Why I Do It

It's complicated.

The how and when of a weight loss journey (*cringe @ journey) are always relatively simple to figure out. 

Diet starts Monday! 

Starting next year, I'm going to do Atkins for 3 months and see what happens. 

Okay, after this pizza, I'm only drinking grapefruit juice for the next week. 

Hows and Whens fly out of our mouths more than we would probably care to admit, while we strangely ignore or are in flat out denial about the most important part of the odyssey (even worse than journey): the WHY. 

Because I respect those of you who read this, and myself, I'm going to be 100 percent honest. The whole diet expedition (getting better, still not there) isn't just about health for me. Yes, I want to be healthy. But I would be bullshitting you if I tried to pretend that's all of it. There's also a small part of me that really wants to be skinny.

I don't know if this is the overwhelming reason that I continue to try diets that I have a track record of failing at, but I do know that deep down in the core of my fat self, there is a part that just wants to look like a woman that people take seriously. I want to sit down with a group of women and not feel as though they might be grateful that there's someone in the group who is less attractive than they are. I want to not hear that slight condescension when women tell me how "cute" my marriage is. 

You see, fat is a burden, but not just one you see on a scale. Fat is an insecurity that you carry within yourself. It most likely is not the case that people think of me the way I just described. But you can't be fat and not consider that it is. 

So yes! I would like to be skinny woman, maybe even more than I would like to be "healthy," whatever the fuck that means. I wrote it. I don't take it back. But believe me when I say it is complicated. Before I explain why in more detail, please know something: I don't want you to contradict what I'm about to write. That's not what I'm looking for. Resist. 

It's complicated because although the appeal of the physical beauty is strong, ultimately, it's about the treatment women receive for having beauty that I would like the most. I am not a beautiful woman, but beauty is not an accomplishment. I AM an accomplished woman. However, one of these things holds far more weight (pun intended, bitches) in our society. It's an irreconcilable fact that more "conventionally attractive" women are treated better than those of us who aren't. The reason being skinny appeals to me is the thought of what more I might have been able to accomplish if I weren't unattractive. I'll give an example...

My senior year of undergrad, I was named the Outstanding Senior Theater Major. I worked extremely hard throughout my theater career in college. I took acting seriously, even though there was never a show on the main stage that someone who looked like me could ever star in. I took the shit roles and ate them up with such veracity that I sometimes even stood out more than the ingenue. I did my homework. I volunteered every minute of my time to improving myself and developing a skill that I deeply loved. At the end of every academic year, all of the Theater Department professors would hold an end of the year interview with each individual student. You'd walk into a conference room and sit at the end of a long table, with all of your professors and the department chair staring directly at you. The first couple years of these were simple, but as you got closer to graduating, the meeting became more important. The last one was meant to be a summation of your work. I knew I had done well. I was proud of myself, and was hoping to have a great conversation with the people who helped me to graduate--maybe some advice about where to go next.

Do you want to guess what they talked to me about? Because it wasn't how to progress my career. When I walked into the room, I could see their faces were drawn downwards, and it was cold. I sat down at the end of the long table and waited.

After a bit of small talk, the conversation they had with me went like this:

Professor: I think one of the problems here is that you seem to think talent is important. Don't get us wrong, you're very talented...but you're heavy. 

Me: Yes, I know what I look like.

Professor: You say that, but I don't think you really understand. You have a pretty face, but you're overweight.  I think directors will have a difficult time knowing what to do with you.

Basically, they were telling me the reality: I'm not beautiful enough to be the leading lady, but I'm also not ugly enough to be the best friend. It was a bit devastating because it felt like they were telling me, "You've been great for our purposes at college, but you don't really have any place in the industry because you're fat." 

So when I say I want to be a skinny woman, it isn't just because I want to be beautiful or sexy (although wearing knee high boots would be awesome) it's because the weight fat women carry isn't just physical. We carry the burden of knowing that how we look doesn't just affect how people see us, it affects how people treat us.

I'm a teacher now. Do my looks affect me as much as they did in college? Probably not. But I still get shit about my weight. My boss offering me diet advice, and female teachers telling me that I ought to lose weight because I would be so beautiful if I did, etc. 

It's not that I care what they think, it's that I care how what "they" think affects what I can or can't do.