Measurements

Promised to post these yesterday and never got to it. A little nervous about posting them today - but feel like I need to own up to where I am. And know it will make where I get to that much more dramatic for me.

Weight: 217

Measurements: 46-38-48.

One thing that makes me feel OK is that even thought I'm big - I still have a shape. I'm just a little off from the hour-glass figure I've always had. At my thinnest I was 36-25-36. My waist is proportionately thicker than it used to be - but hell, I've had two kids. And my waist seems to get some of it's shape back continuously. I'll never be 36-25-36 again. But I'd be really happy 38-28-38. 8 is my favorite number.

Back Again

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. I doubt anyone is looking or listening, but I'm inspired to post again.

I've been trying to consistently get myself working out again, so I went back to basics - crunches.

Crunches are great because they can be done every day, I know how to do them, I don't have to think about them and they work.

So for the last 10 days, I've done crunches everyday except 1. I missed one day for no good reason, but it won't happen again. I have a new motto:

No Matter What

I will do my crunches No Matter What.

I will lose weight No Matter What.

I will learn to love my body No Matter What.

No excuses. Just doing it. I don't accept that I will miss days taking care of myself. My plan is to never miss a day because No Matter What is going on I will make time for me. On the off chance that I should forget that - I will just pick up where I left off. No giving up because I didn't follow through. I WILL follow through, but if I miss doing so, I will from that point on. No time for regrets or self-doubt. Just doing what I need to do - No Matter What.

So here's what I look like 10 days in doing crunches every morning.

That's a lot of belly. But I'm determined that there will be half as much there in a few weeks and by the end of the summer - I plan to be able to bare the belly and feel good about it!!!!

Tomorrow I will post weight and measurements. Then once a week I will post pictures, weight and measurements and see how things change.

Hah! I KNEW it!

I started this blog back in January of 2006 as a response to two very frustrating things. One was the plethora of weight loss advertising that hits the airways from Christmas to Valentine's Day. Every year I go into a tailspin of feeling more horrible about my body and my weight than usual. I thought that maybe having a place to deal with my weight issues would help me get through being bombarded with media messages about the horrors of being fat.

Also, at that time, I belonged to a Yahoo Group for mothers that, up until that point, had been an extremely supportive and helpful part of my life. But, as I struggled with my own feelings about my weight and my body, and floundered under the weight of commercials telling me that I was even worse than I thought, a discussion about weight cropped up on the Group.

The most central issue of the discussion was whether or not being overweight or obese always resulted in being unhealthy. Some of the women in the discussion insisted that being overweight did mean being unhealthy, while I and a few others insisted that it didn't.

Two women in particular, one of whom was a doctor, who had never been overweight in their lives, were the champions of the idea that fat = unhealthy.

It was one of the most frustrating discussions of my life. I felt that the idea that being fat makes one unhealthy is a mask that people use to hide their prejudice against obese people. And even though the women in the discussion were given rather compelling, though, anecdotal examples of people being fat and healthy, they refused to consider that this was a possiblity.

I offered up myself as the perfect example. As a thin person I smoked, drank, ate unhealthy foods, and ingested large quantities of caffeine and NEVER drank water. I pretty much existed on cigarettes, french fries, Coca-Cola and coffee. I certainly couldn't have been too healthy - and I think if I had maintained that way of living, I'd probably be in pretty bad shape by now. But I was thin, and no one, from looking at me, would have assumed that I was unhealthy - I looked the picture of health.

These days I'm way over the overweight mark, I fall into the realms of clinically obese. However, I drink tons of water, eat in a fairly balanced manner, get a moderate (and continually increasing) amount of exercise. I don't smoke, I rarely drink alcohol and I almost never drink caffeinated beverages. My lifestyle is 1000 times healthier than it was when I was thin - therefore it should follow that I am healthier. However, when some people look at me, they see someone who is fat and assume I am unhealthy.

To further support my argument that being fat doesn't make me unhealthy - when I go for physicals my stats are pretty much the same now as they were when I was young and thin. My blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels have barely changed in 25 years. So how does fat = unhealthy?

However the women involved in the conversation in my group insisted that it was true. That fat and healthy don't go together, can't possibly go together. I can't remember if they actually said it, or if I just implied it from other things they said - but I remember feeling that they all thought that the effects of the fat just hadn't caught up with me yet - but it would.

Well, here it is 2.5 years later. I just had a physical and the effects of the fat still haven't caught up with me. And best of all, and study just came out that says EXACTLY what I was saying 2+ years ago - that fat people can be healthy, while thin people can be unhealthy. Time Magazine did an article on the study:

“A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.”

The study also questioned the standard measure of obesity - the BMI - which I've known for a while is a crock! Any tool that doesn't take various factors into account can't be accurate. I've always felt that the BMI, which only uses height and weight, and doesn't adjust for build and body type, couldn't really be providing really pertinent information. And the study says that what I logically surmised is absolutely true - in fact health care professionals in general have begun to doubt the BMI.

“Even so, there's growing debate about the accuracy of the standard method of calculating whether someone is overweight. Health officials rely on the body mass index, a weight-height ratio that does not distinguish between fat and lean tissue. The limits of that method were highlighted a few years ago when it was reported that the system would put nearly half of NBA players in the overweight category.”

Now, I don't normally like to gloat. I'm a live and let live kind of girl. But I have to tell you, I have such an urge to go back to those women and say "HAH! Now what? Huh? I was right! You were wrong! IN YOUR FACE!"

But instead, I will just be happy with knowing I was right. I will keep just live with the knowledge of my victory inside me. And tomorrow morning when I go to the gym I will enjoy looking around the room at all the skinny people in there knowing for certain that I am just as healthy as any of them.

When I'm wrong...

I'm really, really wrong and I admit it.

A little while back, in March, I wrote a post about how impossible it is to find pretty bras in large sizes. I wanted to be look and feel sexy again, but I kept finding that difficult to do in gigantic bras that looked like they belonged on 97 year old women with back problems.

And then, late one night, I happened to turn on the TV and saw a commercial for Intimacy of New York. A bra store that does specialized fittings. I went on the website and saw that they carried large sizes and that the bras were very alluring. So at the first opportunity (after getting paid for a freelance gig) I headed over to the store - which just happens to be so conveniently located I can't believe I've never noticed it before.

They gave me a form to fill out with all kinds of questions about different bra problems - I checked them all. It also asked about size and the style you were looking for. Then a young woman came and took me to the back for a fitting.

I expected her to break out a tape measure, but she said that tape measures are not a good way to fit for a bra. That it was better to try on bras to find the right fit. She looked at me both with and without my current bra on and then went out and brought a bra for me to try.

The first one was black lace and was prettier and fit better than anything I'd had on in 10 years. But the young woman wasn't pleased. The bra wasn't sitting exactly where it should. She went back out and came back in with one of the prettiest bras, of any size, I've ever seen. She helped me put it on and it fit perfectly.

I mean absolutely exactly the way I'd always heard a bra should fit - but had never experienced.


The heavens parted. The angels sang. I might have blacked out for a moment - and when I looked again - there I was in this GORGEOUS bra.

I bought two of them.

I mean, I needed them, how could I not buy two?

I insisted on wearing one out of the store. I couldn't put on the hideous, ill-fitting thing I'd worn in there.

I walked to the front sitting area where my two friends - Bear Maiden and Madame President (Bear Maiden calls her One Half) - were waiting and promptly flashed them. I had to share the beauty of my new bras! I've been flashing people ever since. I just have to share how wonderful it is to find a beautiful, comfortable, effective bra with everyone I encounter.

And, of course, I would not leave you out, dear readers. I must flash you too.

The Mother of All Issues

OK, I have to face it. I can go back and forth about all the reasons I'm fat. There's the lack of sex rationale - including the whole "eat not to cheat" mindset, which is so beautifully illustrated by Samantha in the very flawed Sex and the City movie . There's the I'm unsatisfied with my life excuse. There's the breastfeeding thing. And while all of them - and many other reasons I analyze and acknowledge for contributing to my persistent overweight status - are valid and true, when it really comes down to it, at the root of all this crap is my mother.

I know, I know, how cliché is it to blame it all on your mother?

The thing is, I don't see my mother very often. And because of that, I tend to forget the impact she had on me. The very many ways in which she shaped me, and warped me. So when I see her, it all comes flooding back and it takes me a while to regain my equilibrium.

I am going through that right now - and really remembering and seeing the impact she has had on me and my self-image.

My mother was in town for 5 days. She was here for the funeral of her father, whom I wasn't close to. I won't go into all of that though - because that's a whole other set of issues and I'm working on a post about that over at my other blog, Sugar & Spice.

I dreaded seeing my mother for a whole host of reasons. But one of the main ones was because of my appearance. I KNEW she'd have something to say about my weight. She always has and often it's been shocking and hurtful.

Like when Sugar was 8 months old and I flew cross country specifically so that my mother could see her first grandchild. She hugged me at the door and we went to sit on the sofa. I sat there, holding her grandbaby, and turned to her smiling face, expecting her to say something sweet about the baby, and instead I got, "You're fatter than I am!" in a school-yard sing-song.

Or the last time I visited her when she kept trying to slather me in some kind of self-tanning lotion she loved because I looked, "SO pale!" At least that time she had nothing to say about my weight because I was 5 months pregnant with Spice.

The Bull, the girls and I arrived at the church just as the service was starting - no time to talk. So I knew I at least had a couple of hours before the onslaught of weight comments. Then half-way through the funeral she needed help getting to the bathroom - and I was certain that there, alone, in that place where women tend to fuss over their looks, she would have something to say about my fat.

But to my surprise, no, she didn't say a word. And she didn't say anything after the funeral. And not at her sister's house after the funeral. And she said nothing the next day at a cookout at my father's house (yeah, that was a whole thing in itself - having to invite her to my father's).
And not the next day or the day after, and then she flew back to LA. And I thought I was safe.

She called on my birthday - the day after she flew back west - and just left a birthday message, and of course told me how sick she was (she always gets sick when she comes to NYC). But no mention of fat.

Then she called on Monday and that's when the axe finally fell. She was going on about how much she enjoyed seeing all the people on my father's side of the family. And she asked about my cousin, who I'll call SweetG - the G stands for GRUMPY because she is perpetually grumpy and has major attitude, but she's really has a good heart deep, deep down. Well, SweetG was a fat kid, a fat teen, a fat adult and she's a seriously and dangerously obese middle-aged woman. She stands all of about 5 ft tall and she must weigh close to 300lbs. Her legs are actually bending under the excess weight. Now, my mother hasn't seen her in probably about 15 years. And at first I thought that maybe SweetG wasn't quite so big back then - but now that I think about it, she was pretty hefty - I'd say within about 20 lbs of where she is now. So my mother knows how big SweetG is.

So my mother says that she wanted to see SweetG, but that she never managed to while she was here. "Is SweetG still heavy?" my mother asks. "Oh yes," I say.

"Well, is she bigger than YOU!" my mother exclaims emphatically in a tone of voice that implies that I am SO GARGANTUAN that very few people could possibly be bigger than me. She says this even knowing that the last time she saw SweetG she was bigger than I am now. So why torture me?

I'll tell you why. Because since before I ever even could conceive of women being in competition with each other over their looks, my mother has been in competition with me. She has always made it known to me - and everyone else - that I am not and will never be as pretty, as thin, as alluring, as sexy, or as vivacious as she is. Her beauty is always to surpass mine.

I can remember her pointing out flaws in my appearance when I was as young as 8 or 9 - around Sugar's age. And always in comparison to her own impeccable looks. My nose was too wide, like my father's, while hers was narrower and stronger. My chin to flat, while hers pointed. My shoulders too rounded, my feet pointed in ("pigeon toed") while her posture held her shoulders back and her feet went straight out.

The only thing she would grant me was hair - I had long, curly hair, while her own was short, sparse and rarely seen - always hidden under wigs, or later in extensions. And she kept my hair - for all my childhood - in the same style, two braids (except for very special occasions) while she spent thousands on wigs so that she could change her own style at whim.

When I think of it now, it's like the storie of Snow White or Cinderella - except my step-mother was the nice one. It was my real mother who I suspect would have loved to send me off to have my heart cut out by the woodsman so she could be the fairest in the land. And she continues to push her poisoned apple comments at me over the years that leave me paralyzed and hopeless of ever being able to attain and hold onto any substantial self-esteem.

And the thing is, I am no great beauty. So why? Why compete with me, why tear me down over and over and over again from childhood through middle age? She truly is beautiful. Has had men that other women dream of - (truly - some quite famous heart throbs) fawn all over her. So, why tear me down? Me - the one person who it was her job, her responsibility to build up?

I don't think I'll ever know. All I can do is try to gain perspective. When I look back at old pictures like this one:

I can see how much she warped my perceptions of myself. When this picture was taken I thought I was fat and ugly. I mean really I saw myself as hideous. And I couldn't understand why I couldn't take off that last 10 pounds that might make me finally look the way I wanted. I weighed about 125 lbs and I had a 24 inch waist - just how small did I think I had to get? At the time I also thought that my mother was much, much, much thinner than me. And she certainly perpetuated that. Whenever I would ask to borrow some of her clothing she would groan about how I would stretch her things all out of shape and they would never fit her again. I was fat and ugly - she was thin and beautiful.

But now I look at us in this picture, side by side and I see two pretty, thin women who look about the same size. How can that be? I was ALWAYS bigger than my mother. I thought so, she said so. How is it possible that we really were about the same size? I don't get it. And, though I still think she's prettier when I look at this picture - I don't think it's like the beautiful young mother with the ugly duckling daughter. No, I think I kind of look like her here - it's like the beautiful young mother, with her attractive daughter. Why didn't I know this back then? Why wasn't she telling me that? Why was she always telling me that I looked NOTHING like her?

And just to show how time has taken it's toll - but how, maybe things haven't changed all that much. I'll share this other picture, which I hate - but it serves a purpose and I need to face some things here.

Yes, I am fat. And here, in 2008, I really am bigger than my mother. That is not the illusion it was 25 years ago. But it is clear to me also that I am no hugely, grossly, bigger than her. Her exclamation - "She's bigger than YOU?" is unwarranted. Yes, there are plenty of people who are bigger than me. Perhaps even, if I had on a decent bra, had my suit altered so it actually fit me, rather than hanging off me, and bothered to hold my head up at a flattering angle rather than in this way that makes it look like I just have a one enormous chin instead of a neck, I might actually be half-way attractive. But, all I could think of when this picture taken was that I wanted to snatch up my baby and get the hell out of there. Nice thoughts when seeing my mother for the first time in more than 3 years.

Well, I'm on a new kick. It's called self-preservation. Anything that I feel threatens my well-being - my peace (and piece) of mind is not to be tolerated. And I think that includes my mother.

I have toyed, many times over the years, with just cutting off all contact with her. I've never been able to do it. I always felt guilty about the idea of rejecting my own flesh and blood that way. But this woman is clearly and without question just downright toxic for me. I spent much of the other night crying, tossing and turning over that one comment of hers. For a whole day every time I passed a window or otherwise caught my reflection I saw myself as 3 or 4 times my actual size. I alternately starved myself or ate crap for 2 days. And I was just miserable.

At this point my only question is whether or not to tell her I can't have her in my life. The Bull says I should say something to her. That I should tell her how hurtful and damaging her comments are. He believes that it's my silence that's really eating at me.

But I don't think that's the case. There have been many times in my life that I have confronted her. And I, like everyone else who has stood up to her and tried to make her see how hurtful and selfish she is, have paid the price for speaking out. She NEVER admits she's wrong. She NEVER allows herself to see how much she hurts others. She ALWAYS starts a campaign to prove the other person wrong. She calls everyone she knows and states her case and then starts having them call the person who got in her face. I've been on both sides of her campaigns - and they are ugly. I don't want to be involved with another one. I certainly don't want to EVER be the subject of one again.

So, I think I will quietly fade off the screen. At this point I already take forever to return calls and I've whittled our contact down to maybe once every two to four months. All I need to do is spread that out even further.

I owe it to myself.

Really BIG Boobs are not sexy

I want a sexy bra. You know the kind. The ones that are lacy and sheer. They prop the girls up and make them all plump and round and the skin looks all glowing through the sheerness and lace. Bras like this:



and even this:













But guess what? Those bras - though available in sizes that would probably fit a smaller breasted woman who weighs over 300lbs are (which I think is great) are not available in my bra size.

In fact, there is very little available in my bra size. Now, I know my bra size is unusual. 38I is not your average, run of the mill size. An I-cup of any width is not typical, but, apparently, the assumption is that if your breast exceed a G-cup, then your body width should be in excess of 40 inches. The bigger the cup, the more rare it is to find it in a width in the 30s. And the larger the cup - the harder it is to find anything that even resembles lace or flowers or sheerness of any kind.

Apparently, if your breasts are big enough to need an I-cup - you must be old and decrepit and in need of bras that provide lots of support and coverage. Really big breasts are, apparently, made to hidden because this is what I found available in my size:





Now, I'm sorry, but you can give all the "come hither" looks you want, but a bra like this just says, "Run away!"






And what really grates on my nerves is this plain, unadorned, libido killer COSTS MORE than the sexy, lacy numbers.

My girls deserve better.

But, sadly, the only way they're going to get better is if I finally manage to wean Miss Spice and get breast reduction surgery. I have resigned myself to this surgery - not so I can wear sexy bras, but because my back could use the relief.

But, I can't help but wonder - just who is it that decides at what point big boobs are too big to be sexy?

The Latest in Vanity Sizing

It's been a while since I've posted. I'd like to say, "I'm Back!" but who knows if that's really true. I certainly have a whole lot to write about my weight. And I had big plans for this blog for the new year - but I find it really hard to motivate myself into posting here. Maybe now that the big rush of beginning of the year resolution, commercial dieting frenzy time is over. That stuff freaks me out and just makes me want to sit in the corner with a hot fudge sundae. But as it passes, I become more interested in dealing with my weight and the issues that got me to this size. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about me trying to buy new jeans.

So, it's been a while since I've really bought new jeans. The last year or so I've been occasionally grabbing a pair of jeans while shopping for the kids in Old Navy and buying them without trying them on, only to get them home and find out they don't fit. Sometimes too big, sometimes too small - but never just right.

I never seem to want to take the time to go find a Lane Bryant (there are only a few around anyway) where I can usually find just the right pair if I take the time. Part of my reluctance is time. Part of it is this desire to hide and not face myself in dressing room mirrors. And part of it is a HATRED for stretch denim - which someone seems to have decided all women's jeans must be made from.

So I've been hanging on to the tatters of my old, non-stretch jeans. Patching and sewing and sewing patches and holes in patches - which at my age and size, probably isn't the best look. But I've always loved the look of worn jeans - and I hate giving up the last of the non-stretch jeans.

But I now have a closet filled with jeans that don't fit and jeans in tatters. No nice, well fitting jeans without holes and frays.

So, on Saturday, we took Sugar to the Apple Store in the mall to go spend the money she saved on an ipod nano. It's the first thing she's really worked for and saved for and I'm so proud of her. She added to my sense of pride by not choosing the light blue nano or the pink nano - even though these are her favorite colors. She chose the (product) red nano because she was excited that part of the cost (probably mere fractions of a cent) went to help people in Africa with AIDS. I gotta love that my kid has a social conscience.

After she bought the nano we all wandered the mall, got something to eat. Bought Sugar one of her birthday presents and bought something for Spice who was starting to get annoyed that Sugar had so much. Then we headed back to the car. As we passed a Lane Bryant I told the Bull to take the girls and go to the car so I could run into LB, grab a pair of jeans and pay for them. I figured, I've bought enough jeans in there that I know just what to grab by now without trying them on.

Wrong. I didn't know about Right Fit.

Now, at first I think it's going to be easy. They break it down. One style is if you have a straighter, more square figure. One is for the more curvy, hourglass build. And the last is for more of the bottom-heavy - wide hipped type - beyond the hourglass. I'm a pretty standard hourglass. So I figured I'd grab a pair of those in an 18 and head on to the car. I go up to the shelf and look at the sizes.

1, 2, 3, 4...huh? Am I in the wrong store? Size 1 in Lane Bryant? I pull a pair off the shelf. Yeah - these are clearly big girl jeans - but the sizes tell a different story. The sizes are small girl sizes in the big girl store. It's disconcerting. It messes with my equilibrium. I stand in the middle of the store wandering what to do. I look around. There must be a sales person. Someone has to tell me what to do. I'm an 18 - maybe a 16, but I am not a 1, 2, 3 or 4...what do I buy?

I spot a woman at the checkout counter - who points me to another sales person with a measuring tape. She measures me - declares me a red (hourglass) and hands me a size 4.

I'm a 4?

I say OK, take the jeans and walk towards the checkout. She asks if I want to try them on. No. I'm a 4. I don't need to try that on. This is the lowest number size I have ever worn in my life. Even at my thinnest at 120 lbs, with a 24inch waist and at the height of my most anorexic behavior I was a size 5. Someone hands me a 4 and tells me that's my size - I'm buying it.

I am in such shock over this new sizing system that I can't even bring myself to try on the jeans when I get them home. It takes a full 24 hours for me to pull them on - and I'm sure they're going to be too tight.

They're too big.

So what does that mean? Does that mean I'm a 3 or even further - a 2?

I know I need to take these jeans back to the store - but I don't want to. It really makes me uncomfortable, this new sizing. It's like suddenly telling me that a pound weighs an ounce, that a foot is really an inch. I feel like the whole world is skewed, off, wrong.

Now, I know it's just vanity sizing. It's designed to make big girls feel not so big. But it doesn't work that way for me. I know I didn't suddenly shrink. I might not look in the mirror too often - but I know that a new number doesn't make me a new size.

And I'd be worried about myself if this new number really did make me feel better. It would mean that I'm willing to delude myself into staying fat forever.

Could it be that is exactly what Lane Bryant wants? To create a sense of contentment for staying fat? I mean - of course, they do make their money by providing clothing for us big girls. So it is in their best interest that we feel good about staying big.

But, could this be dangerous. If I feel OK with being a "3" - might I not pay much attention to my weight and grow to be a "4," "5," "6," and on and on? At what point does it stop feeling OK to wear a size that matches the number of smaller sizes? At what point does one say - Forget what the number says - I know how BIG I am? I think for me it starts right now.

I don't care what the number on those jeans says - 3 or 18 - I'm bigger than I feel comfortable. And I can't let a clothing manufacturer tell me any different.

The Names We Call Ourselves

Sometimes there's prejudice and stereotyping based on body size, but sometimes we treat ourselves worse than anyone else is treating us. We hate ourselves, loathe our bodies for their needs, and we're so caught up in our misperceptions and self-deception that we can't see how wrong we are . . . .

I recently came across a 5-year summary of my food & body issues from 20 years ago. Calling myself a "fat bitch" at 120, getting down to 111 and finding it didn't fix anything. Bingeing back up to 125, I called myself a "gross fat pig". At 130, it was "lose weight or die", and back on the bingeing/dieting cycle. Being scared because I was "so fat", hating myself, trying to make myself stop eating because if I got down to 106, I'd be Perfect. I'd binge, purge, throw away the leftovers so I wouldn't binge again, but end up getting it all out of the trash. Honestly believing I was a "huge blob" at 131. The summary ends with my bout with anorexia, dropping to 102 before threats of hospitalization made me gain some weight back. When I went inpatient for treatment for my eating disorders, the docs set my goal weight at 128. That was the mid-point of the average weight range for my height. 128. And for most of the preceding five years, with all that energy I'd put into hating my body, eating, not eating . . . except for maybe 6 months out of those five years, I was noticeably BELOW that 128. I just didn't have a clue what average looked like. All I saw was fat. So much fat that I believed I was too gross to walk the planet.

I know I'm not "normal" about food now, but damn -- at least I know I'm thin. I hope that twenty years from now, my current functioning seems as alien & unbelievable as that behavior listed in that 5-year summary seems to me now.