Figure Eight and Look She Dates

Coloring Bodies Like Mine In Spaaaaace!

2011-08-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a box arrived at my door. Inside were four copies of Nicole Lorenz's new coloring book, Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace. I saw it mentioned on The Rotund and just had to have a copy. I knew I wanted to give at least one copy away and Amazon has a buy three get one free deal so I ordered four. After I got home last night from a beer tasting party to benefit my UU church I sat down and colored a few pages.

I love seeing these images of women with bodies like mine doing the things I love to read about and imagine. What a gift Nicole Lorenz has given those of us without the ability to draw such things by making our fantasies come to life in such a fun way!

As I was coloring the tummy of the Diva below, I realized how I could fully see this body type as beautiful now which I'm not sure I could have a year or two ago. This is still impacting changes in how I dress and how I date. I am no longer petrified that the lump of my belly may show too prominently in an outfit. I don't think "yuck" when I look at that part of my body (most of the time anymore) and I don't mind if it is highlighted a little bit by the clothes I have on. I am so much nicer to my physical self.

Nicole is also having a coloring contest and one of the prizes is for her to do one of her drawings of you in this style!!! I can not imagine how cool that would be to have. I probably don't have the talent for coloring (or the technical know-how to do it on the computer) to win but hey a gal can dream!

So go download a few sample pages from the website and order your copy/copies on Amazon. I highly recommend getting your color on with these, they are FABULOUS!

Breakups, blues, and the love of the women around me

2011-07-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

The Craigslist adventure came to an end. The breakup blindsided me a bit though it did come from the place I had been most concerned about, his past relationship. I had thought that it seemed a bit too soon for him to be moving on, and I was right. He wasn't really ready. I won't go into the details out of respect for his privacy but it was very clear to me that it wasn't about me. It wasn't about me being too much or not enough in any way.

It was hard to have it end, hard to let go of the hope that this might be different but the relationship itself, right up until the end, was a great opportunity for me to see how ready I am to be part of a real partnership. Looking back I am happy with how I was able to be fully present during the time we were together, to not let the same issues come up for me that have gotten in the way of making a connection in the past and to maturely handle both the good and the not-so-good aspects of relating to another person.

After the breakup I was beautifully supported by several of my woman friends. I feel such gratitude for the amazing community around me. The day it happened, they scooped me up, told me repeatedly how wonderful I am and how ridiculous it was of him to give me up. They got me just a wee bit drunk, kept me safe as we swam and laughed and ate good sushi and throughout it all let me cry and swear away some of my anger at the suddenness of the breakup. That day and in the days since, they held me in a circle of comfort and I was able to quickly find my center again. Of course I feel a little sad but luckily we weren't that far into it. It had only been two months really and I'm so glad it happened sooner rather than after 6 months or a year.

Now I have to decide where I go from here. Do I hop right back on the horse, re-post a dating profile somewhere? Do I look for somewhere different? (I think I've tried every major on-line dating site out there.) Is there somewhere I could be meeting more men in person? My work and friend communities are heavily female dominated. Even my super-liberal, non-christian church has very few (if any) single, straight men who are anywhere near my age. Or do I just hang back for a bit and see what happens?

A Little Help From A Friend

2011-06-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

Last month one of my best friends sent me a text message while I was at work. She's tried to set me up with a few of her friends and has just generally been very encouraging of my dating process. Here's how the conversation went:

T: Can I put up a personal ad for you?
Me: What? I already have one.
T: On Craigslist.
Me: Craigslist is all sex. That's not what I want right now.
T: There are some good guys there.
Me: Well if you want to sort the replies you can. I just don't think I have the energy to do it right now and I don't want to see the penis pictures (I had tried Craigslist in the past so I knew what she'd be getting.)
T: Yay!

I was in a bit of a dating funk. I was feeling grumpy about the process and the amount of work that it took. I'd been debating taking down my ads on the dating sites and was generally pessimistic about the possibility of meeting anyone who was right for me but I figured if she wanted to do the work, I'd let her.

Here's the ad. I laughed when I saw it. I couldn't believe she'd put in the "awesome" line. She chose a picture from my facebook and put it up as well. It wasn't one I would have picked.

Title: Why Not?-35 (Neighborhood I Live In)
Let's get straight to the point.

Me: 35, never married, no kids, dog person, PhD, Occupational Therapist, apartment with one roommate, liberal, curvy, sweet, kinda nerdy, love to explore Los Angeles, originally from the East Coast, non-smoker, social drinker, all around awesome.

You: 34-39, have a career (not just a job), some sort of higher education (I understand that not all people are college people, but a thirst for knowledge and bettering oneself is important), roommates ok, your mother's house not ok (few exceptions granted), wants kids (eventually), likes to explore the world but can appreciate a nice day lounging in bed, liberal, gay friendly, dog friendly, have a car but understands the importance of public transportation, social drinker, can make conversation without it feeling like a job interview.

Do not respond if you are looking for a booty call (though they have their place, not what i'm looking for).

Bonus points: I like a guy with a few extra pounds
Super Bonus points: is or is at least is familiar with UU (and no cheating by looking it up)

That evening, T sent me three email replies. Each had a picture and short response.
One amused me because he had the same last name as T. I playfully accused her of setting up an elaborate ruse to get me to go out with her cousin. She denied it.

His response was short and simple:

Hello my name is **** I’m 35 I live by ****. I am a geeky guy, I do have a job let me rephrase that career. I work for a hospital. I love music and I do love dogs a lot. OK if you want to chat my yahoo is ****. I hope to hear from you!!

His picture was cute. He has a goatee and square glasses and a little bit of a hipster vibe. I found him on yahoo the next night and we chatted for several hours. I emailed the other two guys as well but quickly decided they were not for me. I wasn't sure with this one. There were a few things that I didn't think were promising. He's not long out of a marriage and he doesn't drink (I like to be able to go out and have drinks with my dates) but he was sweet, funny and most unusually, respectful on IM. I know it's disturbing that I think this is rare but my experience in the world of online dating led me to expect otherwise. We chatted again a few nights later and then talked on the phone. We planned a coffee date. We walked around and then got gelato. We didn't kiss or even hold my hand. I worried that he didn't like me but he suggested we meet at a dog park the next weekend with our dogs. We went to the dog park then out for a late lunch-again no kiss or even touching but he asked me to come to the movies with him the following week. I was really wondering at this point if he was interested. During the movie he surprised me with a kiss. I felt a bit like I was back in high-school. He later admitted that he hadn't kissed me sooner because he wasn't sure if I liked him.

We've been seeing each other a few times a week ever since and I must admit that I like him more each time I see him. Oh and I took down my other personal ads.

Dress for a date

2011-06-02T00:23:00.000-07:00

I'm totally craving this new dress from Sealed with a Kiss Designs.

I love the color (they call it mushroom) and it looks like it would move really well. I'm trying hard not to buy any more new clothes right now since I picked up some great pieces right before my trip to Hawaii in April but oh this is tempting me! I also love that it's featured in Sarah's Closet on the site since it gives me a much better idea of what the dress will look like on my body. The model above is gorgeous of course, but she's probably 8 inches taller than me and wears a significantly smaller dress size. If I do order it I'll probably throw in a Boyfriend Tee (might not have a boyfriend but at least I can have the T-shirt!) I wouldn't have considered it before I saw it on Sarah in the closet feature. It looks amazing on her and convinced me that it's worth a try.

I'd love to pair that dress with my denim blazer for an after work cocktail date. I had one of those recently where I wore a favorite red dress that I got at Macy's a few years ago. It's a dark red knit with a fitted bodice, circle skirt, and pretty braided trim and straps. Hmm...I can't believe I don't have a picture of it somewhere but I can't find one. I wore it with a short sleeved brown shrug and big round dark wood dangling earrings. I felt really pretty in the outfit and it seemed that my date agreed. We drank Sangria, had good conversation and had plans for a second date by the time he walked me to my car.

I wear a lot of dresses and almost always wear one when going on a date. I just love the comfort and ease that comes with throwing on a dress. I often wear bike shorts underneath to prevent the dreaded chub rub. I struggle to find ones that cover my cleavage in some meaningful way (it's a mighty task) without looking like I showed up in a potato sac and often end up throwing a tank or boob tube underneath to make the dress decent for public appearances.

Fellow fat daters, do you have a first date outfit? I've heard of women who always wear the same outfit when going on internet dates. I'm not that consistent. I have to wear what I'm in the mood for or I won't feel comfortable.

Edited to fix my grammar and reinstate the lost last paragraph!

No Reply

2011-02-28T14:11:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago I spotted a profile of a man on one of the dating sites I use that seemed like an ideal match for me. I agreed with everything he wrote on his profile and in fact found it charming and interesting. He had answered many of the questions that are important to me and our answers seemed to agree on almost everything. He even had answered yes to a question about whether he would date someone who was significantly overweight. I was hopeful in a way I haven't been about many folks I've found on these sites.

I carefully wrote out a reply commenting on something he'd said on his profile and expressing interest in getting to know him. I sent it off late one evening and waited for a response.

Usually when I send off a message on these sites I have very little attachment to the results. I almost forget who I have replied to sometimes but this one was different. Days went by with no message back from him and I thought, "Well he's probably busy or just hasn't checked his messages." A week went by and I risked looking at his profile to see if he had logged in. He had. Another few days went by and I realized that he wasn't going to respond. I waited yet another few days and then I sent a second message saying that I could see that he wasn't interested but that if he would be willing, I would appreciate any feedback as to why. I was really curious because it seemed like I fit very well into what he was saying he wanted and he seemed from his profile to be the kind of man I am interested in. That was Thursday and I have not heard anything back. I'm guessing I probably won't. I have to admit that I'm disappointed. I would really have liked to know why he wasn't interested. Perhaps something on my profile isn't representing me or what I want accurately and I'd like to get that feedback.

One good thing about this is that seeing his profile helped me to clarify what I want. I actually edited my profile to include a few things that his made me think about. I'm really happy with my new profile even though I haven't been getting many responses. I feel it better represents who I am and what I'm looking for and as such will hopefully lead to those who do reply being a better match for me.

Checking the Fat Box

2011-02-26T15:37:00.001-08:00

One of the challenges of online dating while fat is choosing which euphemism to represent your body size.

The choices on one popular site are:

No answer
Slender
About average
Athletic and toned
Heavyset
A few extra pounds
Stocky
Big and beautiful
Curvy
Full figured

The choices on another are:

Rather not say
Thin
Overweight
Skinny
Average
Fit
Athletic
Jacked
A little extra
Curvy
Full figured
Used up

There just aren't words there that I want to use. Overweight implies that I should be a different weight and I'm over it. Curvy is something I am, but I don't like how it's used as a euphemism for fat bodies. Many people are curvy and fat many are curvy and not fat. I'm not all that fond of Big and beautiful but it feels like the best bet sometimes because I think it most closely represents my body in a way that folks will recognize from the popularity of the BBW shorthand. I sometimes use Full figured but it leaves me feeling a bit dissatisfied. I'm not sure what I'd like there. I wish that I didn't need to choose. I've always included a full body photo so folks can judge for themselves whether my body is going to be something they could be attracted to.

For those of you who on-line date, what descriptors are you using? Do you feel frustrated by the choices? What other options might you like to see?

Possibilities and picture thoughts

2011-02-10T13:53:00.001-08:00

Whew, looks like I took an unintentional hiatus. The last entry shook me up a bit and I had to take some time to let my new revelations sink in. I've been exploring a few more options for interacting with different people, saying yes more to my opportunities and making a point of engaging in things I find fun.

Dating wise, I have a few new possibilities to explore. I've got a date Saturday night with a man from a big dating web-site. I don't know a ton about him beyond his profile and a few emails we've exchanged, but I'm looking forward to finding out more. We're meeting at a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

There's also a fellow from a good distance away who has approached me online. We're just beginning the process of chatting and getting to know one another. I think I am open to something long distance right now though I haven't been in the past. I feel like I'm in a place where the details don't matter as much as the connection.

Thirdly, two people have tried to set me up in the last month. The first was with a lovely man who is the best friend of the boyfriend of one of my friends from my church (Unitarian Universalist for those who are curious...so not exactly your typical idea of church). We met at a party, hit it off and had a great time, but he is not in the market for a relationship due to being in the middle of a family crisis. I'm not giving up on him totally, but I am trusting him when he says he can't do relationship right now so as not to get hung up on another unavailable man.

The second set-up was with a man who is 15 years older than I am. He seemed quite nice though possibly a bit conservative for me. We talked a few times on the phone but haven't made any plans to get together.

None of these are particularly exciting but it's nice to have some possibilities and to have the dating world feel open and engaged. I'm thrilled that people have started setting me up, I take it as a complement and am trying to spread the word that I'd be open to any kind of set-up that folks think would work for me. I also asked one friend to re-work my dating profile to help me move away from the bitterness I was feeling about it. I'm happy with what she came up with though I haven't posted it yet.

Lastly, I'm not sure if this will end up having anything to do with dating, but I finally got a webcam and am figuring out how to use it. I think it may at least mean that it's easier for me to have more variety in my pictures so that not all of them are me dressed up at some event or doing something silly. I went through my pictures on my online profile and tried to put more in that showed my personality. I now have 9 pictures up. One that's just my face, two from a recent friend's wedding, one of which is a full body shot standing with a friend, one of me on the beach--full body from a bit of distance in a bathing suit with a skirt, two from sporting events-one hockey, one American football (both things I enjoy watching live), one of me singing karaoke with a friend, and two darker shots in bars one of which is me and two friends doing the see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil pose. I used to have some "prettier" shots up but these feel more real to me. I'm wondering if there are too many though. Any thoughts?

edited for spelling

Breaking Out of My Shell

2010-12-16T22:44:00.000-08:00

I've opened up a can of worms. It all started when, based on the conversations I'd had with the Summer Fling, I realized that I needed a new online dating profile. I needed to shake up my old profile and make it more fun. This led to the realization that in fact I need to shake up my life and make it more fun. The more I thought about my current profile, the more I've realized that it is actually reflecting my current life. My life has gotten boring. My work is intense and interesting to a point but I don't want my life to be all about my work. I find it stimulating but it doesn't fulfill me. I've always prided myself on keeping my life interesting, of doing fun things with fun people but somehow lately I've lost that spark.

It's time to make a plan for more fun, more adventures, more excitement, more playfulness, more ME. I am more than my work. I need to make sure that is reflected in the things I'm doing, the places I'm going and the people I'm spending time with yet I'm not sure how to make that happen.

I feel like I need to explore some more of what makes me who I am. I've spent a lot of time trying to be what other people expect. I did all the things I was told to do and now I find myself waiting for the rewards I was told I would receive. For some reason, those rewards didn't show up. There's no husband and babies when I expected that I would have them. I've been good but Santa seems to have skipped over my chimney. I've made the lists, I've taken the classes, read the relationship books, worked with coaches and therapists, I've visualized and believed with all my heart that I would have that life but here I am, 35 and still single and childless. I've got a PhD but am not sure I want the career that goes along with it. I'm not so young and not exactly the classic definition of pretty and now somehow I've managed to become boring...how did this happen?

I feel like I've flirted with the edges of some worlds that might hold interest for me but I can't quite get into them. I've recently discovered that I'm more of a geek than I knew. I've always been interested in sci-fi/fantasy to a certain degree, I stumbled across the work of Anne McCaffrey and Piers Anthony as a teenager but didn't figure out where to go next with it. I loved stories about dragons and unicorns and psychic powers. I discovered a show called Quantum Leap and loved it but I didn't know anyone else who liked these things. I wanted to fit in, to be liked by the other kids at school and I never found a group who I really fit with. I was also fairly oblivious. There were probably other kids around who liked what I liked but I didn't see them. I was smart and I liked to sing and these things fit with the groups I could find. I had friends but we didn't really have deep connections. I'm friends now with a few of them on Facebook but we don't really stay in touch. No one in my family liked the geeky things either. I was working so hard to avoid the negative judgments of others, the judgments related to my body and my bookishness. I was afraid to be different in any more ways than those. Now as an adult I've explored it a little bit more and I've discovered a bunch of things I really love, the books of Neil Gaiman and Dr. Who being two of them. Yet I don't know how to engage further in that world. I feel stuck. I read all those books and watched all the new Dr. Who episodes but how do I find other people who are interested in these things? I feel like I'm behind, like those who are engaged in that world all started when they were teenagers and now here I am in my mid-thirties, just admitting that I like this stuff. Just looking to connect over these things, just starting to explore these worlds.

Another world I've flirted with is the arty/hippie world. I went to Burning Man twice, met some amazing people, LOVED dressing up and the theme events, enjoyed the art, but was shy about the drugs, not wanting to admit my inexperience and naivete and being too afraid to try things that I didn't really understand. I couldn't fully engage with the open sexuality there. I got scared, backed off and just felt envious of those who were able to open themselves up to it. I feel like I've really repressed my sexuality. I've always been intrigued by a much more open sexual world, more kink, more exploration but again, I've been afraid. Afraid I don't have the right body for it, afraid others will laugh at the fat woman who wants to be a sexual creature. I used to like talking about sex with people. I've always been fascinated by what's out there though I've felt afraid of getting into a situation where I didn't know what I was doing. I've lost a bit of the thrill in my sex life in the last few years because I haven't had a consistent, playful partner. I don't even know how to describe it, but I've been afraid to explore my sexuality, afraid of doing it wrong, afraid that it's too late to explore, afraid I'll offend someone, afraid that I'll end up being a slut full of uncontrollable desires and unmet needs, afraid that I'll ruin my chances of living this life I thought I was on the path to with the good job and the family. The life that isn't happening anyway but somehow this is a threat to it.

Another community (and one that I suspect may overlap with some of the others) are the folks who play online games and go to Renaissance Fairs but with all of these, I can't quite figure out how to gain entry, I feel like I need someone to give me a tour and show me the way, to say "Hey, come with me and try this out." Why can't I just do it myself? I am still afraid.

I've spent so long repressing my true desires and worrying about what others think that I am having trouble digging into that space inside myself. By covering it all up and trying to be who I thought I should be, I think I've lost what makes me interesting. I think I've hidden the things that could have really allowed me to connect with someone. I've pasted on this papier-mâché Kim that has covered up the light of who I really am. I want to let that light out. I want to explore these sides of myself without fear. Without looking ignorant to both those inside and outside the communities, without fear of the consequences. I've lived too much of my life dictated by fear. I have a lot more light to radiate. I have to break free of this shell I've created. The funny thing though is that it's not about being fat. The shell isn't the fat girl hiding the thin girl who has always wanted out. The inner me is still a fat woman. She's just bolder and less afraid and she's much more interesting.

Edited to fix my many spelling errors.

Better Catch-The update

2010-12-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

So in my last post I talked about the man I dated last summer who recently suggested that my online dating profile needed to be reworked and made me a bit uncomfortable in the process. I ended up having a very good conversation with him about the situation finally this past week. We'd been trying to find a time to talk for several weeks but we both have busy schedules and then there's the three hour time difference so it took a while.

Soon after I posted the previous entry, I responded to his email saying that I was a bit uncomfortable with the initial suggestion. He immediately sent back an apology. When we were finally able to find a time to talk on the phone he continued to apologize and clearly realized why it was awkward. He said he'd wondered if he might have put his foot in his mouth when I didn't respond immediately and was upset that he'd done something that made me uncomfortable. He told me that when he wrote the email he was trying to find a way to reciprocate for some advice I'd given him that he'd found very helpful and since he's done a lot of online dating he thought perhaps that was an area where he could offer something to me. I felt better after hearing his explanation and explaining a bit more about my feelings and I'm glad we got a chance to talk about it.

When I then asked what his feedback was, it actually was illuminating though I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet. He mentioned that it struck him that my profile is very serious while I am actually a very playful person who uses a great deal of humor in my day-to-day life. I think he's right and after he told me this I started to reflect on why this might be. I realized that part of it is that I'm not very happy about online dating. I don't find the process of sorting through the replies to be fun or exciting. Perhaps I'm even a bit burnt out. I want to be dating, but I feel cynical about the potential. I've been on so many bad dates now and had so many good dates that then ended up not going anywhere that I feel as if I've lost my hope for finding something meaningful. I'm tired of wading through the guys who are looking only for a sexual connection when I know that I want something more.

Since this conversation I've been a bit frozen with regards to my online dating presence. Realizing that this part of my life just isn't fun anymore makes me wonder if I should be doing it at all. I do know that I want to be in a relationship again. I really enjoy couplehood. I like the day-to-day companionship and I know that I thrive when I have someone to engage with in that reciprocal caring way. I want a lover again in my life. I miss the intimacy of a good regular sex life. I love to touch and be touched and I know I'm a more balanced human being when I'm getting those needs met.

So now I'm asking myself where I go from here. Do I try to rework my profile to better reflect my personality, the joyful fun parts of me as well as the serious? Do I take a break from online dating for a bit? I doubt I'll meet anyone offline as I work with mostly women and my friends and social contacts all seem to be married these days. Is there a way to bring the joy and fun back into the process of online dating without sacrificing who I am and what I want? What do you think readers?

A much better catch...

2010-11-07T21:06:00.001-08:00

I just got an email from my summer fling on one of the dating websites I use offering to give me tips on improving my profile. We've stayed in touch as friends though it hasn't always been easy. I initially thought there could be something much more potent and powerful between us and was very excited about him and the possibility of a relationship with him. He was interested in spending time with me but not interested in something more serious. Luckily I've been able to see him more clearly since we stopped seeing each other romantically and I have a better understanding of why it didn't/couldn't work for us to have the kind of relationship I would have preferred.

The email read:

if you are interested in my providing you with feedback on how you might improve your profile, feel free to let me know. i think you are a much better catch than this profile lets on. :-)

My initial response to this email was to feel a bit insulted. I've worked hard on that profile and have put quite a bit of thought into it. I was also hurt because some small part of me still hoped that he would realize how great I was and want to date me again (though when I think about this logically it would be a bad idea.) After thinking it over for a few hours, I have come to the conclusion that I should probably ask for his suggestions. He is trying to help after all and I don't have to actually make the changes if I don't agree with them. Something about it though does rub me the wrong way. What do you think? Would you feel differently if you were in my situation?

Dating Fat as a Radical Act

2010-11-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Love and the search for it is really what this blog is about. I'm dating because I want to be loved for who I am now, in this body, with all my flaws and foibles as well as all the good things about me and also because I want to love someone that way.

As most who will read this probably already know, this past week has been an interesting one in the fat-o-sphere related to love. It all began with the brouhaha about the fat hating column on Marie Clare's web page by Maura Kelly. I initially found the article really disturbing. It made me sad to read her words about being disgusted by people's bodies and suggestions that it wasn't OK to put them being affectionate with one another on TV. Reading all the responses of the fat blogging community has helped. It is so nice to know that there are many people out there who have my back, who will stand up and say "You can not talk to us like that. You are wrong and here is why."

The article was disturbing because it put into print much of what we all knew some people were thinking but rarely making explicit. I know that there are many folks out there who don't like how my body looks, who wouldn't want to touch me because they have in their heads that rolls and larger bodies are somehow inherently disgusting. Most people try to hide this idea in polite society, but we know it is there. I do sometimes wonder where this comes from because if I look at it objectively, my fat parts are actually kind of nice to touch. They're soft and squishy like a stuffed animal or a nice pillow. I'm great to lean up against while watching a movie or to snuggle up to in bed. Large breasts are primarily composed of fat and lots of people want to touch those. Perhaps people are afraid that fat bodies are smelly but I know that I smell pretty darn good most of the time.

I know some folks say it's associated with health but I just don't buy that. Mariane Kirby wrote in her response in the Guardian that,

If you want people to be healthy, you don't want to deny them love and affection. You don't want to deny them the freedom to walk around in public going about their lives. When you want people to be healthy, you don't dehumanise them. And you certainly don't use a media platform to discuss how aesthetically displeasing it is to encounter them, even in ways that don't require interaction.

Perhaps the revulsion comes from the fact that fat has been so closely linked with "sick" in the cultural discourse. Are people afraid they might catch our disease? Kelly's assertion that she would also be disgusted watching a drunk or a heroin addict touches on the association with somehow being out of control which I think scares some people. Perhaps seeing fat people out and about, living lives in the world, implies that those bodies have not been properly policed by society. These are people who are refusing to hide away from the world just because they have not been able to mold their bodies into the "right" shape. They are radical just for stepping out into the world fat and radical threatens the status quo.

Dating a fat person is also a radical act, a resistance to the cultural messages that tell you who you should love and often a resistance to your friends and family who might not be fully supportive of you dating someone whose body is not the culturally accepted norm. Unfortunately there are people in this world who will make fun of you for dating a fat person, who will try to make you feel less than for who you love. I know that I am risking being the object of that as someone putting myself out there to try to date.

To that end, I'm so happy to see that Lesley Kinsel has started adding to the Museum of Fat Love (MOFL) again on Tumblr. This site is an inspiration for me and a message to those like Kelly who are living with unexplored fat hatred. This site is a reminder that the dating I'm doing can lead to something beautiful. I am aspiring to be part of this museum someday, to have a photo with someone with love shining out of our eyes at each other and a little story below explaining how we met and how happy we are now.

I will have a partner someday who will love me just as I am and who I can love in the same way and it will be good.

Ingrid Michaelson "The Way I Am" Video

Balance and Boundaries

2010-10-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend this afternoon about how many of the online dating profiles we see say something like "I don't need a partner to complete me..." or "I don't need a relationship but would like to have one if it came along." This message is present in magazine articles and self help books that purport to give advice to those looking for love and is also common in the conversations I have with friends about dating, especially with married or partnered friends.

I understand where the "you must be a complete person on your own" trope comes from though I've certainly seen very needy people end up in good relationships. I feel that I am a "complete person," (whatever that means) but I really do want and even perhaps need to have an intimate partnership with someone. I know that I function better when I have a partner, someone else who is invested in the day-to-day world with me. I think this is partly due to the fact that I'm a very social person. I am happiest when I'm around other people and fun times with family and friends are actually re-charging for me.

If I have a partner, some of that need is met in the course of everyday activities. We have interesting conversations while we do the dishes or we can chat about that interesting show we just saw on TV, and I know that I'll have plans on Saturday night without having to put much effort into planning them out ahead of time. When I'm single, I have to spend more time and energy making sure that my social needs get met. Energy that could otherwise be put into work or other activities. There's also the energy that gets expended in the quest for partnership, the management of the online dating process and the emotional energy invested in meeting new people and trying to figure out new dynamics. When that is a settled area in my life, I am more productive at work and just plain happier.

My most recent dating adventures have involved a man who was lacking some important boundaries. He too recognized his need for a partner, but he wanted someone who could help him with his overwhelming work as much, if not more, than he wanted a romantic partner. He runs a charity organization that is trying to help people in Africa. He is incredibly passionate about this work and has given up much in his own life to try to help the people there. He gave up a high powered job, a large income, and all of his personal savings as well as almost all of his free time for the past few years. He said that he had recently realized that he needed to re-balance his life and decided that finding partnership might be the way to do it. We had two very nice dates where we shared interesting stories and discovered that we had much in common. My instincts were telling me though that he was so invested in this charity as to have little room left for a life for himself. My instincts were right. At the end of our third date he began to tell me a story about a certain child who needed medical care. It was a heart wrenching story and unfortunately it is something that is happening every day. This story was different though because it was in the village he has agreed to help and as such he was giving everything he had to help this child. He had already spent over $5,000 and needed more, more which he did not have.

He asked me to help, to donate myself and to reach out to my friends and family to help as well. It was a very difficult situation. My heart was of course touched by the story but I felt as if this had violated the social contract implicit in an early date between two virtual (no pun intended) strangers. I just wasn't ready to ask for money from those I know based solely on a story he told. I told him I needed time to think about it and that seemed to upset him. He said that when people said they needed time it usually meant that they were going to say no (which he may have been right about) and that this was a life and death situation for this child. Though I do not doubt that he is doing the work he said and that this was a real story of a child in need, I began to doubt why this man was dating me, why he was saying the flattering things he said. I began to think that there might be part of him who saw a successful single woman and thought perhaps I could be a financial help to him and his cause. It was not a pleasant feeling.

These two conversations have me thinking about balance and boundaries. The balance between needing and wanting a partner and creating a life that is fulfilling without that partnership and the boundaries between work and personal life, including dating. How do you maintain those boundaries when your work is something that is integral to who you are? How about when your being or not being in a partnership affects how much you have to give to your work?

Back in the game...but not the best match.

2010-09-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

I went on a date last night. My first one in quite some time. It was with a guy who had contacted me through the chat feature on the site I have my profile on. We chatted once then talked on the phone a few times. I had some reservations as we didn't seem like a great match but he convinced me to meet him for coffee.

We met last night at nine at the local coffee shop. I was pleasantly surprised by his appearance as I thought he was more attractive than his online photo appeared. He is short. I had worn a short heel and was taller than him. I know this would bother some women but I don't mind short men personally. He has an interesting job and the date started well with some conversation about our work. Unfortunately it soon turned to talk about dating and he spent most of the date telling me what's wrong with "girls" and how hard dating is for men. His major complaint was that women wouldn't give him enough of an explanation for not wanting to go out with him and would only tell him once they became "defensive." He felt this was happening in real life and online. He was insistent that dating is harder for men than women and that "girls" are disrespectful and rude. Once he got started on this topic he got very animated and went on and on while ignoring my cues that I wanted to join the conversation. It was about a 30 minute monologue. I later gently pointed out to him that spending most of a date complaining about women who didn't respond "properly" while you were out with one who did respond was probably not the best strategy for success but I'm not sure he was able to hear me. I don't think he ended up liking me much either, he seemed to want someone who would agree with him about these ideas. When I challenged some of them he told me that he's talked to other "girls" who agree with him so I must not really understand.

I left the date and stopped in at my local bar when I had a nice conversation with one of the regulars who always hits on me. I agreed to meet him for a drink downtown next week as a friend so that was a pleasant outcome for a rather disappointing night.

Dry Spell

2010-08-26T11:19:00.001-07:00

Well I'm going through quite a dry spell. I have had very little action on my online dating profile lately. I made some changes a few weeks ago and have apparently scared off all the men!

The main thing I changed was that I put the information that I plan to leave Los Angeles in Fall 2011 on there. I framed it as an important fact because it does relate to dating. It makes dating a really different proposition right now. There's an expiration date on my time here and so if I meet someone great we're going to have to deal with that fact. I might be able to be convinced to stay in the area if the right group of circumstances came about but I am pretty determined to get back East so I can be closer to my family. I also changed my pictures, but I'm hoping that's not why nobody is biting.

What do you all think? Should I leave this information off? Reveal it later after I meet someone? Is it too much honesty to include it on my profile? Or does this mean I just shouldn't be trying to date? I do want companionship and I really enjoy the process of dating so I don't feel like I should have to give it up entirely. Any ideas?

I'm also curious for those of you who have done some online dating, did you search out and approach many men? I usually don't because I've often had many writing to me but since that's stopped I'm wondering if I should be putting out more feelers. The site I'm using doesn't have a space for people to specify the body type they're looking for which makes me more reluctant to reach out. I'm a bit afraid that some men might react negatively to my approaching them.

Recycled Dates

2010-08-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

I've been dipping into the recycling bin again. Spending time with two guys who I've dated in the past. Now this wouldn't be a problem except that these are guys that I have decided are not good choices for me. They fill a need though, a need for male companionship and a little bit of touch, a need to be seen as desirable and worth spending time with. And frankly, it's easy. They don't demand much and they give me that little buzz I can get off having a nice evening with a man.

But, neither of them is really emotionally available or a good match for me. The first is beautiful and a great lover but he doesn't want anything more than to be fuck buddies. Now that can be fun, but it really isn't what I'm looking for in my life right now. I know that if I let that happen regularly with him, I limit myself from looking for that something more that I really do want.

The second is wildly inconsistent. He can be sweet and helpful and act as if he adores me one day but then the next he is distant and shut down. We've tried dating a few times and each time it ends after just a few weeks when he withdraws then accuses me of "going crazy" when I call him on his massive mood shift. I've told him that our contact has to be on a purely friendship level, but it's tough not to slip back into cuddling and acting like we're on a date when I am so craving touch in my life right now and he's in one of his sweet phases.

I know that neither of these choices are right for me yet I continue to go back to them, I continue to reach out for that temporary satisfaction of feeling like I'm with someone even though I know it's not a good long term choice. This weekend I slipped back to them because I was feeling particularly vulnerable. I'm coming to terms with the ending of my summer romance and I'm a bit sad that the man from New Jersey doesn't seem to want to be with me enough to step outside of his comfort zone, to try something different with me-to give long distance a go even though we both know that wouldn't be easy. I've also been in the middle of a conflict with my brother that has been very hurtful. He put me in a very difficult position regarding his girlfriend (who I struggle to get along with) while I was visiting and I didn't handle it very well. I've apologized and tried to figure out how to make amends but he's not a great communicator and being 3,000 miles away doesn't exactly help. Overall, I've been feeling unheard and undervalued by the men around me so I went looking this weekend for someone to listen.

I think one of the toughest parts of being single when one doesn't want to be is not having someone to be really vulnerable with. I've never been great at showing people when I'm hurt or having a difficult time. It takes me a long time to achieve a level of intimacy with someone where I can reveal that. I am lucky to have some wonderful friends and I can reach out to them, but it's just not the same as having a partner, someone who has committed to be there with you through the tough stuff.

The Technique-Fat Folks Flirting 101

2010-08-11T17:46:00.001-07:00

I've been back from vacation a week and though work is going well, I'm missing my family and friends that I spent those two weeks with. I went out for a drink with a friend last night to help cheer myself up and there was a cute fellow at the bar who kept shyly smiling at me. It felt like he was interested, but I was talking to my friend and just didn't have the energy to give him the encouragement he needed to come over and say hello. This morning I am somewhat regretting that.

I have what I consider a practically fool-proof method for getting someone* who has a bit of interest to come by when you're out at a bar. I've taught it to a few friends and it's good for when you're looking to meet someone. I find that even if people are interested, they're often too shy to come over without a little bit of encouragement. Some of course are bold enough to just approach or to send a drink your way, but for those that need a little help, this is what I do.

First, look for eye contact. If he's interested he'll be looking your way. If you've had a few of those brief fleeting eye contact moments and he hasn't come by (and you want him to) use The Technique. Now this is uncomfortable for most people at first. It violates a few unspoken social rules but it does so in a way that lets him know clearly that you'll welcome him into a conversation. Try it sometime, it's good to do things that scare you. I've rarely had it fail when I've been bold enough to use it and I've talked many friends through it with great results. I'm kind of known as a great flirt among my friends; they find it amusing.

The next time you catch his eye, hold it for about two seconds. This feels like forever so you may want to count "1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi" in your head (counting it aloud would probably have the opposite effect than what you're looking for ;0). When you get to 2, smile gently. Then raise your chin up in a tiny little nod, bring it back down and turn back to your friend or to another part of the room. When I'm talking a friend through it (it works best if she's turned toward me and he's behind me) I say, "Catch his eye, Hold it... smile... and nod and turn." This often results in the recipient getting the bartender and sending us some drinks or in him coming over immediately to say hello. The smile shows him you're friendly and the little nod gives him a subtle "yes" to approach. Now if all else fails and you're really interested you can always go over and just say hello, but this is a fun way to let him think it was all his idea. I've done this at several different body sizes (including my current size 24) and had it work beautifully so don't let your fat stop you from flirting!

Good luck, let me know if you try it.

*I've only ever tried this with a woman as the one doing the technique but it does work for women attracting men and women attracting women. I'm not sure that it would work in most interactions for a man to attract a woman (it might read as creepy but I'm not sure) I do assume it would work for a man who was interested in another man as well. I've used "he/him/his" in my examples simply because that's often the way I've used this little strategy and I find "he/she" overly clumsy.

Snoring and Sleeping with a New Partner

2010-08-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

So we've established that dating is fraught with challenges for everyone but being a fat woman is associated with a few extra challenges. One of those for me is a bit of new challenge. In the last year I've started snoring. Now snoring is not exclusively a problem for the fat folks, but it is definitely associated with large neck circumference (which I have) and weight gain (which I did).

I've never been a great sleeper but in the last 6 months my sleep has gotten horrible. I've been stressed about work and I started waking up gasping on a frequent basis. My throat and chest were often sore and I was constantly tired.

I saw a doctor who specializes in sleep problems first in late May. He noted that I have a delayed phase sleep disorder and he was concerned about obstructive sleep apnea. He recommended a sleep study which I had at the beginning of July along with a program to help me shift my sleep pattern. He recommended that I stop exercising in the evenings which may be helping me sleep but I'm struggling with getting in the workouts that I know make me feel good overall.

So that brings us to the snoring. From my previous post, you know that I've spent a few nights this summer with someone new. The first night I hardly slept so snoring wasn't an issue. On the second visit, snoring became a bit of a problem. I find the fact that I snore very embarrassing. I'm not sure why because it's not really something I can control. I think the fact that it's new for me and I don't really have strategies makes it even more difficult. I just didn't know what to do about it. Luckily he was very understanding and though we did spend some time sleeping apart we were also able to make some time sleeping together work which was nice. I had the second part of my sleep study last night because the first one did reveal that I was having severe apnea in REM sleep. I'll be getting a CPAP machine and I got to try it out last night. I already sleep with a tooth guard because I grind my teeth so this is just going to add to my sexy quotient. I guess it's going to take a special guy to want to sleep with me and all my appliances!

Anybody out there dating with a CPAP? Or just as someone who snores? Got any tips? I guess there's not much I can do besides pull it all out once we get to that point and if we're comfortable enough to be sleeping together, I should be comfortable enough to put on my anti-snoring/keep breathing mask.

Some part of me hopes that I'm going to magically lose some weight by getting better sleep. The doctor mentioned that sleep apnea is associated with weight gain but that the data isn't clear on which causes which. He said he doesn't recommend that his patients try to lose weight before having a CPAP because apnea messes with the hormones related to weight control. I'm trying to remember all of my fat acceptance stuff and to love this body I'm in, but old habits related to the Fantasy of Being Thin still slip in every now and then. I do think getting back to regular yoga practice with it's focus on healthy breath work might be a very good thing for sleep apnea and I know it always makes me feel great as well.

Update: I just remembered that Coleen over at The Pretty Pear has been dealing with some similar issues (though she's not relating them to dating). Worth taking a look at her posts here and here if you suspect you might have apnea or another sleep disorder. She also links to the Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder information which I tucked in above.

Summer Romance

2010-08-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been here as much as I'd expected partly because I found myself a little summer romance. I met a man at a wedding out of town at the beginning of July and found myself fascinated with him. Well it wasn't quite an immediate fascination, but almost. We met at the rehearsal dinner on the Friday night before the Saturday evening wedding. I first assumed he was with the woman he was standing next to when we were introduced and then actually decided that he was gay once I deduced that he was not with her.

My expectations for meeting available men are obviously pretty low. He wears hoop earrings in both ears and leans toward the more sensitive side of masculine which were my false clues. I was missing what was apparently some very obvious flirting from his side though. He later told me that he wanted to kiss me within minutes of meeting me but I was completely unaware of his intentions. The dinner was a bit chaotic but we were both good friends of the groom and as such were heading out afterward for a "bachelor" party for him. It was very mellow and mostly consisted of drinking milkshakes and playing a card game at a cafe (Give me the Brain which I highly recommend for a fun group game.) He invited me to ride with him between venues and we got a chance to talk about the myriad of things we have in common. When we went to take a group picture at the end of the evening Earrings, as we'll call him from here on out, stood next to me and put his arm around me. I was still completely clueless, but looking back at the photo it's clear that he's interested in me. While everyone else looks forward into the camera he's smiling down at the top of my head. After the photo he asked me what I was doing the following day since the wedding wasn't until the evening. I replied that I'd planned to just explore the city a bit and maybe find somewhere pretty to read my book. He suggested we meet for lunch and to watch the world cup match between Spain and Paraguay and I agreed, still completely oblivious to his romantic intentions. My first clue actually came later that night when he sent me a few flirty text messages saying how much he enjoyed meeting me.

The next day we met for lunch/match watching in the restaurant of my hotel. I was unsure about what the sub-context was but I put on my favorite pretty top and decided to just embrace whatever it was. I knew that I liked him quite a bit and we did have an amazing amount in common. Knowing he was a friend of my good friend didn't hurt either. I was waiting at a table in the restaurant (it was completely packed because of the match and I'd grabbed the last table.) When he arrived he gave me a great hug and then stood next to my tall chair for several minutes. Lunch went really well and we watched the match and chatted. When we finished up I suggested that we go for a walk. He agreed and we were headed out the door when my phone rang. It was the groom asking for a favor. He had sent two of our mutual friends out on an errand near my hotel which was near the wedding location. He and most other people involved in the wedding were staying about an hour away. He was wondering if they could use my room to get ready in before the wedding. I of course agreed but there was a small catch. They had already left and were going to be heading my way but they didn't have a cell phone and the groom wasn't sure how long the errand was going to take them. They could be arriving anytime within the next 2-3 hours. They had been to my hotel room the day before to pick me up for the rehearsal and dinner so they knew which room I was in.

So Earrings and I now had a dilemma. We had to wait around my hotel room. Now this is a bit awkward with someone you have known for less than 24 hours but suspect of being romantically interested. I explained the situation and he suggested that we just go hang out in the room. What else could we really do?

Now this was not a large hotel room. It was very nice but the space was just big enough for the bed, a desk, and one chair next to the window. We sat up there and talked, him on the bed and me on the desk chair. I showed him some things on my laptop and we compared notes on the large number of people that we both know. We marveled a bit on how we hadn't met before this and eventually he used one of the oldest and most obvious ploys in the book for getting to touch me and suggested a back rub. I agreed, knowing exactly what it was leading up to and sat in front of him on the bed. He did get a few minutes of good neck and shoulder rubbing in before he leaned over and kissed me. It was a good kiss. He then told me that he'd been wanting to do that since he first met me the night before and we moved promptly into making out like teenagers. Now I knew that at any moment this couple could show up so I didn't let things go on for too long. I got up and went to comb my hair and such and just as I did they arrived. I felt a bit like I had a naughty secret.

We all got ready for the wedding and headed over to it soon after. The location was stunningly beautiful and the groom sent Earrings and I on an emergency errand just before the ceremony began. It was fun running around with him trying to solve a problem. We sat next to each other during the ceremony and were actually seated at the same table for dinner afterward. Well actually it was a picnic blanket which was even more fun. He brought me drinks and acted like my date for the entirety of the wedding evening and then he asked if I wanted to hang out afterward. Now I knew this probably meant that we'd end up back at my hotel room and I wasn't sure how I felt about this. I really liked him but that was moving pretty fast for me. We talked about it a little and decided that since our time together was so short we'd play it by ear. Oh I've forgotten to mention the big challenge in all of this. He lives on the East coast and I'm in Los Angeles. He quickly expressed that though he liked me a lot he wasn't interested in a long distance relationship. I was a little bit disappointed but decided that I wanted to explore whatever this was, even if it was just going to be a short summer fling. He did end up spending the night and we spent the entire next day together. We went to a brunch on a houseboat for the newlyweds, took a nap on a blanket in a park and talked and talked. He drove me to the airport for my evening flight and left me with some wonderful kisses and the promise of staying in touch.

We have stayed in touch and I actually got to spend four more days with him last week. I was visiting my family in upstate NY and he drove up to visit for a few days. We spent two days alone at a place on a lake and two days with friends and my family. We talked again about possibilities for the future but he is quite sure that he can't do long distance and is even questioning his readiness for a relationship at all right now (he's 2 years out of a marriage and 3 years into a PhD so he's feeling a bit off center I think). I have been planning on moving back East in fall 2011 so the possibility seems real to me that we may end up together at some point but for now I'm just filing this away as a wonderful summer experience that has restored my hope in real connections with men. I am going to continue dating and we're going to keep in touch. We will probably see each other New Year's Eve as he's been invited by some other friends to a long running party that I always attend.

Dating for the Big Girl

2010-07-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Plumcake over at Manolo for the Big Girl has taken on another dating question, this one from the comments of the post I mentioned previously. Go check out her fun post encouraging her reader to start dating.

It seems that a lot of people find themselves in the position of starting dating again when they haven't done so for a bit. Sometimes that bit was a marriage or a long term relationship, sometimes it's just a break from the dating world, and some people never really managed to jump in at all. Starting anything new is scary but here are a few tips I would share as an experienced dater. Hopefully Jane from Plumcake's post will be ready to put herself back into the dating world soon.

Some online dating basics:

For most people, online dating is a great way to get access to a wide pool of possible dates. If you are thinking about starting dating again, I'd highly recommend joining one of the big dating websites. I've used most of them and have had varying luck on each. Match.com seems to be the most broadly used. It's a pay based site but the fees are pretty reasonable. I also like OK Cupid and Plenty of Fish which are both free sites. I did not have a good experience with eHarmony but it was several years ago and I know many people have found it helpful. I've briefly used two sites that are devoted to fat people, Large and Lovely and BBW Personals Plus both of which you also have to pay to use. Before you join any pay based site I'd recommend doing as much research as you can about them. Most will let you search for matches but not contact them before you pay. Do some searches for people in your area and age range. Look on the profiles for the date that people were last active. I've noticed that there are lots of online dating profiles out there that people don't seem to be actively using. It benefits the site to keep the profile there even if the user isn't active because it looks as if there are more dating possibilities.

1. Create your profile. Try to be as honest and authentic as you can be. This is not about fooling someone into going on a date with you. It's about showing people who you are and what you're looking for so that you can figure out if you are a good enough match. Of course you will highlight the positive but don't make shit up! Tell people what's special about you. Think about why the people who love you now love YOU? What do your friends like about you? Ask them if you don't know. Talk about the things you really like to do, not the things you wish you liked to do. Feel free to read other people's profiles for some inspiration, but don't just copy them. Reach inside and figure out who you are and what you want from this dating experience and then put it out there. Proofread and spell check obsessively. No need to give people a silly reason to be put off by your profile.

2. Add a picture. Profiles with pictures get more attention. There's something about being able to put a face to the words that matters. Choose a picture that makes you look friendly and approachable. I really prefer a photo with a smile but I'm not sure how other people feel about this; the men who message me and have a photo without a smile always read as serial killers to me-but I'm not sure that's typical! Readers, what do you think of this? Make sure it's a recent photo. If you don't have any photos of yourself, grab a friend and a digital camera and go take a few somewhere that you like to go. Do not take one of yourself in your bathroom mirror and unless you're only looking for sex keep your clothes on. If you're not much of a photographer (and neither is your friend) take a whole bunch of pictures. Try some with the flash and without, zoom in more for a few, take some from above and some from the side. If you're outdoors, try to take some in the late afternoon or early evening when the light gets really pretty. Turn and face different directions to take advantage of the light. Inside, turn different lights on and off, even in adjacent rooms. Light some candles to add a softer glow. Throw a scarf over a lamp if it seems just a little too bright. Wear something that makes you feel good.

Start thinking about having a camera with you when you do things that you enjoy, even if it's just dinner out with a friend ask her to snap a picture of you sitting with your glass of wine. Start getting more pictures of yourself. You'll get more comfortable looking at them and there will be more good ones for your profile to choose from. It feels a little narcissistic sometimes but I think it will help you feel better about your body and to begin to see your body in a more neutral way. I still have times when I hate a picture of myself but I like many more of them now that I take more. Show all of your pictures to a friend and ask them to pick the ones they like best. Try showing them to a person of the gender that you would like to date. If possible put up a few shots including one that shows your full body. If you end up dating a person from the site they are going to see you eventually. If they're the kind of person who is comfortable or even prefers a fat body the picture will just show that you're comfortable being honest about the body you have. If a fat body is a dealbreaker for them, you won't have to worry about revealing it later when you've already started to form a little hopeful attachment.

If the whole picture process feels torturous to you, start looking at more pictures of fat bodies looking good. Make yourself look even if it makes you uncomfortable. Try to look without judgment or let yourself judge but then look at your own judgments critically. Is there something inherently unpleasant about a fat stomach? Or could it be that you've been taught to believe that? Is back fat really the end of the world? Check out Adipositivity and the Fatshionista Live Journal Community for pictures of mostly women and/or Men in Full for pictures of fat men (Adipositivity and Men in Full include nudity and may not be safe for work).

Put it up and see what happens. As many of you already know, no kind of dating is all easy and a online dating has it's fair share of challenging bits but there are also good things to be had and I think it's one of the best ways to get yourself back in the game.

Finding Fat Men Sexy: Culture, Gaze and the Male Body

2010-07-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

This post started off as a comment on the post written by Plumcake from Manolo for the Big Girl called No Fat...Dudes? I ended up writing a post's worth in the comments so decided this was the better venue.

In that post, Plumcake asks whether she is a hypocrite because she ~~has never dated a fat fellow~~ hasn't historically dated fat fellows. I think this is a very interesting question. I've done a lot of dating and for a long time I too had never dated a fat man. In the fat-o-sphere I have the general impression that the message is:

"We don't want all men to find fat women fuckable because 'you're attracted to who you're attracted to' (YATWYAT) and that's fine. We just want you to respect the fact that some men are attracted to fat women and not deride them and us about it as if the possibility of wanting to have sex with us was unthinkable."

I think the message that our worth is not tied to whether you want to have sex with us is powerful and important but I think we may be doing the movement a bit of a disservice when we don't examine this more closely. The "YATWYAT" line is actually problematic. All of us are trained in this culture in many explicit and not-so-explicit kinds of ways to respond differently to different body types. We all absorb these messages even when we're trying to fight against them and I think it often takes vigilance and specific action to counteract the effects. Many women have to work to find their own bodies and bodies like theirs to be attractive and I think we need to do that same work with regards to the men we find attractive. So often the men presented to us in magazines, movies, and on TV as sexy or as objects of desire are very slim and muscular. Big and fat men are often presented as comic characters and often do get to be the love interest. When they are the love interest it's often in a role where the relationship is already established and they are not shown as an object of lust. This is doubly true for fat women in the mainstream media but this post is about the dudes!

A little over a year ago I decided to take on the project of retraining my eye to better appreciate the beauty and sex appeal of fat men. I had briefly dated a fat man and though I hadn't initially found him physically attractive I was attracted by other things and soon found myself physically interested in him. This conversion led me to realize that I'd been unfair and that I was missing out on a group of guys who might make great partners both in bed and in relationships so after we broke up I embarked on my gaze retraining project.

I was hesitant at first to even try because I believed the "YATWYAT" trope but I started seeking out images of fat men to see if it was possible to retrain my gaze. I'm happy to report that my project was a big success. I've been able to re-train my eyes to appreciate the sexiness of a variety of different male body types. One of my favorite resources for this has been the (often NSFW) blog Men in Full and the accompanying tumblr feed. The pictures of the men, sometimes nude and sometimes clothed and the commentary focusing on what made them sexy for the blogger there (sorry I can't find her name) helped me to start seeing these men differently and the fat men I run into in real life differently too.

Like Plumcake, I definitely didn't have a "no fat dudes" rule but I just didn't tend to notice them in the same way I did a more fit man. Men notice when you notice them. We put off subtle signals that give them the green light to flirt and I wasn't giving those signals to fat men so they weren't coming on to me. Now, over a year later, I notice big guys all the time and they often flirt with me. I've come to appreciate fat men like Jorge Garcia in a different way. I often saw his character on Lost as endearing but after this project I sometimes noticed that I wanted to jump Hurley's bones when he was on the screen in the same way I sometimes wanted to jump Sawyer's (Josh Holloway.)

Image copyright Fabrice www.biosstars.com

So my intrepid readers, what do you think about this? Have you dated fat men? Do you find them attractive in general? Have you changed what you find attractive or do you think it would be possible for you to do so?

Patience is a Virtue

2010-07-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

This evening I chatted with a fellow who had contacted me last week on a dating site. He seemed interesting during our first chat and we ended up exchanging phone numbers. He called one afternoon last week. I couldn't take the call but he did not leave a message. Now this is one of my personal pet peeves because I feel like it leaves me in an awkward position. If you want to talk to me, leave a message. It's not that hard.

So needless to say, I did not call him back. Then Saturday at midnight as I was driving home from the Lilith Fair, my phone rings. It's an unknown number but I'm curious so I pick it up. A man with a strong accent says "Hello, did you forget me?" Now I have no idea who could possibly be calling me at midnight. I ask who it is and he replies "You don't know who this is?" I say no. We go through this routine a few times and I decide to make a few guesses. I was feeling a bit panicky about not being able to figure out who it was, like I had forgotten someone important which was a bit ridiculous. Just as I'm about to hang up he finally told me. I felt relief and we chatted for a few minutes. I told him I can't talk for long because I have a friend in the car. He is obviously a little bit peeved that he hasn't heard from me before this point. He comments on how busy I am. I felt strangely guilty but I shook myself out of it. I am doing the best I can. This is a complicated process with no clear rules. He asked me to call him back when I could talk. I told him I would though I'm not sure I really want to. My instinct is saying that he wouldn't be a good match.

Tonight he found me on instant messenger and again got a little bit belligerent about my pacing. He told me early in the conversation that he'd been on a date with a woman from his work yesterday. He told me that he doesn't really like her but that he feels like he needs to be in a relationship so he's probably going to date her. He complained about how people weren't responding quickly enough to his overtures on the dating site. He also told me that he has interviewed "over 1,000" people related to his work so he can judge people on the first date. He was anxious to have a date with me so he can put me under this microscope and decide if I'm worth dating. It was not a very good vibe.

Wonder Woman Dating

2010-07-07T22:50:00.001-07:00

I adore this illustration by Alex Heberling. Check out the rest of her blog and look here for more fat Wonder Woman illustrations. I've always loved Wonder Woman and it's nice to see her look so joyful even though she's a big beautiful woman.

But back to the dating stories!

Sometimes I feel like it takes a superhero to keep at the internet dating. I've been juggling a few guys through chat programs and phone calls and a few more first dates. Keeping all the details straight is a lot of work. I'm thinking that I may need a database or to create files on each of them but I'm not really that organized of a person.

After a few more conversations with A from the previous post I decided that I definitely didn't want to go out with him again. He was really just interested in a sex partner both online and in person. I guess I should have expected that a bit since he came from Craigslist.

I had a brief first date with another guy last night. We met for a cup of coffee after conversing by email quite a bit. He was sweet and attractive and I enjoyed meeting him. He works many evenings so it's difficult to find a time to get together again. He wanted to see me tonight but I wouldn't agree to meet him after he got out at 11 pm. He wanted to come over here but I just wasn't comfortable with that and he couldn't come up with an alternative except walking around a closed park. That didn't seem like a great idea with a man that I've only met briefly once. I suggested that we make a plan for another night but he seemed unwilling to do so. Next I suggested lunch on the weekend but he said he had to practice his music and would be too busy. He was clearly disappointed that I wouldn't meet tonight. I thought about suggesting a bar or a diner but I was frustrated with his unwillingness to make a plan for the future. Is it asking too much to make plans for a date? I'm not looking for a fuck-buddy here so if you want to date me you're going to have to come up with a time we can meet in public or at least in the daylight.

I'm feeling like a bit of a fuddy-duddy (and maybe by using that word I'm proving that I am!) I am a fairly sexual person but it takes me a bit to get to a point where I'm comfortable in that realm and I have unfortunately had a few bad experiences that make me cautious about protecting myself when meeting people I don't know very well.

Date #1

2010-06-28T14:47:00.001-07:00

So my first bloggable date was last week. It was a man who had responded to my Craigslist post. He was one of the first to respond and this was what he wrote:

Hey there--I'm also from Los Angeles; 31. Tall, educated, authentic, too.

Let me know if you want to know more--I'd love to know more about you!

A

He also attached a picture. He was quite handsome and I thought that he looked familiar but when I brought that up to him he didn't think I looked familiar to him. We sent a few emails back and forth and got on a chat program. He was witty, charming and quickly asked if I wanted to set up a date.

Now I've done a fair amount of online dating and I have often said that I like to meet early. My theory has been that it saves time and honestly a big part of that is motivated by my insecurity that the man I date is not going to like my body. I'd rather he see it in person sooner, rather than later so if that's going to be an issue we get it out of the way quickly, before I've had time to feel too attached to the idea of him. I have pictures but I'm always afraid they don't really represent me fairly. I'm not sure why that is. I do pick "flattering" pictures generally but I know I don't have a great idea of what my body actually looks like so it's hard to know which ones to send. I'm not sure if this is the best strategy. But I decided to go for it and we quickly set up a plan to meet for a drink at a local bar in three days time.

The next day A contacted me on chat again late in the evening. This time he was more forward and asked me to send some more pictures which I did. He then started throwing in some light innuendo. I playfully rebuffed this and he soon said he had to get to bed. On the third night, the night before our date, we chatted again. He mentioned that he hadn't realized how large my breasts were before the last set of pictures and seemed to get quite fixated on them. He asked me what size brassiere I wear. Now this is an issue that I've had come up before in dating. I don't know if it's more with online dates but it's been a bit of a problem. I know I have large breasts and I know that many men are fascinated by boobs, but I really don't want to talk extensively about my chest at this early stage in the game. Am I wrong to think this is inappropriate?

We bantered back and forth a bit about it. I told him that I didn't want to talk about it and he seemed to get a little bit miffed. He told me that he was worried that we wouldn't be compatible but wouldn't elaborate. I was starting to think that my plan for setting up a date early might have been a mistake, but I wanted to give him a chance.

Date Day:
He sent a message confirming that we were still on and I got ready. I wore my hair curly with trouser leg jeans and my favorite robin's egg blue cardigan. I put on a pair of low heels and pretty makeup. I used a dash of one of my favorite scented oils. I headed out just a few minutes later than I expected but still with plenty of time. We were planning to meet at 8:30 on the patio of a local bar. He texted me as I was driving up that the patio was closed so I called him and we decided to meet inside. I parked and called him. He'd wandered over to another shop but came walking back. He was very tall and he smiled at me from across the street. As soon as I saw him I knew that we had met before.

We had been on an Amazing LA Race tour together a few months ago and we'd chatted with our groups of friends afterward over a few drinks. He didn't recognize me. I pointed out the connection and then he remembered me and that made for some easy conversation as we relived some of the highlights of that day. He had not eaten dinner but I had so he ordered food and I got a glass of wine. Conversation flowed pretty well and I was having a good time.

After dinner he asked what I wanted to do and I suggested we go for a little walk. He hinted at wanting to go by my place but I ignored that. We walked and talked and he again brought up the subject of my breasts and what size bra I wear. I really don't understand this. Why is that important? What made him think it was appropriate first date discussion material? Uggh! Anyone else had these experiences? Like I said above this is not the first time it's happened to me. Are there some of you out there who aren't bothered by this and just kind of roll with it or take a "boys will be boys" attitude?

To be continued...

Craigslist Ad and a Deluge of Responses

2010-06-21T18:45:00.001-07:00

I posted this late Saturday night.

Something Different...BBW - 34 (Pasadena)
I'm a bit lonely tonight. I miss having someone in my life who makes me want to go to bed. I'm a night owl. I have two dogs. I am too smart for my own good. I might move back East sometime. I don't like sex without strings. I can be a bit shy with a new guy though I'm outgoing in most social situations. I love to go out for dinner or drinks. I'm a good cook. I'm not a great housekeeper. I love live music. I like sitting on the beach watching the waves and drinking wine. I drank a bottle of Chandon Blan de Noirs by myself tonight but I wish I'd had someone to share it with. I'm reading "The Last Unicorn" and just finished the Temeraire series. I love swimming in lakes or frolicking in the ocean. I belong to a liberal non-christian church and I love it. I get insecure with new guys when I haven't heard from them in a few days and then tend to walk away so I won't get hurt. I realize this is fucked up. I want to be authentic. I am willing to work on myself and to make connections. I am faithful. My skin is white and soft, my hair is curly and reddish brown, my lips are often turned up at the corners, my eyes are green and open. This is my body:

My roommate and I had ordered some dinner and I had opened bottle of sparkling wine that I mentioned. Roomie was drinking beer so I was responsible for the entire bottle myself...wouldn't want to let it go to waste. Posting the ad was a total impulse act, but I'm glad I did it.

I think posting while intoxicated wasn't probably my best plan but it may have had an unexpected benefit in that I was uninhibited. I've been thinking a lot about authenticity and how important it is in the early stages of dating. I need to be able to be myself. I need to be able to show the parts of myself that aren't my favorite bits.

The picture is a bit of a conundrum for me. The one I chose is certainly flattering but I don't think it misrepresents me. I worry though that those responding won't really understand how big I am. I want it not to be an issue but I understand that in dating bodies matter. I heard my roommate say once that she thought men were interested in the body first and then the rest of the person. I know that's not true for all men, but I do think there's more of a bias that direction in the male population. I want to be with someone who can enjoy my body, both for it's looks and for all the amazing things it can do but it's crucial to me that I'm with someone who is more excited by the person I am in this body.

I've had over 70 responses and they're still coming in. One was a picture of a penis, an attractive penis mind you but that's just not going to get me to respond. One was mean about my weight. Three have been invitations to have sex immediately upon reading the response. The rest are all some degree of a serious response. I haven't had time to respond to most of them but I have been emailing back and forth with a small handful of men yesterday and today. I think this is promising but as I said in the last post, it's a ton of work!

Emotion Work and the BIG Questions

2010-06-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

The last post was about some of the actual work that goes into making on-line dating work but this one is more about the emotional work it takes to put oneself out there and give it a go. I want to date. I love having a significant other and I would really like to have that energy in my life again soon but dang the dating part is a struggle. I've dated on and off for many years now and I'm struggling with maintaining the energy.

The second big challenge for me is that I'm not sure where I'll be in a year's time. I may be moving back to the East coast or somewhere else entirely. I think that could be good for dating but it puts me in a strange limbo now. Am I looking for a long-term relationship here? Is there a chance I'd stay around if I met the right person? Is it possible that someone might come with me if I needed to move for my career?

The work of online dating

2010-06-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Online dating is a LOT of work.

First I create a profile. I go over it a few times trying to make it interesting and authentic and to minimize the silly errors that are basically inevitable. Having done it a few times does give me some extra compassion when I'm reading the profiles of others. I choose a few photos: flattering but not unrealistic representations of what I look like. I'm not trying to trick anyone. I make sure I put a full body shot up. I hit submit and wait for approval by the service. A day or so later it begins...

The first wave: I get the initial feelers of interest. On the smaller site I'm using now this has been less than I've experienced before. This site is devoted to fat folks. I got 18 responses. The first was a man inquiring whether I am looking for a dominant/submissive relationship. I'm not so I move on. About half are men well outside what I consider an acceptable age range. I'm 34 so I gently hold to 26 to 44 as what I'll consider. If a profile really wows me but is outside the range I'll give him a chance. I read all the messages and look at all the profiles unless the message is completely out of line. I try to respond to anyone who writes a real response in some way even if it's only to tell them I'm not interested. Many of these responses are quick form responses which you don't have to be a paying member to send. I have not paid yet. I wanted to see what the responses were like first. I'm not sure what I will do. You can engage in email with paying members even if you haven't paid. I've had 5 real emails. I sort and respond favorably to the ones who catch my interest. Many are not local. I've decided to look beyond the LA area.

If anyone is reading this, let me know if this is similar to your experiences. Are you trying online dating? Do you want to but are worried? Have you tried a site that is devoted to fat folks?

Fat and Dating

2010-06-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

Dating. It's something I've done an awful lot of in my 34 years. I've been in 3 long term relationships since I was 17 but I've also spent about six cumulative years single and I don't like to sit home alone. I've got some great stories and though my friends have heard most of them I feel like it might be time to write a few down.

I have very much enjoyed dating at times of my life and at other times it's felt like a huge chore. I'm certainly not a champion at relationships. I make mistakes and probably don't have the confidence that I should in putting myself out there but I'm re-committing to the process so I think it's time to bear (bare?) some witness to the struggles of being a fat woman dating.

I very much enjoyed the only other blog I've seen about fat women dating but she fell in love and started blogging about running (something I definitely don't enjoy) and I've felt like there's been a bit of a hole in the fatosphere ever since. So I guess I'm going to try to fill it.

Yesterday I posted a new personal ad on a site specifically devoted to larger people and considered posting another one. I've had ads up for years on the mainstream sites with various degrees of action coming from them. I've met some interesting people and even had a few short relationships start from them but obviously nothing that was right for the long haul and that's what I'm looking for. I want to be with someone for a long time to come. I want an everyday connection. I want the security of knowing that I am with someone I can trust. I want someone who can work with the flawed parts of me and appreciate the fantastic parts too.

So off I go...maybe just continuing to talk to myself but maybe someone else will take a little inspiration from here. Maybe there are some other fat women who would like a place to talk about all the trials and tribulations that come with dating as a fat woman. Maybe I will find some insight in the wilds of the web that will lead me down a different dating path.

Response and Responsibility

2008-07-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

As a young woman I was innundated with messages about dieting. My mother was the prime messenger but she was merely carrying the societal banner that said I needed to be thinner. My pediatrician lectured me each time I went in no matter if it was for a sore throat or a regular check-up and made suggestions like choosing sherbet instead of ice cream. Ironically, we rarely/never had ice cream in the house and would go out for a cone maybe 3 times a summer so making that change wasn't going to make much of a difference. I usually ended up crying in his office and my mother would then lecture me for being too sensitive. My mother was constantly on a diet herself (as she is to this day) and our house was full of low-cal bread, skim milk, fresh vegetables, non-fat cottage cheese and skinless chicken breasts. My mother is a good cook and we ate dinner each night as a family. Every meal had a protein source--usually chicken, turkey or occasionally steak all baked or cooked on the grill, a carbohydrate--usally rice or baked potatoes, and a green vegetable or two. We rarely had dessert. If I reached for seconds my mother would ask me if I "really needed that?" There were snacks in the house and even occasionally store bought cookies though my mother would make sure to point out that they were for my thinner brother, not for me. Is it any wonder that I started to sneak food? To hide it under my bed and to buy it myself when I had access to pocket money? I was a growing child and I was being fed non-fat fake food in quantities that were probably too small for what my growing body needed. Yes I was heavy and I continued to get heavier. I hold no grudge against my Mom. I know she was doing this from a place of love and wanted to prevent me from struggling with weight in the ways she has all her life. She even states that one of the prime reasons she chose to breast feed was that she had heard that breast fed children were more likely to be thin as adults. I never had a chance to develop normal eating habits. I learned how to diet and how to sneak food.

I wish there was some way I could help prevent this from happening to someone else. I wish there was a way I could communicate some of what I've learned about food and fat and eating to the young women who are just beginning their relationships with food. Last week Sandy on Junkfood Science did her usually brilliant job of dissecting a recent item in the news. She writes about Bodyworks, the Department of Health and Human Services program to prevent obesity for "tween" girls (aged 9-13) which touts itself as a plan to teach healthy eating that is not a "diet." In reality it is a restrictive eating plan that makes food the enemy and encourages parents to provide inadequate food intake for their children.

You should definitely read the whole article, but here's a quick summary of the numbers that Sandy came up with.

Even if the girls are allowed dessert, a full day following this “healthy” meal plan would provide them with 902.45 calories — about one-third (37.6%) of the daily calories needed by girls this age and activity level, according the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutritional Research Center at Baylor, used by the Dietary Guidelines.

Equally troubling, even if the girls are allowed dessert every day, this “healthy” eating plan provides a total of 17.37 grams of fat each day, about 7% total fat, based on their daily calorie requirements. This is about one-fourth of the total fat they need each day. Remember, even according to the Dietary Guidelines, children this age need 25-35% of their calories to come from fat. The total fat in a day’s worth of these “healthy” meals is less than the saturated fat advised by the government for adults with heart disease.

Any girl whose parents follow this program is going to be literally starving and she will do exactly the same things I did as a child whose food was restricted. She will sneak and hoard food and develop an unhealthy relationship with eating and her body. If she's lucky she won't develop a severe eating disorder but she certainly will feel shame for not conforming to the societal norm, for failing to follow this "healthy eating plan."

I wish I knew a better way to get this message out. I wish I had a plan and a platform for talking to more parents than just the ones I work with about how they feed their children. I wish I could make everyone who has a baby read Child of Mine and Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Familyby Ellyn Satter.

I wish no young girl would ever have to learn that food and hunger are to be fought against and that her body is somehow wrong.

In the meantime since wishing doesn't get me very far, I am going to look for a way to write to the Depeartment of Health and Human Services and express my displeasure at the fact that my tax dollars are supporting development and distribution of a program such as this!

Was George Carlin Fat?

2008-06-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

I just saw on the news that George Carlin died today. Now he could make me laugh and he could make me cringe and he sometimes wasn't very nice to fat people. I won't link to the video of his rant against commercialism, consumption and over-indulgence which he unfortunately ties to being fat (and seems to be universally labeled on YouTube as his bit on "Fat People" when it's surely about much more) but it's out there and though I think he can be very, very, funny (see the video below for one of his milder pieces), he was out of line with this one. Thin people over-indulge too, they buy too much, and eat junk-food and drive cars that are too big, and wear shirts that say "I'm with Stupid." Of course Carlin seemed to enjoy being out of line, saying the things no one else would, but I think the power of his good rants were that there was truth to them. That Carlin had found a grain of truth in a situation that hadn't been seen before, but in the case of the fat rant, I don't think he really understood what the truth was. He went for the cheap laugh at the expense of those who were different without digging for the nuggets of truth.

Carlin died from heart disease and if you look at the videos on YouTube, you'll see he was a man who was always thin. We can't know what contributed to his death at a relatively young age of 71, but it certainly doesn't look like it was fat. I wonder if people will be suprised by this.

I'm still kind of fascinated by the fact that thin people often get a free pass on watching out for their health. I think it's dangerous to have so thouroughly associated thinness with health that people don't worry about the other risk factors for heart disease. When do we ever hear people talking seriously about stress reduction techniques? Where's the latest best selling book on meditation or the public service announcement on progressive relaxation techniques?

George Carlin seemed to be a man who lived life with his light shining brightly so I hope he did the things he most wanted in life and said the things he most wanted to say. The many times he did get it right, he often pushed the boundaries in ways that made me think and stretch my brain and I think he'd be pleased with that. What I've seen of his work often made me laugh, frequently made me uncomfortable and sometimes made me mad but I'm glad I watched it.

Head Meets Body

2008-06-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read it yet, check out this brilliant post by my favorite author Kate Harding over at Shapely Prose. The following quote in particular hits home for me:

“Which is one reason why exercise can seem like such a daunting task when you’re new to it. It means actually acknowledging your body and inhabiting it, instead of keeping your mind — the good part of you — comfortably separate from its housing.”

I once told my yoga instructor that she was responsible for re-attaching my head to my body. At some point in my childhood I had completely separated them and started mostly ignoring the parts below my neck. I had been a clumsy child who almost never succeeded at anything physical and though I was always interested in participating in those activities that others seemed to enjoy so much, I usually found the experience disheartening and so I focused completely on living through my mind. I read everything I could find and concentrated on establishing my worth based on my grades and my emotional responses to people. I got really, really nice.

Luckily a few years ago a friend dragged me to a yoga class and through the help of an amazing teacher, I suddenly started to realize that my body was there for more than just to give my brain a ride. I got strong and developed an awareness of my body that allowed me to move each part separately. The slow nature of the poses allowed me to use my brain to override my clumsiness and suddenly I was succeeding at something physical. It completely changed my life and even allowed me to start being less nice and being more real. I also found that when I was doing regular yoga I could succeed at other physical activities that had previously been out of my reach and I took up salsa dancing and got to have some of the most exhilarating experiences of my life as I spun and shook and whirled around the dance floor. So though I understand one of the commentors points about not focusing on bodies, I just don't think it is realistic or even desirable to pretend we don't see bodies. I don’t want my body ignored. Getting connected or perhaps re-connected to it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

On a side note, I think one of the reasons yoga has been such a successful modality for me was that it gave me tons of proprioceptive input through my joints and muscles. As a pediatric occupational therapist I use this all the time to help children organize their motor activity and improve their motor planning. I was finally able to really map each muscle in my body into my brain through this slow focused work that I did in yoga. My teacher, the amazing Marni Greer, was adept at helping us isolate movement and understand how our bodies worked. I don't think I could have done it without her. One of the biggest compliments of my life came last year when she told me I had excellent body awareness and that I should think about becoming a yoga teacher. I've made that one of my long term goals as I think it is important for people of all sizes to be represented in the yoga community but unfortunately the PhD needs to come first!

Young@Heart

2008-04-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen this movie yet but I've tottaly been inspired by the clips I've seen from it. One of the most remarkable is a cover of Coldplay's song "Fix You" sung by Fred Knittle.

He's a very fat man who is in his 80's and is doing something he obviously loves. So much for all us fatties dying young. Yes, this man is on oxygen but he still is able to participate in a group that performs all over the world. Just look at the "Staying Alive" video and you'll see how vibrant he is!

I hope I'm able to be part of something like that when I'm in my 80's. Hell I hope I'm doing that in my 70's!

Supporting Sandy at Junkfood Science

2008-02-24T22:45:00.001-08:00

I know that she and her blog are controversial but I just made a small donation to the Junkfood Science blog. This is the first time I've given money to someone over the internet just because I respect the work she's doing. As I mentioned in my last post, her latest series is both enligtening and inspiring and I am sooooo thankful that there is someone out there doing the work that she is doing even if some of it may be motivated by ulterior motives than just Fat Acceptanc. Her committment to truth and the disemination of accurate interpretations of scientific news is very strong. Of course she doesn't cover everything, but I like the way she covers what she does and I respect her habit of linking to the original sources so that I can go read the science behind it myself.

Here's a bit of her intro that says it better than I ever could. I think she believes this and that she actually is living it.

"The more I’ve learned, the more horrified I’ve become. Science is being misused for marketing and political purposes. Evidence is being distorted and bias has inundated media, research, government policies and clinical guidelines. Unsound information proliferates in professional and advocacy organizations, academic institutions and journals; and even professionals aren’t reaching beyond beliefs to critically examine studies and recognize credible information. So much valuable and critically important information, and the very best science — well documented in careful, objective, evidence-based research — is never reported and almost never published. Fear sells and unfounded scares, exaggerations and “what-ifs?” are being used to terrify people about their foods, bodies and health.

And all of this is costing, frightening and hurting people.

For years, I have traced virtually every science, food and health story in mainstream media to their original press releases, which are reported verbatim. Literally everything we hear and read today is marketing and created by those trying to sell us something: a belief, cause, product, service, or themselves. That’s why we hear “science” finds something one day, and something entirely different the next. “Pop” science, what is popularly believed and marketed as “science,” is oftentimes really the junk science.

I’ve also gone to the original source, the study behind each of those stories, and been even more alarmed to realize that the evidence is nothing like what we hear, or even what appears in the conclusions of many study abstracts. In fact, it’s often the exact opposite! Simultaneously, I’ve watched the very best science that counters popular beliefs and could put fears to rest, go unreported. And after a decade of unsuccessfully trying to get any mainstream or alternative publication to publish articles with the fact-based information, I realized it wasn't possible.

That’s not right. I believe people deserve to know the truth and not be taken advantage of, needlessly terrified or put at risk.

People also deserve the soundest facts to make informed decisions for themselves and their loved ones, and so we can all ensure public policies and clinical guidelines are based on sound evidence and risk analysis.

My personal commitment is to give people information that is as true as I know it to be."

Thank you Sandy! Thank you to all of you out here in the blogosphere who are fighting the good fight.

Another Ah Ha Moment

2008-02-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

This article on Junkfood Science (one of my favorite blogs) has really stimulated my brain. Sandy points out that the authors of a new study on the effect of negative body image have shown a link to poor health outcomes including diabetes and heart disease. They posit that this may be due to the stress response from discrimination and internal dissatisfaction rather than the actual body fat itself (they controlled for actual BMI!). That right there is a big old WOW! and thank all that is good that someone is doing this kind of research but this went even further for me.

In the last paragraph of the entry she mentions her plan to discus how "Those very same health problems associated with the stress response and obesity, are also found among other groups in our culture most targeted by prejudices and discrimination." I work on a multi-million dollar research project that is looking at health care disparities for African American families. We've been looking at what might be some of the causal factors that lead these families to have poorer outcomes even after you control for socio-economic status. I'd never thought to put internal stress related to self-perception into the equation, stress caused by being in a group that is consistently dealing with societal messages that they are "too dark" or somehow less than people of different skin tones.

Thank you Sandy! Thank you researchers at Mailman School of Public Health! You've certainly opened my eyes to some new possibilities today.

But it's Soooo Easy

2008-02-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this all weekend.

I was sitting at happy hour on Friday with my brother and a co-worker/friend. She was asking me where I plan to go once I finish my PhD and suggested New Zealand. I joked "Nah, they won't take me cuz I'm too fat." and she replied "Well you can fix that easily enough."

Easily fixable? Really? Does she honestly think I would stay 100+ lbs. over weight if it was easily fixable?

She's recently been doing Weight Watchers and has lost a significant amount of weight. She's mentioned to me several times how easy it is. This is of course the first time she's ever been on a plan like this. She just turned 40. I was on my first diet at age 7. Believe me, if it was easy I would have done it. I've dieted many, many times. I've lost over 40 lbs three different times. I've spent thousands of dollars on diet plans, support groups, special foods, and exercise programs. If I could find a way to maintain that kind of weight loss I'd do it in a heartbeat!

Maybe I'm weak. Maybe I'm lazy. I don't know but for me maintaining any kind of weight loss has NEVER been easy. It breaks my heart. I'd give so much to not deal with this struggle but here it is and here I am and it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. So as far as I can tell, I've got a few choices. I can continue to try each new diet that comes out, try the diets that worked but didn't stick again or maybe try something different--not focusing on losing weight. Not hating myself for the shape of my body, not beating myself up for every morsel of food that goes into my mough, and celebrating the good things about this body I have.

Yeah, I think I'll go with option number three.

No Soup for YOU!

2008-02-01T23:49:00.000-08:00

This Mississippi Bill is a bunch of baloney. It made me mad enough to write a letter to the jerks who sponsored it...something I don't do nearly enough. Check out some of the other letters that the infinitely more articulate Shapelings wrote, read mine, and send one of your own!

Here's what I wrote:

Representatives Mayhall, Shows, and Read:
I am writing in opposition to House Bill 282. I saw a report on this bill on my local news here in California. I'm certain this must be a ploy for publicity but that does not excuse the ignorance and biggotry that this bill contains. It is both discriminatory and frankly ridiculous which I assume you already know. I'm not sure what your true motives are but I know they can't be good. How exactly do you propose that stopping fat people from eating at restaurants will decrease obesity? Are you going to stop them from buying food at the local grocery store? Do you think that people will let their heavier friends and families starve? In at least 95% of cases people who have been on a diet gain back more than they initially lost. The body is designed to resist starvation by slowing the metabolism and storing additional fat.

I am a professional who works with children with eating problems. One thing I can say for sure from my experience is that shame and restriction DO NOT WORK. If you really feel that this is one of the biggest challenges facing your state (a notion I highly doubt, take a look at this website for some clear critical reading of the actual research that is out there http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/), and you actually want to help people be healthier there are all kinds of things you can do to promote the health of your constituency. Perhaps you could make cities friendlier for bikers and walkers, perhaps you could subsidize fresh vegetable farmers, or support campaigns that promote Health at Every Size (http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/mar06/health0306.htm). The news report that I heard this evening mentioned that you have brought up this bill because the programs Mississippi has tried so far have not helped decrease the rates of obesity in your fair state. Perhaps Health at Every Size might be a humane answer.

I urge you to revoke your support for this bill in order to show that you are a person of character and to remove this blight from your states image which certainly doesn't need more association with discrimination."

It's time to speak up. Fat discrimination is real! Feel free to copy my letter or let your own passion speak.

Contact info here.

Broomball the pics!

2007-12-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

Look at me all dressed in fleece and defending the goal! It's always so interesting to see pictures of myself. I love taking pictures and am often the person in the group with a camera but for once someone else was documenting the event so there are lots of great shots of me and everyone else. My first thought upon seeing the picture above was "My eye-makeup looks pretty good" others in the set got my negative self talk started but I was mostly able to head it off at the pass.

This one made me realize how really round my body is. I rarely look at it from this angle...in fact I'm not sure I ever saw my body from this perspective, but it doesn't look inherently bad. It certainly doesn't look like a fashion model's body, but it's kind of cute. And look at how active I look in that picture, not posed and careful of every lump and line. I'm moving, attending to the ball, ready to drop to my knees or sweep the ball away at any second. I don't see pictures like that of me very often either.

This one is harder for me to get over the negative self talk with. In this one it's my giant busthoomas that are giving me trouble. I'd just run down the bleechers from setting the self-timer on the camera and didn't have time to make an adjustment so I'm uncomfortable with how much flesh shows in this shot, but it's such a fun picture. Look at the silly grins on our faces. I know it's hard to look away from the boobs but trust me the rest of the picture is more interesting! We were all lit up with the energy of the playing the game and goofing around with the fake mustaches from our goody bags. It's just hard for me to see beyond the fact that my boobs are bigger than some of their heads. But I'm trying. This is a journey afterall. That is my body. My body that served me very well for the game and which does so many other wonderful things for me. I've got a couple of serious bruises and a few sore muscles, but overall it held up and allowed me to have the most fun I've had in weeks!

What do you think when you see pictures of yourself? If you have negative self-talk, how do you handle it?

Joyful Movement--Broomball!

2007-12-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

Broomball, what a game! Running on ice in your tennis shoes chasing a ball and swatting it with your broom, trying to beat the other team and get that dang ball into a goal while remaining upright on an incredibly slippery surface...what could be more fun?

Tonight I played Broomball from Midnight to 2 am with a bunch of my friends. It was A.J.'s birthday and his wife Beth had planned quite an evening. We started drinking at a dive bar near the ice rink and then migrated over to the rink. Beth had bought 20 brooms at the dollar store and blue and red tape to tape the bristles with. I was nervous. Afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up, afraid I would fall and seriously injure myself, afraid I'd look like a fool.

I fell and I probably looked like a fool, but the great thing was that all of us did. No one was automatically good at this and though I wasn't the fastest or the most coordinated, I felt like I contributed to the team (I played goalie for the first period and stopped about 15 shots!) Some were better and some were worse than me, but overall I had a great time. I laughed and ran and slid and fell down hard a few times but at the end of the night I was committed to finding a way to play games like this more often. This was so much more fun than the treadmill and it was an intense workout. It made me want to do more yoga (to improve my balance and strength) and work on my endurance but only so I could have played longer. I am proud that I was able to play the whole time and was still going strong when we had to get off the ice to let the Zamboni come clean the sheet. My extra padding probably helped me a bit too as some of the falls I took were definitely less damaging than they would have been if bone was hitting ice instead of a nice fleshy hip or bum. Of course I'm going to have some bruises and be a little sore (too many goal tending splits I think!) but I'm so happy I did this. So happy I didn't let my fear keep me from getting out there and participating and moving my body.

What a night, what a game, what a body!

Let your light shine out!

2007-12-14T02:18:00.000-08:00

Today I attended a memorial for a friend's wife, Mary, who passed away on Thanksgiving. The service was lovely and the party afterward was full of laughter, sweet stories and great food and drinks. As my best friend and I walked out of the restaurant I asked "Is it wrong that I had a really good time?" and then I thought about it and realized how absolutely right that was. How much this woman would have enjoyed this party herself and how I'd want people to celebrate my life in the same way. And so by this post I mean to in no way diminish the saddness of losing her and the pain that her friends and families are in but I found some real food for thought in the words of the priest at the service today.

This woman was only 57 years old and she was not fat. As far as I know, she'd never been fat. Everyone in her family is naturally slim. And yet, amazingly enough, she died. Way too young, way too soon for anyone around her and from cancer...a disease that if I only got my information from watching the local news I'm pretty sure I'd think was caused by being fat. It's certainly a factor that seems to be brought up frequently as a consequence in the "obesity epidemic" discourse.

KateHarding over at Shapely Prose recently addressed this very point when she talked about the kooky CRON people and now I have a specific example right here in my own life.

Hey, here’s a scientific fact: We are all going to die. And in the meantime, we all make decisions about the kinds of lives we want to live. Some people eat as little as possible in the explicit hope of outliving this silly, primitive limitation known as mortality. Other people eat less than they want to in hopes of living a little longer than people who “indulge themselves.” And other people eat what they fucking feel like eating, because to them, chronic restrained eating would — unlike obesity — indeed be a “huge risk factor for… a life of misery.”

And in those last two categories, at least? There are people of all sizes. People who are unequivocally fat despite consistently eating less than they want to, and thin people who seem to have the proverbial hollow leg. There are even, horror of horrors, fat people who eat whatever they want. Because they’re grown-ups, and they’re allowed. What a concept.

Yup that's right folks, we're all going to die. And so often the fear of fat and the fear of fat people seems to be linked to a great big huge fear of death. Mary lived an active life dedicated to serving her community and raising her children. She was also a joy to be around. Full of life and laughter even in the last few years as she fought through four years of cancer ups and downs. She was still acting president of a large service organization and the last time I saw her she was swing dancing to a live band at a local bar.

The priest at the service asked us to observe her shining example and ask ourselves how we were living. This question has haunted me all day. There are so many things I wish I was doing but am not. I've been wanting to do some volunteer work for the last few years and have done some little bits but I am craving something regular, a weekly dose of using my talents to serve the world instead of just serving myself. I've said I'm going to take a Spanish class for the last 3 years and have yet to do it and I'm stalling on moving forward on my darn PhD. Overall I've been feeling like I've been blocking my light. Self-sabotaging myself so as not to shine too brightly and it really sucks!

How often as fat women do we do this? I feel like so many of the women I know let their lives be dominated by thinking about diets, weight, fat, and all the shoulds. We should be thinner, taller, dress better, eat better, be better mothers, daughters, wives, lovers, and friends. How much time do I sit around thinking about all the things I should do instead of just doing them? Just imagine if all the energy (not to mention the money) that goes into dieting, exercising to lose weight and beating ourselves up for all the shoulds that we just can't seem to match up to went into giving back to our community or into our work. What if we all opened the blinds we've installed and actually let the light shine out? Just imagine what a world this could be.

A Big Fat Shift

2007-12-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been reading my way through the fatosphere, the world of fat acceptance and "Health at Every Size (HAES)" on the interwebs. It's been an interesting journey. I've been fat all my life, with a few brief forays down into the merely chubby realm that didn't last long and I've been lucky enough to have a natural comfort with my body both in the fat and fatter phases. In the past I've always felt attractive and sensual even though my body isn't that of a fashion model. Unfortuately in the last few months I've been struggling to maintain my usual acceptance and joyful celebration of my physical self. I've gained 30 lbs, my clothes don't fit and I've been super busy with school and work and have stopped going to yoga as much as I usually do. I know that has been part of/most of the problem. I just feel better when I'm getting an intense workout a few times a week. I've still been walking everyday but it's just not the same.

Reading up on the actual science behind obesity research has been one of the most interesting results of this feeling. I went looking for ideas about weight loss and instead found some powerful arguments for taking weight loss out of the center of my plans and replacing it with joyful movement and intuitive eating. Blogs like Junkfood Science and Kate Harding's Shapely Prose have helped me to re-evaluate what my priorities should be. Now though I have to find the motivation, the get up and go to actually go to yoga class. Not because I want to lose weight, but because I want to feel better. I want to gain back the strength and flexibility I'm losing. I want the high that comes from pushing myself to new heights, mastering a new pose, going further in flow without taking a break. I'm not sure where it went but I know if I can find it again I'll be healthier and happier. I'm glad for this phase though. I wouldn't have found these kindred spirits and this whole world of HAES and my instinct tells me that this is going to be a VERY important new development in my life.