The Fatkini

Last summer, after I got back to my normal weight, I was left in a predicament. Namely, that much of my wardrobe didn't fit. I mean, I was fine with day to day clothes: jeans, shirts, skirts, dresses, etc, but, as a family reunion in Florida loomed, I found myself without a rather essential wardrobe piece--a bathing suit. Finding clothes I liked, both online and in stores had proved a somewhat pleasing, although often times daunting, task so I assumed bathing suit shopping would be the same.

It was not.

First of all, my breasts are big. Like REAL big. As a side note they are also awesome. They also have no real... lift,  you might say, on their own, so whatever bathing suit I was going to buy would need to have either a built-in bra, or really, really resilient straps.

Also, it couldn't be a halter, because I have neck problems and having the entire weight of my pendulous breasts resting on my neck would be a recipe for sublaxation and pain.

Also, I didn't want a one piece.

Also, I didn't want it to be ugly OR look like it was designed for someone over the age of 70.

Also, I didn't want it to squeeze my chubby belly like a stuffed sausage.

I suppose I must also mention that never in my life, since this little two piece that my mom bought me when I was 4, had I ever owned a swimsuit I really liked until the summer of 2009. It was teal and stripey and glorious AND had a built in bra. And I had been spoiled. I had seen the light. I had owned a swimsuit I loved, and I was NEVER GOING BACK.

About $600 and probably 15 swimsuits later, I stopped trying to order a bathing suit online and decided to brave some stores. This was a bad idea. At one point, while in a Sears dressing room trying on as many swimsuits as possible before the store closed in 15 minutes and on the verge of tears, I said to my Hetero, "I look better naked." Which I did. And do. I would deign to say that MOST people look better naked than covered in that weird, shiny, stretchy material they use to make bathing suits.

After pretty much giving up, I stumbled on a swimsuit at Target which I didn't hate (nor love) and which was reasonably priced. I purchased it then and there, wore it in Florida, and got a wicked sunburn. Wins all around. Then, as though a gift from heaven in the middle of winter, I found a $20 (originally $120!) swimsuit I legitimately loved while purchasing a puffer vest on LandsEnd.com. I returned the Puffer Vest (cause it looked so dumb on me) but kept the swimsuit, a tankini composed of a light blue and white top and a sunshine yellow bottom. It looks a LITTLE BIT like my butt is jaundiced, but the fact that I finally owned a swimsuit which fit me, was pretty, didn't squeeze my belly, AND wasn't black felt like a miracle. And I was perfectly happy with my winter purchase until I discovered the Fatkini.

This is Chastity Garner, my VERY FAVORITEST style blogger (except Zoe).

Chastity is the queen of alterations so actually make this fatkini from a Monif C one-piece bathing suit.

She is sporting what the fat-o-sphere calls a fatkini. It is what you call a bikini when a fat person is wearing it, and I WANT ONE.

But since this decade is the decade where I really take hold of my finances I will not be buying one until it seems fiscally responsible (maybe one of them will eventually be on sale for $20 in the middle of the winter). That does not stop me from sharing my favorites with you here.

Domino Dollhouse's Retro Doll Bikini: 

I love Domino Dollhouse. The styles I love are like punk rock meets Mad Men. Also they sell petticoats in EVERY COLOR OF THE RAINBOW.
 

Now there is no possible way my breasts would be held up by that tiny string, but this bathing suit is HAWT. I love the ruffles on the legs, the little tie, and the color. I wish they sold it in more extended sizes though. I bet even the bigger big ladies want to get their Retro Doll on!

SimplyBe's Beach to Beach Bikini Top and Bottom:

I have yet to order anything from SimplyBe, but I think this bathing suit it AMAZING. I am including a photo of Gabi from Gabifresh because I think she looks about 50 times more awesome in that fatkini than the model from the website. SimplyBe also has some more traditional bikinis if that's your jam.

Monif C's Sao Paulo High Waisted Bikini:

I am not normally a fan of Leopard Print but holy mother I would wear that in a hot ten seconds.

Monif C also has a TEAL one-piece bathing suit covered in FRINGE. Not super practical, but awesome all the same.

Think you are too fat to wear a bikini? Gabi (pictured above in her awesome stripey fatkini) started a Fatkini photo project on xojane! I've now scrolled through every photo twice and all I have to say is TAKE THAT HATERS!!!

What I Got

Last Friday I spent the last two hours of work google stalking the man I loved for 3 years, as I had, rather out of the blue, become obsessed with finding out if he had gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend. Luckily his internet presence is minimal, and I found nothing, except a current photo proving that he is just as handsome as ever. Barf. But I was left wondering why I was spurred to even look him up in the first place.

He and I first became friends in 2007 back when I was a self-hating Fattie. From our first real conversation I was completely smitten. Even though we worked in the same building, our friendship was pretty slow moving. Then he started sending me gifts of burned CDs delivered to my desk by his work study students and coming to visit me at least once a day, and I thought, "Oh, man. He likes me." I couldn't believe it. I was so into this dude that I lost all appetite and could hardly sleep. I became suddenly tranquil about my own singleness because I was so convinced it would end. But nothing happened. Months later, he ended up fooling around with a friend of mine, which was, I suppose, his way of telling me he wasn't interested. Or something. I heaped all the hatred and anger I could onto my body, telling myself he didn't want to date me because I was fat.

Then in 2008 I joined Weight Watchers. I like to think I lost weight for, what I perceived was, my health, but a part of me was also convinced if I could lose enough weight he would love me. That my body was the only obstacle to us being together. Not his emotional unavailability, not his inability to see my worth as a partner or a woman, not his investment in how things look versus how things feel, no, my body was clearly the primary deterrent.

And I lost a crap ton of weight. I had sex for the first time with some random dude and felt sexually appealing and amorous in its aftermath. Then, one night in the summer of 2009 I stayed at his house in his bed. Nothing happened, but we slept really close. I thought, this is it. But, of course, it wasn't. He didn't talk to me for a month after that. An appropriate amount of time to let me know that sleeping in the same bed meant so little to him that he wasn't even thinking of me, let alone wanting to call me. And this is how it went for the next year. Physical closeness followed by weeks or months of silence. I told myself my body just wasn't thin enough yet. That I had to keep working. The problem was still my body. Not his loneliness and willingness to use me for physical affection, not my idealization of him as a partner and person, not my inability to confront him and say, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH US?!" No. The problem was still that I wasn't thin enough and that my body was shameful and unattractive to men.

He moved south for a job in the summer of 2010. Our contact was sporadic after his departure. I was in the process of gaining weight back by this time, in the midst of feeling more betrayed by my body than I ever had before. In 2011 he and I had a falling out, and I felt the need to insist he never contact me again, a decision I still stand by.

It's been almost a year since we interacted. And yet, for some reason I google stalked him, and in the process reawakened all those old, shitty feelings that my body is never, and will never be good enough for love. But there was a new feeling too: the feeling that the price I pay for loving my body as it is is the love of a man. That to exist in my current body is to be unlovable. It's a common thought in any woman's mind I'm sure, so common and commonly accepted that it often feels like a sad, sad truth.

As a 30-year-old (I'm 30!), single, woman who identifies as fat, I feel as though I am often put in a precarious emotional situation. I am constantly thrust into social situations where people say things like, "You look good! Have you lost weight?" Our culture's idea of fat-as-unattractive permeates even the most mundane of social interactions. And then I have to go home and talk to myself about this idea's untruth, talk to myself about the system of attractiveness that keeps women slaves to their appearance, keeps them snarking on their own bodies and the bodies of others. I envy the fat women who have husbands and boyfriends if only because they have simply to get into bed, allow their lovers to touch them, to be affirmed in their body's base attractiveness, while those of us who are single have to content ourselves with masturbation and positive self-talk. "I am a sexual being. My body does not intrinsically exclude me from sexuality."

I suppose I could end this blog with the actual truth. I could spout off about the complexity of attraction or the effect one's confidence has on sexual desirability. But really what I want to do is punch that dude until he falls over, and, as I stand triumphantly over him, say, "You missed out on something pretty awesome, mother fucker." And then crouch down and whisper in his ear, "Cause what I got? Oh, honey. It is so. fucking. good."

Or something like that.

This is Nourishment

Today I was walking to the the mini fridge on my floor to get my afternoon snack when I was struck with a feeling of normalcy.

As I mentioned before I have struggled with some very disordered eating since a very early age. Food has always been about so much other than food. It is pleasure, punishment, and distraction all at the same time. In the past, when I was feeling sad or overwhelmed, I would want to eat a pan of brownies so that I could experience the pleasure of eating something delicious, while punishing myself (my body is very sensitive to large amounts of sugar and wheat), followed by a period of obsession over how many brownies I ate, as well as a ghastly stomachache. But then the stomachache would wane, and I would be left with regret over my sometimes masochism and frequent incapability to really care for myself.

It amazes me how valuable it is to learn how to dialogue with oneself. It is not that I don't binge eat anymore, though I do it much, much less; it's just that I know how to come back from it. Years (or months) ago, a night of binge eating would lead to a week or weeks of more binge eating. And the longer it went on the harder it was to come back from. But I feel now as though I have some idea of how to talk to myself about the binge: to frame it as self-care (learned from Geneen Roth), to drink a lot of water, to journal, to combat the thoughts of "you don't know how to care for yourself" with viable proof that I most clearly do know how to care for myself.

I keep wondering how I got here from there. How I got to a point where there is an element of true nourishing when it comes to food, if even just for one snack. I suppose it has to do with the work I've done to love my body just as it is. It has to do with how I clothe and wash myself. It has to do with letting my body be, with letting her want or reject whatever she needs. It has to do with all the times I let it be okay that I ate ice cream every day for a week or had two cupcakes (or four) at a party. It has to do with the freedom to have cream in my coffee and to sometimes drink that coffee in bed, in my pajamas, even though I should be doing other things. It has to do with riding my bike, with feeling connected to the world through that little 15 pound mass of metal and rubber. In yoga, I felt connected to the earth. But when I am biking I am a part of the whole round world. On my bike, as I learn to yell at drivers about to hit me and ride in a lane clearly designed for cars, I am learning how to protect myself, how to take up space in the world. It has to do with going to my dance class and seeing my body in the mirror, back fat and stomach fat and bruised, scarred legs, and thinking, "that is MINE." And then plie-ing like I am a graceful swan. Because I am. Just a fat one.

What else have I done?

Lots of crying. And talking. Lots of eating. Lots of drinking. Lots of journaling and biking and sad dancing and happy dancing and online shopping. Lots of reading. Lots of reading the same thing over and over until I get it. Lots of hugging. Lots of anger. Lots of forgiveness and grace.

And then today I got hungry so I walked to the little mini-fridge to get my yogurt and honey, mixed together in a little tupperware this morning, and I ate it, and I licked the top of the tupperware cause it was so delicious, and I wasn't thinking about anything else, just how delicious that yogurt was. Every meal or snack is not like this. But this one was. And there have been others like it. And there will be more.

How Mr. Bates Made Me Cry or Why Downton Abbey is Awesome

I was at a small get together at a friend’s house on Sunday and overheard a conversation between two women. One woman, explaining what she did for work, said, “I deal with research on different diseases. You know, cancer, obesity... things like that.” I responded to this by saying very loudly, “OBESITY IS NOT A DISEASE,” which was, of course, followed by an awkward silence.

My grandmother died of cancer in 2004. She was first diagnosed with Breast Cancer years before. She went through Chemo, and her cancer went into remission. Then it moved down into her intestines, and it never stopped spreading. My grandmother was a lifetime member of Overeaters Anonymous, and I remember, when she was still lucid, she would joke that it took chemotherapy to get her to her goal weight (it makes me sad to think that my grandmother was struggling her entire life to attain a weight that she could only get to by dying). 

As far as I know (and to be honest I could be totally wrong as I know not a thing about science) it is unknown what causes cancer. Yes, there are correlations, but it is very unclear why some people get cancer and others do not. 

Fatness is similar. Some bodies are fat and some are not. It is not known why some bodies are fat and some are not because, contrary to what most people would believe to be true, not all fat people eat more and exercise less than thin people. There are so many different components of fatness: genetics, environment, stress, lifestyle. 

This is the only way in which fatness is similar to cancer. 

To call Obesity a disease is, if you ask me, kind of insulting to other diseases. My fatness is not the same as my grandmother’s cancer. Or a brain tumor. Or this child’s disease. And though I have more body fat, my fat is not slowly killing me (whatever the media would want you to believe). I do not feel weak. I do not feel sick. My body is able to digest food, to move, to function properly in every way. My body is not, in anyway in fact, diseased and to call it such is insulting.

I am going to let you in on a secret: everybody dies. From the minute our bodies are fully formed they are deteriorating, some faster than others. We want to think that if we can make our bodies a certain way that somehow we will have some control over our own demise, and though that is true to a certain extent, whether I or anyone else wants to extend or shorten their life is just none of your goddamn business. Maybe I will die from a heart attack in the next 10 years. Maybe I will get hit by a bus on my bicycle. Maybe I will live to be a fat 82-year-old just like my dad. Or maybe I will get an actual disease. I just don’t know. No one does. 

I’ve been watching Downton Abbey with my glorious roommate. There is a character named Mr. Bates who has a pronounced limp from a war injury and walks with a cane. Mr. Bates is handsome and kind, but many of the staff look down on him for his limp. They assume he can’t do certain things even though he can. He decides he will attempt to fix it. He goes to a store where he purchases a terrible metal contraption that, if tightened a certain amount everyday, claims to correct limps. Mr. Bates wears it. Throughout the episode we see him in terrible pain. Finally he shows his leg to the housekeeper, Mrs. Hughes. His leg is bloodied and raw. We then see Mrs. Hughes marching Mr. Bates out to the lake carrying his limp corrector. She hands it to him to throw into the water and as he goes to throw it, stops him, saying, “No. Say your speech.”

Mr. Bates says, “I promise I will never again try to cure myself.”

You say obesity is a disease?

My response is: what Mr. Bates said.

Drop Dead Diva

So months ago dear friend Leah recommended the TV show Drop Dead Diva. Now I think Leah is pretty effing smart, so, though I wanted to trust her opinion, the show had intrinsically many strikes against it: 1) It's on Lifetime. Blech. 2) The premise of the show is this: Deb is an aspiring model who dies in a car accident. In the afterlife, she tenaciously presses a button on the computer of the heaven agent registering her, sending her back to earth where she inhabits the body of Jane, a size 16 lawyer with a tragic wardrobe, flat hair and (GOD FORBID) a center part. And though I am familiar with this idea considering that my mother oftentimes uses the phrases "thin self" and "true self" interchangeably, it was not an idea I would ever condone. 3) Did I mention it's on lifetime?

But the show continues to surprise me. As a disclaimer, it is pretty terribly written. As a result I can't tell if the rather sub-par acting is a result of the bad writing or is just bad acting. There are some ridiculous fat stereotypes (shots of easy cheese calm Jane during more stressful cases; she is constantly eating donuts and pizza etc.). So basically, the show is not brilliant (a la HUGE) but it is... well, something else.

In the first season they deal with fat politics (Jane/Deb struggles with the idea that the word "fat" isn't an insult but a descriptive phrase) and with the difficulties of being fat in a thin world (Jane is shunned at a bar by a woman who used to be a friend because she is fat; she sues a designer clothing store because they don't carry her size). But as I near the end of the second season the show has become, in my mind, about fat visibility.

Fat people in entertainment are, more often than not, the best friend. Or, a la Bridesmaids (which, no lie, was super funny), their sexuality is meant to be a joke (isn't it HILARIOUS that a fat woman would assume men are attracted to her?). But in Drop Dead Diva Jane is just doing her thing. She is a fat woman who drinks girly martinis, wears beautiful clothes, buys new lipstick, paints her toenails, wears stilettos, has cute clothes. She sings and dances (Brooke Elliot is KIND of an amazing singer). She debates what to wear on dates, she goes on dates, she goes shopping for cute clothes, she has sex, and it is not a joke. She is a size 16 woman doing things that ALL WOMEN DO. It is so refreshing. 

And though I don't necessarily think this show is a wholely adquate representation of what it is to be a fat person in the world, I love the ideal it presents. That maybe, someday, we will learn that we can't really know A SINGLE THING about another human being by looking at them EXCEPT what they look like.

Lastly, I love Drop Dead Diva because for a TOO BRIEF series of episodes, Jane is dating this man:

I call him "Hot Tony."

Don't tell Zac Galafinakis, but David Denman is my new boyfriend. You might remember him as this man:

Oh, Roy. I know you were KIND OF a misogynistic jerkwad on The Office, but when you grew that beard WHOOEY did you steal my heart.

JUST ONE MORE.

So. Dreamy.

The Size Acceptance Movement

So recently I decided to never diet again. It's been pretty awesome. Along with this goes the decision that I am not going to ever again consciously try to lose weight--I am going to let my body be, fat or not. This is a difficult decision to make in our current culture, and though I have some supportive friends, they all have their own body issues. So I turned to the internet for guidance. Now this sounds shady, but I have found some amazing teachers. Like this woman. And this one. And this one. I frequent these blogs, read the comments. And though it is a sad excuse for a real community of people with whom I can physically connect, it is such a relief to know there are people out there in the world who aren't waiting to do amazing things until they lose weight. People who are working hard to accept and honor their bodies the way they are now and not 30 pounds from now. When I think about the years of struggle, the numerous diets I tried, all the times I exercised because I thought it would make me thin, or ate a Boca Burger because it had less calories than the Morning Star brand, all the times I ate frozen yogurt when I wanted ice cream, all the times I let members of my family lecture me about my weight... What did I want all that time? I wanted to be happy. I wanted people to love me. And I thought the only way to do that was to be thin.

And lucky for me, I was so wrong.

I got pretty skinny the year before last. Well maybe not skinny, but thinner than I had been since middle school. And no lie it was AWESOME. I could shop in normal stores, I bought a cute bathing suit, I would run into people I hadn't seen in a while, and they would tell me how good I looked, or, better yet, not even recognize me. And then recognize me. And then tell me how good I looked. 

And what's funny is the more people tell you you look good the more YOU think you look good. Well, for a while anyways. For about 3 months I thought I was the most attractive person in the whole effing world. And then, I didn't. After those 3 months it was status quo. I remember I would wake up the morning after a big meal convinced I'd gained weight overnight and would be shocked to find my pants still fit.

Then I hurt my shoulder. Then I got pretty depressed. Then I stopped doing Yoga. And then my pants really didn't fit. 

It felt like a death sentence. Back to the plus-size. Back to the old lady swimsuits. Back to hoping no one would look at me, let alone recognize me. I thought I had failed. Failed so deeply. 

But lucky for me, I was still wrong. 

Another funny thing: the whole time I was shopping in normal stores, buying cute bathing suits, having people so happy to see me, I never thought the problem was outside myself. I was thinking, FINALLY I earned all this. Finally I deserve this because finally I am thin enough to be loved. I never for one minute thought the problem was with the stores that didn't carry my size in regular clothes, let alone bathing suits, or that people would be excited to see me whether or not I'd lost weight because people like me (oh, surprise, Deborah!).

And then, after a couple years of therapy, and reading the blogs of the ladies above, and discovering online stores that carry beautiful clothes in my size and buying myself (probably too many) of those clothes that fit my body right then/now, and reading Linda Bacon's (yes, that is her real name ) Health at Every Size (which I'm pretty sure every person in the world should read) twice, I decided my body and I were okay. I wasn't gonna fight her anymore. I was gonna let her do her thing.

This means acknowledging that fat people (including myself) can (and probably should) do the following:

1) Wear clothes they like. Even if they are "unflattering." Like skinny jeans. I am going to buy some. Because I kind of want to show off my chunky legs. Because lately, I am KIND OF into them.

2) Move joyfully, whether it be dance, yoga, hiking, biking or having sex. I suppose there are other things a person can do to have fun, but those seem like the best ones to me.

3) Have sex with people who think your body is rockin. Just as it is. And then, when he/she tells you he/she thinks your body is rockin, stop fucking arguing with him/her. Even in your own mind. Accept it. YOU. ARE. HOT.

There are other things a person can do, but to be honest those are really the only three I care about. I want to be able to dress cute, dance around like an idiot, and have sex. Is that so much to ask? I think not.

Not to say everyone shouldn't have these things. Not to say EVERY PERSON is not deserving of some good body lovin'. Every person is. Fat or thin or whatever. It's just that fat people got a bad rep. Everyone hates their body (or so it seems) it's just that it's socially acceptable to hate fat people's bodies in addition to your own. And to be honest I think THAT is the epidemic NOT obesity. What about focusing on how almost every woman in America hates her body, instead of focusing on finding more ways for her to judge her body from a younger and younger age? You heard me, Michelle Obama.

So maybe some men won't be attracted to me. And there are some people who are going to try to tell me I am unhealthy. And there are some people who will continue to cringe when I call myself fat, not as an insult but as a simple description of my own body. And there will be people who will look at me and assume I never move, and that I eat cake everyday (which I kind of do, so I guess that would be an adequate judgment). But who's problem is that? Oh, yeah. NOT MINE.

To celebrate this I would like the share the following pictures of fat people doing cool things/having cool hair.

Um, HOLLA.

 

And this woman is an awesome ballroom dancer.

 

This woman has pink hair. (WHY DON'T I HAVE PINK HAIR?!?!?)

No sex pictures. Though I found some. And no, it's not porn. It's this (NOT WORK APPROPRIATE).

Final thoughts: 

I don't have pink hair cause it's expensive. And cause it would fade and then what would I be left with? Pepto-Bismol hair. Not. Cool.

And I just learned how to link things on here. It wasn't hard. But I feel so tech savvy.

Resolutions

 When I googled "New Years" to try to find an appropriately festive picture, this is the BS that came up. The idea that the only resolution worth making on January 1 is to "measure" yourself and then, appropriately, eat apples. I like apples it's true. With Organic Peanut Butter. On some delicious, fresh, sprouted-grain toast. 

Heaven.

But I am not talking about weight loss, or any sort of dietary restrictions or bodily alteration (I ate a whole package of Newman-O's on New Years Day. With some Almond Milk. They. Were. Delicious.) I am not even really talking about the idea that on January 1 we get to have a clean slate, because to be honest there is no real freaking difference between 11:59pm on December 31 and 12:01am on January 1. What I am talking about is the idea that, at any moment, we can resolve ourselves to change, to be better. Some things feel beyond our control. 

Like Cake.

But I can make the decision to really enjoy that cake, to really enjoy the process of life, to really enjoy the full movement of my limbs, and to feel grateful for my health. Because not everyone has that. And I should be taking advantage of it. I am not judging those of you who measure and then eat apples. I am just saying, we want to lose weight because we think we will look better, be happier, right? And maybe weight loss will do that.

But what if we just resolved to do things that brought us joy. To really, consciously enjoy food, walks, dancing, sex, the company of our loved ones, sunshine and puppy dogs and rainbows and all that crap.

This year I plan to fully and consciously enjoy the following: my Hetero's numerous 30th birthday celebrations, the weddings of two of the BEST COUPLES EVER,  Manchego Cheese, pole dancing, flannel sheets, spending whole days in my pajamas, getting a dog, playing with said dog.

So instead of the tape measurer and the apple, I'm going with this:

Holla. Atcha. Gurl.