Fat people in public

My friend got ignored today, and I had this awful feeling that it was because she's fat.

I'm fat, but you might have noticed from my pictures that I still have a shape, and it tends to be one that appeals to men of color. I also happen to be tall, blonde and green-eyed so that makes up for something in the looks sweepstakes.

My friend is shorter and MUCH rounder than me. And brunette.

We were at brunch the two of us -- sitting next to each other as it happens -- with two couples. There was another woman to my left and a man to her right. The waiter starts taking orders with me, somewhat logically as I am farthest from him. Or maybe because I am the oldest woman at the table (this is a fine dining place, so the waiters may follow this protocol). Then he moves to the woman to my left. The across the table to the woman near him. Now my friend is the youngest woman present, so no big deal, so far. Then, he skips her and goes to the men. And then gets to her last.

Whatever logic he was following, he skipped her. He didn't just go around the table. Maybe he doesn't like brunettes. Maybe it was because she's fat. I felt awful. I didn't know what to say to her. I still don't. I wish I'd been on the ball enough to do something at the time.

So newsflash, if you're a waiter or some other service person: You may think it's reasonable to skip the fat friend (or the brunette friend or the whatever friend) until everyone else has been served, but the friends don't think so, and we notice. We expect our friends to be treated with fairness and respect. If you aren't getting the tips or business you think you should be, take a closer look at how you are treating everyone in a group.

Oh, yeah. The stats update.

I did do all my measuring on Tuesday, but didn't get around to posting them. So now I have.

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I am also lusting after this cute plaid dress from Silhouettes. with brown boots , but not the ones in the picture.



I want to wait to buy fall clothes, though, in case I'm down a size. I refuse to buy clothes that don't fit so I can diet into them. That's fucked up.

Bizy-ness

I've been waiting for a baby to arrive this week, so I never knew what was happening on any given day. I still made some plans.

I had a lunch date with a guy I'd met online. We had coffee last weekend, and he wasn't disgusted by me enough to never want to see me again. Yes, I still think about physical self this way. But we really weren't clicking and I don't think we'll be seeing each other again.

My friend's water broke on Thursday night, so from then on I was just waiting until they needed me to come over and stay with their 4 year old. C and I get along really well, but spending two days with a girl that age can be exhausting if you're not used to it. I was at their house from Saturday morning about 8am until late last night when her other Mommy came home to stay with her.

Their house is full of carbolicious food, and very little protein. That's probably another reason I'm exhausted today. I decided not to measure this week until tomorrow, because I'm sure I'm completely bloated with water. I get all those red dents on my skin if it touches anything for too long.

Though, I did get some exercise. Pushing a stroller is good for your arms -- more tricept work than I expected!

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I have been musing this week on a passing thought I had when I weighed in last week. I wasn't all that happy with my weight loss and I thought "Why won't my body do I what I want?" Instantly I had the answer. "That's the wrong question. It should be why won't I do what my body wants?" I know what it wants. When I do those things its happy and feels good and I lose weight. You know drink lots of water, get some exercise, not eat a bunch of crappy nutrionless carbs.

This is why I swear by taking regular measurements

My weight is up a tiny bit, but my measurements and my body fat % are down. So, if I was one of those people who just jumps on the scale, I would think that nothing was happening. But it happens in different ways on different weeks. I strongly recommend measuring even if you're not doing a serious weight training program.

This kind of pattern -- dropping measurements but not dropping weight -- is common among low-carbers who are exercising even a little. All that protein is feeding muscle development. The lack of carbs keeps your body focused on dropping fat, not muscle. Since muscle is heavier than fat, it's totally possible to not lose weight, but be getting smaller.

I'm sure that water plays into this, too, but I don't know it's weight/volume relationship compared to fat and muscle.

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I'm also starting off the week fairly perky because I had a date yesterday with an internet guy. We had a nice chat over coffee, and he emailed that maybe we should go out again. I admit to emailing him first, but after that I let him lead. Boys like that.

There are constant discussions about weight and dating. Everywhere. Dan Savage has even gotten into the act lately. There are also issues with people not posting pictures that truly represent them. My pictures do. The full-length pictures I have posted are not the hottest or cutest pictures I've ever taken, but they're real. The last thing I need is wasting my time with some guy who isn't going to be attracted to me as I am.

I will not do that 'head shot only' routine that fat girls do. It's a disservice to me. I don't meet a lot of men online, but unlike a lot of heavier women, I can be confident that the men I meet aren't going to be shocked by what I look like. So, instead of showing up for a first date nervous about that, I can focus on being nervous about normal things.

I know that the argument for 'head shot only' is that men should be attracted to us for our whole person. You know, "see past the fat." But fat is part of my whole person (so to speak). I'm not interested in dating some guy who can see past it. I want a man who sees me, as I am, and is attracted to me.

Daughter of My People

The F-Word is writing about women and social eating today. A lot of it was pretty typical stuff, brownies in the office, getting "permission" from the women around you to eat, etc. Then I got to this:

The International Journal of Eating Disorders recently reported that daughters of mothers who like to diet have a tendency to binge and overeat. In fact, three of the most powerful risk factors for the development of an eating disorder, reports ANRED, are a mother who diets, a sister who diets and/or friends who diet.

“A lot of kids are growing up with mums whose own eating is troubled,” says Orbach. ‘”Mothers can have the best intentions, but they’re often dieting or talking about how fat they are or how they shouldn’t be eating this. It becomes embedded in a girl’s mind that she should be worried about food. She doesn’t even know there’s anything wrong with that idea.”

My mother has always been a bit obsessed with her weight. She was also obsessed with my sister's and my weight. She was so restrictive about what we could eat after school, that she put locks on the cabinets. Of course, she was never willing to acknowledge that 10 and 11 year old children are growing and therefore hungry at 4 0'clock in the afternoon. She started worrying about my sister's weight when my sister was still an infant. Like 9 months old.

My sister is a naturally stocky sort of person. She inherited my father's build when means she's a bit knocked kneed and very barrel chested. I don't mean that she has she has big boobs. Well, she does, but I'm talking about her rib cage. Broad back, broad shoulders, even when she was rail thin. But all my mother saw was fat, and had the poor kid on diet from early times.

I came along after. I inherited my mother's build -- narrow back, long, fine bones, long legs. Not exactly the kind of kid people describe as "coltish", but when I was in high school people use to talk to me about being a model. In my freshman year of high school I was 5'9", 135 lbs, and on a diet. I thought I was kind of fat. And my mother did not attempt, ever, to dissuade me of this idea. She didn't exactly encourage me to go on diets with her and my sister who was always thought to need to diet away the size of her ribcage, but she certainly welcomed me into the fold with open arms. "Couldn't hurt to lose a few."

My mother is not entirely to blame for all this. My grandmother, who I absolutely adored, was just as bad. Around my senior year in high school when I was maybe 150, my grandmother came for a visit, and the first words out of her mouth (really, she was still giving me a hug) were "You're getting a little bit chubby, aren't you?" Now granted, for someone with my build, 150 might be a few pounds over ideal, especially since I wasn't really athletic, so it wasn't muscle. But chubby? I think not.

So I spent the last 20 years screwing up my metabolism by dieting. Now I'm trying to fix it with a low-carb eating plan and a few drugs to smack down the impulsive eating. Apparently, I'm going to have to also bitch-slap the voices of several generations of women in my family, too.

Can we all take a vow, right now, that we won't do this to our daughters? We want them to be healthy and this sure isn't.

The men are dropping like flies, but my weight isn't

I did lose about a pound this week, in the end. Not so bad. Of course, I would like it to move faster. But for that to happen I'd have to be stricter about what I eat. Much. Maybe I'll get there someday, however for the moment I'm mostly on plan. For a lifestyle change that's fine. It evolves.

New stats in the sidebar.

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I was supposed to go on a date with a guy from Yahoo tomorrow, but I called and canceled. I channeled Lili* and said "I think I'll have to pass on tomorrow night." He was a bit stunned, but it was all over quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. I wasn't so sure about him to start, but then he implied that it wasn't a privilege to take me out to dinner and said we'd go Dutch. Excuse me? It is so a privilege to take me out! So, I canceled.

Replied to a couple of messages in my Yah-- box and the POF box and then cruised Y-- for somenice boys. I sent ice breakers to about 7.

Weight sure does enter into this whole dating thing. I'm not going to put my life on hold because I'm fat. That's stupid. But the menz, they are rare that will date someone with "a few extra pounds." And mine aren't even a few.

First off there are only 189 men on the Y that even fit my basic criteria. Admitedly, I'm a particular sort of woman. My sister says I'm picky. But I'm not. It's just that I don't get along with everyone and I bore easily. Anyway, college educated, white guys over 5'10", between the ages of 38 and 47 are apparently a rarity within 15 miles of Fat City. And I live in one of the most over-educated cities in the country. Then they can't be too conservative. Out of the 189 I have to find the ones that want kids still. Are erudite and well-traveled. And willing to date fat girls. Plus, I'd prefer that they not be pig ugly -- though that's a matter of taste. Someone that's attractive to me isn't going to be attractive to one of my rocker chick sisters.

I know thin women say that dating is hard for them, too, but at least they have a bigger pool of candidates. I'd guess that my options are only about 15% of the 189. And lots of those aren't a fit for me.

Still, I'm not going to date someone who doesn't think it's a privilege to date me. The second he said that, I stopped being flattered that he wanted to go on a date with me. Well, apparently even though he asked me to dinner, he didn't really want to be one date with me. Dutch is not a date.

Give her an inch...

I tend to be able to get away with a lot of moderate carb moments -- like eating a hamburger bun on July 4th along with a couple of super sweet rum cocktails -- and still drop a pound or two sometimes. And that, I suppose, it what causes me to wander off my path and lose my way completely.

After mentally registering the spicy beef salad I had for lunch at a Thai restaurant yesterday, I was thinking I'd had virtually no carbs, so I had room for some in my dinner. The key word there is "some." A burrito (with rice and beans in a tortilla) and chips, isn't exactly "some." And conveniently forgot the appetizers my colleagues ordered that I partook in at lunch (not excessively, but that should have been my limit). So, this morning, my scale bounced UP (by 3 lbs.) instead of down, and I feel like crap. Tired, groggy, dehydrated, you know -- the carb hangover.

I have a lot of trouble remembering that an inch, is just an inch. Not the whole carb aisle at the grocery store.