I AM in shape. ROUND is a shape.

In my endless endeavor to push images of fat woman out into the internet; images which do NOT exist solely as “Before” pictures or “Headless Warnings”; I bring you some recent shots taken by Adam D.  This is a set of snapshots of my normal life.  The life of a morbidly obese woman who has stopped letting size and worries about it get in the way of doing what she wants (within her own monetary and local legal limits of course).

King Richard’s Faire was, as I suggested earlier, quite fun.

Waiting for Diabolis in Musica to start playing

It was nice to have complimentary tickets as we ended up spending the money we would have spent to get IN the gate on all of the artists/entertainers instead.  It felt far nicer to give large tips to performers themselves than it does to cough up that kind of money just to get in to see them!

The dress I am sporting was a gift from a friend and I only had to hem and make a few alterations in order to make it into something I really wanted to wear.

Another nice part of the Faire was getting a Djembe drum for myself to use at belly dance performances.

This drum comes home with me!

In all, a pretty awesome day of walking around, browsing wares and clapping for great performers.  The weather could not be better: a briskly fall day with blue sky and gentle sun.  Perfect for wearing a heavy-ish overcoat!

Over into the crafty department of life; I have found a fun fascination with creating crochet amigurumi creatures. I’ve found the social network called Ravelry and am really enjoying the array of crafty possibilities available there!  I just finished crocheting my first of these amigurumi creatures and it is a “kissing fish” pattern from a kit I bought at Barnes & Noble.

Meet the Kissy Fish

I had to adjust the tail a bit since the pattern was oddly off but I made it work and felt pretty happy with the little guy.  Now of course I’m trying to plan out the myriad of potential gifting options this new addiction has created.

Crochet critters for all!  Scarves with new stitches that I’ve never used before! All made in those wee rare moments between sleeping and trying to get through classwork, work-work, part-time work-work, dancing, swimming, cooking, eating, breathing, living and somewhere in there loving the hubby and little Beta fish!

Whew!

What’s life if not full of the many ways in which you can fill your time when you’re procrastinating?

In my own bit of “Fashion News” I finally got the dress I ordered as a gift for myself a few months ago.  The designer was very kind, and responsive to questions; though if you’re in any kind of impatient hurry you had better

Sassy in Brown

mention that before buying!  Since I didn’t have an event to wear it to I was pretty patient and the wait was worth it.  Custom colors, custom fit…very happy April D!

And for anyone looking beyond the dress; this is the computer/craft/storage/book shelf/dance room.

Taped to that crazy image in the back is a few of the dance choreographies I’m working on for the upcoming recital in October.

I’d say that normally the room is not so cluttered but it really is.  Lots of it is my husband’s “Must collect all plastic bags I am ever given!” obsession but the rest is my crafts, dancing and filing “system”.   Sometimes we get bursts of cleaning ambition and it becomes more organized though (the empty box by my foot is actually a part of that “in-process” cleaning which has finally been completed!)

So that’s the run of images for now.  May they inspire you to do some things you may have been holding off on.  At the very least, may they bring smiles to your lips and hearts as you see this happy fat woman living her life!

Oh, and if that does bring a smile, how about I end with a Liger drinking milk from a bottle; wearing a stuffed Liger on his back?

Did I mention the Liger is HUGE???

“Want To Lose Weight? Avoid Skinny Overeaters” is really and truly the title of the latest bit of head-shakingly insane “research” promoted over at Yahoo!’s main page.

“According to a study that will appear in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should steer clear of eating with heavier people who order large portions, it’s the beanpoles with the big appetites you really need to avoid. “They’re big trouble,” says Gavan Fitzsimons, a marketing professor at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and one of the study’s co-authors.” (Emphasis mine).

So, here we have research done for Consumer Research, which people couldn’t WAIT to turn into a “Ohmygods! You eat more if those skinny bastards around you are eating more!  And don’t you realize?  If you’re not ALREADY skinny, you have absolutely NO RIGHT to eat food!  Fatty.”

“So, if an obese person is helping himself to a large portion, I’ll hold back a bit because, well, I see the ultimate results of his eating habits, and I don’t want the stigma associated with being overweight. But if the thin person eats a lot, why shouldn’t I follow suit? If he can gorge herself and still keep trim, why can’t I?” (Emphasis mine).

Indeed. Why CAN’T we all just Eat The Same and stay “thin people”??  Could it POSSIBLY be because body size and shape have a natural variance in the human population??  No?  Oh, yeah sorry.  That would mean dieting was a worthless venture and all those diet pill marketers would be out of their lush comfortable jobs.  Sorry.  My bad.  Please continue.

“At the same time, if a thin dining companion orders a small portion, I too will hold back because I want to mirror the habits of a body type to which many people aspire. However, if an overweight persons orders light, I’ll make an adjustment. Obviously, small portions aren’t working for him. If tiny meals don’t help you stay trim, what’s the point? Get me the cheeseburger deluxe.” (Emphasis mine).

So.  Consumer Research.  Showing that we tend, as humans, to follow environmental cues of those around us when gauging our food intake.  Could it at all be linked to how socially ingrained the fear and even hatred of Fat is that people might at all consider a person’s size before decided whether or not to mimic their eating habits?  This pervasive thought that not only do people just “know” fatties must overeat at all times, always, in order to “be that way”; but that this thought therefore gives mental license to others to eat more because “Hell, at least I’ve GOT to be eating less than that huge thing!”

*sigh*  At least I can end on a more logical note:

“Weight is seen as controllable, unlike other stigmatized traits such as race and gender. Our subjects held a particularly strong explicit belief that fat people are lazy. This belief assumes that overweight individuals simply lack motivation or responsibility for a condition that is under their control.”

-Wang et al, International Journal of Obesity (2004) 28, 1333–1337.

And, some further very recent food for thought:

“Media coverage of the role of genetics in obesity causation may influence health behaviours as well as public support for obesity prevention policies. This study examined the five highest circulating daily newspapers for articles addressing genetics and obesity between January 1, 1990 and June 14, 2007. Of 776 articles found, 109 were reviewed. Results indicate a shift away from a deterministic view of obesity towards a personal responsibility perspective over time. These findings may have implications for public policy.

This analysis found a noticeable shift away from a deterministic framing of obesity. After 1999, stories about obesity genes increasingly portrayed obesity as a disease for which individuals are personally responsible (lifestyle was coded as a proxy for notions of individual responsibility), with lifestyle identified both as a cause and a remedy, rather than being caused by unchangeable environmental or genetic factors. It appears that when the gene stories first appear, the deterministic possibilities dominate the frame. As the obesity gene story evolves with time, the media’s tendency to place to locus of responsibility on the individual returns. Indeed, other studies of media portrayals of obesity have found an “unbalanced emphasis on personal responsibility in public health” (Emphasis mine)

–Caulfield, T., V. Alfonso, J. Shelley. “Deterministic?: Newspaper Representations of Obesity and Genetics.” The Open Obesity Journal (1); 38-40.

So, the spin the media gives to the “Obesity Epi-panic” may have an effect, nay even implications for how health and prevention policies are formed? And that media spin has devolved more and more into an “It’s all YOUR FAULT! Fatty.” rhetoric and away from any sort of deterministic frame? Yes.  Indeed that IS rather interesting.

This past weekend Adam D and I found ourselves with complimentary tickets to King Richard’s Faire. We went on Saturday (which worked well in our favor since Sunday seems to have been a wash out due to copious amounts of ye olde raine). I’ll have some pictures later to show the outfit but I went dressed in a nice overcoat with a fleur-de-lis print. A lot of fun was had by all. Much walking around all afternoon and even a bit of dancing up on stage with one of the bands who dragged audience members up to participate. Who says again that a fat me can’t do all sorts of out-and-about things?

In other “news” I also went fabric shopping and found some good deals to get costumes ready for Adam and I for Halloween. We’re going as LaLa Orange and Red Butler (Color Kids from Rainbow Brite).

And on a less fluffy fun note but definitely in the “food for thought” category; I have a quote from a book I’ve been reading as part of my “additional readings” for my library degree’s cataloging class.  The book is “Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder” by David Weinberger.

Thus far David Weinberger has brought to the reader’s attention the many ways that we try to organize the world around (and beyond) us: alphabetizing, planets, periodic tables, Dewey, Amazon.com; the many “joints of nature” that we’ve been trying to find through the years as a means to make sensible order of the universe.

Not only did I find the historical perspective on the struggles against the use of alphabetization interesting (for what seems more natural now than to alphabetize lists??) but I was really struck by suggestion that “we sometimes draw lines arbitrarily [to organize the world, and that method of] drawing lines has real consequences, and that elites use arbitrary lines to stay in power.” It really ties into the idea that history is written by the victors and has made me take a moment to reflect upon the many ways the world as we know it is divided into “normal” and “outliers” in very arbitrary ways that can’t help but shape how people form relationships to each other and their environment.  One thing that immediately comes to mind?  *cough*BMI*cough*

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Well to everyone who is in school or taking classes while trying to work I offer you Tutor Kitteh.  (She really IS happy with your progress, but is angry you’ve postponed tuna-based celebrations until after the semester is over!)

In that academic vein I wanted to share some awesome links I’m finding out about thanks to an online class (one of my two classes this semester for Library School).  The class is about online searching and I’ve been shown some pretty amazing ’secrets’ so far that I wanted to spread around.  Consider these when you’re wondering where to find the best information for your own posts or when you want to try and debunk science that you’re wondering about!  Or just get lost in the awesome fun of finding images by drawing!

Search Engine Watch: Keep track of the latest news about online search engines.  Also has a ratings system to show you the best search providers.

DOAJ: The Directory of Open Access Journals. This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.  A fantastic way to get a hold of the latest in science studies.  For example, this article which I access through DOAJ, is a literature review from 1985-2005 from the journal “Demographic research” which lays out nicely (on page 51) some of the bare statement conclusions from research done in that period on health risks associated with smoking, obesity, sex, age, education and marital status.  Worth checking out!

Best Search Tools: This chart compares selected search engines and meta-search engines and easily and visually allows you to compare them.

Boolify: Pure fun but also a bit of educational mixed in.  Use puzzle pieces to visually construct your search and see the results below as they increase or decrease depending on how you narrow or widen your search.

American Fact Finder: “Your source for population, housing, economic, and geographic data .”  Online site by the U.S. Census Bureau which provides tables and statistics on the population and the economy taken from the decennial census, American community surveys, 5-year economic census data, population estimate programs and annual economic surveys for the United States. Puerto Rico Community Survey data is also available.

Bartleby’s Quotations: Looking for just the right quote? This combines the best of both contemporary and classic quotations collections into a searchable database of over 87,000 entries, the largest of its kind ever compiled.

Allmusic: Comprehensive music reference site. Look up an out-of-print recording, to get reviews from All Music Guide editorial staff, along with hundreds of expert contributors on a new release, or simply explore the world of music and see where it may lead. All genres and styles of music are covered here, ranging from the most commercially popular to the most obscure.

AprilD_EverythingUseful (Free Reference Sources): Here’s just a list on my own delicious account which will show over 50 awesome FREE sources you can access online to find more information on education statistics, legal services, genealogy, geography, government, language, medicine, jobs, libraries, statistics… it is a great list and annotated much as I’ve done here.

So feel free to browse and watch for new stuff as I continue gaining more fantastic tools from the current class!

And that’s your local online morbidly obese reference librarian checking out; saying “Explore!  You can’t break the Internets but you CAN find new ways to search it better!!”

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Yet another bit of head-shaking “research”:

“Certain  scents can help set in motion a process that triggers your hypothalamus to send signals telling your body you’ve had enough to eat.

“What we’ve done is found a way to deliver the scents that can be added to food, in the form of flavorless crystals called Tastants, to prevent people from overeating.”

Yet again research based on the un-questioned idea that fat people only get that way by eating some amount OVER what they “should”.  As if any dieting fatty has never wondered why the pounds don’t just slide off when they stop eating “so much”.  Well “DUH!” it’s simply due to you not realizing that those twinges in your stomach are the “full” signals; not the “oh man I’m freaking starving on 22 points a day: FEED ME” signals. Maybe you need to sniff some of the right crystals to keep those messages clear, natch!

Yet, the brain doctor who came upon the connection between sense of smell and weight fluctuations, although declaring he is not a “diet doctor” was sure quick to jump on the diet bandwagon; offering his technology as part of the new Sensa diet plan…which you can go ahead and try for free for a while…

Here’s the skeptic in me wondering just how long those participants held onto their average “30 pound” weight loss?  No matter your feelings on reduced calorie dieting for your own purposes; stuff like this “news” designed to incite a flurry of new-diet fad purchasing just raises my hackles.  Oi.

In more interesting news: Happy Equinox!  Here it is time for Autumn colors to show on trees and bodies and I happen to rock the fall pallet so I happen to be pretty happy over here.  Hot apple cider, hay rides, halloween planning…life is beauteous.  Anyone planning some fantabulous halloween costumes?  I’m working on Rainbow Brite and Red Butler for the hubby and I!

I just ran across this post over at BoingBoing: Terrifying Huge Breakfast is Free if You Eat it in 20 Minutes.  As of a full day after its posting and not a SINGLE comment mentions how fat you’ll get or have to be in order to eat such a “disgusting” amount of food as is offered with this meal.  Want to know my theory of why?  Take a look at the photo offered with the post:

Can anyone take a guess what the comments might have been like (aside from the seemingly obligatory “Oh my goodness it doesn’t have (___Fill in blank with preferred breakfast eats___)!!!” and “Ugg, food diversity scares me – this is so GROSS because it isn’t food I’m used to!” memes) if the person pictured eating that breakfast had been, say, a Fat Woman instead of a Skinny Man??

Hear the sizzle of deliciousness

Just a supposition of my own but I think if people had seen instead my own round face staring into such a plate of meaty food stuffs then the comments would have quickly leaned a LOT more towards “Well no wonder she’s so fat; put down the fork you heifer!”  Maybe I’m being “too sensitive” or “drawing at straws” here; but how many of you think I might be hitting the nail on the head, so to speak?

So here’s my own version of the huge breakfast, cooked up while the others in our cabin were slowly awaking to the scent of cooking bacon and eggs just a few weeks ago.  Bacon is delicious, and even better when shared with loved friends!  But the simple fact I sometimes cook and eat said salty, crispy, delicious and oft-maligned; sometimes eerily worshiped; pork product still isn’t why I’m fat.  Though you can certainly go on believing it IS and leave your feared and avoided bacon to me!

I'm wearing the shirt "Ironically"

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary

Mary Travers; of the group Peter, Paul & Mary; has passed away.  Perhaps most known for “Puff the Magic Dragon” you might also recognize their tunes “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Lemon Tree”.  Something that caught my eye while reading about this group and Mary’s death at the age of 72 after slowly succumbing to Leukemia was just how active the group and Mary were in fighting for civil rights through music:

“The trio walked a fine line, appealing to liberals and anti-war activists, and raising the consciousnesses of the interested, but also entertaining middle-of-the-road listeners, and especially to parents who felt their music was safe for younger children. They were accomplishing precisely what the Weavers had set out to do a decade and a half earlier (and, not coincidentally, also exactly what the Weavers’ political opponents had feared the latter group would do, spreading liberal ideas and politics on the popular landscape with pretty music).”

It is always discouraging to lose those who battle for the rights of all to have a voice in the world and I wanted to take a big old fat moment of silent respect for Mary’s efforts in life.  Not just because she was born in November only one day after me (not counting years of course); or because perhaps having a tall, thin, blond, beautiful woman fighting for any cause may have turned just a few more heads towards considering the injustices in the world than she may have otherwise; but because anyone who fights for the dis-empowered has my personal respect.

Rest in peace and dignity Mary Travers.

I just had my annual check up today with my wonderful GYN.  While our visits are always very quick I always manage to get the feeling that she has actually read up on my file and her own notes beforehand enough to ask about the status of any previous conditions as well as make quick comments or questions about how married life is going.

Today was another pleasant (well, as pleasing as these sorts of internal pokey-proding sorts of visits really CAN be) experience.  And after I’ve spent the last few days since the reminder call came in for the appointment trying to calm the nervous flutters and logic my mind out of this paranoid fear that she was going to try to drag my weight into the picture or somehow harass me.  What an absolute pleasure to simply go into the office; sign in to delighted exclamations over my shirt by the very fashionable receptionist; get my blood pressure read with the correct cuff without even having to ask (readings are all normal, thanks!) and have my weight taken politely and with kind but unrelated banter about the weather turning cooler.  During the appointment itself the only suggestion made was that I should increase my calcium intake to encourage strong bones while I’m younger.  When the doctor also suggested taking more stairs or taking walks (which could have perhaps been a note towards weight but it didn’t sound it) I was able to quickly point out my usual swimming and dancing routine and that was that. My prescriptions are refilled, life is good, and now I don’t have to hear “Scrunch down a bit more please” for another year again (as long as all is clear as usual of course!)

What. A. Pleasure.

Also worth noting is that while I haven’t weighed myself in about a year (since my last visit) and had been feeling a bit self-conscious or even worried about whether I had gained obscene amounts of weight due to new medications and no longer dieting; I found that I’ve gained a total of 10 pounds.  Over a year I have remained more stable in weight now than I have since I was about 8.  I was recently even to the point of adding a question about weight gain to the list for my next gastro-enterologist check-up to ask if it was indeed normal to put on a few pounds due to the stomach calming medication which has allowed for me to go all day without having to make a dozen or more urgent and uh.. system cleansing?… trips to the toilet throughout the day!  While I do think I’ll still put the question out there just to get a feel for things I don’t believe it would be unreasonable to see 10 pounds gained over  a year with new medication allowing nutrients to stay in your system longer to be absorbed into the body.  Also as I have been lax with my swimming and dancing the last month or so it is also possible that these 10 pounds are a flux above my median current bodily weight point.

Of course these are just the thoughts in my own head and could of course be erroneous.  However, for me to spend one full year at the same size (within 10 pounds) and NOT have to radically alter my wardrobe (in either direction) AND to feel great most every day; is a freaking amazing feat.  And if all that feeling great has to come with the “price tag” of 10 pounds?  I’ll take that over IBS-ing my way through life any day!!

So, in all, a very nice and brief visit to the doctor’s office that I thought worth sharing.  There are informative, kindly, helpful doctors out there.  I’m really very lucky to have stumbled across the one I have!!  Oh, and to prove that I HAVE been walking as suggested by the doctor:

Walking through a local corn maze. This is BEFORE we had been lost for an hour so the energy was still very high!

It is back to the usual weekly grind.  As I wrap my head around the reality of once more getting up at 5:20 am instead of leisurely rolling awake at 10 am; I wanted to share some links that I have found interesting in the past week of vacation.

More of Me to Love has a great post up referencing “A Fun Quiz About Learning What You and Your Body Feel Best Eating“.  The tiny version of the quiz that she posted already points towards my own body functioning best as what the results called a “protein type”: meaning I get my best energy from proteins or fats; my metabolic engine seems to run more sluggishly on grains or fruits alone.  Very good food for thought about learning to listen to body responses to food stimuli.

Big Liberty pointed out a fairly recent (Feb 2008) study which linked obesity to genetics.  77% linked.  While I have to shake my head at the study’s intro which states unequivocally that “The dramatic rise in childhood obesity in the past 15 y (1) is clearly due to changes in the environment, because genes have not altered.”; the discussion conclusions are more in-line with the study’s findings in that:

“The results in the present study are broadly comparable to findings from earlier cohorts of young adults, which indicates that the balance of genetic and environmental effects is much the same as that before the external environment became so obesogenic. Therefore, although contemporary environments have made today’s children fatter than were children 20 y ago, the primary explanation for variations within the population, then and now, is genetic differences between individual children.” (Emphasis is mine)

Big Fat Deal pointed me to a site showing the “World’s Fattest” with images from as early as the 1800’s.  I just find this to be an interesting bit of visual evidence that Fat People (even if they were once labeled as “freaks” and even now have only upgraded to “poor souls” or “lazy gluttons”) did not just recently POP into existence by means of an Obesity! Epidemic!

A book review over at Living 400lbs led me to this article by Gina Kolata “Why Some People Won’t Be Fit Despite Exercise”.  Written in 2002 it still had some interesting points:

“Conventional wisdom has it that anyone who really wants to become fit can do so… But when a few intrepid scientists began asking if those beliefs were true, they found that fitness, like weight loss, has genetic underpinnings, making it inherently much easier for some to get fit than it is for others. And the facets of fitness are independent, so those who inherit an ability to gain muscle strength may not be able to grow large muscles and those who can easily increase their ability to do aerobic exercise may be thwarted on the weight room floor.” (Emphasis is mine).

For those who might have missed it there was a study released in the British Medical Journal on September 3rd, 2009 regarding the correlations between thigh circumference and the risk of heart disease.  I’ve seen many posts pointing to it but first saw it thanks to Big Liberty.  The results?:

“A small thigh circumference was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and coronary heart diseases and total mortality in both men and women. A threshold effect for thigh circumference was evident, with greatly increased risk of premature death below around 60 cm. Above the threshold there seemed to be no additional benefit of having larger thighs in either sex. These findings were independent of abdominal and general obesity, lifestyle, and cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure and lipid concentration.”

I think I’ll end with a link to another great blog: Diary of a Fat Teenager.  Her recent post addresses some of her blog’s comments and I think links to some great writings about getting the images out there and showing people that: “YES, Obese People are All Around You!  They aren’t just headless, nameless entities.  We are here.

We are even the people you might vehemently deny are fat or obese because those words seem to hold too much of a negative connotation for you.  Yet we remain.  Fat.  Obese.  And all over the place.”  This is very much the reason I post so many pictures of myself here.  I know there are people far thinner than myself who cringe at a photo; let alone at the thought of sharing it with the theoretical Internet world.  Yet here I am.  Being all Fat At You.  And loving every moment!  I AM what “Morbid Obesity” looks like.  And I am smiling in your direction.

Hello Death Fat!

I hope you find the links to be a good bit of thought provoking material to consider this Tuesday morning.  I have a few book reviews to offer of my own soon in between the re-vamping of school work this week.

I AM paddling!

I realized I never updated the blog to indicate that I’m on vacation this week!  The hubby, I, my best friend from college and her husband just spent a weekend up in Maine at a lake house.  I won the trip through a raffle and could not be more amazed at just how peaceful and relaxing it was to stay up there; despite the driving to get to/from.  It was so beautiful.

Dragonflies like me! Who knew?

Like a glimpse of the kind of summer trips people far better off could take for more than a 3 day weekend that they won through sheer luck!  What a world of fun and fresh air and deer sightings, heron sightings, lake rowing. Oh yes, this here woman’s round bottom fit itself into a canoe with the hubs and I also did some of the paddling too! Though, Adam D DID do most of that arm work.

So now my favorite fat summer activity is rowing out into a calm lake on a cool day just before a hurricane with good friends and the paddle-some Adam D.  What was/is/will be your favorite or most wistfully dreamed of summer trip/activity?  I find that usually I’m more active in spring and fall so it was quite novel to find myself enjoying the summer activities.  Though, the rather unseasonably cool temperatures may have helped!