Tuesday 31 January 2012

No quarry at any size

"How fat is too fat?" To find reconnection and respect for your body. There is no figure too high and that is not ideology, I've seen people vary in their self acceptance all along the scale. It's not always a question of the fatter the person, the more undermined their self esteem is.

Those seeking to limit self acceptance to a convieniently acquired level of fatness have not thought their notion through.

Whatever the figure would be, no way could that let off, grudgingly
acceptable fatties. If you are supposed to go hard at fat fighting at
6,082 lbs, then how on earth are you going to say someone who's 180lbs shouldn't trouble themselves?

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Self-estrangement

Did you catch Seal talking about his split from wife Heidi Klum on the Ellen show? Couldn't begin to care? If so I don't blame you, I'm not far behind. A clip was featured on the news and it passed my eyes so to speak. Even so, he did say a couple of things that caught my attention, something to the effect of  "We just grew apart" and "It was a surprise to us too"!

As you know (fat) people's eating is being pressed into a baggy 'addiction' narrative which excites the ignorant no end. Not content with their endless dimwit preaching, we must also be instructed as to what it feels like to try and make calorie dodging the centre of our existence. Expecting our indulgence of their impertinence to be everlasting.

We are ordered; it is just like smoking or taking drugs etc., as if we have no capacity to perceive our own existence.

It's actually a lot more like Seal and Heidi's situation, except instead of two people it's just you, split in two attacking another part. What "part" would that be? Why the quasi mythical construct of  the "bad" you've been told is causing the disease of you, by the 'obesity' consensus.

Due to it not actually existing, you have been in reality persuaded to attack yourself.

No wonder the 'obesity' crusade thinks it owns you.

Picture the scene; you find yourself staying later and later (for free) at some crappy job you're always looking to move on from. As if at last appreciating some of its heretofore unseen charms. The hopes (kidology) you employed when you took it, have suddenly revived in your imagination melding with reality in a way you never quite managed before.

You catch yourself and think, "What they hey?" Then realise, its because you don't want to go home.

The relationship with a "significant other" or your family-parents, siblings etc., or simply those you share a home with-has become so tense and strained, you can barely endure physical proximity with them.

Any interaction tending to drain you psychologically in seconds. You can never feel comfortable or at peace, always off balance, out of kilter. Except instead of two people, there is just one, you and it is you who are having this relationship breakdown with yourself.

When you realise they're unexpectedly out and you won't have to face them, there's a heady rush from the release of pressure. Whatever time there is before they return, you feel you can breathe again and feel fully alive.

That's something like what it feels like when you forget to attack yourself because you are fat. When you can come to a place of acceptance and try to become whole again. And other apparently well meaning people wish to block that. They wish to keep you locked into estrangement from yourself, because they are just sooo nice.

This my friends is what its like to live cornered by the threat of a lifetime of commitment to "weight management" even your body failing badly (a.k.a; weight loss dieting success) gives little relief, because, maintenance.

This inner environment is always there in your mental field of vision. To be negotiated when you can manage to screw whatever reserves of nervous energy and self delusion you can muster, for yet another campaign of maximum effort for scant if any "reward". And when the dust clears, painful reversal.

There is no relief to be had from pointing the finger at the other person as the baddie, until you just become so sick and tired of being sick and tired in your soul that something says, no more.

In other words, the conventional 'obese' role that has formed and shaped your existence, the one others seek to keep you in, is more like the addiction.

Monday 23 January 2012

Rebellion?

Something has always narked the heck out of me, our body's defences resist dietary manipulation/ restriction and it is repeatedly defined as rebellion. Rebellion against what? It's an automatic response to the threat of unmet needs, part of our survival instincts.

If someone comes at you hands raised like they're going to strike you, your instinctive response is to throw up your arms to shield yourself. Does that make you an iconoclast? Because you aren't just standing there with your chin up to give them a better shot?

Yes, I understand that;

a)  If you were rebellious person you might be more likely to defend yourself

and;

b) Impulses are read through the filter of our deeply held beliefs, we interpret through them. Hence creation of literature, art, culture, or the variety of eye witness testimony etc.,

But its the source of this interpretation that gets on my nerves. It rests on the assumption that calorie theory is as reasonable as it seems in our minds therefore our bodies reaction to it must be judged on that basis as disobedient.

This is nonsense. How can we judge the way the body by the way we've been taught it works, treating the way it actually does as if it requires an explanation that is about breaking the rules? Who's rules? Not its rules so how can it reacting the only way it can overwhelmingly be rebellious?

I know that when some of us are lectured about food we get a sharp and distinct urge to eat verboten food. Even that though is a subjective impression, what we are really responding to is the threat to our ability to nourish ourselves.

When sources of food demonized by healthists are a useful source of nourishment-due to our training in mindlessly obeying invasive dietary diktats, mention of these foods translates into our experience of the withdrawal of these foods, ergo some get the urge to eat them.

I must admit I don't but then my history is a bit unconventional and I don't heart food as such, though I feel quite averse to any food hate.

This doesn't mean we can't change or make conscious adaptations to our diet, quite profound ones in fact. It just means we should try starting from the way our bodies actually function, rather than an incomplete abstraction our conscious brain has fixated on.

Probably because it gets the starring role.

Saturday 14 January 2012

Slut

At the time of the creation of slut walks, I struggled to put into words the extent to which it was a big fat no for me on any level I could think of. In the end I gave up because it was just too hard and many other people were doing it and let's face it, the atmosphere of especially racial rancour was not conducive to calm rationale.

I don't know how many of you have had the privilege of encountering "male feminist" Hugo *Schwyzer. Now despite not being a radical feminist-not hating, just don't have that kind of instinct (about feminism anyhow)- I've just never understood the point of male feminists. The point has always evaded me.

I can't begin to get why anyone needs to announce their 'maleness' in order to state ideas they connect with as if somehow the latter would somehow be an attack on the former. I quite liked the surrealist leitmotiv when I was younger-that what is really real to us is our dreams and the world of our fantasy and imagination.

I connected with this as what? I'm not even sure, possibly an entity? Certainly I don't remember needing to assert my lady-bits as somehow pertaining to any feelings of connection. The significance of moi, moi-meme, une femme, gets surrealism because that's not like manderstanding, its proper getting it like, or something, would not have formed in my head.

Anyway, even though I've heard of HS, I'm lucky enough not to care one iota about his brand of femanism and thought it superfluous to my understanding of things. So I've skirted his scent 'til now, never say never.

Whodathunkit? He's just gone and touched on why I have always felt the word "slut" has got nothing to do with women therefore the idea of 'reclaiming it' (plz) is a mis-fire.

The genesis of slut is to do with how men's sexuality is directed and when you realise how this affects women, it's unsavoury. Feminists, given who's the central contingent could be in part to blame for this misguided notion of slut/slag etc., being about women.

One of their main techniques being to step into certain assigned notions and roles and shout back. Rather than pointing and saying, this is about you, why not deal with that? Apart from the motive or emotion behind that-a sort of pedestal mentality-it just ended up getting in the way of men examining how they felt about being incubators for the ideas that lead to this characterisation of women.

It always seemed to me, from the moment I found out what it meant to be essentially man hating, despite the extent of mysogny, that was an adjunct to woman's role rather than the end in itself, or as is said by feminists, controlling women's sexuality. That's a given, the purpose of slut seemed to me to be about controlling men's view of themselves, their sexuality and directing its use;

“So you’re saying that when a man comes on a woman’s face, it’s not about making her dirty — it’s about making him feel clean?”
A person can only feel "clean" in this circumstance if they generate dirt. And it is that dirt that dirties women, turning them theoretically into sluts or slags.

It's always felt like something men need to sort out and whilst I can understand Flavia's annoyance. Dirty ole' men and why they need to clean up.

* 3rd time lucky! Meh.

Tuesday 3 January 2012

It's a New Year! Again

Well Happy New Year. I'm not going to not eschew mentioning that because it may seem a little trite, because I mean it. I'm going to make it a happy one mostly by calming down, seriously I really need to just to ease off the ranting a tad, not least because being calmer seems to be just about the most annoying any fat person can do.

If there's one thing we are supposed to be its quivering timorously like jellies, permanently receptive to fat haters deranged orders.

"Eat healthily and you'll become slim", but HAES is eval because its not lifestyle anorexia and exercise bulimia.

Power corrupts.

They just don't know what they want because they're a bit squiffy and under the influence and hey, it's all such a trip! Society says they get to boss us around and treat us like toys because we are bad and they are good, way hey, how often does that happen?

Do I have any other sort of resolutions? Not specifically, from back when I was gung ho with the old yearly plans, mine usually were pending from the previous year and centred on getting myself together.

That one goes back so long and has been such a constant theme it feels like an aunt or something.

Anyway, let's be hopeful if not 'realistic', may all your wishes for this year come true for-which I'm sure are only righteous. I mean, when people can be turned into disease and some talk about what sustains us as being "addictive", realism it seems is what you make it.