being a 'fat girl'...

Last week I wrote (finally) about my weight issues.

Being fat is it's own punishment for all the bad eating habits & physical laziness, and yet sometimes it seems the world is trying to punish me for being fat, anyway.


Attractive clothing in FAT sizes is impossible to find. Not just difficult, IMPOSSIBLE.  Who decided that fat women should wear huge bright floral prints everywhere?  Not only does this make me feel even FATTER, but it is as far as you could possibly get from my personal style!  And this "small, medium, large" system we have is an absolute JOKE.  Even in most size 2X or 3X stuff I look like someone poured me in and forgot to say 'when'.

Oh, and bras? For fat girls? Yeah, RIGHT! Even at the fat-girl stores (my favorite is Lane Bryant) they don't carry bras in my size...currently 38H. Yeah, I said H, as in HOLY SHIT THOSE ARE HUGE!

Movie theater seats.  The kind that DON'T have that armrest that you can push up out of the way.  Once I find out that a certain movie theater has those kinds of seats, I make sure never to go back there.  The 'Bob Barker Studio' at CBS, where they film The Price Is Right, has the old fashioned theater seats.  I've attended 17 tapings there, and only the last couple times did I have a little trouble getting out of my seat every time the audience was supposed to stand up. I desperately want to go back and try at least ONE MORE TIME to be on the show, when Bobblehead is a little older (it's an all-day thing and I can't be away from him for more than a couple hours these days) but my weight will keep me away until I can drop a SIGNIFICANT amount of it.

Those turnstile-thingies that you have to walk through to enter an amusement park or train station, etc. ENOUGH SAID.

Amusement park rides.

Restaurant booths!

Baseball stadium seating, airline seating, or any other public place where strangers are expected to sit butt-to-butt in a space barely adequate for an 'average sized' adult.

If you've never BEEN a fat girl, then you probably don't know about the many (MANY) physically uncomfortable and even painful 'side effects' of being fat.  For instance, I have fat rolls that stick together when I sweat (which is nearly always, because this extra insulation keeps my body temperature abnormally high).  The sticking together isn't painful, but the 'peeling apart' is.....like when I have to adjust my position in my airline seat so that I am not overflowing onto the passenger next to me, for instance. For me, this particular problem is at its worst when I am trying to go to sleep, and I toss and turn and try to get comfortable in bed.  You know how the surface of the water ripples when you toss a pebble into it?  Well my body, with all its fat rolls, has its own ripple effect.  If I move one part of my body, I have now shoved fat rolls against other fat rolls, and at some point I am somehow chafing or pinching myself - simply because I tried to adjust the angle of my damned PILLOW!  Then there's the extra strain on my joints, and the shortness of breath when I have to climb the stairs, etc. 

Probably the most painful thing about being fat is the way I look in pictures.  Somehow, the whole mirror thing is easier to handle...I either avert my eyes, or I conjure up memories of my thinner/healthier self, and I just don't SEE the reality in front of me.  Some kind of self-protective denial?  But in photographs, there is no way to play any tricks with what is already staring me (and everyone else) in the face.  I see myself in a picture and go, "WOW, do I really LOOK like that????" 

So, yeah, I avoid cameras as much as I can.  That being said, I am about to get REALLY brave and post some real, honest, RAW pictures for you all to see.....I feel like I should post some kind of disclaimer or warning or something here, but can't think of what to say.  Just, view at your own risk, I guess.