to be or not to be (fat)

What a concept--fat pants. Even when I lost 35 lbs during my last WW go round, I never got rid of any clothes. I didn't even think about it. Perhaps there was some underlying message in my not sending my fat pants (and oversized shirts and elastic-shot skirts) packing. Perhaps I knew, deep down, that I would need all those clothes again. And I did.

I have this pair of Carhartts that are the holy grail of my attempts at weight loss. The last time I wore them I was living in Missoula, steps away from the Rattlesnake Wilderness Area, which abuts the Bob Marshall, one of the largest contiguous wilderness areas in the lower 48. I could, literally, walk out my front door, head west for 3 blocks, and hit a trail that wound along Rattlesnake creek and up into the woods. I could hike for days and never see another soul. Every day, my dear (now departed) Sophie and I would take off in the morning and weave our way up the creek--Soph would wade in, take some sips, drag sticks along the bank, while I scanned the treetops for birds, occasionally catching glimpses of osprey and red tail hawk. Physical activity was not a chore; it was a way of life, a part of every day, my solace in a chaotic world.

I have seen the ad of which my blogging partner speaks. I too have been put off by it, angry at the insinuation that true freedom and happiness means flinging your "fat pants" out a window. Bombarded by these kinds of messages daily, its no wonder eating disorders are on the rise in teens, and no wonder that women of all shapes and sizes and persuasions look at themselves in the mirror and see only imperfection, fat, worthlessness. And then there's the fat positive backlash, a trend among certain women who reject the whole notion that they, in all their overweight voluptuousness, are not as beautiful or worthy as Mimi in her size 2 hiphuggers. These women create manifestos --"FAT!SO? calls for revolution. The revolution starts with a simple question: You're fat! So what?" (www.fatso.com) calling for women to rise up against the cultural norm, throw down the gautlet and EAT CAKE. Lots of cake. I look at sites like the aforementioned fatso, and I immediately think "you've got to be kidding me. Certainly you're kidding yourselves. Fat and positive are not words that should appear in the same sentence."

So the question then is, am I just as bad as the Curves ad team that sat around a conference room table and dreamed up the fat pants concept? They recognize that the word FAT, when connected with the body, has entirely negative connotations, and they know that playing on fat fears of the general female population is a sure fire way to bring in the clients. They know that many women would rather eat birdseed than go up a pants size. So they stomp about on the hearts of the fearful, and in the process demonize the struggle that millions of people face daily--the struggle to be healthy, to approach food and eating from a standpoint of subsistance and survival (with a smattering of enjoyment thrown in) and not from a place of desperate, emotion-laden hole-filling.

I'm not fat positive. I don't love this body. But. I need to. I need to figure out a way to say that I am okay no matter what I weigh. I need to look at my naked body in the mirror and not wince. I need to see the stretch marks not as permanent scars that serve as a reminder of my failings but as slight imperfections that further illustrate my unique beauty. (Yeah right). How can I even begin to revolutionize my way of thinking about my body if I don't start from a place of acceptance and love?

That, dear Hamlet, is the question.