Fat Slut

Most of the time I really am fairly fat-positive as regards my own body. I’ve learned how to dress it, I’m more or less mobile, I don’t have any significant health problems. I like the way my belly sticks out and squishes, I like my boobs, I’ve even begun to come to terms with the double chin. But summer sorely tests all my resolve.

There was a heat wave for the past four days here in the northeast U.S., and the air conditioning couldn’t keep up to the 98-degree heat and high humidity. I had to catch a bus to the other campus to see my psychiatrist and I wanted to die. Nobody likes hot, humid weather. Having sweat get trapped in between my rolls, under my breasts? The sweaty, sticky feeling of my thighs sticking and rubbing together? Misery. I found myself wishing I was thinner, just so there would be less of me to sweat, fewer crevices to stick and trap that heat. And I know being thinner wouldn’t actually help. Maybe if I was just a brain in a jar.

Making matters even worse? I had my period. And I’m going to put further discussion of this behind a cut, because I’m going to get graphic and I know some people don’t want to read that. Read the rest of this entry »

Two of my friends are on diets – one in a structured long-term way, the other in a panic spurred on by finding out that none of her pants fit anymore. (Which, I can understand is terrifying, and have totally been there. Eventually after hating myself and bingeing I just bought some damn new pants. That helped a lot more than abortive weight-loss efforts, for me.) And I’m so opposed to dieting at this point that I have a hard time holding back, telling them that they should love their bodies, that they’re trying to get by on starvation levels of calories, and linking them to the entire archives of Shapely Prose. I haven’t done this, because I think right now it would be really… not rude, but ill-advised. Particularly with the panicky one. Especially since they have all these people cheering them on. (These are purely online friends, which makes life easier.)

This also means I’ve been in a weird head-space recently. Since writing that last entry I’ve been trying to be more mindful of what I’m eating and how. That’s harder right now, though; PMS week is always a challenge for me just in terms of not snapping and tearing people new orifices, and it’s also hard because it’s been hot. Normally warm, and then these past few days blazing, ridiculously hot. PMS makes me want to eat lots and lots of cheese. Hot weather? Lots of nothing, except ice cream. And on top of it all I’m still in a tailspin about school and work and moving out; I have just under eight weeks until I leave, and in that time I have to write two papers, study, and retake the exams I failed. And try to squeeze in time with the friends who I’m leaving. (We’re going to a ren faire next weekend. I have to write a post about taking measurements next time.) Which means stress, which means bingeing. Mindfulness is a struggle.

So that means yesterday I had spinach and artichoke dip and a salad with tons of avocado, because I wanted things that were green and not a giant hunk of meat; it means I ate only one and a half servings of pasta instead of three and only half the pint of cookie dough ice cream, instead of shoving it in till my stomach felt full and hard. It means making egg salad and then putting it in the fridge after a spoonful, because I honestly didn’t want it. It also means a lot of Pringles, because I’m craving salt. But I could be doing worse. I’m not going to bed with a stomachache. I’m trying really hard to be aware without assigning values other than how I feel, both emotionally and physically. I need to eat more vegetables because they make me feel healthier, even if I hate standing in our bizarrely hot kitchen to slice everything. I think I can do this.