I stumbled onto some weight loss blogs recently and it was like I’d triggered my own special kind of post-traumatic stress / recovered self-hating fat girl disorder. Some people were writing about how they cried after getting on the scale for their post-holiday weigh-in. Other people were religiously recording how many calories or carb or fat grams or “points” they’d consumed. But the worst part, the most distressing part about some of these weight loss bloggers was the deep, deep self-loathing that permeated each and every post. Reading about how wretched and unworthy and disgusting they felt because they were fat made it difficult for me to breathe.
I remember hating myself that much. I remember starving the hate off; I remember stuffing the hate down with lots of pie and I remember cutting the hate out with exacto knives, so that at the age of 26, there was barely a place on my body that wasn’t stretch-marked or scarred.
I’ve accomplished some pretty cool things in my life, but none can hold a candle to this: I decided to stop. Hating. Myself.
Okay, so it took nearly two years, some incredible friends and, you know, therapy, but holy fucking shit – what a relief! Looking at those weight loss blogs, I realized that I would chew my own foot off before I allowed myself to think those shitty, shitty things about myself (or count carb grams) ever again. Health at any size, man. Sing it.
Ye olde weight loss blogs got me thinking about that whole, you know, life-changing process. Even after I decided that there wasn't any part of my body that wasn't strong or sexy or beautiful, I still had some work to do on how to present that to the world. I started to think about my body and about the way that I dressed; I did an inventory of my body parts and decided that really, the only part of my body that I was REALLY uncomfortable with, and about, was my stomach.
Check it. My stomach is big. It's big and it's cuddly and it STICKS OUT. I used to wear only long, voluminous shirts and not just to cover my ass - 'cause, as my friend Jeba says, you can't hide an ass that big. And really, why would you want to? It's glorious! My clothing choices were generally based on camouflaging my stomach. My stomach was shy. . . or so I thought! I was looking at myself and my tummy in the mirror one night and I suddenly realized there was a reason my stomach refused to stay hidden, refused to be pulled in or masked or ignored - SHE NEEDED MORE ATTENTION.
I know, I know - why didn't I think of that BEFORE? So the next day at work, I went up to my friend Sahi and I said "So I decided last night that the reason my stomach sticks out so far is that it needs more attention." And my friend Sahi said "Ooooooo . . ." and she reached out and she TOUCHED MY STOMACH. I’m not going to lie to you - my tummy was a little tense. Seriously, I was constipated for a couple of days and I'm pretty sure it was the unfamiliar tummy contact. But my tummy soon adjusted. And then I asked Rela and Mowy and Capr and Empa and Geto and Subr and Jugr and Reol and Erar and Romo and Maja and Padu and Paba and Paha and Chpa and Jeba and Deye and Meha and Sabo and Sura and Mipa. And they all touched or rubbed or laid hands on or poked or massaged or grabbed or cuddled or, in one case, cyber-hugged my belly and my belly LOVED the attention. She BASKED in it. I worried for awhile that my belly was becoming a real 'ho - but then I decided that she had actually just invented a new kind of interactive fat girl performance art. I highly recommend it to anyone whose stomach needs to see and be seen. Tummy touching – it’s the new black.
My tummy is pretty monogamous these days; I shacked up with another gorgeous fat girl and generally, my belly needs are met. But every now and then, my stomach needs a little extra . . . somethin’. In those moments, I track down my girlfriend (usually by following the sound of rapid typing), raise my shirt above my navel and inform her that: “My belly is available for rubbing, if you are interested.”
She is always thrilled to comply. And that, my friends, is love.
