The stuff people say to you when you're fat

I've had a rough time this week dealing with the outside world. Or perhaps they've had a rough time dealing with me. Ok, we've had a rough time dealing with each other and I need to get it all out on paper to process what I'm thinking. I'm going to warn you though, this isn't a happy post. The things I experienced this week made me very angry and ashamed, even though I thought my days of "fat shame" were over. There will probably always be part of me that hurts when poked in this way. Normally I'm better at dealing with it, just letting it roll off my back, and ignoring it. But 2 things happened within 3 days this week and on top of that I'm having some major PMS so my emotions are a bit beyond me anyway.

So experience number 1 was just sort of annoying but I think the fact that it happened 2 days before experience number 2 makes it relevant. And, the two of them piled on top of each other is probably what set me off more than normal.

I got this flier in the mail from a local gym that's just a few minutes from my house, offering a $9.99 a month membership with no contract and no fees. Sounded too good to be true but I figured I'd go in and check it out. I primarily exercise outdoors (bike, horse, walking) and I already have a membership to an indoor rock climbing gym with my partner cause that's our "bonding" activity. Not to be confused with our bondage activity ;) but that's another post.

So, I get there and of course they are on me like flies on garbage and of course the deal they sent around in the mail isn't really what they're offering. But that's beside the point. The point is, I walk in there and they're all "welcome, how can we help you?" and when I say I'd like to join, the FIRST thing I get in response is "Great! When's the last time you exercised?" I was taken aback, to say the least. Did he really just say this? Would he say this to a thin person who walked in? I doubt it. But because I'm fat obviously it warrants the question, "When's the last time you moved faster than you run to the Dairy Queen?"

Now, because hindsight is 20/20, what I should have said was..."Oh, you mean other than yesterday when I did a 5 mile bike, the day before that when I jogged a mile, the day before that when I lifted weights for an hour, and the day before that when I did intervals of sprinting and walking for 45 minutes, or the day before that when I did 5 hours of barn chores and rode my horse?" But I guess I was just so in shock that I fumbled to just tell him that I exercise often. The guys behind the counter were all like "Oh, great, isn't it cute that this fattie thinks she knows how to exercise" Ok, so that's what they came across as, even if they didn't say it. It was a bunch of fake, encouraging smiles and head nodding. So, they just kept emphasizing how great it would be to have me join the gym and how they REALLY wanted me to give it a try and how they KNEW that if I just tried it I'd reach all my goals. Here's something funny too...they gave me a sheet to fill out that asked me what my goals were and I checked the boxes for stuff like "toning up", "relieving stress", "staying active" and yet the guy who was doing the sales pitch just kept throwing in "weight loss" whenever he mentioned the benefits I'd enjoy FOR SURE if I joined. I wish I'd had the balls to stop him every time and say something like, "actually, weight loss isn't my goal." just to piss him off. I often wonder if their heads would explode to hear someone like me point blank tell them weight loss isn't my priority.

Of course, I'm out to lose some weight, yes, but that's not the reason I wanted to join a gym. My lap-band and the diet I follow because of it are going to be what loses the weight. Going to the gym is for precisely the reasons I marked off on the checklist. So even though weight loss is technically a goal, it's certainly none of his business to determine it should be since it wasn't marked on the checklist. But he probably figured I have trouble reading as well as exercising and everything else fatties are bad at, thus he wanted to make sure and emphasize the fact that I could lose weight by joining his gym, since obviously that goal was an oversight on my part.

So part of me wanted to just walk out by this point but I was really determined and I did manage to get myself the $9.99 month-to-month deal which I'm really happy about (after 30 minutes of telling the salesman "no, I don't need to be a member of the gym that badly. $9.99 a month is my limit." I guess his heart just couldn't bare to let me walk away and possibly die of a heart attack due to my lack of exercise that is my certain future if I didn't join his gym.) Ultimately, I am going there for my own enjoyment and convenience and don't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me while I'm there. I am planning to not even use the 2 free trainer appointments I get cause it'll just be more of the same, plus trying to sell me on $300 a month packages.

So that was Tuesday. Here's what happened on Thursday. I am a member of groupon.com which if you haven't seen it, is totally great and I've gotten some awesome deals on there. I really enjoy the discounted spa services and a month ago I picked up TWO microdermabrasion sessions for $56 total. For anyone who knows, they usually cost $100+ per session. Micro is one of my favorite things to do for relaxation and leaves my skin so soft. Yay. So I thought I'd nabbed a super deal. Uh... not so much. Turns out this "medi-spa" was more of a plastic surgeon's office in disguise so for one thing it took 4 weeks to get on their books at a time that wasn't ass-crack-of-dawn early in the morning. When I got there , 15 minutes early for my appointment, I was told it might be a "little bit of a wait" and also I started getting the impression that it wasn't quite the spa experience I was hoping for.

Sitting in the waiting room, reading, I took note of my surroundings. Skinny patients coming in and out and ads for everything from botox to tummy tucks all around the place. I felt like I was on an episode of Nip/Tuck except the clients (though thin) were nowhere near as good looking.

An hour went by and I was pretty on edge already, figuring I should just walk out and leave but not wanting to ditch my "spa day" so I hung around. A few minutes later I was called back. Oh yeah, let me just say that there was never any "I'm really sorry it's taking so long, do you need to reschedule?" It was just kinda "deal with it." So I get called back and this woman explains to me she's a nurse. She starts to take my BP and I'm like, "whoa...all this for a microdermabrasion?" I mean I've had probably 10 or more of them in my life and never needed a full medical history or anything. And this is a whole other issue worthy of its own long story, but I have MAJOR anxiety surrounding new doctors I'm not familiar with and this shows up as crazy elevated BP even though my normal BP is 120/70 and any doctor who knows me says I have no actual signs of hypertension, just really don't do well with getting it taken. So I'm already getting myself worked up at this point, knowing that it's going to be high if she does take it, feeling duped into coming to some doctor's office when I signed up for a spa, having had to wait an hour for my appointment with no consideration for anywhere else I had to be that day, and on top of that, she tells me, "It's just something we always do. You never know what kind of medical problems can show up with a simple BP screening. We once had a patient come in for a consult and he didn't know he had high BP and needed medicine for it." Innocent enough, I suppose, but in my mind she was basically saying "Look at you, you probably haven't checked your BP in years and don't have the sense to go to a doctor for regular physicals so it's a good thing you came here cause who knows what kind of issues you might have." I admit, I might be super nuts for taking it this way. I guess it doesn't sound as bad as it felt, but you just had to be there. The way she talked down to me and said I had no choice in the matter and implied that it was for my own good cause she wanted to help me. It all just reeked of subtext that I am not capable of knowing or acting in my own best interest which she so astutely picked up in the 60 seconds she'd known me prior to this.

So, she proceeded to take it even though I was somewhere in the middle of not giving consent for that and of course it was high (I have no idea what, cause I was freaking out by this point. My history is basically getting BP taken = anxiety = high BP = lecture from doctor who doesn't know me or care to understand why it makes me so nervous, which is, like I said a looong story.) She tells me it's high (you think?) and I had to keep myself from yelling at her, but said as calmly as I could, "That's because I have anxiety." Then I got up and left. "Thanks, but this isn't what I signed up for and I'm going to leave now." And I walked out.

It wasn't till I was back at my car that I had a full on anxiety attack. Crying, hyperventilating, everything. I was so angry, disgusted, and most of all just frustrated at my own lack of ability to have calmly told her, "I'm here for microdermabrasion and I decline any other procedures, so you can get whomever will be doing that for me now." But, I did manage to stay calm enough till I was out of there, which is a win for me. And in the end I got groupon to refund my money after telling them of the experience (the hour wait alone was outrageous for having made an appointment a month in advance.) Being that I'm only out my time and a few minutes of sanity, I can't really complain, but damn, it felt like a sucky experience.

Now, I am pretty much ok with these things but at the same time, wishing I could not get so upset. After all, I'm the one who let people get to me. It's my fat shame that I thought I was over that causes the mental issues. If I'd just taken stuff at face value (or no value!) I could have coped. So there's part of me that's angry at others and part of me wondering if I'm just taking things WAY too personally. I am not normally so sensitive, but something about these 2 experiences on top of each other just got to me.

I am so lucky that the people who matter in life are not the random doctor's office or the idiot salesman at the gym. The people who matter - my friends, family, partner, coworkers - do not treat me like this by any means. In my everyday life I'm treated like any other person. A person who is competent to make her own decisions on food and lifestyle and medical procedures. In fact, I'm probably treated better than average by people who have interaction with me because I am better than average. I am smarter than average, more responsible than average, more detail oriented, more capable, more ambitious, more anal and obsessed with making things happen the way I need them to turn out - than average. Perhaps that's why it hurts so much when I come face to face with the outside world who take one look at me and assume that I never exercise and am ignorant about my own health status.

The Fantasy of Being Thin

A comment I posted in response to Kate Harding's Blog entry "The Fantasy of Being Thin"

I think I summed up a lot of what I feel nicely, so re-posting here.

This is my first time commenting here (did you just hear my cherry pop?) ;) I want to say first of all that I really enjoy reading everything on your site and I love that it even exists. I have been an adoring fan of the BMI project for a long time and not sure why I never explored the site further.

Now, coming from my own, possibly very unique perspective, I want to say something about the potential for a person to be both 100% Fat accepting but still feel the desire to lose weight. And not due to the Fantasy of Being Thin. If I exist then there have to be others like me and I think we deserve to be recognized for what we are. Not self-hating fatties, Not hypocrites, but people who honestly feel our lives would be improved by some weight loss. I don't think talking about it should be banned and I am certainly not trying to convince anyone to think the way I do. I just think that there is room for people like me.

And what do I mean by people like me? Ok...I'm 26, I've been fat my entire life. I was the fat kid, the fat teen, the fat college student, and now the fat young adult. I have never succeeded at a diet (for more than a couple of months) and long ago gave up on them cause they just don't work. Despite all that, I managed to get a good education, find a longterm loving partner, a community of friends I love, a great career, and good health. All the things we fatties are supposedly never going to get. I even love things some people might consider punishing exercise like horseback riding, bicycling, rock climbing, hiking, and just plain running around with my dog. Like the rest of us, I can eat healthy and be active and still never lose a pound. In fact, I always gain weight the more I increase my activity level.

So with all of this, it's just kind of gotten old being fat. I feel limited cause despite my level of fitness, which is great for being as big as I am, I'm never going to excel at the things I love with 100lbs of excess weight. I'm not being mean, I'm just being honest. I've been riding horses since I was 8 years old and I'll never be any better at it than I am now as long as I stay at this weight. I cannot get on my horse from the ground due to my size and I haven't been able to do that since I was 16. This is dangerous because if I'm on a trail ride 10 miles out in the woods and get thrown or need to get off for any reason, I will be unable to get back on. This is just one example of a real benefit that losing weight will add to my life. Not to mention reducing join and bone pain I get from other activities that I enjoy and fear I'll not be able to do for the rest of my life if I continue to stay this heavy or gain more weight.

Now, I do not think I need to go from 250lbs to 125. I would be happy at whatever weight allows me to freely do what I want to do. But please don't assume that all of us who say "Yeah, i support FA wholeheartedly but I'd personally like to lose a little." are just paying lip service to FA while being in denial about our own motivations.

I am SURE those people are out there too. And I would believe they are a hell of a lot more common than people like me. But it seems counter-intuitive that a movement centered on acceptance and self-actualization would actually condemn people who are honest with themselves and decide that even though life is awesome now, it could be even more awesome with some weight loss.

It should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that people who start from a place of desperation and unhappiness will not find the secret to the universe, the meaning of life, Jesus, or any other deity, just by losing weight. That's absolutely not what I'm trying to convey so I hope people won't read that into my words.

Thank you for listening.