(sorry for the lack of posting- I’ve been rather busy this week, and I’ve been trying to get ready for vacation ~more info on that tomorrow~ but I am alive. I wasn’t sure what to blog about so I looked through my drafts and found a post that i wrote at the end of April, that I never posted, and edited it a tad.)

Okay, I love watching What Not to Wear. I love it when someone on their show has the same body type as me, and I can learn what clothes will slim look best on me (the “slimming” issue is… well, a whole ‘nother issue). I find the show itself to just be addicting and fun to watch.

But everytime I watch it, I just think “Who the fuck cares?”.

I understand if you need a certain wadrobe for work you can’t be wearing tube socks and bra straps on your neck, but for everything else – why does it matter? If you want to wear something because you feel comfortable and are happy and feel good wearing it, who has the right to tell you that you can’t wear it? I don’t care if it is fashionable or not. I don’t care if it fits right or not. Not to mention that some people have their own style. Just because it isn’t the “right” style doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The one girl that was on wore all gothy clothes (which I used to be a big fan of two years ago), and she got trashed. Some people may “hide” behidn their clothes, but many people just like the style. They like it and it’s their choice. Isn’t fashion an individual thing?

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE clothes, and I love shopping. I love finding outfits that I just want to make a “BAM” sound effect when I see myself in the mirror. But I don’t see what the big deal is. Not every person is a clothing/shopping freak like I am. I for the most part I ususally think the people on the show do actually look better and seem to feel much better about themsevles. Maybe some people don’t want to look better though. Maybe they just don’t give a fugg about it (Arguably those people would not accept being on the show then…). But some people just don’t care what other people think of them. And I would venture to say many of them aren’t using that as a “front”, they really don’t value their worth based on other people’s perceptions.

Why do clothes have to be flattering? Why do clothes have to be slimming? How the hell do clothes represent who you are a person? THEY’RE CLOTHES! Swatches of fabric! They might reflect your taste in clothing, but that really isn’t a great way to judge a person. One of the reasons I like clothes that I’ve made myself (okay, one skirt with kitties all over it when I was in 7th grade that my grandma pretty much made but made it seem like I did lol) is because I’m proud of the work I put into making them. That skirt was mine, no one else’s. I designed it and everything. It was me. Why does someone feel the need to judge my clothing? Don’t they have their own clothing to worry about? (not in the sense that it is bad and need to worry about, just like that they have their business to deal with, and should bother with mine.)

I know I do judge based on clothing appearance at time, I wish I didn’t, but I do. I see someone and think “WHAT ARE THEY WEARING??”. It’s not like I really care that much, I just immediatly think that. At the same time I do understand that it’s just clothing. Nowaday I am a lot better with this, because, again, I just don’t care. It’s cool that you have your own style.

It seems like they are projecting clothing as a fantasy. Once you get this brand new wadrobe, your whole life will change! I mean, that IS what they do at the end of the episode.

What I do like about the show is that they look for clothes that fit now. They emphasize to buy clothes that fit NOW, not clothes that fit ten years ago, or clothes that will fit once you lose 15 pounds. (I get sick of them congratulating people who lost weight.. but maybe that’s just me). And that it is never the person’s fault, but the clothes fault if something doesn’t fit.

I do like the hosts of the show… It seems like Clinton and Stacey do want the best for the people they are making over. I don’t really know how to describe it, but I just like them.

Oh, but how I hate my love/hate relationship with that show lol..

(just to let out my nervousness: Ahhh!! It’s my first day at work on my own now that I am done with training!!! I am feeling a little lot scared…but do have this odd feeling that I might be able to handle it… might… ughh I just want it to be over with…)

(omg, a post that isn’t about hair or computers! lol… and I am still working on the book post, I’m almost finished with the pictures and then I can post)

So, the other night I was watching TV (meaning staying up until 2 in the morning because I become nocturnal during the summer :3) and was just looking at all the crap that was on TV. I saw that this show called “The Secret Lives of Women” was on WE (WE is one of the free preview channels we are getting this month). I had seen commercials for this show before, and I thought “hey, why not watch this”. I actually really had wanted to see this show for awhile, because the commercials were so damn cool- where the woman looks all like a woman “should” and then she turns around and has all these kickass tattoos. Plus, the subtext for the show was “Don’t judge a woman by her cover”. It just seemed cool. So, I put it on. 

And to my surprise, the title of this episode is called “Size Matters: Tall, Small, Extra Large “. I was like “sweet, some fat aceptance at 1 in the morning!”. So I was all pumped to watch the episode.

And, lo and behold, by the end of the episode, I was not pumped.

The fat girls shown were the last of the three women to have their air time, so I watched through the other two women, and I was interested in their stories too. But once I watched the “extra-large” women, I was just disappointed. Maybe that’s the wrong word. I felt more torn over the whole thing. Firstly, the women were presented as fat, not because of genetics, but because it was their fault. The first two women were not blamed for being small or tall. They just were, and their focus was on how they dealt with it. But when the extra large women were on, they couldn’t just be fat. They were fat because they loved to eat or some other fat stereotype. (atleast the way the show made it seem)

And I am SOOO sick of being saying “I want to lose weight for my health”. I heard that a few times during the episode. They showed them saying things like “I want to watch what I eat”, “I want to lose weight for me health”, etc. Why did any of that have to be brought up? They didn’t ask the tall girl what she does for her health. Look, people should try and be healthy. I’m not saying “don’t be healthy”. But it seems like another example of how a fat girl is only acceptable if she is trying to change, i.e. lose weight.

On the flip side, I thought what these women are doing is great. I remember a little while ago there was some posts on the fatosphere about a club for plus size women. I don’t know if this club these women started, named Club Bounce, was that club or not. I do think they really do want to help fat women feel better about themselves. From watching the show I could tell that. It was also nice to see fat women being the way fat women should be- out enjoying life and such. The one scene they show them at a massage type place, and that just resonated with me because my dad bought my mom certificates to go to get a massage, but she never went because she isn’t happy with her body.

OMG that one woman’s mother… I would kill myself if my mom thought about food that way.. Or said crap like that to me or thought about me that way… jeez.. I would never be able to stand her. I hate to insult someone’s mother who I don’t even know, but.. ugh..

I dunno. I watched the show maybe a week ago, so the episode is not as fresh in my head as I would like it to be for making this post, but I have been thinking about it for awhile.

This was the tidbit about the episode from the site linked above:

Lisa Marie was the “fat girl” growing up. She struggled with her weight, loathed her body, and watched her self-esteem plummet with each pound she put on. Although she had the support and love of her family, she felt that society turned their back on overweight people. Then she found a BBW website! BBW stands for Big Beautiful Women and BBW’s all over the world are making their presence known online and in person. When Lisa Marie found a BBW chat room in her area, her whole world changed

I really wanted to like this episode, but I found it hard too. It just seemed as though the fat girls segment was handled differently, and I didn’t like that. Maybe I am way off the mark with this, but that’s how I felt.

The episode is being shown again on Tuesday, June 24 at 11pm… Maybe I’ll watch it again and see how I feel about it. Or if anyone else wants to watch it and say how they feel about it. I hadn’t really seen any posts about this on the fatosphere, so I don’t know anyone else’s reaction. I do find the show interesting atleast.

After surfing on the show’s site for awhile I came across a page for blogs of people who were on the show, and they had both of the “extra-large” women on it. Soo I went ahead and read them.

From Cher’s Blog:

I also take myself out to lunch each week and have sushi which my favorite! Sometimes I go with friends but mostly I just go by myself. I have learned that enjoying “self “ is important. I also love shopping, getting my nails and hair done, and getting a full body massage – the icing on the cake. Oh, and yes, I love cake too!

…I am not the so-called average body type. All my life I have been overweight and I am now using my physical difference as a form of empowerment and as a tool to help others. I try to show the world that size is just a number. It is what’s inside that counts and matters. Be the person you are and shine.

…My family is a different story. My parents bribed me to lose weight. They were constantly telling me not to eat things and seemed a bit embarrassed by my weight, especially my mom. My parents monitored my food, we never had sweets in the house and I love them for that. For the most part they were great parents, full of love and support… Now, after all this time, my mom has finally accepted me for who I am, but I know she still wants me to lose weight for health reasons.

…I live my life striving to be a good person, I care about the feelings of others and when I see other people happy and successful, it is wonderful. I wish the world would stop being so judgmental. People should focus on their own lives and be the best that they can be. It can start a chain reaction – one person at a time, spreading the happiness of self. I can only hope the world can feel the love that there is to share

From Lisa Marie’s Blog:

 have been an “extra large” woman for most of my life. I was not OK with that for 30 years of my 39 years of life. I feel very sad that I wasted so much time not liking myself. I feel differently now. I embrace my size no matter what that number might be. It’s been a long journey and I know there is a lot more to learn, but I am so happy with who I have become because of my struggles in life – weight related or not.

…I know there are people who look down on me because of my size, but that is their problem, not mine.

…When I was asked to do this show on being a plus-size woman and to talk about what my life has been like, at first I did not want to do it. I am a very private person, even though I have a public image in the “plus-size community”. Although I own a night club (Club Bounce) that caters to plus-size people, I still do keep a very private life and keep my emotions, family and close friends to myself. But as I thought about it, I knew it was important to do this – not for myself but for the hundreds of thousands of plus-size people out there who do not feel good about themselves because of their size. They may feel like second class citizens, not good enough to have friends or a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or even feel they are not good enough to be out in public. It’s for those people that I did this show. We filmed for about 3 days and I have no idea what will be on air or not, I hope that the show is positive and that it will help the world be more accepting of people of all shapes and sizes.

…My hope is that I will touch the lives of people who are large, plus-size, BBW and BHM. It’s OK to be who you are – you’re a wonderful person deserving of love no matter what size you are. There is a life out there to live! Live it! Be happy! If you want to try to lose weight that’s ok too! But DO NOT stop living your life in the meantime

So after reading these blogs, I get that whole torn feeling again. Because I totally agree with what these women are saying. I think what they are trying to do is great. But the whole “lose weight for your health” things needs to just die. Look, if you are eating what your body wants you to eat, and doing activities that make you feel great, moving and using your body- that’s healthy to me. Just being fat doesn’t negate that.

So, again, I feel torn on this episode and the way things were presented. I’m not sure what else to say…

Firstly, I have emailed the password to those who did what I asked. So you should get it soon. If you didn’t get it, I’m sorry. If you didn’t comment this blog before that post, I’m sorry, I just don’t want to take any chances. It’s nothing personal. So again, I’m sorry, I don’t like to not allow people to read my posts, but that’s just how its gonna be for a little.

Anywho.

On to more pressing matters.

I want know: Does anyone here like House? I need to spazz about the latest episodes (I currently have no one to spazz about it with, sadly. I have Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty spazzers, but nobody to spazz about House with me). I just want to know, if there are a few of you out there, I’ll make a post about it.

And is anyone a Stephenie Meyer fan? Agian, I need some spazzing time, but I’m not going to ramble on without somebody who likes it (well, I might anyway, who knows). (I should warn you, there will be spazzing when Breaking Dawn comes out, when the Twilight movie comes out, etc.). I need to spazz about The Host too. Furr realzzz. And OMG, I didn’t get the book it came out! I must be such a horrible fan.

Is anyone an Ugly Betty fan? Can I say that I LURVE Betty and Gio! They are so cute! HAHAHAH down with Henry XD! lol. I used to like him, but now I am totally in the Gio ‘n Betty boat. Go Gio!

Oh yeah, TEH HAIR!

It’s not really all that different. I have to say that the lighting on these pictures does suck, so the color shows up more and is brighter in real life. I’m really happy with it, and I think I’ll stick with it for awhile. (I’m going to have it up in an updo thingie for prom, so the color won’t be like OMG BLONDE! or anything lol. It’s still mostly brown)

Sorry for not having any Prom dress pictures up, I am just waiting until Prom so that it will be a surprise lol. So nothing till next Friday.

ZOMG! 2 more days till New York City! wooo!

(this is a kinda random post lol)

People in High School are assholes.

I’ve got some great friends and by your senior year you don’t really what people think of you anymore anyway, since you going to be g-o-n-e gone so very soon.

I dunno… Looking back on my high school years, they weren’t great. They weren’t horrible, but they weren’t great. I have great friends who make it berable. And since this blog is mostly about fat and such, I can say throughout highschool my body image has sucked.

In 9th grade it really wasn’t an issue. Surprisingly, it never bothered me all that much (not going to say at all). In Middle School I just remember wishing I looked like the popular girls, but I never cared that much. And honestly, I think what changed all of this were two things 1- Cable TV and 2- First Boyfriend.

I had plain old like 10 station TV all the way up until I got to high school. I really think that made a big impact on me. I never watched MTV growing up, and was never brainwashed with TV ads because I didn’t watch that much TV, as there was never much on the 10 channels we had anyway. Now I pretty much live on the History Channel, and I need Nickelodeon for Avatar lol.

And the second one- the boyfriend. I really don’t know how to feel about that “relationship”.. Ugh, I just can’t believe how stupid I was! It’s like you are brainwashed from the start that you must have a boyfriend to be complete. I always thought there was something wrong with me because I didn’t have one. Not once did I ever think “do couples in high school ever work out?”. No, I didn’t. Which is so dumb. High School is when you are growing up, you don’t need a “relationship” to make you even more stressed out, you have other things to worry about. I just can’t believe how much I bought into that, and it seems so stupid when i look back on it now.

I just remember what one girl said when I was visiting Cedar Crest College. I was sitting in on an English class and they were discussing a book and she said “My parents raised me to be a complete person, that I don’t need to have a man in my life to make me complete” (okay, it was something like that, I can’t really remember)… That thought has just stuck with me. I am a complete person on my own. “Finding your other half” is such a bunch of bull, you are already two halfs of a whole. I’m not agianst relationships, just how girls are led to believe that without a guy they aren’t worth shit. Who wants to be the old maid? She’s just a fulgy worthless maleless idiot. That kinda thing. Maybe I’m reading into everything too much, I dunno.

So anyway.. Yep. I really grew and learned so much more about myself after I broke up with my boyfriend. When you don’t have to worry about another person, you can concentrate on what you want and what makes you happy. You know “You can’t love someone else until you love yourself” kinda thing.

I should do a post on my boyfriend experience. I don’t remember if I ever did. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but never the whole story.

Anyway, bottom line is that High School is crap. People who say High School is the best time of their life are seriously missing out or are just crazy (no offense for anyone that thinks it was).

And people who spew hateful comments are assholes. Fuck them. They’ll get what’s coming to them. If you believe in yourself nothing can stop you. You realize they just don’t matter. They are the ones with a problem, not you.

Ugh.. they just make me sick thinking about them. Not to mention how I feel sick seeing how brainwashed girls around me are about their bodies. It’s fucking awful and it needs to change.

Everything just appears so different to you when you’re on the outside looking in.

Thank god there are only 30 some days left.

Some days I just want to shout out to the people in school that “I know I’m fat, I know you think I’m fugly because of it, but I don’t GIVE A FUCK! woo! I’m going to college anyway assholes! Kiss my giant beautiful ass! “

(I really seem like a mad person now.. lol)

…. except that i have a research paper due.. and two speeches…. AH!

Quick, put this picture on all your phones and send it to everyone so I can be the laughing stock of everything and blahblahblah… (okay, please don’t actually…lol)

anyway, I posted this on deviantart and after the encouraging comments, I figured I’d post it here too, because I know ya’ll get sick of seeing scantily clad, airbrushed, thin girls- here’s a chubby one for you lol. Because I am obviously such a ’skank’ /sarcasm/.

look, strech marks! They exist! AND OMG THE ROLLS!! **HORROR GASP!**

And about the ’slut’ thing, I’ve decided I don’t even care anymore. If a girl wants to do something, whatever. I may not agree with it, but it’s her life. I may make a stupid comment among friends, but deep down I don’t give two shits what you do.

I’m going to start calling men sluts too… They can sleep around and do whatever they want, but do we have any stupid name (skank, slut, bitch, whore) for them? um…. NO. While I may personally believe I’d rather wait to have sex (though I am a fattie so no one wants to sleep with me anyway so I don’t know why I bother to even fathom it), if other people want to do it, fine. Their life, not mine.

Okay, I feel weird talking about this now lol, so I’ll stop.

And another thing. I HATE when people say “you are what real women look like”… WTF? Look, I get real women arn’t airbrushed. You can say that, that is true. But you know what? Thin women are real women too. And when someone says “you are a real women”, well, wtf does that make thin women? Are they reject aliens sent to our earth to destroy us all? NO! They are real too, and they have crap days about their body all the time too. We are all ‘real’ women. We are all ‘real’. The images of women are not ‘real women’, because they are PICTURES. The women in the pictures, they are real- but the pictures that come out of those photoshots and glamourous makeup sessions and airbrushing- they are as real as my newspaper. (well, to be technical, that is ‘real’ too…)… Okay, everything is ‘real’ except all of our stupid fantasies we try to aspire too. Why can’t we just accept things?

Okay, I am going way off topic- but I have another thought. One thing I hate about this country is the “American Dream”… I spent a whole year talking about it last year in American Studies. After thinking about it now, our dream is fucked up. I mean, I’m all for having hope to succeed and do better and better ourselves, don’t get me wrong. But when I think about it, why can’t we be happy with what we have? What if all someone wants to do is be a janitor, or whatever? Just because they aren’t the president of a company doesn’t make them a bad or lazy person.

Plus, with our beliefs in the American Dream, it makes dieting work. Because “we can do anything we want”- that includes losing weight. And if we don’t lose it? Well, we aren’t trying enough to reach our dream! Or maybe you don’t believe in the dream, which makes you a bad or stupid person who is ignorant of the truth.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the “American Dream”.. I don’t know… but it gets on my nerves the more I think about it.

And another thing! I was watching Scrubs last night, and in the second episode (i think) first season, where J.D.’s patient is a smoker. Dr. Cox says

Dr. Cox: You were gonna, what, rescue me from loneliness with a $3 six-pack of light beer? It turns out we can’t save people from themselves, newbie. We just treat ‘em. We’re gonna treat that kid with a respiratory problem, and when he comes back with cancer, go ahead and treat that too.
J.D.: Well, thanks for the pick-me-up.
Dr. Cox: Hey. Smokers, drinkers, druggies, fatties, whatever. All I’m saying is, if you keep living and dying on whether or not a person changes, well…you’re not gonna make it as a doctor, that’s all. Now come here and give me a hug. It’s okay, come here. Come here. Get outta here! And take this piss water with you. It’s embarrassing to have it here.

I love Scrubs. LOVE. But everytime I hear this quote I cringe. I mean, honestly, when you think about it, he is wrong. There is a difference between “smokers, drinkers, druggies, fatties” and that is that you need food to live. The other 3? You don’t need them to survive (maybe some people think they do)… but you can survive without them. You can’t survive without food. It’s also implying that it’s the fat person’s fault because of their habits…. I dunno, that quote just has always bothered me.

One more thing. I was watching “The Human Body: Pushing the Limits” on the Discovery Channel, and it said that when the body is in a half-starved state, it slows the aging process and makes the brain think better or something… Is this seriously true? Because it goes against a lot of things that I thought before that actually made sense. It showed one guy who makes his body think it is starving but still giving it nutrients or something. And he supposedly looks younger and is more active and thinks better and whatnot… I’m just wondering if you guys know anything about this/what you think/if you say the show too…

Okay, so I went from talking about being a skank, to my thoughts on people’s sex life, to the whole “real woman” thing, to the American Dream, to Scrubs, to The Human Body…. so, a very very very scambled post, which I probably should’ve done in seperate posts, but I didn’t.

If you manage to read through, congrats!

Okay, I just have to say that I LOVE this show!

Some people might not like it or think it is boring/whatever, but I absolutely love it! It is such an uplifting show. I am actually putting our new DVD recorder to use and I am recording the episodes each Friday so that I’ll have my secret stash of self esteem booster. Seriously, if you are feeling crap about your body, just watch this. There is no mention of diets, surgery, nothing. It’s all about loving the body you are in, which i am all for.

It seems like they are doing all different kinds of body types as well, not just having one identical looking person with the same body type everytime- it seems there will be some variety. So no matter what your body shape is, hopefully in a future episode there will be someone like it.

I also like the fact that they don’t mention “zomg you are so unhealthyyyy but love yourself anyway” kinda thing… This show is about loving your body inside and out. It doesn’t judge you based on that. It doesn’t assume you are unhealthy and doesn’t nag to you about it. Plus the fact that the show is very tasteful and well done.

I would love to go on the show but I think I love my body enough as it is and I already think I do look good naked. But when I am having a bad day, this is what I plan to dig out. When the show first premired I was having a bad two weeks, then I saw that and I just felt a million times better. I hate to say but I made me cry because I felt so happy for Layla. I hope lots of women and girls watch this show, it has some great messages. Heck, I hope my mom watches it, I wish she would be more accepting of her body. It hurts me to always hear her beating herself up about it and hear how she wants to diet have a lifestyle change. Hearing your mother say those kinds of things doesn’t help with the self esteem.

I can actually remember one time, back when I was in 8th grade (i think.. it might’ve been earlier) and she said that I looked like I lost some weight. To which I replied that I am skipping breakfasts now, and she simply said that was a good thing…. I mean, I really can’t blame my mom. She really doesn’t harp on me that much anymore, because now I just counter anything negative she says with a question or a “diets-don’t-work” rant. She never listens to me though, she still believes that shit that diet companies spew.

My dad doesn’t believe the dieting people at all, he thinks it’s crap (he even comments on those stupid women’s magazines that my mom gets and I can’t-Fucking-Stand!- you know the ones the feature a new diet every fucking week. “You’ll lose 7lbs in a week! Get into that bikini body! Try this new Diet, It really works!”.. ughhh.But anyway, he said that if any of those diets really worked, those people wouldn’t sell any magazines because the method would work and there would be no need for any other diets.)

But, then my dad goes and believe the whole “eat less exercise more” mantra which I am starting to get sick of. “Calories in, calories out” “less more” ughh.. I’m so sick of it! I wish they would someday magically discover Health at Every Size and the Fat acceptance facts.

So anyway… I really got off topic with this post… Oh well.

I did find a bit of good news while looking for quotes from the show:

It’s all in the title: “How To Look Good Naked” drew more young-adult viewers to Lifetime during its Friday primetime premiere Jan. 4 than to any other reality-show kickoff in the network’s 24-year history.
Hosted by Carson Kressley (“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”), “Naked” harvested 868,000 people 18 to 49, which was more than half of the total Lifetime viewership for the half-hour (1.6 million). Lifetime also chalked up 449,000 people 18 to 34, a solid number for a network that’s trying to lower its average age and pull in younger women.

woot!

So yeah, bottom line from me: How to Look Good Naked is an awesome show which I hope never ends. It is going to the top of my feel-good-about-my-body stash, In Case of Emergency lol. So I would definitely recommend the show, even if you only watch once.