Taking up the Challenge

The Marvellous Monkey has set herself a challenge and I have decided to take it up as well... it goes like this: Don't buy new clothes but wear the ones you have already have and feature them on the blog. Now, I can't promise EVERYTHING I wear will get a photo and a feature but it will get worn. And nothing new will get bought.


For some strange reason I am finding the idea of not looking for or buying new clothes liberating. To start this off though I went shopping! Bought black loafers and brown loafers and some very cool jewellery.

This is what I wore shopping. Simply Be jeans, Next top (with strapless bra as it has the tiniest straps in weird places) and New Look cardi. Random arm in photo belongs to Little Miss Eclectica :)

Please excuse squinty eyes and double chin. Lovely shot by husband!

Am thinking that I would like to tackle some of the widely held beliefs about fat people. I suppose the ones that come to mind is that we are all stupid, lazy, unhealthy, unhappy, single, infertile, bad parents and unloved. That might cover a few blog posts but are there any others that might be interesting to address?

The unloved, infertile and bad parent assumptions amuse me I have to say.

So apparently we are unloved and unattractive and therefore never date, get down and dirty or have relationships. But if that is the case then why would we ever get the chance to then be told that we are most likely infertile because of our huge unhealthy weight?

Which then poses the question that if we are all so infertile because we are fat, then how can we be bad parents who are exposing our children to the evils of chips and sugar and growing our own fat child army?

It is truely a mystery to me. Because I think really the reality is that we are loved and fancied and fall in love and fall out of love and fall in love with the wrong people and not with the right people. Just like thin people. And we get married or find life partners just like thin people. And some of us want and go on to have children and some of us find it harder to do that - just in fact like thin people.

And some of those children only want to eat crisps and coke and some would rather eat carrots and bananas, just like the children of thin people. Only thing is that when something goes 'wrong' in our lives thin people nod knowingly to themselves and think it is down to our weight. And that is bollocks.

Do one thing for me today: look at your reflection and think I ROCK!

Fat acceptance and me

I'm writing this I suppose because I have been reading a number of fat acceptance websites and blogs and been surprised that my experience of being fat doesn't seem to tally with the lives that other fat women have lead. Especially in regards to abuse, discrimination and comments from strangers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fat. Size 26 and although my weight have dipped down to a size 18-20 at some (short periods) time. That's still large enough to be considered obese and I know others who have been hassled about their weight at that size.

So reading these other blogs has made me think about two things. Firstly have I just not noticed the abuse and discrimination? Maybe some of the men I fancied didn't fancy me because of my weight, but at the time who can tell why someone doesn't like you back? I do remember one time that a friend and I were walking home late one night from the pub. She was fat too (I used to spend time wondering if she was fatter than me and hoping like hell she was). Anyway a guy walked past and said 'you should go see a dietitian'. Well, it was a university town so maybe the fat abuse is a little more high brow there?

My most negative memories about being fat are to do with two things. The second I'll mention later but the first was clothing. I never felt like I had the right things to wear or garments that fitted or suited me. I didn't have any choice about what I could buy and used to wear men's jeans as they were the only thing that fitted. There was a really bad legging phase as they were the only thing that fit and I remember one night that I couldn't go out to the pub as my only going out clothes were dirty (and being so ashamed that I couldn't find any clothes that fitted me). That is what living in NZ and being fat was like in the 90's for someone who didn't live in either Auckland or have masses of cash.

Ok, so the other thing that I have really negative memories about is also the thing that the fat acceptance blogs brought into focus for me. I don't remember anyone abusing me, demeaning me or making me feel awful about my weight except for my mother. For what ever reason (and she had plenty I know - all to do with her issues about her weight) she spent my entire life fucking up my approach to food, my body and my self esteem.

I went through fat acceptance when I went to a counsellor at the age of 19 and burst into tears asking whether it was ok to feel good about myself, despite the fact I was fat. I had a partner who loved me who assured me it was, but he was biased I thought.

I went through fat acceptance when I stopped talking to my parents for 6 months because they ignored my requests that all conversations stopping starting with how awful I was for being fat, and how I should diet and I was so pretty and didn't I know no one would ever love me and I would never be worth anything and did I know that fat people smell and no one likes fat woman cleavage... you get the general idea.

I'd go through that every time I saw them (unless i had dieted) until I was finally forgiven and had admitted the error of my ways and promised to diet and be a better person and daughter. Then my mother would break out the food, lots of food, cream cake, booze things like that.

And the two things she always said that made it all so worse. I'm only saying this because I love you. And I'm the only one who will tell you the truth.

So when my mother died two weeks after the birth of my daughter one of my first emotions was relief. Because although i did love her my feelings about her were so so tainted by how crushed I felt about myself when I was around her. I was glad that I wouldn't have that fucking conversation every again and I could just get on with life being ME.

So that is why for me the whole societal fat acceptance thing isn't such a big deal for me because I went through the worse from the start and made it through.