There is no such thing as "ideal weight"

I visited my children recently, and listened to my son-in-law proudly showing his thinner body. He is following a healthy plan of eating, specifically McDougall's (rapid weight loss version) and he has lost 20 pounds in two months. He wants to take off another 30 pounds. I did not ask why, but I know his weight loss is health-related. He thinks he will be healthier. But it isn't the fat that makes you unhealthy. It's the fitness level.

1. BMI ratings are meaningless. I don't think I need to flog this horse again but if you are interested Google BMI myths and you'll find enough. Suffice to say the measurement is too simplistic and that no studies back it up as a good predictor of health. It was developed in the 1800s as a convenient quick way to list whether people were heavy or not (I think it was for the army) and it has no scientific basis.

2. Study after study shows that fat people who exercise are as healthy as thin people who exercise. Assuming similar levels of activity. In fact, in studies that actually look at BMI measurements it turns out that the chubbier folks live longer than the really thin folks. Funny, huh?

For more about this topic take a look at An Epidemic of Obesity Myths. Lots of good stuff here. Also take a look at the book The Obesity Myth (different author) and Rethinking Thin.

There is no ideal weight. There is a range of weights that correlate with long lives, but fitness levels are a better indicator.

Smoking and Eating

I have never smoked, other than a hit off someone's cigarette long ago, just to see what it was like. I smoked weed now and then, never got that interested in it either. I think it would be odd indeed, then, if I purported to know what it means to quit smoking. For example, if I were to opine that the evidence shows that smoking is bad for your health. Therefore, smokers should quit. And those who don't are weak-willed, not smart enough to realize how dangerous it is, or too driven by their pleasure centers. In other words, not as good as I am.

Yet others imply - and some actually say - that there is no mystery to losing weight. We just don't give it enough of a try, we are too lazy, we like being fat, we are weak-willed, we give in to temptation.

Last night Paul mentioned that he has given up taking the bus so he can stay at size 42 rather than get even larger. It isn't the first time he has made a comment that I can easily read as commenting on my weight, or perhaps more accurately demonstrating that he has the will whereas I do not.

A novel approach

I just finished another "romantic suspense" novel. I don't actually like these novels yet if I happen to find one in my possession I usually will read it. These stories have these elements in common:

A man and a woman. The man is a bit older than the woman, sometimes even in his forties, usually early forties if so. The woman is in her thirties 99% of the time.

Both the man and the woman are driven high-achievers. At least one of the two has had experiences with relationships that has led to caution or downright rejection of suitors. The two are thrown together in some kind of life-threatening situation and ultimately learn to trust each other. In the course of this process they have sex, which usually follows this pattern: rapid, clothes-tearing lust that exceeds anything either has known before, deeply satisfying, followed by the slow, sensual version.

The man and the woman have excellent, fit bodies. They work out, they watch what they eat blah blah blah. And, interestingly, much of each other's thoughts about the other focus on looks.

I have never been one who could wear strappy sandals. I have never been one, even at my thinnest, who could thrill a man with my perfect body, my rounded perky breasts, my taut stomach. In other words, I would never be cast in one of these novels.

Reading these novels is like watching a parade of perfect people who find love against all odds. The descriptions of their bodies, remarkably the same in each novel, build a wall against who I am. What I am. They are, collectively, an assault on all but a tiny fraction of the real world. Maybe even that fraction doesn't really exist. It's unlikely. I don't like these novels because they are so much the same, always the same, but many people do. Do these readers become lost in the fantasy, recognizing it for what it is? Or is there a tiny part of them that compares and compares?

Is the fantasy necessary? As necessary as the enhanced breasts and tummy tucks on an exotic dancer? Do we have to have that body in our minds? Or is it possible that we would be able to lose ourselves just as easily - nay, more so - if the characters really resembled real people? I'd love to find out.

My life, my life, my life

Fat is the theme of my life. Even when I am thin, which isn't that much of the time. Fat has made me what I am, good and bad, and I hate it for the bad parts. I hope, through this blog, to at least reach a level of acceptance in my heart, consistent with what I believe in my head.

It is frustrating to live in a world where so much "common knowledge" is in fact not even true. I won't repeat the statistics of how many Americans believe in ghosts and alien abductions and other paranormal activities - in a way, I can understand much of that. What distresses me, what seems hopeless to counter, are the beliefs that are promoted by what should be reliable sources for truth. The medical establishment. The government. And in fact I know that many people in these organizations believe what they say. How we got to this place is an ugly story that has been told from different angles by better writers than I. Fact is, we're there, and it's damned hard to fight it.

Heroes, in my opinion, are those who hold fast to their beliefs in spite of ridicule, of being marginalized, who continue to tell the truth even when others are laughing at them. Yes, some of these folks are truly deluded - that doesn't make them less than heroes to me. But those are not the ones I am going to discuss here.

The heroes in the fat world are those who took the time to do the research, write about it, and who continue to talk about it. Talk about how we've gotten it wrong. How we do the wrong research. How we believe the wrong things about ourselves and others.

Let's start with health. Fat does not, in itself, mean you are unhealthy or that your life span will be shortened. What is often blamed on fat is more correctly attributed to specific food choices, lack of activity, genetic predispositions, for starters. Fat people who are physically active are statistically healthier than thin people who are not. And are just as healthy as thin people who are physically active.

It doesn't matter that this is the fact. People still look at me, friends and family, and see a person who is unhealthy.

Here's what hurts: to make any kind of impression on others I have to lose weight and then make the claims. That is, as a thin person I can make assertions about fat that I cannot make while I am fat. This because most people will assume I am simply making excuses for my lack of diligence. Again, there but for the grace of diligence, go I, is the mantra of the never-been-fat.

The Naturally Thin and the Naturally Average

There are those among us who can eat without care and will never get fat. They have a fast metabolism that actually demands that they keep eating. I have known a few of these in my life. I particularly remember Richard, a fellow musician when I was in college, tall and rangy, who ate everything in sight. He was always hungry and always thin. He still is, and he is nearly 60 now. I can claim one advantage: I'd last longer on that desert island.

I have read, particularly over at Shapely Prose (in the comments to a recent post), that many of these thin folks tend to be more accepting of fatties because they recognize how difficult it is to change your weight. I expect this is generally true. It's much easier to empathize when you have a similar, even though opposite, condition.

There is another group, not given an unusually high metabolism but who grew up average weight (so-called) without effort, and who have never wavered from that weight by much. At times they may jump up ten or even twenty pounds during a difficult time, or lose ten or twenty during a different difficult time or because of extra exercise or diet.

I have friends and family members in this group. I can't count how many times I have heard many of them say "I can't eat X" or "I have to stay away from Y" or "If I eat any more I will gain ten pounds". Recently I ate out with a group and one member of this group said she no longer bought a certain type of vegan mayonnaise because it tastes too good. This group is a subset of the larger group of averages.

It's clear from the comments they make about their own bodies that they honestly believe that without their constant vigilance they would lapse into real fatness. It is only their dedication to a good diet and exercise that keeps them from from becoming what I am, in other words. They don't say this but it's clear that's what they think. And some of them really do say it, trying to be helpful. They will point out that they tried this or that diet and lost the 10 pounds that so troubled them. Suggesting I might have similar success. In the case of the thin mayo person above, she believed she would gain astronomical amounts of weight if she indulged her preference for that one food.

It simply is not true. It becomes true, at least to a degree, if their level of diligence becomes an unhealthy need to follow reduced-calorie diets. In other words, if they get on that diet treadmill they may be condemned forever to monitoring their intake. And yet even if they do screw up their own perfectly decent metabolisms in this way it is unlikely they will ever reach the level of fat I reach. There is a lot more going on here than that so-called simple equation of calories in, calories out.

In future posts here I will elaborate on this theme especially because I suspect that the belief that "There but for the grace of my diligence go I" is pervasive in this society and contributes to the general lack of understanding of fat people and to the extreme prejudice against us.

Why now?

Today I read a post in salon.com by a "fat acceptance" chick who maintains a fat blog with two other equally sassy supposedly fat young women. I took a look at this blog - shapely prose - and I admit I was impressed. I looked at the comments on the salon.com article and I was depressed. On Kate's blog is a list of fat blogs, and there are many of them. But apparently many folks out there don't read them or have a clue about weight, about the real story about weight. It won't hurt to have one more voice crying out in this dense wilderness.

So that's why now. I first thought of asking if Kate would like another writer on her blog, given that it already has many readers. Then I thought, no, I'll do my own on my own terms and see where it goes.

Why?

How out of sync could I be? Let's count the ways:

Fat: I may be in the majority here but it's still not cool.
Vegan: Our numbers are rising but we are probably still under 1%.
Grandmother: Not a thirty-something wit.

Aren't there enough fat blogs out there already? you may ask. No. We need a lot more to counter the messages we receive - and send - every day, every hour. My personal mission here? To correct the misconceptions and flat-out untruths rife in today's media, both mainstream and otherwise.

You vegans are annoying holier-than-thous, you say? Sometimes yes, we are. In my case, "holier-than-thou" might not quite work because I'm an atheist. I could have called this Fat Atheist Vegan Blog but I thought, "enough!" And anyway, let's admit it: vegans ARE right. Why not say it loud?

Grandmothers are out of touch? Not this one.

The three titles together mean something, too. The common perception of vegans is that they are thin, in fact rail-thin. Many of us are not. This older generation is also perceived as stuck-in-the-mud, not open to new ideas. So not true, not of me, not of many others my age. I'm here to explode some myths.

So there you have it.