Just trying to get by

I feel like I've been doing too many photo posts and not nearly enough text posts. That's because I've been extremely busy between bouts of being very tired and very sick. As most of you know, I am gluten intolerant due to thyroid disease and a simple sandwich gifted me a two week migraine, two trips to the ER, one to an urgent care, and many many medications. This is on top of a lot of hectic things happening in my personal life.

What I did want to do was share with you a new community on facebook that I've created: Body Love Through Struggle- a body positive eating disorder resource group. '

As many of you know, I'm recovered from an eating disorder which took up a decade of my life. I occasionally still have triggering thoughts and bad body days and I realized that there were little to no resources for fat people with eating disorders, especially not ones that focused on fat acceptance and body acceptance as a path to recovery and healing.

I've joined and unjoined an awful lot of eating disorder support groups because many were constantly fatphobic, which is understandable given the nature of eating disorders- yet they refused to acknowledge fatphobia in general, let alone internalized or even externalized issues. Many refused to believe that a fat person could even have an eating disorder beyond Binge Eating Disorder, or believed that being fat was an eating disorder itself (again, related to BED). Most advocated "healthy weight gain" which often meant gaining enough weight to still be thin, just not too thin. All in all, many ED communities are very problematic.

On this new group I hope to not only be a resource for people struggling with eating disorders, but also to be able to find and post other good resources for people to follow in order to get the help and support they (we) need.

So, if you feel the desire, please come and join our group or, at the very least, spread the word.

A New Year

Tomorrow is the last day of 2013. I still have Christmas songs stuck in my head and I'm not quite ready for 2014. I do not make resolutions for each new year. Studies show that they don't work anyway. But what I'm going to do this year is set a goal. Not an unrealistic goal that I'll beat myself up over if I don't achieve it (like we do with resolutions which ends up in a habitual cycle of hope, failure, and self loathing). My goal is to love myself even more. But, fat girl posing, don't you already love yourself wholly and completely? God, I wish. Yes, even I, who pose naked and then post those photos on the internet for people to see, am not totally at peace with myself.

by Travis McKeithan

Yesterday my husband said something about my, um, large posterior. Despite the fact that he was talking positively about it, it cut me. I guess I had this image in my head of myself and, yes, my giant ass, but I secretly hoped no one else had that same image of me. Which means I'm maybe not as far along on my self acceptance journey as I thought. Maybe if I had an ideally shaped fat frame (like the hour glass frame with a round booty) I'd be more at peace with myself. That's not an excuse though... self acceptance is about accepting yourself regardless of your shape. So, flat ass or no, I should be loving every inch of it. Hubby certainly does, so why can't I?

So that's my new year's goal. To love my big ass, my small breasts, my thick thighs, and every other part of me. I've come such a long way from self hatred and an eating disorder to fat activist and model. I'm not giving up now. I have so many wonderful fat activist and body positive friends whom I can go to for support or just to complain. I'm so thankful for every single reader and fan that I have on this blog and all of the support and love that you offer.

So, while this year is ending and another one is beginning, it gives us all an opportunity to be a little kinder to ourselves, to love ourselves a little more and, for the love of everything good, to ditch the diet resolutions. Weight loss is the number one resolution every new year's and also the number one failure. Why? Because diets don't work, no, not even if you call them "lifestyle changes". So make your goal to love your body, no matter what. All the rolls and wrinkles and dimples, the hills and the plains. Every part of you is special and beautiful. Every part of me is special and beautiful. Now, I just have to remember that for the rest of 2014. And I know I will will the support of my loved ones, friends, and, of course, all of you.

Happy Love Your Body Day

Today is NOW foundation's Love Your Body Day. A day to fight back against media representations of women and men, to fight back against body hate of all kinds, and to even, or maybe especially, fight negative thoughts from yourself. The way we see women depicted is often streamlined to fit a very narrow type of beauty ideal that typically includes being super thin, having perfect hair, teeth, and eyes, being white or fair skinned, cis, able bodied, being tall, and having the perfect breasts, ass, hips, etc. It's an unfair, degrading, and harmful scam to make you buy products and sell yourself like they sell these women as if they were objects. And men, more and more, are having a hard time too. We're seeing a rise in eating disorders among young boys for example. Though women are two and a half times more likely to develop an eating disorder, about one million men in the US suffer from some form.

The point is that none of us are immune to body hate. So take a moment out of today to stop trash talking your body and other bodies. No matter what kinds of bodies they are- thin, curvy, gangly, chubby, fat, dis/abled, cis, trans, male, female- all bodies are good bodies. Push aside your self doubts and all of the things you hate about your body and take a second to just appreciate it and all that it does for you. Take a second to just Love Your Body. And please don't forget to visit the NOW foundation's website!