Fat Shaming is one of the last acceptable forms of prejudice. Being obese makes you a second class citizen in the world most people reading this live in (so all four of you).  I don’t say this to get anyone riled up and I’m not riled up as I type this. What I want to share is that a lot of peace came to my psyche when I realized that this is the reality of the world, its not about me, it’s our culture, its not personal to me even if it affects me very personally.  I have accepted that I feel bad about my weight when I think about it, I have mourned this fact, and feel better about life on the other side.

I wanted to have my cake– I wanted the world to see me as a beautiful and worthy— and be thin–and couldn’t see my life as beautiful and worthy— too.

If you’re a woman in America, you have body image issues. All of ’em. Every single one. If you don’t well then please email me-I would like to meet you.  You can, however, relate to the insecurities differently. Men have them too, of course.  Knowing that everyone has insecurities and that sometimes you just have bad days or bad moods, makes it have less grip on me. I made the courageous decision to stop feeling bad about feeling bad. What a rebel, huh?

My success in weight-loss came from a lot of small slow changes to change the way I lived with food and exercise but also slow steady changes to retrain my brain (like losing weight – I lost thoughts, too), I thought about it a lot and I spent a lot of time making lists and really sitting with how great some things in my life are in some ways because of my fat.  These lists were kind of hilarious.

1. I had to find other ways to get people to like me
2. It made me independent
3. It made me strong
4. It protected me from teenage pregnancy (hahah. okay, a working theory.. but having low self-esteem and being unpopular with boys maybe helped me avoid some things? maybe?).

When I stopped being angry at myself, at others, I became nicer to myself and others.  This is so true. Ask my friend Erin. One day she stopped while we were walking on the street in New York City–she was there visiting and hadn’t seen me in a while– and I turned around and said “why’d you stop?” confused. She stood there and said “why are you so amazing to be around, Stephanie? What’s going on! ”  Hahaha. It was that defined. I said “I know! Right! It’s so crazy. I’ve been really working on how I look at life” (with the help of a coach and NLP). My anxiety was going down. Also, don’t you like that my friend and I talk like that! hahaha.

I stopped worrying and started to feel sad for all of us trapped in this system of hierarchical beauty. Wouldn’t it be great if I day dreamed of curing cancer? Yes. But I don’t. Have I had people harass me for being fat? Yes. Sadly.  Am I terrified every time I go on an internet date that the guy will think I’m too fat and be mean? Yes. I have to talk myself through fight or flight responses when I do get brave enough to go.  I have been called names on the street by strangers. I have had guys try to intimidate me into having sex (this british guy did not enjoy getting drinks at the TGIF in Times Square when he said I was “lucky he even wanted to have sex with me”. Yeah, I’m one of those loud cryers), bullies in school, etc. Not to bring anyone down, really, but I have good reasons to feel bad. My stereotypically beautiful friends have problems, too. It’s on both sides. People can be jealous and spiteful, sometimes they trust that men care when they are just being used for their bodies–which also doesn’t feel good.

When someone I know says I look great–meaning they can tell I’ve lost weight–I sometimes say things like “thank you… its my dream to one day be judged solely on the basis of my looks. this whole developing a personality thing is exhausting”  I like to say things like this to make people laugh not to dismiss the compliment. I’m saying it in good fun.  I hope in some small way it gets people to consider the absurdity that it matters so much.  When people have general conversations about feeling bad about their bodies with me now, I suggest they stop trying to change it and just accept it and have compassion for themselves and others.

My mom-friend said to me “I don’t know why she thinks that way… she’s beautiful,” about her daughter’s body image stuff. I asked my friend  “do you feel good about your looks?” She stammered “uh. not me… ugh I look so fat and old.. but my daughter is beautiful the way she is.”  “You are beautiful the way you are.” “No, i have wrinkles and cellulite.”  “Yeah, weird that she is worried about her looks.”

I carry two pictures in my wallet of when I was really big.  A reminder that it didn’t matter how slow it was going, there was a lot of progress. One of my oldest friends, Gloria, sent these two pictures to me when I was probably down 50 or 60 pounds. I hadn’t seen them before. I have been carrying copies of them ever since. I am attaching a snapshot of these so you can see that they are indeed weathered.

I’d look at these pictures often and think “look what you’ve done, you are doing it, Stephanie.” Yes. I like to speak my name to myself in my thoughts. I read once that if you do that to people in social situations, say their name to them, psychologically they trust you more. So this is me kind of being funny (I guess, only for my benefit, since no one ever knew i do this until I guess now if you’re reading this) but it also feels good to call yourself your name in your head. Try it! “Hello ___.”

Maybe I would be on the subway and pull the pictures out.  Or maybe just when no one was looking on the street, or at a restaurant, or in my apartment. I don’t know… but I’d take a moment to see ‘who I was’ wasn’t all such a failure. And… I’d feel better.  Whatever version of ‘why’d you do that?’ ‘why aren’t you better’ ‘why haven’t you blah, blah, blah’ would quiet in my head. I hadn’t gained weight, I would remind myself. You didn’t go up, which statistically was remarkable. I had a lot more to lose when I started carrying them, didn’t know if I would lose the weight, didn’t have it all figured out, but I had made progress.  “This picture is proof, Stephanie!” I’d think. I looked at it and saw the good in how I was doing it, even if I never thought i could lose it all, and it helped me keep going. I also liked it because I miss parts of the girl in these pictures. Sure, part of her is here. But I am not her anymore–in ways that have nothing to do with my weight–and you may not know it by looking at her, but she was pretty awesome. I was forlorn for a very long time that she was gone.

Aside from that purpose, if my weight-loss comes up and someone has known me for a while and says they don’t believe me, I will often offer to show the pics.  People see the photo, congratulate me, they think it’s great and then… quite often… they turn on me “why do you carry that??” and it seems there is some level of concern, or (wait for it) pity, like I’m carrying the picture around to punish myself.  Hmmm.

I was at a self help retreat in Upstate New York a few years back and I was on a sunrise hike with some women. I was half asleep as four of us kicked dirt under our feet following the trail up the hill circling around these beautiful tall lush green trees leading us to the top of the mountain to see the view. The trail was flat in some parts and steep in others, we weren’t trying to set a record for speed and we were just talking. Laughing. Whatever.

It was starting to get light out, we were getting closer to the top. I had been sharing about my doctor saying I was supposed to be 135 pounds at my height and I hadn’t even broken the 200 pound barrier. He said (in what would be our very last appointment) most likely when you have one overweight parent, you’ll become overweight and stay that way “there’s not really anything you can do.” I don’t remember what else I said but I was probably telling them how he didn’t listen to what I was saying, I was discouraged that this health expert told me essentially to give up which is his right (honestly, I don’t think he ever took in that I had lost 100 pounds already no matter how much I tried to insist that I had already defied some portion of his logic) then with exasperation and probably because I was tired, I was more honest to my friends and said “man, I really liked being fat! I miss it!” Which was funny to me because it was untrue as I had been so strongly committed to losing it healthfully, but also, I missed it.

All three ladies stopped and said “what??” Like, actually stopped walking, and turned all their attention to me. What. Why are we stopping. They all stared at me. I didn’t think it was that big a statement, and then Karen, an event planner and yoga instructor that lived in New York City who I had known a couple years said plainly “that’s not good and if you miss it, maybe that’s why you haven’t lost the rest of the weight.”

If you’ve never done self-help group work you may not know that the culture of it is to give each other feedback and coach each other to explore why you are doing, thinking, acting in ways that limit you.  Maybe your boss is a jerk, but ‘what exactly is so bad?’ someone asks. Then, they ask ‘even if he is a jerk, why do you let it get to you’? Or, ‘tell me about your job and how good a job you’re doing’. So, worst of all, maybe its you not working hard enough that has him resent you.  It’s a compassionate environment, but it’s tough love. This is the vibe.

Okay. Back to the hike. I won’t bore you with the details but I have a strong memory of being at the top of the mountain looking at the view as the day came up from behind the mountains on the other side of Lake George where our cabins resided off of and I could feel that cool morning air still lingering before it burned off and became a hot summer day. It was beautiful, and that was great, but I was in total disbelief they didn’t get why I missed it and I fought for them to see my point of view, because I couldn’t believe they couldn’t see what I was saying.

“Have you bitches ever eaten everything you wanted to eat? and laid on the couch?? and then taken a nap. And then woke up, eaten the other half of the pizza, the rest of the cookies and then laid there some more? Then only rolled out of bed to go drink and laugh and party all night with your friends?”

Okay. I didn’t call them bitches. I wouldn’t. They were wonderful and not at all coming from a place other than love.  But, I fought for my right to miss it.  Here were my main points:

1. My life was easier.
2. I ate a lot of food. It was delicious.
3. I didn’t care about how I looked. Which was a lot less work, cheaper (do you know what my hair, nails and waxing cost every month?) and super freeing in a lot of ways.
4. Exercise is hard. I have to fight with myself all the time to do it even after all these years. And I do it with consistency.
5. I liked not getting attention from men.

Okay. Pause. The last one I think sent them over the edge.  Most people who know me very well know I don’t really date. “You don’t want to meet a man?” one of them asked. Yes, I do. But before you write me off. Let’s talk…. crazy me, but i don’t enjoy married men hitting on me.  A lot. Which is what happened when I started losing some weight, wearing a little makeup and decided to start dressing a little cuter.  I’m outgoing. I am. When you’re fat, with a pretty face and an endearing personality… not to be unkind to myself, but I get the impression married guys think I am adorable, low hanging fruit and their skinny wives don’t look as good to them anymore.  Also, I always felt like married men would never hit on me so I wasn’t clenched up wanting them to like me… and it’s attractive to men when you are yourself.  At whatever size.  My skinny friends were not ever getting hit on like me. It wasn’t the sleek successful guys who were asking to take me to dinner.  I mean, honestly, I started to date for the first time as part of when I started this transformation, and I did get dates here and there, but it hurt when they didn’t call after. I now was trying to get them to like me… I now cared and it was annoying. Dating was more painful than not dating. Listen, this may be news to you… but don’t brush your hair, baggy clothes, have a cute face, a loud strong personality, be fun while being fat…. you go to all the parties and men like you for you. And you’re friends. It’s pretty nice. I always got adored by men. And, best part, if they don’t like you, who cares!  I didn’t need them to.  I had opted out of the game. It was awesome. Really. I saw male bosses be nice to the pretty girls, favor them, pay them more, but then they had to pretend to enjoy their boring ass stories. And not like a little bit, like every day for an hour. I came in late, I was fired sometimes, I didn’t care. They didn’t understand that the boss didn’t like them for who they were. Everyone wants to be liked for who they are. Not what they look like. And I was. I don’t know many people who have experienced that. Those who spent time with me liked me for who i was. Uhhhh. You think that’s bad? No. It’s nice. Queen for a day.  I mean, at least for me.  Once i figured out how to have a personality (story for a different time), game on.  But no! I misspoke. Not really game on, because if you don’t play the game you don’t lose. At the point of this hike, i was down 100 pounds, I hadn’t found love. I was having short lived entanglements with men that usually ghosted me after three dates, I felt rejected. A lot.

Am I crazy? Does it not make sense to people why I liked it?

Standing on that mountain. They weren’t budging. I was dumbfounded. Everything I was saying made sense to me.  I had made some really good points, I thought. But here’s the thing… they did too….

1. They asked if I felt proud of how much healthier I was. I did.
2. They asked if I could’ve done that hike before. I could’ve, yes, but not as easily.  And that was when I was in my mid-20s so had I not lost the weight or started to exercise, i would’ve most likely gotten larger, so probably not.
3. They asked if I missed it, why not go back? Well, I mean… this is my dream. They pointed out that it was inspiring what I had done.  (I think so, too.)
4. They asked if I liked dating at all. I did. It was fun when boys tell you you’re pretty and kiss you and stuff.

From that point on, I tried to think of things I liked about the weight-loss more often. If I missed the old me, or thought of the bad, I started playing a game that my next thought had to be something I liked about thinner me.  It worked a little. And, a little more. I don’t look at the pictures really any more. The strong sensation of missing being fat when I look at the picture has dissipated.

There’s some irony of hiking to the top of a mountain to get a new perspective.

(This is the view from the hike! I’m so excited I found it!)