argh! fat! argh!

[keryx]

It turns out that even the great community Fatshionista has a secret number in its head. You know what I mean? Many people have 200 lbs in their heads as the number at which someone is about to DROP DEAD FROM TEH FATS OH NOES. Members of that community seem to stop at 500 lbs - which is, admittedly, rather large.

Over time I've amended my belief that what immobilizes fat and supersize folk who complain about quality of life is not their fat per se but the fact that they haven't continued to move their fat bodies around. Now I think what immobilizes them is a culture - including themselves - that makes it impossible to visualize a happy, contented, supersize person who is reasonably healthy (or at least, no worse off than an average person). So, you know what, if you are so sure for you personally that you can't be healthy without that weight? Try to lose the weight. I hope along the way you pick up habits that make you feel better.

Just. Please please please don't presume you can pick a number and declare that people who weigh more than that are at death's door. We're all limited by our experience and our paradigm. I remember 160 lbs or so making my quality of life suck, but 200+ (yes, the magic number! OMG!) is apparently just fine. My perspective's shifted quite a bit in those 10 years.

The magic number is always just a bit further than the fattest weight we can imagine for ourselves, but that magic, unliveable number is likely a size at which someone else lives just fine. So stop imagining. There, problem solved.

Comments

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

Totally OT but we were beside you on Forest Hill today, waving frantically, but you didn't see us.

Me: "Hey look, there's April! Remember April? You went to that party at her house, with all those nice people?"

Suley: "Yeah! Who were all those people?"

Me: "They were April's friends."

Suley: "Well, everybody that's not April better get out of her house."

[keryx.livejournal.com]

HA! Did you tell him that you threatened to bring all my other staff and their pillows on move in day?

I totally didn't see you!

[firecat]

I should have known better than to click that link.

I agree with you.

[moongirli.livejournal.com]

That's actually one of the things that prodded me to leave that group, and before that, Beautiful Curves (I think that was what the comm was called).

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I never heard of Beautiful Curves. At least fatshionista (which I keep mistyping and "fatshitista") doesn't have the "get a man and your life will be perfect" attitude of like, Don't Tell Me What Size I Must Be. I'm willing to accept some ideological differences, but I don't know how to respond to FA's having ideological differences with THE FAT MOVEMENT.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

I think it was Bellacurve? I was one of the original members of the bellacurve community but left when it got clogged up with "join my ratings community" spam.

[moongirli.livejournal.com]

Could've been - it had cartoon fat girls at the top of the layout?

[sheana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are times I really want to throatpunch that community for that shit. I love the girl who was blathering about the "morbidly obese" BS - oh noes, you hit the magic fatdeath threshold!

I will say, though, that I think you're giving the comm waaaay too much credit - I think the "acceptable fat" threshold is much lower and, perhaps, much more arbitrary (i.e. "pretty fat" may be okay, but "ugly fat" is unhealthy... meh, I'm not explaining well).

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, this.

I'm contemplating wearing some really ridiculous outfit of silly shoes (highlighted by my pigeon-toed stance) cuffed up jeans, a t-shirt and a too small cardigan buttoned right under my breasts and doing an OOTD and waiting for the twenty-two year olds who slobber all over one another when they post outfits like that to drop into dead silence.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I'm betting you will be totally hot.

Or at least I am when I wear that outfit every weekend! HA! Minus jean cuffs.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

It's the jean cuffs and the too-small cardigan that always make me say "um, what?" when I see them.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the too-small cardigan as a fashion choice. After The Gay finish destroying marriage, I'm going to marry my itty bitty sweater collection.

More seriously... I like the vibe of multiple layers of different lengths. It makes me think of paper art and kimono and other cool layery things.

Cuffed jeans I cannot defend.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

There is no defense for too-small cardigans or cuffed jeans. Ever.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Too small cardigans RULE! As long as they'll actually button and fit your arms, so they're mostly small in length and sleeve.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Well if it buttons (really buttons, not just once under your breasts) and fits your arms, it's not too small. The ones I'm thinking of don't so much "fit" as "the arm can be stuffed into the sleeve in a manner which results in a look not unlike that of sausage links."

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking this morning that it'd be fun to go a week or so dressing to highlight my "bad" features. Sausage arms would look pretty sassy with a nice muffin top.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Mm, I have to see the best way to dress to really highlight my thunder thighs. I think stompy boots, which draw attention to the powerfulness of said thighs, what do you think?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! I can't work that look, though, since it would hide my cankles.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

My ankles (and the shape of my calves) are the only part of me that's (relatively) svelte. I love my ankles.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Rarely does the "conventionally pretty fat" thing get expressed aloud on the community (in the past it did and was squished by the mods), but I do think a lot of the members are in that adolescent phase where they can defensively embrace size difference as long as that size conforms to most other beauty conventions.

But the 500lb thing went mostly unchecked by commenters, probably because they all did what I did: thought I'm not getting into THAT with THESE PEOPLE and went to whine on their ljs.

[libskrat]

Oh hell to the yes, sez this 220-pound Not Dead Yet Dammit woman.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Plus, as someone pointed out earlier, you and I may already be so old by the community's standards that we've got a foot each in the grave by now.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

I've got 8 years on you, plus a number of pounds. I must be on life support at this very moment, or at least immobilized completely by my bad, bad, old, unpretty fat.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And some of the coolest and/or best known fattivists are animated corpses. Sitting on the sofa gorging on brains, apparently.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

I've had my suspicions for ages.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

You know the discourse is smoking hot when it evolves into BRAAAAAINS! BRAAAAINS!

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

I for one welcome our zombie overlords.

[libskrat]

Oh, right, right. Well, I'll make sure to get a front-row seat at next year's zombie lurch, then.