2 years said anything but kind words about my body. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hear the unkind ones he doesn’t say. Those are delightfully provided by my own fucked-up psyche. But the point here isn’t that I’m screwed up, because everybody already knows that. The point is, when he said that about my weight, I realized with a jolt that these past few days I’ve been so focused on hacking up my al...

I stopped using the calorie counter when we left for our vacation in Italy (Bologna, Umbria , Arezzo , and Cinque Terre ), figuring I didn't want to ruin the delicious food I was planning on stuffing my face with, and relying on the fact that I always lose weight on vacation (my theory is that I'm too busy walking around to snack). And we were really active on vacay , especially when scrambling up and down mountains to nude beaches in Cinque Terre , so I really wasn't too worried about all the gelato and pasta I was consuming (YUM). But I was planning on getting back into the counting when I came back to London... That was the plan , anyway. But then we only had 2 days before we moved into the new flat, after which life was (still is) a blur of unpacking, buying secondhand furniture, and entertaining the friends who so wonderfully came to visit me but whom I so unwittingly told the first week of September would be fine ( gah ). So long story short, I'm still not c...

To anybody who actually reads this blog (Derek), you have my apologies. I know I haven’t written in forever, because I was waiting to be inspired to humor and wit, but now instead I’ll just be updating the black hole of cyberspace on my life and my angstiness. I left London in mid-August, which sucked because I had to leave my boyfriend behind, but I figured I’d be coming home to a land of a slightly more normal body scale. Women in London seem defined in class by their weight, much like Postal Packages. The thinner you are, the wealthier/better educated/generally classier you are. Or at least that’s how I felt there. The only women above a size 4 (US) were big, apple-shaped messes of fake blonde hair and loud offensive voices. Usually they didn’t live in London. (Of course I’m generalizing. Broadly. But I’m going to continue to do so, hiding behind my secure belief that hardly anyone reads this anyway, and Derek knows I’m not really an asshole!) San Francisco, on the other ha...

So I went to the gym today, like a good little chubster, and while I was sweating it out on the bike I tried not to stare at the perky, everslender asses bouncing up and down in front of me on the elliptical. But I couldn’t help it, and here’s why: I have a problem with staring at other people’s bodies, especially tits and ass. I think maybe I’m part frat boy. Or I grew up with a bisexual older sister and a vocal older brother, and was trained from an early age to check out other women (although sadly I get no tingles down below from kissing them or touching their boobs, which is as far as I went with my only girl-fling). But this is not a post about my inappropriate staring. This is a post about thongs. Ok, ok. I get it. I no longer rail for hours against the thong; I no longer state outright that I’ll never wear one, or that it’s better to just go without. Windy days in SF have taught me that they are better than nothing, and I even own about ten, a few of which are favorites...

I’ve been so unhappy with my body recently. I can’t really figure it out. I’m eating fairly well, I haven’t gained any weight, my clothes still fit me…but for some reason every time I look in the mirror I look thick. And I don’t mean sexy black girl thick. I mean linebacker thick. Or just fat girl thick. And it’s not even just that I feel fat. Today I forwent my usual padded push-up bra for my favorite lace underwire, which, although it doesn’t make my breasts look particularly large, makes them feel huge and fantastic. But today they just looked tiny, and flat, and then the rest of my torso as a result looked flabby and large. I’m still wearing the bra, but I feel awful. And it’s not just my upper body. I mean, my hips and thighs have always been the biggest part of me, but usually I think they’re curvaceous and lately I think they’re just gargantuan. Somehow the subtle flow of their form, which used to be feminine and sexy, is now just heavy and cumbersome. There's real...

It’s weird. My scars haven’t even faded yet, except in miraculously transparent patches, and I’m already forgetting they exist. Now, when I raise my arms to tie up my hair (something I would never have done in public just a year ago) and the man at the next table looks at me a little too long, I feel an urge to make sure I’ve shaved my armpits. It’s only when I not-so-slyly slide my fingers into my shirt that I feel the abnormally smooth stripe of skin and realize what the man was staring at. And I’m so much less strict about hiding them. Last week at work I wore a sleeveless dress and one of the nurses asked about my scars, and I realized I hadn’t told anyone there about my weight loss and all my surgeries. Even the other receptionist, to whom I feel fairly close. And so I told the nurse, because I’ve always maintained that if I hide my history with surgery then I don’t deserve the benefits of the procedures. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be ashamed of my plastic surgery, a...

Tonight my boyfriend said he loved my stomach, and I couldn’t help telling him I’d let my doctor know. Then, when he looked me in the eyes and told me that if we’d met before my surgeries he’d still have loved me, I couldn’t believe him. And I told him that. I couldn’t just say “aw thanks, honey,” I had to go on about how he would have liked me as a friend, thought I was funny, a funny fat girl, but he would never have been attracted to me. Which, in all fairness, is unfair to him. He probably is the kind of guy who would have loved me anyway, but I never wanted to be loved in spite of the way I looked. Being fat was a catch-22 for any guy who might have loved me (not that anyone did, to my knowledge): if you love me for my personality, you must think I’m disgusting and are just looking past my looks, which makes you shallow. On the other hand, if you love the way I look, you are obviously deranged because I’m disgusting, and therefore you’re completely un-datable as a result of...