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.