The Fat One in the Middle » Fat

Cracking Open My World*

FatOneInTheMiddle — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:43:22 +0000

I am still THIS person, the person who wears a tutu on her head for her Princess Son!

“ If women told the truth, the world would crack open,” Audre Lorde

This morning, I got an email that I knew would come. I did not know who would send it, or when it would come, but I was sure of its eventual arrival.

When I first started thinking about losing weight/eating better/etc, I remember being afraid of a backlash. Thinking that people who enjoyed my “fuck you society!” posts about being fat would be disappointed in me. Worried that if I wrote about something so mundane and trivial as weight loss and food, that people would think less of me. That I was “bowing down to the man” or selling out.

Several of my friends thought I was ridiculous to think that this would happen. All of those friends were thin. My fat friends knew exactly what I was talking about.

So this morning, I basically got the “Heidi, I am glad you are trying to get healthy, but why are you writing about it and posting your weight and focusing on this and I am sad to see you become this. You were an inspiration to me and now I am sad.”

And it hurt, but like most things, it hurt because it was true.

I AM writing about weight loss, and posting my numbers, and any petty thoughts I may have. I AM writing about being hungry and how it feels to wear smaller clothes, and the battle that goes on in my heart in regards to my love of being mobile and there for my children that sometimes seems at odds with my love of my curves.

But this is the price I pay for living “publicly” – when you put your thoughts and actions out in the public arena, people are free to comment on them. And I understand that.

But the focus on my weight is only the flip side of what was a false confidence about my weight. I have never thought I was ugly – NEVER! This is not about that. But part of the reason I focused so hard on building my identity into that of the “happy fat girl” or the “outrageous fat girl” was so that I would not have to deal with REAL ASPECTS of myself.

I am vain, just like thin women. I worry about my looks, just like thin women. But I am not losing weight just for a looks issue. In fact, I am still adamantly into not only my own curves, but the curves of other women.

And I want my identity to revolve around the whole of who I am, and not just one piece.

I started losing weight as a side effect of a drug. I then decided to continue it to increase my health, and decrease pain in my knees and my herniated disc. Both feel much, much better.

I am making all of this public is because I benefit from working my issues out online. I always have. But in doing so, I expressed fears that people would react in just this way – that I would be seen as giving up something huge in my identity to fit in better.

But here is the thing – I still have ALL the same values, ideas, opinions, faults, strengths, and weaknesses I did before. I am the same person, albeit one who is in a headspace about losing weight.

Is this ok? Am I allowed to do this? Am I allowed a moment to be human where I worry about the health consequences of high blood pressure and pre-diabetes – especially in the same year that my father died at 61 years old due to congestive heart failure.

I know that many people considered me a role model in “fat positive” issues, and loved my sassy fat self and the way I seemed to be above the trivial issues I am now writing about.

But I am not above it. A very dear friend told me that my persona was a huge suit of armor I was wearing, and he was right. I am human, I am weak, but above all, I am a work in progress.

Part of me wants to explain that MY weight loss is different because it is based in self-love not in self-hate, but then I realized, by saying that I am judging everyone else who is not like me.

My journey now allows me to focus on the food issues I have hidden and suppressed for so long. If you need to hide me because it triggers you, bores you , saddens you, infuriates you, or simply makes you go “meh – bring back the anal sex!” then certainly hide me.

But I am not a movement. I am not a symbol. I am a woman who wants to feel good, look good, and live long enough to see her great grandchildren become as goofy as their ancestors.

And I am still Heidi Marie Anderson.

And when I get to where my body wants to stop losing weight, I will make and wear this t-shirt:

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This post, Cracking Open My World*, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on November 12, 2010.

Interesting New Site

FatOneInTheMiddle — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:25:09 +0000

Hmmmm

Fat girl accepts that she is fooling no one into thinking she is a selfless, deep, non-appearance oriented person just because she is fat. Radical shifts occur.

http://movingtothefront.tumblr.com/

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This post, Interesting New Site, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on November 4, 2010.

SMILE – You’ve Lost Weight!

FatOneInTheMiddle — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:27:24 +0000

I have been on an ADHD medicine for about three months now, and one of the side effects is decreased appetite. Funny how amphetamines do that to you. Even though people have told me that I looked thinner, I was not sure about it until I tried on a pair of jeans that had not fit in two years, and they fit beautifully. I should be happy, right?

The last time I was at a doctor, I weighed 250. The weight of a football player. Generally when I tell people this, they rush to tell me how I do not LOOK like I weight 250, which only shows me that their friends lie about their weight. I KNOW what women weigh, because I have been all of those weights in my life. I never play the “Guess My Weight” game with women, because I am generally pretty damn close, and it pisses them off. In real life, most women weight over 150.

I started my life as a small baby. I was so small that my mother claimed she was actually frightened of me; afraid of me being so delicate. I stayed petite and pretty all through my toddlerhood, and was also incredibly gorgeous, if I do say so myself :)

My father and I, when I was about 2.

I am not sure at what point the warnings about getting fat began. but I do know that my father struggled with his own weight for his entire life. His father was big, his mother was big, and his brother was big, so thin was not something that came naturally. I remember seeing my father at all weights throughout his life, and much like my obese grandmother, he was most thin and gaunt immediately prior to death.

My father, uncle, and grandmother shortly prior to her death.

My father prior to his death.

My sister and I were constantly reminded to watch our weight, and I know now that it came from my father’s own struggle as a fat man. As a parent myself, I can see what the intentions were, but the hyper focus on weight to an already small child was not healthy. My father and step-mother were both terrified of obesity, and worked hard to provide my sister and I with healthy food choices at all times. However, rigid food rules in a home ruled by an anxious self-loathing alcoholic do not lead to healthy body image. In fact, it led to one child drinking maple syrup from the bottle to get SOMETHING sweet, and another child developing bulimia.

My stepmother, me, sister and father at the beach.

When I look at pictures of myself as a child, I try to find the moment where weight actually became an issue for me. It was certainly not here:

My sister, father and I at the beach.

Or here, at his wedding to my step-mother:

Me, my father, and my sister at his wedding. HORRIBLY scratchy dresses.

Or here:

My sister, father, and I at Christmas. Yes, that is an original Cabbage Patch kid.

But then, around the age of ten, the chubbiness begins:

Me, my brother, and father.

My family.

Sadly, at just the time I was starting to gain weight, my sister was beginning to lose it due to the wonders of purging. Looking back though, I can see that although I was chubby, it was the normal chubbiness of kids right before puberty. Most kids bulk up immediately prior to growing several inches, and the weight gain was in no way abnormal or cause for alarm.

However, I can only imagine the terror my father felt at seeing his daughter embark on a struggle he had faced his entire life.

By high school, I was not just chubby, but officially fat. However, perhaps in opposition to expected standards, I did not hide away in my room (unless I was binging on sugar). I was fairly popular, most people liked me, and I even had boyfriends, one of whom was charmed enough to eventually marry me.

My husband and I in high school.

At one point in high school, I began smoking, quit eating sugar, and existed on no breakfast, Diet Coke and crackers for lunch, and supper with my family. The result was this, the only time past childhood I can legitimately call myself thin. And I was still 160 pounds, and a size 12.

Me at junior prom.

After high school, I was mostly in the chubby zone. My first serious boyfriend/sexual partner liked me the way I looked, but I also remember feeling horribly upset when I found “chubby porn” in his room. Not because it was porn, but because he clearly thought these women looked like me, and therefore that I was chubby.

I remember once in college being on a date with a man, and telling him how I had been much fatter in high school. He told me that yes, yes, I was very beautiful, but that I could be even MORE beautiful if I just lost another 30 pounds. At that point, I instantly lost 200 pounds of Russian asshole.

After college, with less activity and more food, my weight crept above the 200 pound mark. When I quit smoking, it went even higher. However, despite this, I never really suffered from the slings and arrows some fat women have faced. I was never mocked, I was never publicly ridiculed, and the only thing my weight really affected was my chance at hang gliding inI the Outer Banks. When I told the sales person how much I weighed (apparently important for safety concerns), he paused and said “We’re going to need a lot of wind.” Needless to say, I did not go hang gliding.

When I got married I was fat. When I got pregnant I was fat. I have been fat for so long, I can’t even imagine being thin. Being fat is wrapped into my identity so tightly that being thin or struggling to lose weight feels not only false, but like I am selling out my fat sisters.

Interestingly, despite having been told my entire life that I was fat, I have also received messages of being pretty from my mother. My mother was not happy that I was fat, and she certainly was not happy when I ate all of her food during binges in high school, but she also pushed the idea into my brain that I was beautiful.

My son Hollis and I when I was pregnant with Max.

I can look at pictures of myself, know objectively that I am indeed fat, and somehow separate that from also appreciating my beauty.

We all have a picture of what we think we look like in our heads, and I recently took a self portrait that matches my self image:

However, it still cracks me up that in so many pictures, I do indeed remain, the fat one in the middle :)

My sister, brother, and I

So, if this medication continues to work its magic, and I indeed lose more weight, what becomes of this identity I have had for 35 years? It took years of “programming” for me to first believe I was fat, then become fat, and finally accept and embrace being fat. As I get older, and the realities of both gravity, genetics, and lack of exercise take their toll on my body, the weight is becoming a physical burden in ways it has never been mentally.

But if I am not “The Fat One in the Middle”, then what? The average bitch on the side?

PS – I have just noticed that while being in the middle gives the appearance of “hiding” it can also be interpreted as trying to be the center of attention.

PPS – I am raising my own sons with an entirely different relationship to food. No food is off limits, they are free to refuse food if they do not like it, and I am teaching them to trust their own taste and hunger. This leads to one child eating mustard and white bread sandwiches with alarming frequency.

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This post, SMILE – You’ve Lost Weight!, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on August 22, 2010.

Sluts are Stupid!!!

FatOneInTheMiddle — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:18:46 +0000

Yesterday on Skepchick, Rebecca Watson brought up the horrible misogynistic crap directed at a female journalist who interviewed Paul Offit. It involved talk of rape, whoredom, and the general stuff that gets thrown at women. It also featured a gross depiction of pro-vaccination people eating dead babies.

This is disgusting. Very much so. However, skeptics need to clean their own house of the same type of behavior. In less than one hour and five searches, I was able to pull up equally disturbing imagery and comments directed at Jenny McCarthy. I have also heard skeptics refer to Jenny and Oprah as evil on more than one occasion, and refer to Oprah as fat and insinuate she is unfuckable. Jenny McCarthy and Oprah are ignorant and pushing a dangerous agenda that is harming people. None of that has anything to do with their perceived sexual availability, their showing off of their bodies, their attractiveness, or YOUR interest in fucking or not fucking them. However, to go so far as to call them evil when our side is attempting to prove WE are the rational ones is ridiculous.

As Ben Radford brought up in his recent CFI Piece “Hollywood Hyperbole

“I know that hyperbole is typical of breezy, lightweight entertainment
“news.” But I hold writers to a higher standard. I expect them to know
the difference between literally and figuratively. I expect them to
give me that facts without inserting phrases which are obviously
untrue, and which blow the writer’s credibility out the window.”

I expect nothing less than skeptics as well.

_____________________________________________________________________________

For all of you clamoring for evidence of misogyny AND hyperbole, as well as general tackiness:

From Bad Astronomy

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/11/13/some-jabs-are-deeper-than-others/

and the resulting lovely comments.

1. Jim Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

Preposterous! Unicorns only approach
virgins, after all.

4. Dedjester
Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm

Ah yes, but they will slay (read
impale) the wicked/evil people.

I would say something about the
slutty also but this is not that type of blog

13. I’d rather be
fishin’ Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

@#1 Preposterous! Unicorns only approach
virgins, after all.

Her brain is virgin!

http://www.murmur.com/lifestyle/jenny_mccarthy_wants_to_kill_your_children_or_why_you_shouldnt_get_medical_a.html

“Millions of people across the world are taking this woman’s advice over
their doctors and pediatricians. And because of that, people are dying.
This woman got famous showing us all her boobs, had fake boobs in, fake
boobs out, complains about toxins while shooting her horse-face full of one of
the deadliest toxins known to man (Botulism marketed as Botox), ate her fake
vomit on MTV, and believes her son is a new-age ?Crystal Child?- the next step
in humanity evolving into higher beings. And she might just kill your
child and the human race.”

From
FB Page Links on “Stop the Australian Vaccination Network”

Her entire “proof” boils down to how
she gave birth to a child. We know you’ve got a vagina, Jenny, you used to show
it to us for rent money. When we have to choose between medical science, which
eliminated smallpox, and you, this is the one time in we’re going to go with
the “not tits” option.”

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/thanks_again_jenny_mccarthy_and_andrew_wakefield.php

One last comment, should Jenny ever read this:

Jenny, you ignorant slut, when actual deaths occur will you still be able to
look yourself in the mirror?

Posted by: Dan | August
21, 2008 7:27 PM

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=139

·
# mmarshon 09 Jun 2008 at 5:41 pm

Just once, I’d like to see a
scientist “debating” McCarthy on a program like Larry King begin a rebuttal
with, “Jen, you ignorant slut.”

http://blog.imperfectparent.com/2008/10/01/jenny-mccarthy-is-an-idiot/

Photo used

“Even though the general consensus amongst medical scientists around the
world are that such claims remain unproven and possibly dangerous and nothing
more than gossip/rumor, some parents look up to the protruding boobs of Jenny
McCarthy and take in the information as if they were listening to somebody who
actually knew what they were talking about and had some kind of medical or
clinical expertise to back it up.”

Comments

· 40. Ben Dover said:
October 14, 2008 @ 9:28
am

Jenny McCarthy is one dumbest bimbos in hollywood or anywhere else for that
matter. She is a helicopter mother living with another freak, Jim Carrey, as it
that will help her situation.

· 50. HothCold said:
July 27, 2009 @ 10:32
pm

I’ve loved Jenny McCarthy since I was 17 yrs old. I’m actually somewhat
jealous of Jim Carrey, & I think she still looks gorgeous.

I had a series of her posters, some of the Playboy magazines in which she
was featured, I bought a surfing compilation album just because she was
affilated with the CD, and sat through SCREAM 3 because she had a minor part in
that film. After her dreadful NBC sitcom JENNY was cancelled, her popularity
began to dwindle, and I moved on.

Years later, I learned she had written some books; one detailing her
pregnancy, & the other discussing how she copes with the challenges of
raising an autistic child.
After reading both, my first thought honestly was “That’s what you get for
posing nude”. My second thought was “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
Practically, every second word was either f***, c***s*****, or m*****f*****. My
third thought was “So this is your career now, huh? You’re exploiting your
sons’ condition and posing as an expert on autism”.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, (and I realize I completely missed
the point of your blog), but I don’t think it’s fair to call Jenny an idiot.
She’s a better mom than some of the others who appear in the tabloids or
certain hit TLC shows. I also think that she’s simply living by the mantra
“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”.

If I admire Jenny for only one thing, it’d be her unmatched beauty.

· 11. a concerned parent said:
October 2, 2008 @ 2:29
am

I couldn’t agree more. Jenny McCarthy is an idiot. But she’s worse than
that, she’s exploiting her son the way she used to make money exploiting her
silicone implants, botox’d face and bleached hair.

http://skepticat.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-jenny-mccarthy-body-count/

Update 2/11/09. See Crispian Jago’s blog for a nice
wee video he’s made: The Jenny McCarthy body count. If you can stand it for long
enough, you get to see McCarthy’s tits.

Vaccine expert at work

http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2009/11/derek-bartholomaus-excellent-web-site.html

Last pic in the video is of Jenny in one of her sexy
shots of her in her panties, heels, and a shirt.

http://www.kaytastrophe.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-6391.html

05-05-2009, 09:38 AM

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/04/26/the-australian-antivax-movement-takes-its-toll/

This makes me want to kill Jenny McCarthy.

–Apoplectic Spikey

iQuinn

05-05-2009, 10:40 AM

This makes me want to kill Jenny
McCarthy.
–Apoplectic Spikey
You’ll get no argument from me. I thought someone should’ve put their foot up
her ass a long time ago.

there_is_no_bob

05-05-2009, 12:53 PM

This makes me want to kill Jenny
McCarthy.
Make sure to hit Carrey and Oprah while you’re at it.
Oprah is giving the bitch a radio show.:mad:

______________________________________________________________________________

http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/05/amateur-scientists-jenny-mccarthy-song/#more-7311

phlebas // May 15, 2009 at 5:26 pm

@dustc:

I disagree. Her cleavage is *exactly* why Jenny McCarthy has the fame she’s
currently leveraging. In my opinion, it’s entirely appropriate to highlight
that often-forgotten fact.

She has done no research and had no training or really even had the right
life experiences to back up any of the dangerous claims she’s made and will
continue to make. Yet people fawn on every word. Why is that, exactly?

Jenny has Playboy-caliber boobs. Because of that, she has been allowed a
platform (ha!) to spout this nonsense, and was put in a position to meet her
largest financier/boyfriend.

The path from Jenny’s breasts to kids with measles is an easy one to see.
Almost as clear-cut as the cleavage in question. It’s a ridiculous path to
tread, yet that’s exactly what people are doing whether they know it or not.

I don’t know if that was Brian’s intent, but he did a wonderfully unstated
job highlighting it.

____________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/vaccines/

Another blow against anti-vaccine hysteria — or is it?

By Michael Fumento

Caption used: You
can see why Jenny McCarthy is treated as an expert on childhood vaccines and autism.

The vaccine preservative thimerosal has jumped the safety hurdle. Again. So
indicates the Sept. 27, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
But as I write in
my TCS Daily piece, “again” is the problem. One huge study
after another has cleared thimerosal as a cause of child developmental
disorders, but there is a powerful lobby that couldn’t care less.

There are over 150 anti-vaccine web sites. None will disappear as a result
of the new findings. After all, who cares what a multitude of huge
epidemiological studies from all over the world say when former Playboy
Playmate Jenny McCarthy, with her 38 C IQ, claims on Oprah and in the new book
she’s hawking that her son got autism from a vaccine?

The major problem with this hysteria? It scares parents away from
vaccination programs, even mandatory ones. And only mandatory programs can
confer “herd immunity,” meaning that immunization rates in the wider
population are high enough (for example, 85 percent for diphtheria) to protect
those not immunized.

Those who encourage parents to avoid vaccinating their kids are telling them
to become free riders, relying on those parents who do vaccinate. But if enough
people try to free ride, then herd immunity is lost and what follows is the
return of childhood diseases we hardly think about anymore. Diseases like
pertussis have made comebacks in countries as diverse as Australia, Japan, and
Sweden after anti-vaccinationist scares.

Better known as “whooping cough,” pertussis is a highly contagious
bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing. Pertussis cases
went from fewer than 8,000 in the U.S. in 2001 to over 25,000 in 2005.

Reaching parents who have already been practically brain-washed is hard, but
for the sake of our children we must do so.

October 24, 2007 02:25 PM · Permalink

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This post, Sluts are Stupid!!!, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on December 1, 2009.

The "Real" Secret

FatOneInTheMiddle — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:16:34 +0000

So I turn 36 today, and even had a therapy session today where my therapist paid me!! Not because I am so fucking amusing (although, let's actually go with that) but because I had an insurance credit. Score!!

So anyway, I told my therapist today something that has been stirring in my mind lately. I have been heavy for most of my life. I truly have great body image for a 240 pound woman, and it does not affect my life in hardly any way except for a few medical issues. I like fat people, and think I am pretty fucking awesome. However . . .

I definitely eat to supress emotions, and to help me deal with conflict. But lately, I have not felt as much of the need, and I think I know why.

I am not ugly because I am fat. I have never felt ugly, no matter what my weight. However, I really think that I am fat (or overeat) because part of me feels ugly on the inside.

I am loud. I curse like a sailor. I have extremely poor sexual boundaries that allow me to discuss things like kinky sex, wife swapping, taking it up the ass, and teen sex with little to no shame with complete strangers. I spend way too much time on the internet. I am a really lazy wife, mother, and employee. Sometimes I want to run away from life sometimes and become a starving lesbian artist in the utopia of San Francisco.

I am judgemental of those who are different than me. I am judgemental of those who drink or use drugs. I am judgemental of those who believe in God. I am judgemental of those who are judgemental. I am judgemental of women who use their sexuality to get attention, and then even more judgemental at myself when I do the same thing.

But guess what? The secret is that all of that is me, and it is ok! Perhaps it is the med changes, or perhaps it is growing older, but all of this is becoming ok with me. I credit my sister with inspiring this idea. She gave me the idea that it is ok to be all of those things, and still love myself. I don't have to wait until I am nicer, thinner, more patient, less judgemental, more active, or less sexual before I begin loving myself. I can do it all now, just as I am.

I also credit my huge crush on Penn Jillete with helping me to love myself. He is certainly different, obnoxious, and a completely different person ideologically than I am. However, it occurs to me that many people perceive me as obnoxious too, and that it is ok. As my sister once said about Bill Clinton, "I used to think I wanted to fuck you, and now I realize I just wanted to be you!"

So on the day that marks my 36th year on this planet, I am just trying to be happy being who I am. And it is working pretty well, because I have had the best freakin' birthday ever, and nothing is different.

Unless it is the iPhone. It is entirely possible that all of my happiness is can be directly attributed to my iPhone. If so, I am joing the church of Apple, praise be to Job.

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This post, The "Real" Secret, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on April 2, 2009.

Most Embarassing Moments – Part 4

FatOneInTheMiddle — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:00:50 +0000

I once took a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina by myself. It was amazing and empowering, and all that stuff that happens when women travel alone.

I decided to go hang gliding from Kill Devil Hills. When I called the company that does it, the salesman said "How much do you weigh?" When I told him (224 at the time) he sighed and said "We're gonna need a lot of wind!"

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This post, Most Embarassing Moments – Part 4, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on January 9, 2009.

Most Embarassing Moments – Part 1

FatOneInTheMiddle — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:22:09 +0000

Once when I was at a national domestic violence conference, I went up to an amazing Native American speaker (there is at least one at every conference – white women love Native American speakers) and asked her what it was "like" in her community as a "woman of size."

So basically I said "Hey, you're fat and Indian, how's that working out for 'ya?"

Good times.

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This post, Most Embarassing Moments – Part 1, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on January 9, 2009.

The Fat One in the Middle » Fat

Cracking Open My World*

Related Posts:

Interesting New Site

Related Posts:

SMILE – You’ve Lost Weight!

Related Posts:

Sluts are Stupid!!!

Another blow against anti-vaccine hysteria — or is it?

By Michael Fumento

Related Posts:

The "Real" Secret

Related Posts:

Most Embarassing Moments – Part 4

Related Posts:

Most Embarassing Moments – Part 1

Related Posts: