New Fat Issues

Today as I was driving my daughter to preschool we saw a micro car. I don't know what the name of the car is, only that it's like so small, a skinny person would have trouble sitting in it. Fat people BEWARE! This is not a fat friendly car. Can you believe it has two front seats? Yikes. Two skinny people stuffed in a car together. God forbid they go through a drive-through. If they ate a Big Mac, the car would explode. If one farted, then the other one would be blasted into outer space to commune personally with the remains of Sputnik.

I mean what were the inventors thinking? You cannot fit a normal sized person in this car. Anyone over the height of five foot three has to fold themselves up to get in. I think my daughter at forty inches is about the right size. (BTW, when she saw the car, that's what she thought, that the car was made for her. And she's only four so she's already nagging me about her driver's license.) However, the car gets insanely good gas mileage, so folding yourself up into a cramp filled nightmare must be just a little con. "I can't feel my left arm and my left thigh, but I GET 50 MPH. Whoo-hoo!" Anything to be green, right? Hey, walk. Take a bus. Take a train. Take a bike. That'll work and you have room AND you don't have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Speaking of transportation. Go Canadians on the recent decision in their high court about fat people getting a free seat. (Like airplane seats are so roomy anyway.) It's not like there's a lot of elbow room on those suckers anyway. The airline companies are trying to get every little inch out of their airplane space. They'd put seats on the nose of the airplane if they thought they could get away with it. I'm surprised they don't sell the space behind the pilot. (I suspect that the pilot's union put a kibosh on that one.) In any case, I say let's visit Canada and give them some of our fat people tourist dollars. All right.

Gym Torture

Okay, there's a machine at the gym called an elliptical trainer. Basically you put your feet in the pedals and pump kind of like a bike except standing up. I call it the big butt machine, because if you have a big butt and you use this machine consistently, the chances are good that your butt will diminish. I, however, do not have a big butt. I need a big tummy machine. When I reported this to my trainer, Colleen, of the skinny, perky-titted-ness persuasion, she laughed and said, "it's good for you." I laughed, but not in an amused way. Then I commented that only women with shelf-asses should use this evil, archaic torture device designed by a man. (Two twisted men talking to each other: "Hey, my wife has a fat ass." "Hey, so does mine." "I know, let's invent a machine that works off their fat asses." "Great idea. Plus we can make a buck.") Then my trainer said, "I've got a shelf-ass." Whereupon I looked at her sculpted, well-exercised ass and snorted a chicken leg out of my left nostril. (I have no idea where the chicken leg came from.) This woman is like 5ft 8inches tall and weighs probably 120 lbs. She doesn't have a shelf-ass. As a matter of fact she doesn't even have a toe-hold ass. If a climber were climbing her back they would fall to their deaths because they wouldn't be able to catch a toe or a finger on her ass.

So anyway the point of the story was that elliptical trainers are wicked devices contrived by perverse men and that my trainer is insecure. Whoa. Just when you thought life didn't have any morals.

Oh, yes, and that's a picture of the Big Butt Rock just to drive my point home. (Or to kick you in the B***.) Oh, I amuse myself.

Gym Hell!

Welcome to the latest phase of fat woman mania. The gym. True, I didn't join the he-man woman haters, testosterone leaking, bulgy muscle place. I joined a women's gym. And as I so put and amused the woman who was signing me up for a year, there are other fat women there. In fact, it's a fat women haven. Fat women working out. Fat women doing classes. Fat women doing the treadmills, bikes, and whatever the heck they call that other funky machine. (Elliptical bike or other torture like name, I think.) I've been for a month, five days a week, sometimes six, and I'm starting to develop a habit. I've got a trainer, who tortures me on a half-hour basis once a week, and who is amazingly thin and perky. (She trains for marathons for fun. God help her when she's really bored.) Then I replicate what she's taught me, except that I sweat a lot more and say more bad words when she's not around. Don't get wrong, there are non fat women there, and some who are older than I am. One woman looks like she's pushing eighty but I think she's in better shape than I am and I'm afraid to ask her in case she takes offense and she gets me in a headlock and gives me noogies.

So therein lies the latest in the saga of the fat woman. I lost eight pounds and in a single delicious weekend that included pizza and all you can eat shrimp and crab, gained it all back. Now I'm back down 4 pounds. I hate my scale.

My trainer wants to measure and weigh me next week. Whoopee. I bet she's the kind of person who freaks out when she gains two pounds.

Definition of Fat

So much for diet no. 3. It folded like a hooker getting punched by a john. But it brought me to a question. What exactly is the definition of fat? Well, if you want to get scientific about it, it might be your BMI, body mass index, an index created by skinny people to feel superior over fat people. "See, Bill, your BMI is 3006 1/2. You're definitely fat. Ha. Ha." Once my husband said to me, and amazingly he's still among the living, "You're not fat. You're just overweight." One might think that after a decade or so I'd let him off the hook, but I'm taking that one to the grave, buddy-boy. God knows we have enough ways of saying someone is fat because it's all subjective. Fat is fat because someone else thinks someone is fat. Case in point: Supermodels. If you meet one in person you have to ask yourself if they eat more than a teaspoon of food every day. On the other hand, there are people who have trespassed into the four digit weight zone and need assistance to get out of their houses. Fortunately for me I've only got three digits going on and am no where close to even the middle end of that scenario. There are the two extremes. Most fat people probably fall into this circumstances.

How do you define fat? Unhealthy. And it all depends on the person. If a person has to take blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, and diabetic medication and they wouldn't if they lost some weight and exercised regularly, then they probably are fat. That would be me. There are other people who probably have a BMI that's considered fat, who don't take any medication, who are considered healthy by a licensed doctor, and I would say that they're not fat. Not really. If you're healthy you're okay.

And by the way, I'm voting for the fattest person running for president regardless of politics. Hah.

Go, fat woman.

Diet No. 3

Well so much for Diet No. 2. I didn't blog, yet I ate anyway. It was probably doomed to failure. I blog therefore I eat. Everyone in the house got sick. I said the heck with that. Comfort food here I come. And the comfort food was, in fact, eaten. I hate diets. i wish I was one of those people who could eat what they wanted to and stay the same weight. Of course, they don't eat a mountain full of food every day either. (Not that I eat a mountain full, either. I don't. But I certainly aren't starving myself either.) I'm curious about how many diets a reasonable person can go through in a year. Reasonable. Yes, I'm reasonable. Realistic. Maybe not.

Diets suck. Here I go again.

P.S. Here's my daughter. She's on the pirate diet. She gets to eat anything she wants as long as she says, "Arrrr."

Diet No. 2

Here it is. January 22 and I'm on my second diet of the year. Diet no. 1 didn't even make it past the 'I'm going on a diet tomorrow' phase. Tomorrow arrived and the diet mysteriously vanished. Today's diet is 'I have to blog before I eat diet.' Should make for an interesting few days. If I don't kill someone. I just asked my 3 year old daughter if she was hungry. 'No.' It's a standard answer. Apparently she doesn't like to eat much. I hate her. she's going to be a skinny woman until she's fifty and then she's going to bitch about gaining 3 pounds. Fortunately for me I won't be around to see that, unless I'm remarkably well lived or remarkably lucky. Maybe I'll have Alzheimer's and it won't matter.