I'm fine the way I am and so are you

Photo By mike Williams

I love all of the fat positive sites and forums that I see. On tumblr alone I follow several body positive blogs including awesome photo blogs where anyone can submit. One forum is "Curvy women and the people who love them". Love them, huh? So why do we seem to have such a hard time loving ourselves? Why do I see post after post about losing weight? If you love your body, you don't seek to change it. You don't say "I love my body but.. i'd love it more if it were smaller" or "i accept my body but omg i can't gain more weight!". Body acceptance, fat acceptance is about loving your body regardless of it's size or shape.

And I know, I know.. we're all going to jump on the health bandwagon. Some of you have said you feel like crap, you're always tired, you're depressed, etc and you feel the need to improve your health- eat better.. exercise.. to that i say great!! Seriously! I'm all for getting healthy!! But let me drop some facts for you:

98% of people who lose weight will regain it within 5 years. The majority within 3 years, and 2/3 within one year. Many of them will gain more weight than they lost. 

Dieting is bad for your health.

Dieting makes you gain weight in the long run. The more diets you go on, the heavier your body will be- the body resets it's favorite weight every time you diet- and it always sets it higher. Why? It thinks you're in a famine and it makes the body more and more efficient at storing fat in order to prepare for future famines.

The fat gene (and weight is 80% inherited) is a good thing- it's allowed us to survive as a species. Throughout history, during times of famine, 2/3 of the given population would die because they couldn't store fat efficiently enough. You are a product of millions of years of evolution. Don't knock mother nature- she'll knock you back.

You do not have to lose weight to wear a swimsuit, a short dress, shorts, sleeveless shirts, or any other article of clothing. You do not have to lose weight to find love. You do not have to lose weight to go sky diving. You do not have to lose weight to live your life the way you want it. Do those things NOW because now is all you have. You can't live your life for everyone else- because of their bigoted and superficial expectations of what a body should be and should be able to do. There are fat dancers, fat aerobics instructors, fat weight lifters, fat ballerinas, fat singers, and fat models.

Studies show that fat people do not eat more than thin people. Fat people do not exercise less than thin people.

Fat people are not inherently unhealthy and thin people aren't inherently healthy. You do not have to lose weight to be healthy.. which is good since you probably won't lose weight anyway (though there's that 3% chance and you can make that chance healthier by simply following HAES).

Eat right and exercise if you care about your health.. but DON'T care about the number on the scale. It says NOTHING about you or your health or your happiness. It is a meaningless number.

I, like most of you, have spent my entire life hating myself. Engaged in disordered eating (dieting) which turned into an eating disorder (starving, binging, purging, diet pills, etc). And no, no one cared because I was fat and therefore eating disorders were expected.. it made me a "good fattie" because I was trying.. because I was properly ashamed of myself- properly disgusted and I knew that my worth and my place were lower than other's. This is no way to live- this is the ONLY life you get.. do you really want to spend it being anything less than ecstatic? Anything less than loving yourself completely and wholly?

I will eat healthy foods and exercise because I love my health. I will have chocolate cupcakes if I feel like it and fried greasy french fries when I want to because I know that a healthy eating style is a balanced one. I will never shame my body or anyone else's. I will wear a bikini at 265lbs and not give a fuck what anyone has to say about it. And mostly.. when I see fat hate flying around like it's migration season I will speak out against it because I don't deserve to listen to fat hate- hate that, while directed at your body, spills over onto mine. Spills over into an overall culture message that fat is bad and gross and evil and unhealthy. I'll fight it because my child doesn't need to grow up in a world like that. I will never tell my body that it's not good enough. I won't celebrate if I lose weight, I won't cry if I gain weight.. I will just be.. because no body is better than another body. A thin body is not better than a fat one or visa versa.

So please.. can we cut it out with the diet talk and body shaming in groups that are supposed to be all about body love and acceptance?

(/rant)