I've hesitated to post about this. Mostly because I have deep shame regarding my diabetes. It's like saying my weight out loud. However, I went to the doctor this week.
The good news: I'm down 15 pounds from my last visit. The bad news: It wasn't 30 pounds.
I wanted to be doing so much better. I mean, yes - 15 pounds is great. It's a decline. But it's such a small dent in such a big number I still have to lose.
And I know it's my fault - like, totally. I should be adding exercise into the mix, and I haven't.
I hate obsessing and shaming myself over this. Six months ago, I wasn't freaking out about my weight. I was accepting my size and realizing my body was no one else's concern. I was learning to love me. And I still know that. But, I have these creepers of self-hate and shame that have been crawling through my brain ever since the diabetes diagnosis. How could you have let yourself get so out of control? How are you so unhealthy? You don't even look human.
I hate that I have this shame infection instead of just dealing with the disease.
However, let's focus on the positive - I lost fifteen pounds in a few weeks. That's cool. Also, my blood sugar is super under control and I may be able to get off insulin in the future with further weight loss. That's my goal. That, and getting in shape for swim suit season.
Just kidding about the swim suit season. Haha!
The biggest thing I'm doing to keep my sugar down is eating fewer carbs than the dietician suggested. Where they told me to eat 45 - 60 per meal, I try to keep it down to about 30.
It's actually not hard. Not really. Non-starchy vegetables.
Non-starchy vegetables are normally 5 - 10 grams of carbs per cup (cooked vs. uncooked). If you follow the diabetic exchange, they're free. I say fuck that noise. I count every carb in my mouth.
Broiled, sautéed, boiled, raw, salad - I eat tons of veggies. I fill up on veggies and have some fish or chicken.
Slowly, my cravings for other foods are calming down. Of course, I've backslid. Of course.
After I wake up with a carb hangover, I start the day with a measured cup of barley flakes or Greek yogurt and get back on track.
I mean, what's the alternative? Losing my toes to diabetes? Losing my life?
Whatever. Veggies fo' life, yo.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Why I Love Drag Queens
I have body dysmorphia.
It's not surprising. I'm fat, and I've been fat most of my life. I was also on diets through my childhood (pudgy little seven year old Trudy didn't understand why she couldn't have a PopTart, or why she was taken to a dietician, or why she had to have blood work done - CRY FOR ME, dammit!).
Whenever I pass by a mirror, I'm instantly shocked by what I see. Yes, it's me, but still surprising.
Blah blah blah, pop psychology, blah - I don't feel at home in the body I inhabit. When I was younger (maybe even just a few days younger), I had fantasies of taking a pair of scissors and cutting off my belly rolls and arm fat.
The image of me in my brain doesn't match what I see in pictures or the mirror. It's not hugely different. Well, it is, but only when you take the word huge literally. Drop about 200 pounds, and that's the real me. That, and better hair and less oily skin.
Enter, the drag queen. While queens can be fishy (which just means hard to distinguish for one who was born a woman, for those not in the know), they do not aim to be mistaken for women. They are in-between, painting the image of a woman in broad sweeps (BROAD sweeps - hahahahaha!) across their bodies.
In most circles of gay culture, they are not even sexualized. Gay men love men. Drag highlights the most feminine parts of femininity. Get it?
Most drag queens were outcasts growing up. They have the same longing/outcast/picked on stories as any fat girl. Unrequited love, no friends, wanting to be anyone other than who they were.
So, you know, I can relate.
Instead of turning that shared background into a big pile of sad (like most fat women), drag queens get fierce. They are great role models for big girls.
Also, drag is an area where being thick doesn't mean being less-than. Some of the best, funniest, positive, and most loved queens are the larger ladies (can I hear it for LaTRICE ROYale?).
Lastly, and this is important, drag queens have the best beauty tips. I don't mean you should be painting your face like a queen (for a daytime look), but they know what products last, how to blend, how to highlight and contour, and how to use their face like a canvas. They know what clothes will be most flattering and how to give the impression of an hourglass figure.
I love drag queens because I am a drag queen.
I'm just super fishy.
It's not surprising. I'm fat, and I've been fat most of my life. I was also on diets through my childhood (pudgy little seven year old Trudy didn't understand why she couldn't have a PopTart, or why she was taken to a dietician, or why she had to have blood work done - CRY FOR ME, dammit!).
Whenever I pass by a mirror, I'm instantly shocked by what I see. Yes, it's me, but still surprising.
Blah blah blah, pop psychology, blah - I don't feel at home in the body I inhabit. When I was younger (maybe even just a few days younger), I had fantasies of taking a pair of scissors and cutting off my belly rolls and arm fat.
The image of me in my brain doesn't match what I see in pictures or the mirror. It's not hugely different. Well, it is, but only when you take the word huge literally. Drop about 200 pounds, and that's the real me. That, and better hair and less oily skin.
RuPaul said, "You're born naked. The rest is drag." That totally rings true. The me inside doesn't match the me the world sees. Inside, I'm a powerful woman. I put the POW in powerful. Outside, I'm a disgusting mass of cellulite, scars, and stretch marks. Rarely does someone see past the physical to the sexy, flirty, funny, smart, and enticing WOMAN inside. So, you pile on the costume that will help the rest of the world understand what you are inside.
Fat women are completely desexualized (except by fetishists) in society to the point of not even being viewed as women. In order to have the feminine label applied to them, they need to take it to the extreme and caricaturize womanhood. Big boobs, big hair, lots of makeup - that's a fat WOMAN. Otherwise, we're just fat.
Enter, the drag queen. While queens can be fishy (which just means hard to distinguish for one who was born a woman, for those not in the know), they do not aim to be mistaken for women. They are in-between, painting the image of a woman in broad sweeps (BROAD sweeps - hahahahaha!) across their bodies.
In most circles of gay culture, they are not even sexualized. Gay men love men. Drag highlights the most feminine parts of femininity. Get it?
Most drag queens were outcasts growing up. They have the same longing/outcast/picked on stories as any fat girl. Unrequited love, no friends, wanting to be anyone other than who they were.
So, you know, I can relate.
Instead of turning that shared background into a big pile of sad (like most fat women), drag queens get fierce. They are great role models for big girls.
Also, drag is an area where being thick doesn't mean being less-than. Some of the best, funniest, positive, and most loved queens are the larger ladies (can I hear it for LaTRICE ROYale?).
Lastly, and this is important, drag queens have the best beauty tips. I don't mean you should be painting your face like a queen (for a daytime look), but they know what products last, how to blend, how to highlight and contour, and how to use their face like a canvas. They know what clothes will be most flattering and how to give the impression of an hourglass figure.
I love drag queens because I am a drag queen.
I'm just super fishy.
In Which the Boy Does Not Offer the Girl His Jacket
I was sitting on a log next to the boy I was crushing on, and shivered.
"Are you cold?" he asked. I looked coyly from under my lashes and nodded at him. He took his coat off and slipped it onto my arms. I pulled myself into the warm boy-smell and smiled at him.
"Won't you be cold?" I asked, knowing he would never get his jacket back from me. He just smiled in return.
So, that classic teenage girl moment never happened to me. I mean, I sat on logs with boys, but no one ever offered me a coat. And I'm sure it's not because they weren't raised right. I'm fairly certain it's because we both knew the coat wouldn't fit.
Being a fat has huge, obvious obstacles that block girls from living in a Dawson's Creek type world. I mean, boys don't automatically think you're hot (though you'd be surprised at how many still do - fer reals), it takes more spiked punch to get you ridiculously drunk at the prom, you can't fit out the window of the basement where you're trapped after being kidnapped by a jealous peer, etc. The list goes on!
One of the more minor issues is that other people's clothes don't fit. Not just the guy's jacket, but your best friend's jeans, the largest cheerleading uniform, or your rival's awesome dress that she doesn't deserve (am I watching too many teen movies?). No one's clothes will fit you.
That's simple, you say. Just befriend another fatty, you say. Well, yes. Of course we're whales that herd together for protection. But you'll get an occasional friendly (or best friendly) dolphin who has amazing taste in clothes. I mean skinny girl. Not dolphin. Dolphins don't wear clothes. At most, they have, like, blow-hole dangles or shell flipper piercings, right?
But, the skinny girl is all, "It's one size fits all," or, "It's kind of loose on me. I'm sure it will fit," or, "I love dolphins!"
I don't know if it's an attempt at kindness or cruel size-blindness that causes people to see you as smaller than you are. However, it never fits.
The boyfriend's jacket looks like a sausage casing on you and won't button. The baggy band t-shirt that your BFF wears to bed shows every bulge and roll. The dress fits you like a leg warmer.
Instead, fat girls plan ahead. We don't talk about it, and we don't tell you, but we think in eventualities. We carry our own hoodie in the spring and fall in case it gets cold. We might have an extra t-shirt in our car in case we spill something on ourselves. We start shopping for prom a year ahead or make our own dress instead of waiting for the great sales in April.
And, if we don't plan ahead, we suffer in silence. We shiver on the log, never mentioning how cold we are. We wear our t-shirt with the coffee stain down the front and pretend we don't care. We bitterly envy our best friend's awesome dress that - if it fit - she'd totally let us borrow (because she's that cool, which is why she's our best friend).
We can't even rely on other fatties to borrow clothes from because, even though not everyone notices this, we're not all the same size. Even though my size 24 friend can commiserate and has similar experiences, we can't share clothes, either.
I did, at the age of sixteen, have a best friend who wore the same size as me (for a few months until I was smaller than her, then a year later, I was bigger than she was - hello weight fluctuations!). Unfortunately, as sweet and nice and generous as that girl was, she could not dress. She was a Laura Ashley girl, and I was more of an Angela Chase type (points for those of you who catch the reference).
I did take all of her old jeans, though. She thought they were ruined when the knees wore out.
I told you - she couldn't dress for shit.
Like I said, it's not a huge issue, but it's one of those little annoying ones that you almost never notice. It's just part of how being fat infiltrates your life and leaves it's mark on everything. And there's no fix. I mean, yes - there's weight loss, though there are a billion issues behind even suggesting that as a solution, and isn't even an option for some people - along with the understanding that some people will only get so small. There's fat acceptance, but that changes only perceptions when a lot of the problems are concrete reality issues - like measurable, physical issues: clothes fitting, activities being fat-(un)friendly, chairs breaking. THINGS.
Anyway, the point of this wasn't to rant, but instead to make you feel sorry for me because I never stole my boyfriend's coat.
The End.
"Are you cold?" he asked. I looked coyly from under my lashes and nodded at him. He took his coat off and slipped it onto my arms. I pulled myself into the warm boy-smell and smiled at him.
"Won't you be cold?" I asked, knowing he would never get his jacket back from me. He just smiled in return.
So, that classic teenage girl moment never happened to me. I mean, I sat on logs with boys, but no one ever offered me a coat. And I'm sure it's not because they weren't raised right. I'm fairly certain it's because we both knew the coat wouldn't fit.
Being a fat has huge, obvious obstacles that block girls from living in a Dawson's Creek type world. I mean, boys don't automatically think you're hot (though you'd be surprised at how many still do - fer reals), it takes more spiked punch to get you ridiculously drunk at the prom, you can't fit out the window of the basement where you're trapped after being kidnapped by a jealous peer, etc. The list goes on!
One of the more minor issues is that other people's clothes don't fit. Not just the guy's jacket, but your best friend's jeans, the largest cheerleading uniform, or your rival's awesome dress that she doesn't deserve (am I watching too many teen movies?). No one's clothes will fit you.
That's simple, you say. Just befriend another fatty, you say. Well, yes. Of course we're whales that herd together for protection. But you'll get an occasional friendly (or best friendly) dolphin who has amazing taste in clothes. I mean skinny girl. Not dolphin. Dolphins don't wear clothes. At most, they have, like, blow-hole dangles or shell flipper piercings, right?
But, the skinny girl is all, "It's one size fits all," or, "It's kind of loose on me. I'm sure it will fit," or, "I love dolphins!"
I don't know if it's an attempt at kindness or cruel size-blindness that causes people to see you as smaller than you are. However, it never fits.
The boyfriend's jacket looks like a sausage casing on you and won't button. The baggy band t-shirt that your BFF wears to bed shows every bulge and roll. The dress fits you like a leg warmer.
Instead, fat girls plan ahead. We don't talk about it, and we don't tell you, but we think in eventualities. We carry our own hoodie in the spring and fall in case it gets cold. We might have an extra t-shirt in our car in case we spill something on ourselves. We start shopping for prom a year ahead or make our own dress instead of waiting for the great sales in April.
And, if we don't plan ahead, we suffer in silence. We shiver on the log, never mentioning how cold we are. We wear our t-shirt with the coffee stain down the front and pretend we don't care. We bitterly envy our best friend's awesome dress that - if it fit - she'd totally let us borrow (because she's that cool, which is why she's our best friend).
We can't even rely on other fatties to borrow clothes from because, even though not everyone notices this, we're not all the same size. Even though my size 24 friend can commiserate and has similar experiences, we can't share clothes, either.
I did, at the age of sixteen, have a best friend who wore the same size as me (for a few months until I was smaller than her, then a year later, I was bigger than she was - hello weight fluctuations!). Unfortunately, as sweet and nice and generous as that girl was, she could not dress. She was a Laura Ashley girl, and I was more of an Angela Chase type (points for those of you who catch the reference).
I did take all of her old jeans, though. She thought they were ruined when the knees wore out.
I told you - she couldn't dress for shit.
Like I said, it's not a huge issue, but it's one of those little annoying ones that you almost never notice. It's just part of how being fat infiltrates your life and leaves it's mark on everything. And there's no fix. I mean, yes - there's weight loss, though there are a billion issues behind even suggesting that as a solution, and isn't even an option for some people - along with the understanding that some people will only get so small. There's fat acceptance, but that changes only perceptions when a lot of the problems are concrete reality issues - like measurable, physical issues: clothes fitting, activities being fat-(un)friendly, chairs breaking. THINGS.
Anyway, the point of this wasn't to rant, but instead to make you feel sorry for me because I never stole my boyfriend's coat.
The End.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
The 90's Are Back - Wait, They Left?
Alright, so we all know that fashion (and fatshion) are cyclical. What comes around goes around comes around again. Plaid, I-don't-give-a-fuck-style, and boot-cuts are resurfacing. We find the natural color palate, bright red lip, and darker burgundy gracing faces.
While these trends are being ushered back in, the resurgence of gawdy colors and styles that defined the 80's and early 2000's are fading away.
Here's the thing - I was class of 1997. I'm back in my comfort zone.
Sort of. One of the huge changes I've noticed between 1995 and 2013 is that there are so many more choices for plus-sizes. (With a few exceptions) Most plus-size specialty stores aren't quite fashion-forward (fatshion forward?), but choices! So, my 2013 fashion flash-back is exactly what my fatty, teenaged self would have wished for.
SimplyBe is one of the most fatshion-forward online retailers out there. Their clothes come in American sizes 10 - 32 (admittedly, way fewer options above size 28 or below size 12), and are aimed at women below 40. I mean, older women can totally wear this stuff, but that's not their core market. Hell, I'm on the very outer edges of their market, and I'm in my thirties.
So, these are my top 90's inspired options from SimplyBe.
I may have actually owned this dress in high school. If not me, then it was Angela Chase in My So-Called Life.
Shirley Manson, of Garbage, would have definitely stepped on stage in this. You know, if she put on 20 pounds.
But, these are what I actually sported. Pretty close.
And of course, over everything, you throw this...
Next, 90's makeup refreshers. Matte and brown everything, anyone?
While these trends are being ushered back in, the resurgence of gawdy colors and styles that defined the 80's and early 2000's are fading away.
Here's the thing - I was class of 1997. I'm back in my comfort zone.
Sort of. One of the huge changes I've noticed between 1995 and 2013 is that there are so many more choices for plus-sizes. (With a few exceptions) Most plus-size specialty stores aren't quite fashion-forward (fatshion forward?), but choices! So, my 2013 fashion flash-back is exactly what my fatty, teenaged self would have wished for.
SimplyBe is one of the most fatshion-forward online retailers out there. Their clothes come in American sizes 10 - 32 (admittedly, way fewer options above size 28 or below size 12), and are aimed at women below 40. I mean, older women can totally wear this stuff, but that's not their core market. Hell, I'm on the very outer edges of their market, and I'm in my thirties.
So, these are my top 90's inspired options from SimplyBe.
First up, this Contrasting Collar number. I'm pretty sure Courtney Love wore this exact dress back when she was hanging off Kurt's arm at award ceremonies. Or in flop houses. Whichever.
I may have actually owned this dress in high school. If not me, then it was Angela Chase in My So-Called Life.
Shirley Manson, of Garbage, would have definitely stepped on stage in this. You know, if she put on 20 pounds.
MaryJanes to go with nearly anything.
Or maybe some flowered hightops?And of course, over everything, you throw this...
Next, 90's makeup refreshers. Matte and brown everything, anyone?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)