It's Hard Out There for a Fat Girl

As if I didn’t need something else to worry about…
Obesity Found to Be 'Socially Contagious'
By ALICIA CHANG,
AP
Posted: 2007-07-26 10:09:09
Filed Under: Health
(July 26) -- If your friends and family get fat, chances are you will too, researchers report in a startling new study that suggests obesity is "socially contagious" and can spread easily from person to person.

I’m not sure what this means for me. I’m two weeks into this high powered diet, and can already feel my body slipping into sleek. My clothes are looser, my cheekbones more pronounced, my stomach muscles taut. I’m exercising, significantly every weekday, more relaxed exercise (gardening and housework) on the weekends. It’s under tight and monitored control and I’m feeling safe. The work begins, of course, after the diet part is over and the real life living resumes.

We discussed society’s prejudice against fat people at my Sun Magazine discussion group meeting on Saturday. The meeting followed a disastrous first date earlier that morning, when the guy was obviously taken unawares by the size of my behind, despite a fairly recent photo posted on my profile (he did not return my follow up email). At the end of our two hour somewhat stilted conversation, I reached out to hug him goodbye and he stepped back to avoid contact.

Funny, after all the first dates I’ve been on, I’ve only initiated a kiss once, and usually hug men that I like, but am not physically attracted to, which was the case with this guy. We had so much in common; we live ten minutes away from each other, we are both transplants to Cincinnati, we both have fulltime responsibility for our 12 year old boys, we both have fishponds in our back yard, we both are passionate about music, have similar political and religious beliefs. I though perhaps this was a friendship worth pursuing, attributing the awkward pauses in conversation to newness and nervousness on both of our parts.

He was on the scrawny side, and I usually like men with more meat on their bones. He was not tall, not short, had an attractive face. I could have learned to be attracted to him, but that was on the back burner. I mostly wanted to figure out if I could like him first.

I guess now I will never know. A man I was dating once told me a joke: How are a moped and a fat girl alike? Both are fun to ride, but you wouldn’t want your friends to see you with one.

I wonder how this new study will affect the ability of fat girls to get dates. Will men suddenly worry that they will catch obesity like some kind of sexually transmitted disease? Will my writing circle abandon me to avoid catching my fat jeans? Will clients choose accounting firms with more svelte leaders at the helm?

It’s hard out there for a fat girl. Our society pushes fattening food into our faces every time we turn on the television, loaded with dripping butter and crunchy, baked in goodness. We are encouraged to drive, never to walk. The movie theatres make more of their profits on the fat laden popcorn and candy they sell than the movies themselves. Even power bars, a self proclaimed health food, is soaked in sugar to make it palatable.

We drive through everything, from take out food to banking to pharmacy pickups to soft drink and beer runs. Super size it, and make it snappy. We avoid moving our bodies like the plague, and then turn up our noses at those of us in our society who succumb to the couch and revel in our efficient metabolism.

I’m a fat girl. I haven’t always been fat. There once was a time when I spent three months of every year losing 25 lbs and the other nine months gaining it back, only to repeat it, again and again and again. I stayed within the normal range, vacillating between a size 10 and a size 14. Then I had a baby, ballooning 80 pounds in eight months, losing all but 15 within three months after I gave birth. The second baby was a similar experience, except I didn’t lose the fat that went with it. I kept it, hoarded it, wrapped my soul around it and didn’t let go. I kept it until I got divorced.

My divorce awoke many things inside of me; alleviating the sense of stagnation that had niggled my subconscious the last few years of my marriage. I started gardening in earnest. I picked up my pen. I started walking, running even sometimes, anything to try to outrace the pain I felt deep down in my soul. I lost my appetite and as a result, I lost weight.

A year and a half ago, my head bubbled up from the bog of depression that had embraced me following my divorce. My appetite and zest for life came back, although I held on to the gifts of writing, gardening and exercise that had been keeping me company. I regained about half of the weight I had lost.

But something funny happened, too. As I regained the weight, I lost my attractiveness to most men. Oh sure, there were a few who could see past the poundage, but not many. I puzzled over that, but mostly ignored it, as I had moved into my learning to live with myself stage of healing.

Now that I am ready to return to the buffet line of love, I have found that I must lose the extra weight in order to even find a place among the appetizers, much less, become a main dish. Hence the diet.

There’s a man in my writing class that I find extremely attractive. He’s married to a fellow writer and I admire them both. He is a big guy, has round belly, is almost bald, wears thick glassed and quite frankly, does not exhibit many of the traditionally attractive qualities of the masculine gender. But the words that flow from his pen. The gentle cadence of his voice. The kindness that emanates from his writing. The thoughtfulness and sensitivity that one hears in every story he writes. That is beautiful. That is attractive. That is sexy as hell.

I know that I am not alone in my attraction to him.

And just to keep the record straight, were he ever to act on the attractions of the women writers around him, he would lose the lusty thoughts he inspires in us. His devotion to his wife is part and parcel of his appeal.

Can only women see through the veneer of physicality to the burning beauty of a soul? Are men so caught up the turbines churning in their loins that mounds of excess flesh mute the music of the beautiful women that lie beneath?

How sad is that. And how sad that after I lose this weight, after I model myself to the confines of society’s notion of beauty, I will also lose the ability to sort the chaff from the wheat and find a true blue man, a bright and beautiful soul that can see into mine.

It’s for the best. There are so few of them out there.

And I fear that I will run out of time.

Viceless

What a boring Betty I’m becoming. No fun at all. I am dieting…not a simple eat less, exercise more diet, but a full blown, doctor supervised, extremely strict, eat only what little, tiny bit we prescribe type of diet. It comes with group therapy and a weekly weigh in, which I think will be good for me. I want to take this weight off. Even if only for half an hour, I want to weigh significantly less than I do now. What I really want, is to be thin enough that when I go back out into the dating pool, my weight is simply not an issue. I want prospective partners to see past my waistline and judge me based on my character.

Not only am I dieting, but no alcohol either, because it’s not on the doctor’s list. I’m celibate because I’m not dating, although I did thoroughly kiss a man on Saturday night (more about that in a minute). I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble, and I hate shopping. I drink only one cup of coffee a day. I watch barely any television, and never look at pornography. What other vices are there?

Ok, I still swear, god damn it.

I work hard, been working in my garden, been making arrangements for some work to be done on my house. I’ve even been going to church, or meeting as the Quakers like to call it. Yesterday, we had a picnic and talent show. I read something I wrote, which was well received, but mostly, I sat in a chair in the shade, listened to others making music and enjoyed the camaraderie of some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I put on my sunglasses so that I could uninhibitedly look at Dancing Guy whenever I wanted without him being the wiser. A couple of the kids had been demonstrating the tricks they learned at circus camp, one of the tricks involved a hoola hoop. After the kids were done, Dancing Guy got up from the blanket beside my chair and did the hoola hoop, his hips gyrating, the hoola hoop circling his chest and his stomach and…I almost fell over in my chair.

Ok, so maybe lustful thoughts are still in my vice repertoire, right along with cussing because I can’t do anything about them.

Other than that, life goes on. The summer stretches before me with an ever shrinking band. School starts again in just a month. Summer ends a month after that. My flowers are growing, my children are growing, the puppy is calming down. Could I live this way forever? Playing with my flowers, chatting with my neighbors, meeting my friends for movies and concerts and drinks at the Irish Pub, walking along the Ohio River? I think I could. The kissing on the bench is just peripheral, just a reminder that I’m still alive…completely alive.

Biding my time for the right moment and the right man.

Oversexed

I am oversexed. I know that I am. I don’t know if it’s because I have a higher level of testosterone for a female or because it that’s just the way I’m drawn, but I know that despite the drop in sexual thoughts after four months of celibacy, I still think about it more than most women. Actually, I don’t know if I have a higher level of testosterone than most females, I just presuppose that I do because of the way I think.

I sat at my Friends meeting yesterday, eyeing the Dance guy, and the blond man to my left, even the short brown haired man in front of me. I looked at their hands, looked at their feet, looked at their legs, checked out their chests and thought all kinds of libidinous thoughts. This, while I was supposed to be meditating, while I was supposed to be listening for the universe, waiting for words to come to me.

I have been to meeting now six times and I have never been subjected to thoughts of this nature before. At prior meetings, my thoughts and my mind stayed firmly entrenched in the task at hand. It came as a bit of a surprise that I would have to discipline my mind away from those thoughts yesterday. Granted, I am in the week of my cycle which leaves me breathless, which leaves me with a clear understanding of the feelings of those yowling cats in heat that I remember on my uncle’s farm. I am four months into my six months of celibacy, and despite yesterday’s lapse, I think it’s helping me. I am not as torn asunder by sexual thoughts as I once was. I am betterable to focus on my work, on my children, on my daily tasks and responsibilities.

I walked with a woman after the meeting and she confessed that she hardly ever even thinks of sex, has no desire for it, could easily live the rest of her life without it. I startled at her words, stumbled a little on the broken path through the woods. Is that a goal for me? Do I wish to get to the point where I could fathom living without it….for good?

I don’t think so.

After I refocused my mind and gazed intently through the heart shaped canopy of leaves that frames itself outside the meeting house’s window, the words came to me. “You will be loved. There is reason to hope.”

I had a nightmare last night. I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night, and perhaps the violence of that movie inspired the nightmare. I don’t have bad dreams very often, so last night surprised me. I dreamt that I was fighting a battle I knew I could not win. I had soldiers around me, willing to lay down their lives, but I knew that our enemy was superior and we would not prevail. Instead, I would subject my people to beatings and torture and death. But to not fight? To simply give up was preposterous. What should a good leader do?

I woke up. That was my answer. My bladder beaconed me and I shook my head to clear the dream from my mind. I padded into the bathroom, got a drink of water, read two pages in my new Janet Evanovich novel and went back to sleep. This time, I dreamt that my sister in law was building a new house and I was riding a bike through town on my way to see her new place. The wind caught my long, flowing hair and I was thirteen again, breezing down 700W through the prairies of Indiana. It got me to thinking that I haven’t had a really good sex dream in a long time. Maybe I’m not oversexed.

Maybe I’m just underloved.

Pond picture July 2, 2007

Reconnected

My sister from Seattle is visiting with her family. I picked them up in Louisville on Tuesday, took the whole week off to be with her while she is here. I am always amazed, when my sister and I are together, how easy it is to fall in step with her. We work well together, and enjoy each other’s company so very much.

Evie is not quite two years older than me. She is a devout Mormon and pretty conventional when it comes to politics. I realize with Evie, though, that politics and religion are just external dressings to the soul, like make up on a young girl’s face. If there is beauty beneath, it shines through no matter what. And if there’s not, then no amount of make up can cover up the ugliness.

Evie and I are both beautiful souls. We just wear different make up. Our shared history binds us. When we listen to each other’s words and opinions, our trust in each other is so complete that we are able to open our hearts and hear what feeds the other’s soul. I am grateful that Evie has found the Mormon faith, as it gives her the community and family that she needs, and it gives her the grounding that has eluded her throughout so much of her life. I can’t say here what she feels about my faith, but I know that when I speak, she listens with the same intensity that I listen to her.

I know families that grow into divergent economic, political, religious and social circles, and it drives wedges between siblings. Some unlearn the love they shared growing up. Not so with us. Our shared horrendous childhood bonded us indelibly.

Besides that, we genuinely like each other.

My brother and his wife drove up to spend the fourth of July with us, and then we drove to our hometown to spend the weekend with him. We needed to visit with my nephews, and see our aunt and our cousins and my other sister and her family. Every stop was another family reunion.

Every stop was another lesson in laughter and love. Unconditional love. Love without judgment, disappointment, or unfulfilled obligations. I guess I can only speak for myself, but I was just so grateful for their company.

I was asked a couple times if there was a man in my life. Curiosity, mostly, inspired the questions, along with the knowledge that in 2005, I was on a quest for a mate; a quest that resulted in the text for a novel, but no impending nuptials. I felt no judgment, however, when I smiled and gave a negative response. One of my cousins has told me in the past that I’m just not praying hard enough…but she wasn’t there this weekend.

I’ve been the social director while my sister vacations here in my home. We went to a Red’s game on Wednesday, went to the pool yesterday, will go to King’s Island today. We had every intention of going to the drive-in movie in my home town to see Transformers on Friday night, but we all pooped out. The drive was long and we spent a lot of time walking around, visiting folks, and....we watched a movie on my brother's big screen tv instead.

My brother lives next door to the parents of a former classmate of mine. Peter was Homecoming King, star of most theatre productions (theatre was my thing in high school). We were both on the speech team and did a Drama Duo act that won first place at the regional speech meet. I still have the trophy. He was the one person from my high school graduating class that I would have been willing to make the trek home to see for a class reunion. I had knocked on their door before, had even left a few notes, inquiring after Peter, but after all these 30 years, had never gotten a response. I went out to the car, after the decision to stay in for the evening had been made, to get my pillow and my overnight case. A light was shining from an open door off of their screened in porch. Despite it being after nine o'clock at night, I decided to chance their rebuke and make another attempt to find out whatever happened to Peter.

I knocked decisively on the door. An old man appeared, opened the door and just looked at me, saying nothing. I swallowed nervously, cleared my throat, and said, "I'm Betty Waite, Roger Winters' sister. I went to school with Peter White and just wanted to know whatever happened to him, if he is ok."

The old man stared at me for a minute, and then said, "Well, he's right in here, you can ask him yourself."

Out comes Peter, and there, on the porch on a sultry summer evening, we caught up on the last thirty years of our lives...on our entire lives as adults. Peter went to NYC to see if he could make it as an actor, lived a life as a starving artist for awhile, then discovered a talent for costuming, which has made him very successful. He has a long list of credits (which I googled as soon as I got home.) He and his partner live in Florida. He just happened to be visiting, staying for only two days, on his way back home from a movie shoot.

It was amazing how easy it was to talk with him. He told me his partner of ten years is HIV positive, and got a little choked up talking about how hard life was for him. He looked at me at one point and said, "I've known I was gay since I was three." I grinned back at him and said, "I've known you were gay since we played spin the bottle at the cast party and I kissed you and nothing happened." He roared with laughter at that one and nodded ruefully.

We hugged each other goodbye. Hugged and hugged like the long lost friends we are, and were. I was so pleased to have had the chance to reconnect with him.

I had breakfast on Saturday with an old boyfriend; the love of my life, once upon a time. I dated him when I was nineteen and again when I was forty one. We’ve never lived in the same city, always dated long distance; weekends filled with passion and nostalgia. It was a vacation romance, as long distance love always is, never encumbered with the knowledge of day to day idiosyncrasies. It was good to reconnect with him, too, even from the distance of a handshake. Sometimes the memory of an almost perfect love is enough.

Evie and her family go back to Seattle tomorrow and I return to my real life day to day drama as well. I fantasize about a time and place where we could all live together, be each other’s playmates in old age just as we were in our childhoods.

Truth be told, my siblings are still my best friends and probably always will be.