Updatetacular, of sorts.

Just a bit of general stuff, I think.

I've been back for a week now, and it's been pretty good. I've been waking up nice and early (6am thereabouts), and on most days doing for fairly vigorous walks, which is about all the exercise my unfit body can probably handle right now. I didn't go this morning, but more on that later.

I've done a few English lessons, and I have a few others lined up. We'll see how my new clients go, because they're a few that I'm worried about. My clients have pretty much all been young women like myself, but on Sunday I'll be meeting a 3-year-old boy whose mum wants me to play with him or whatever, speaking to him entirely in English. I've also got to meet a man in his 30s, I think, in a week or so, which I'm kind of freaked out about. It's a bit silly, but I've had trust issues with men for the longest time. It probably has something to do with primary school bullying or whatever. Anyway, time for me to person up (you know, man up, woman up? I prefer not to specify a gender) and grin and bear it. It's not like he's an ogre of a bloke either - I've been emailing him and he's quite lovely.

Eating-wise, things have been... better than they were before I went back to England, but not the greatest, I'd say. I've consumed a fair amount of chocolate and I'll probably continue to do so. I'm not too worried about this, because even with the chocolate consumption I'm eating far better that I was before, and anyway it seems to be making me feel a little better.

Yes, that's the thing. It's very lonely here at the moment. The only other person on my floor is the American girl, and she's nice and we get along quite well, but she's not someone I'd actively spend a lot of time with. And to be fair, there are very few people I would actively spend a lot of time with here, and none of them are here right now. It kind of sucks, and I'm feeling pretty unhappy and missing my family quite a bit.

And the unfortunate thing is that being in this sort of mood makes you think about your place in the world, in a bad way. Like, I think about friends I have/have had, and I realise that after uni I'm not going to have any good friends, really. Because my uni friends will move on and my pre-uni friends are all in Australia, and if I stay in England I won't be near them, obviously. I might make friends at my next place of stuff-doing, whether it's a job or at another (or maybe the same) university doing a masters, but you can never be sure. I've never been the greatest friend-maker the world has ever known, and even with my good friends I'm hardly the most significant person in their lives (primarily because they're able to do normal-person stuff like have boyfriends). It's somewhat sad to think that the only place where I have real significance is amongst my family. I'm very lucky to have a supportive family, but it kind of makes me worry. Will I ever be able to leave that safety net and have my own family, or will I be helping my mother to live out her fantasy of spending my youth in Paris with pretty much nobody except her for company (and let me tell you, the very idea of only having my mother for company strikes me as nothing short of nightmare-ish)?

I think this all boils down to me and my general rubbish-ness. I certainly want to be able to go out and live my own life after uni is done, but I'm not the biggest fan of loneliness, and since I'm utterly incapable of having a boyfriend or friends that are close enough for me to want to live with them or whatever, I'm worried that I'll be attached to my family for far longer than most people.

I guess we'll have to see what happens.

I feel better after writing that. I might check on some other blogs then go out and do some money transferring.

Japan-tacular! As in, I'm back!

Gee it's good to be back here! We've got nice weather happening (pleasant, since I left Japan feeling as though it might take a miracle for me to ever become warm again), and I was walking back to my room from the station yesterday, my suitcases in tow, and I couldn't help thinking to myself, as I looked at the ugly urban buildings and the hustling bustling people, and entertained myself with thoughts of all the different eateries I could go to along this road, were I so inclined, I couldn't help but think to myself My God I love this country.

I've not reached quite that state of euphoria in England, yet.

Anyway, my purpose of this blog today was to make an exciting announcement. I went for a morning walk! And it was nice, although my feet started hurting quite a bit quite quickly, which is a worry since they were snug in my new ultra-sporty joggers. Perhaps I just need to get used to fast walking. I'm intending to spend the next few days exploring the nearby park and hopefully mapping out a good walking route. Even better would be if there are a few ideal places for me to break into a run. What I'm hoping for is that I can keep up what I did this morning, and wake up at 6-7am, which would leave me a few hours before my first class to go for a walk/run, shower, dress nicely, maybe even apply a touch of eyeliner and mascara, before going to class.

Thinking about this makes me excited, because it's exactly the sort of morning that I would like to have. I don't really like waking up at midday and dicking around in my room before schlumping to class in jeans and a hoodie. It's not remotely refreshing. So yeah, we'll see how we go with that.

In light of this new development, I thought I would take a moment to write down a few things I genuinely love that are actually considered "good" or "virtuous" or whatever else.

1. Running - I announced this to my father a week or so ago, and he declared me a crazy person of the highest order. And indeed, running is definitely not for everyone. For me running always used to be synonymous with EXTREME PAIN, and it still kind of is, but what I love about it is the extraordinary feeling of freedom you feel as you whizz--

--sorry, brief interlude. Just had an earthquake, so I felt I should be good and hide under my desk--

--past other people, your body practically flying. And it's not like you have to do it for long. Ten seconds is great, and you can stop without wheezing uncontrollably and/or feeling as though your last day has come. Then your heart rate settles down a bit, and you DO IT AGAIN!

2. Cool/cold showers - I should probably justify this one a bit. I think showers at a similar temperature to an outdoor pool in summer are probably my favourites. The problem is that most of the time, I don't want to take them. This is most likely because my body is cold in some way and I want the hotter shower to heat me up. Quite hot showers when it's the middle of winter and the hot water on your fingers and toes gives you that curious too-hot sensation are probably my second-favourite. But after I've been exercising my body is plenty warm, so I am able to initialise cool shower sequence, and it's so nice. It makes me feel like I'm swimming, and when I get out I feel much more refreshed and energised than I do after any hot shower. It's great.

3. Broccoli - As a supertaster this is probably a really weird one for me, but even when I was young I found broccoli among the more palatable of the vegetables. It's got a nice flavour, and it's one of the few veggies I would eat by itself, rather than with half a forkful of mashed potato or chicken or something like I normally do with brussel sprouts or green beans or carrots. Peas I like by themselves, but there are a lot of people who like peas. Corn are similar to peas.

This is making me hungry.

4. Swimming - I'm Australian, what can I say. We live in pools during the summer. I wouldn't say I necessarily enjoy doing laps or anything like that, but I enjoy doing random movements in the water, so much. It reminds me of my childhood. Perhaps I should take up water-aerobics.

That'll do for now. Do any of you laize and germs have any "good" things that you genuinely enjoy?

Musetacular, on my own contradictions.

Before I start on this, I'd better get dressed and get my laundry going.

*calming intermission music. I recommend "Can't Smile Without You" by Barry Manilow*

Right, done. I'm returning to Japan tomorrow, you see. I need clean clothes for this.

I've been looking into another blog, Living ~400lbs, lately. For us higher mortals that use metric, 400lbs is about 190kg, and to give some perspective I'm about 100kg, so she'd be about twice my size, I suppose. Most of the blogs I read feature people of around the 260~300lb range, so I've been enjoying reading about someone who is 100lb heavier than that. She's pretty awesome, from what I can tell. Really active (because apparently not being active makes her joints start to ache, which I can certainly appreciate), VERY into fat activism (hence the blog), and struggling with asthma and allergies, which is interesting to read about for me - someone who has nothing akin to asthma or pollen-based allergies (or any allergies, actually).

I'm mentioning her because I've been thinking a bit about my own views, and I've realised that within my thoughts are some contradictions that I'm really not proud of. Mainly, I've been here saying that it's perfectly fine being whatever weight you are, etc etc, and yet I've been reading about the lives of these much larger people and thinking to myself "I hope that I never become that size".

It doesn't stop there. I also find myself thinking about what I'd "need to do" to prevent myself from becoming that size, in terms of diet and exercise. This is despite knowing that I have very little control over my weight, so even if I truly manage to get over my ED and start exercising the amount that I would like to exercise, I might become fatter anyway. That should be perfectly OK with me, but it's not. Not yet. As I read these blogs I find myself smiling triumphantly and thinking "at least I'm not as big as that".

I feel pretty ashamed at myself, truth be told. It's the exact opposite of what I've been preaching. It's insane because I admire these women so much. I think they're beautiful, smart, funny, headstrong... everything that I like to think of myself as being or someday hope to become. They also have to do things like ask for seatbelt extenders on aeroplanes and buy their own big-sized medical gowns for the doctors. They suffer from real fat discrimination, frequently, whereas the most I generally get is the odd doctor or ridiculous woman making gentle or snide remarks, which isn't that bad. I've never been wolf-whistled at, I've never been spat at, I've never been refused medical treatment... but all of that might start to happen if I get much larger, and I don't want that.

The logical side of me is telling me that I'm expecting too much of myself. After all, I'm relatively new to this fat acceptance thing, and it's going to take me a while to relax and let whatever happens, happen. There is still going to be parts of me that want to do what I can to avoid gaining any more weight; parts of me that want to cling desperately to the beautiful clothes I own, hoping that I'll be able to fit them forever and ever; parts of me that want to put my hands over my ears and furiously deny the fact that many women get larger as they get older, and since I'm large now it's fairly obvious that I will most likely be one such woman.

Clearly, I still have a way to go.

Yet more thoughttacular, on discrimination

I think the top of my head's gotten burnt. Ow.

Anyway, this is something I've been musing on for a while, so I thought I would share it with y'all and see what you think.

Quite a while ago I posted a comment on Livejournal's Fatshionista community, and in it I made an observation on how fat discrimination is more socially acceptable than some of the more widely-recognised forms of discrimination (race, gender, sexual preference, social class, etc) because being fat is considered something within a person's control in general society. I woke up the next morning to find my inbox inundated with comment upon angry comment about how my observation was offensive, that people suffer more discrimination from being black than from being fat, that I am obviously extremely priveleged to have that sort of view on fat discrimination, etc etc. Unfortunately (and, yes, this is an unfortunate fault of mine) I'm the sort of person that does not like to offend other people or say anything offensive to other people, pretty much no matter what (exceptions are exclusive to when the person I'm talking to is a total and utter tosser). I proceeded to apologise to every single person that commented and was nearly late for my lesson because of it. I got a few replies, mostly angry, but at least one said that it must have been hard for me to apologise and admit fault and she commended me for that. I wasn't expecting a nice comment like that, so I treasured it.

I was admittedly at fault - my wording had been callous, and in saying what I said (something that I do still believe to be true) I had inadvertently trivialised other forms of discrimination. I learned a lot from my mistake, but unfortunately my mistake has made me forever afterwards somewhat petrified of receiving angry comments on LJ. No need to tell me to harden the fuck up, kids. I know it. :P

Why am I bringing this up? Because this experience also made me aware of something else. All too often in places of discussion you see a comment written by some thoughtless (and normally white) person that has the faintest rumour of racism towards blacks on it (and I do mean, the faintest rumour - like mentioning that the people wolf-whistling a person as she walks to work all happen to be black or latino, for some bizarre reason), and below that comment a litany of replies basically talking to said woman as though she has said the equivalent of "there's this black guy that keeps asking me out and I don't like that he does because he's black. If he was white I wouldn't mind, but I don't like black people at all and think of myself as above them". These angry responses include but are not limited to calling the person insensitive, calling the person ignorant, calling the person stupid, saying that the person is clearly privileged and how dare they voice their opinion or participate in the community at all, or just flat-out insulting them.

Trolling? Maybe, but I don't think so. I'd say that what is often going on here is that somebody has been hurt reading their comment, and is exercising their right to lash out at the offending party in an effort to make themselves feel justified in their hurt, as well as to make them feel better. Sometimes, however, this seems like a convenient excuse to bully somebody, and to use their privilege (which, can I just say, they can help just as much as the unprivileged person can help being unprivileged) as a weapon to foster their guilt and shame for being in a fortunate position.

I am somewhat uncomfortable talking about this in reference to race (although that is the most potent example I've observed, by far), so I'll switch to fat discrimination for the sake of this argument. Now, fat people get abused for being the way that we are. We are bullied in school, we are mishandled and negatively discriminated against by doctors, dieticians, recruiters, and other people that might have some bearing on how we live our lives. We are told time and time again by the world around us that we are not worthy of the same love, beauty, hope and happiness that thin people have, and the only way we can achieve that worth is to become thin. This is not bullshit people, and I've said it often enough on this blog. There are many other fantastic blogs out there that have explored the issue more cleverly and in far greater detail than I have managed as yet.

Understandably, fat people feel a lot of anger and hurt from this. I certainly feel it, and I hope that I continue feeling it for the sake of my humanity. As a result I think many would consider us perfectly justified in lashing out at thin people. I remember seeing something like this on the Fat Debate Dr. Phil episode (what of it I could manage to find, anyway), where this rather large woman addressed one of the thin people on the panel as "Skinny Minnie". You see it often. Thin people being referred to as "skinny bitches", or larger women being referred to as "real" women, or, as in that one Glee episode, Quinn being referred to by Mercedes as the "pretty blonde with the white girl ass" (yeah, not only is she thin, but she's both white and pretty as well. How dare she?).

I'd like to propose something here. It's not on. Seriously, it's not, and we should not go around, as fat people, and believe that harassing thin people, calling them names, referring to them as though they are somehow less "real" than us, making them feel guilt and shame for something that is beyond their control, is okay.

I say this for two very important reasons. One is the obvious one - it hurts their feelings. Boo hoo? You say? My response to you is to stop being an insensitive prick. I fully acknowledge that there are some thin people out there who are absolute sons-of-bitches to us. I will even acknowledge that such people could very well be the majority. But some thin people are not like that, at all. Bullying someone simply for being the way that they are is low, and it makes the person in question feel bad when they really shouldn't. I also argue that even if said thin person makes a comment that could be considered fat-hating if you turn it on its side and squint, that fighting back by mentioning their thinness and the subsequent difficulty they probably had/will have in bearing children is inhumane and unnecessarily insulting.

My other reason is that, in bullying thin people, or any people with some element of privilege, you are doing the exact same thing that they (or more likely people like them) have done in the past. Yep, the old "sinking down to their level" option. How are fat people supposed to claim that they have a legitimate right to other peoples' respect if we refuse to respect other people as well? Saying that we have the right to disrespect people because we are the disadvantaged party is a load of bullshit. That's like a non-white person saying that they have every right to call white people, I dunno, "stupid lazy white fuckers", or whatever else, because they are the disadvantaged party. I shall hesitantly dip my fingers into the racism bucket and say that I have heard the argument that racism is equal to prejudice + power, and that in that sense it is pretty much impossible for anybody who is not white to actually BE racist. I have so much trouble with that statement - more than I feel inclined to mention at this point in time. Everybody has the potential to be racist. Hell, everybody IS a little racist, at least on the inside. And in the same vain it is possible for fat people to be just as discriminatory in terms of size as it is for thin people to be. Thin people have JUST as much right to be respected and to feel as though they belong in this world and that they are "real" people, as fat people do. And to bully thin people is to, however inadvertently, claim otherwise, and that should not be acceptable.

One more important thing worth mentioning. Fat people, as a relative minority group, have certain stigmas attached to us. These include but are not limited to being rude, being stupid, and being mean. How are we supposed to be able to claim otherwise and say that we deserve not to have these stereotypes placed upon us if we, in wanting some sick, misguided revenge for the hurt that we've been through, continue to live up to these stereotypes?

Thoughttacular, on being single and fat-accepting.

Two entries in a row, my oh my.

I've been reading Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby (legends, btw. Look them up if you don't know who they are), and there was a chapter on life-partners. In the beginning of the chapter the authors wrote that it was a sad, sad fact that most of the people in the Fat-o-sphere are in long-term relationships. Very few of us are single.

As a single person, I noticed this. Unfailingly. I always tend to notice when people are in relationships - it's one of those things, like whether or not a person is religious, I notice purely on the virtue that I am not it. On the fatshionista livejournal community there are posts everywhere by people talking about going to dinner with the boyfriend or apologising for photographs because their significant other took it or asking for advice relating to their partner's fatness or the scathing comments their partner's parents give them about their own fatness. There is no doubt a lot of relationship mentioning on fatshionista.

Obviously this is great. It's great to see that not everybody who is fat is hopelessly, pathetically single (not that I'm saying I am), and it's lovely to see sites such as The Museum of Fat Love showing that fat people are just as capable and just as worthy of love as any thin person, and considerably moreso than anybody, fat or thin, who believe that fat people are somehow not worthy.

Having said that, this is a difficult issue for me. The longest relationship I've had lasted for, I dunno, a month? Maybe? And it barely counts as a relationship because we didn't do anything (no dates, nothing), and he was actually gay. Yeah, yeah, cue the laughter. I certainly got grief for it (the "Gillian turned her boyfriend gay" thing... although the person who said that was an utter bitch so it's not as if her opinion counts). But anyway, he was the only one. And that was when I was 15. Does this get me down? Um, yeah. Of course. How could it not? And for a long time I blamed my lack of success on my fat. Hell, often I still blame it on my fat.

The authors of Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere mentioned that being accepting of yourself as fat is made much easier when you have someone like a boyfriend. Someone who is not related to you (and therefore has no obligation to love you), who says that they think you are amazing just the way you are. And let's face it - friends that say that are not enough. It's nice when they do say that (particularly if they are also fat-accepting types, which sadly not many of my friends are), but there's a dramatic difference between a friend and a boyfriend, whatever way you look at it.

Despite not having what to many is a vital element in their fat-acceptance journey, I feel that I am becoming more accepting of my fatness, slowly but surely. I even feel that I could get all the way without getting a boyfriend. In fact, that's the thing. I feel almost as though I have no choice in the matter, because I have far more of a chance of becoming fully accepting of my fatness than I have of getting a boyfriend before my journey is done.

Is that a problem? Yeah, I think it might be. Because the thing is, what stops me from getting a boyfriend is this problem I've always had, where I don't believe I'm good enough. For a long time that was mainly because I figured I was too fat, too ugly. Now I think it's because of my inherent horribleness, and I can't really quantify what it is about me that is so horrible, but I definitely feel that I am. A lot of the time I, like I think everybody who thinks like this (and there are a lot of us, I believe) know I'm being silly and that I'm no more horrible than anybody else. But yes, essentially it's because of that. I figure that nobody would be interested in somebody as inherently horrible as me, and I've never sought anyone out, or admitted that I liked anyone or anything, because of that. I'm also painfully shy, of course. So the thing is, how am I supposed to become accepting of myself, including my fatness, when there is unlikely to be anybody at any point to tell me that they think I'm unerringly amazing and that they adore me with everything they've got?

What would be good is if I could get over all of it, and start to tell people I'm into that I'm into them. But that will probably take a long-arse while. For now, I need to focus on fat-acceptance. At the same time, I'll continue to sincerely hope that somebody will take the plunge that I am so petrified of taking and tell me that they're interested. Sadly that's very unlikely to happen. But I would like to believe that, despite my shyness and that niggling belief that I'm horrible, I can still complete my fat acceptance journey. But I don't know. How realistic am I really being here?

Thoughttacular, about Pride.

I've been thinking about a few things lately, and I thought I should share my thoughts on here, for that future day when my blog gets its own domain and becomes wildly well-known by fat activists all around (that's right: I want to be the next Kate Harding. Except I don't think I could manage to be quite that awesome).

Anyway, so I was thinking about Pride. The other day I was talking to an acquaintance of mine on Facebook. I'd posted as a status something along the lines of "Weight is not a problem. Society's problem towards weight is, however, a problem. A huge problem." This friend agreed on an aesthetic standpoint, but not from a health standpoint. She says that her being overweight aggravates her asthma and that it's associated with a bunch of other negative health issues. I disagree, for reasons that I'm hoping to further affirm when I get off my disturbing-small-arse-for-a-big-fat-fattie and read up on health vs. obesity studies, and I told her why. She thinks we'll need to agree to disagree and that I seem a tad one-sided (duh. I'm very one-sided).

Anyway, at one point she said "I'm glad you're proud of your body", and I objected to that. I told her that I'm not proud of my body at all, but rather that I'm learning to accept my body as something that I've always had and that I have very little hope of changing beyond making it more lithe and flexible and fit (all that stuff that comes from exercise).

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine a while ago. We were talking about eyesight, and I think she was voicing concern about her eyes starting to go bad. I narrowed my slightly astigmatic eyes at this, and said to her that out of all the senses to go, you'd hope that it was your eyesight, with all of the work that's gone into eye correction. She said yes, but she's proud of having perfect eyesight.

This struck me as silly. I can certainly understand being happy that you have good eyesight, or at least feeling extremely lucky about it, since some people are blind and many more look totally shithouse in glasses (not an issue for me - I look so much better in glasses). I have a cousin whose eyesight is so temperamental he has to get surgery done on his eyes quite often. Having a close relation like him certainly makes me appreciate how lucky I am to only be slightly astigmatic. But pride? It's the wrong word for it, and I think that is because pride is something that has to be earned.

And I think that is essentially what pride is for me. Pride is something that you have when you have done something to be proud of. and that essentially makes me think that pride is perhaps not a sin, at least for me. Because I don't think I'm ever proud of something unless it's something that I've earned, or someone else has earned. I'm proud of my high marks in various things, I'm proud of my skills as a sewer, I'm proud of my writing capabilities, my acting capabilities, my horn-playing capabilities, etc. Even though I am better at Linguistics than I am at Japanese, I am more proud of my Japanese ability because I've had to work harder for it. I'm more proud of my horn-playing than my acting because I'm much more of a natural actor than I am a natural horn-player, and I've worked harder at horn-playing. But, I'm fully aware that I suck, quite painfully, at both Japanese and horn-playing. But still, I'm proud of what I've achieved so far, or rather I'm proud of the time and energy that I've dedicated to either of those crafts.

But then there's my ambiguous sense of pride: The pride I feel in being Australian. I would say that I am proud of being Australian when asked, and this gave me pause, because Australian citizenship came naturally for me. I was born in Australia, therefore I'm Australian. But I don't think it's that aspect of Australia that I'm proud of. What I'm more proud of is how I carry myself in life. I'm proud of my trouper-like attitude; my way of getting up and, despite often not feeling like it, working on something until I achieve a satisfactory goal. I'm proud of my ability to question those supposedly "above" me, and I'm proud of my belief that nobody should consider me "above" them, either, until I have earned their respect (hence my dislike of the senpai-kouhai culture in Japan). I am proud of my belief in practicality, and I am proud of my efforts to not be lazy, most of the time. Those traits, I think, have to be worked for. And those traits are what makes me Australian, more than any cultural, generational hereditary link to the country. And that's why I'm proud of being Australian. If I decided to become a citizen of another country I would need to earn that citizenship (and rightfully so, imo). If I did earn it, then I would be proud.

So, that's Pride to me. What is pride to you?

I LJ-ed last night!

...and thought I'd re-post on here.

Basically what happened last night way, I found an LJ post from an old high school friend of mine, and she was lamenting a bit about weight. I'll spare you the details in the interest of her privacy, but I commented on how weight loss is a struggle because of our bodies' not wanting us to do it (you know, that old adage that I've been pointing out time and time again on here). That got me thinking about society's obsession with weight, and how upsetting I find that obsession. This is what I ended up LJ-ing about it:

(please excuse any errors btw, I did this at 2 in the morning.

I've been thinking about this a bit this evening, since I posted a comment related to this issue in a friend's LJ.

I've been bothered a lot recently by what I consider to be an extraordinary over-emphasis on the importance of weight-loss. Obviously this involves the over-emphasis the medical community puts on it as being vital for a person's health and well-being to lose weight if they are overweight or obese according to that prehistoric arse-tacular woefully inaccurate measurement of body composition, the BMI, but I've been dwelling more on the importance society places on weight loss.

Let me give you an example that I read a few years ago. JK Rowling, Goddess Incarnate, was at a party a few years ago (about half a year after the release of HBP, if I'm not mistaken), and she saw someone she had not seen for a while. The first thing this person says upon seeing her is "look at the weight you've lost! You look great!"

JK Rowling so did not like this. In the past year she had written a book and given birth to Mackenzie, and yet the thing that deserved the true admiration in this friend's eyes was her weight loss? I mean, woah. She ranted about it on her website, and it was a rant I quite enjoyed reading, and this was before I got into FA.

Here's another example. In 2007 I came down with what I'm fairly sure was food poisoning. I was suffering from nausea so unbearable that I had to go to hospital. I stayed at the hospital for all of Easter Sunday (which was WAY FUN, but at least they gave me an easter egg on my breakfast tray), and got to leave on Monday, still feeling rather tender. When I left my weight was mentioned. Considering how in those past few days I'd consumed only fluids, some of which I threw up again not long after, I'd probably dropped a kilo or two. Dad said something to me along the lines of "welp, that's a good start". Really, father? Your nausea-phobic daughter has spent an easter weekend in hospital, and you're there thinking about my weight? That's just lovely.

It strikes me as utterly ridiculous that weight loss is considered so important. I know why it's considered so important, but that doesn't stop it from seeming ridiculous, to me. I've heard stories of people enduring many-month-long battles with cancer, and having friends and family say to them something to the effect of "wowzers, you've lost weight, you therefore look amazing, how can I do that?" Now, I dunno how many people have seen people suffering from cancer, but as far as I can tell they don't exactly look like the picture of health, beauty and glowing radiance most of the time. But FUCK all of that! How about a bit of recognition for how absolutely horrible their condition is and how AMAZING it is that they are able to endure that suffering and, in the case of many, still turn up to public events with a smile on their face? THAT is amazing. THAT is worth commenting on. NOT the side effect of both the cancer itself and the treatment of said cancer that is weight loss.

I think most people, fat or thin, worry about weight to some extent. Certainly most people believe that fat people are inferior, in some way, to thin people. This would sound so much less self-depreciating if I was thin, but hear me out. I'm not saying that most people consciously think they are superior to people who are fatter than them, not at all. But there are many different measures for superiority, and in the measure that focuses on health, at least, many thin people see themselves as better than fat people.

And that's fair enough, considering all of those really scary-sounding studies out there, what doctors and teachers tell us time and time again about obesity, the horrible images we see of fat people sitting at computers in t-shirts slightly too small for them eating chips and playing WOW, compared to the lovely pictures we see of thin people jogging in parks looking happy and vibrant, etc. But I would argue that health isn't necessarily the issue here. For the haters of fat people out there, their "concern about fat people's health" is the label that they hide under when they shout their abuse to fatties, but I would like to ask who the fuck they're kidding. They don't give a rat's hairy disease-infested anus about our health - they just like knowing that in the eyes of society we're inferior, and because fat people aren't considered a legitimate minority group that is unjustifiably discriminated against, they are perfectly able to treat us as inferior. No, my personal belief is that the obsession with weight comes mainly from the widely-held belief that fat is ugly, and that ugliness must be gotten rid of at all costs.

It's sad that most people in this world, including me (even now) can be so petty, but yeah, it's true. Often back in the days when I was hell-bent on losing weight at all costs, I'd be feeling faint from hunger as all of us fatties desperate to be rid of our evil fatness have felt at some point or other, and thinking "well yay, maybe I'm getting thin now. Maybe soon I'll be beautiful." Concern for my health really very rarely entered the equation, probably because I'm only 22 and health-wise I've always been very, very fortunate. But argghhh noooooo I've always been fat and being fat is the most horrible thing evaaarrr and you must lose it Gillian you MUST YOU MUST YOU MUST!!! Why? My health seriously is not going to get much better right now. My level of beauty, however, could go up in leaps and bounds, if ONLY i would lose weight! That's the real motivation. That's always been the real motivation. The only motivation. Why else do so many fat people hate to look at photos of themselves, or when people look at photos of themselves they cluck their tongues and say "eugh, I look fat in this photo"?

I think it's common knowledge that society places way too much importance on aesthetic appearance, and it's often done in really contradictory ways (you know, fashion magazines that say on one page that INTELLIGENCE IS SEXY!!! then on the next page list 50 different ways of enhancing the shape of your eyes with nothing but an eye pencil and a spitball). The problem with the thin=beautiful mentality, along with many other thoughts on what equals beauty, is that it is detrimental to our physical, mental and emotional health. When a person goes on a diet, what happens is that physically they are not getting the nutrition they need, mentally they become obsessed with counting calories and documenting minutes of exercise and all of that stuff, and emotionally they are putting too much stock into what happens, and dictating their happiness based on the outcome of the diet, so when the diet fails they're miserable. It's a horrible kind of life to lead, and I always hated it.

I've found that in the past month I've started to listen to my body. It tells me what it wants me to eat, and it tells me well. I've been eating more veggies, more balanced meals, and less food in general (no binging. Really. None. At all.) I've felt the benefits. I think I'm starting to menstruate more regularly again. My next step is exercise. Once I start doing more of that, who knows how much better I'll start to feel. It's so exciting to think that in terms of health I could be so much more, and I am so much more than I was. And this, all while weighing 100kg.

I want to spread this joy to everybody who is bogged down with sadness about weight. It's a sadness that I feel is so unnecessary, so un-called for. I want people to feel the happiness I'm feeling now - a happiness that started with what was perhaps a horrible realisation - I'm never going be anything other than a big fat fattie - and became something amazing. I may always be a big fat fattie, but within that there is so much I can do - stuff that I've never ever dreamed of doing before. It's so exciting it's almost scary.

What think y'all?