100 Pound Loss

I’m sure this post will mean that tonight I’ll hear the dreaded “moo,” but I think sometimes I’m one of the only fat women I know who doesn’t get nasty remarks thrown at her by unevolved jerks. These jerks (and they are everywhere– on the streets, in the line at the grocery store, and of course, online in droves) make it their life’s mission to make sure that, if they think you’re fat, that you know it.

“Moo!” you might hear, walking down the street some day. It’s a far cry from the horn-honking a slender pretty girl might get (or the horn honking I used to get in college when I had lost my freshman 15 and was walking 3 miles a day).

“Move it, fat-ass” in the grocery store. Because heaven help you if you’re taking your time to read the labels, right?

And the countless sneers and side-ways looks…. well, fat women know them all, don’t we?

Sort of. See, I know them, but not recently. I have all the symptoms of being fat– the scale doesn’t lie, although I haven’t looked in a mirror recently enough to know if that does (another symptom!) I wear a size 22 jeans (and am gladly out of the 24s!) But it’s been a very long time since I heard any snarky remarks from strangers. In fact, the closest thing I’ve had was my grandmother, quietly informing me that I’d gained some weight and should try not to gain any more.

Instead, I’ve noticed myself filling them in instead. “Oh, I can’t do that,” I’ll say out loud, in public, referring to diving off the diving board. “I’m too fat!” My niece giggles, but she insists I try. “Well, if that isn’t a skinny girl’s outfit!” I’ll exclaim pointing to a baby-doll T shirt.

I was out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with a woman who is funny and nice and has that zing! sense of humor that I love. We were talking about some activity, and she all of a sudden said “yeah, but have you seen my ass? You can’t miss it!” And I paused, suddenly uncomfortable, because, yeah, I had seen her ass. You really can’t miss it. It’s… well, she has the unfortunate “bubble butt” going for her. Her butt probably looks awesome when she’s at her ideal weight, but when she’s heavy, it balloons outward and you can rest a soda can on her backside.

Me, I have the opposite problem. No matter how much weight I gain, my butt retains the roundness of your average plank of wood. I round out sideways, through the hips, down the thighs, and plenty in the front (both up and down). But I’m draggin’ nothing in my wagon.

But my discomfort over her remark made me realize how uncomfortable I’ve probably made other people when I baldly embrace my fatness. I’m not trying to do that, nor do I think I’m fishing for compliments. What I think I’m trying to do is acknowledge my own reality, to say “yes, this is who I am, and I am not afraid of it.” As I am comfortable with my height– a physical feature which I cannot control, would like to be different, and which will never change– I want to be comfortable with the rest of my size. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to change my size. But I want to be it. I want to feel that I own my fat. If I don’t own it, then I can’t really get rid of it, can I?

But then I wonder if I don’t say these things because nobody else will. Nobody says to me “you’re fat” when I’m in the grocery store. Or perhaps they do, and I don’t realize it. I think if someone said something bald-faced like that that wasn’t, taken literally, insulting, I would just reply “Yes. Yes, I am.” Because I know my own truths. But something genuinely hurtful? Like “moo?” Well, for “moo,” I would giggle and reply “Baa!” because (a) if we’re playing barnyard games, let’s play, and (b) anyone who thinks mooing at a fat woman is funny is probably a mindless sheep.

So, either I don’t hear these comments because I make them myself, or maybe I don’t hear them because I don’t project that sense of vulnerability that these monsters need to poke at. I suppose if I were slender and felt insecure about my fashion sense, they would attack that, instead. Or my glasses. Or my age. I know these kinds of remarks are a reflection of the person making them. So what does it say when that person is me?