Sunday, July 30, 2006

The Things I Should Have Said

So, I'm walking around on the Lower East Side with friends the other night. A white stretch limo and a cab are having a fight about someone cutting someone off, or something. A passenger of the limo is leaning out and yelling at the cabbie. He pulls his head in. He leans it out again. He yells, "You're too big!" At me. (I think—theoretically he could have been telling the cab it was too big to fit in the lane. But.)

I say nothing.

A friend, a particularly oblivious one, picks up this thread, rolling it over in her head. Out loud. And I was so embarassed.

It took me until today to wonder why I'm embarassed about that sort of thing. I'm not the one behaving badly. So why am I so ashamed, why do I want to strangle the oblivious friend? Why don't I just turn around and say, "Oblivious Friend, it is quite clear that that comment was directed at me"?

(I don't know why.)

So (this is not a consequential "so"), I'm combing the internet for a trainer who's accustomed to working with fat clients. I don't want someone who's going to get all snotty about the fact that I'm not going to start an I'm-Training-Now diet, but nor do I want someone who's going to get all snotty about the fact that I wouldn't mind dropping a dress size or that I'd like to tone my upper arms. I may have found someone who fits the first criterion—we'll have to see about the second.

So.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This comment is not particularly directed at this post. I just wanted to encourage you to keep posting because I really relate to your posts more than any other of the fat-related blogs I've seen. We seem to have some similarities, and I especially appreciate that you're not afraid of looking at fat through a political and sociological lens, which may turn some people off. I myself recently spent a month (and a shitload of money) at an inpatient treatment center for my binge eating disorder, although it sounds as if your experience was more positive than mine was. One year later and I have gained back the weight I lost there as well as an extra twenty pounds, and I don't feel like I learned anything concrete to help me with my problem--at least not anything that I hadn't already known/read before I entered the program. But at the same time as I am desperate to stop the binge eating and other disordered eating habits I have, I am also being exposed to fat acceptance and activism for the first time, and it all really resonates with me. Right now I'm just struggling with the desire to stop the binging (which for me always has those undertones of yearning for weight loss) at the same time as I am feeling more than ever that I am "rocking my fat," as you once said. I guess I just get the feeling that you can relate to that ambivalence, and I really hope to hear more from you.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm a pretty new reader here, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents. What the guy and the Oblivious Friend did SUCK. I was on my way to an internship a few weeks ago with an organization I really wanted to work with. At the airport, I asked an official for directions to the information office.
"How far is it?" I ask happily, with a smile on my face.
"Well, that depends on how fit you are. It would take me two minutes, it might take you four."
I might add that I'm 26 years old and he was at least pushing 60.
What an asshole! Who walks up to a complete stranger and says that kind of thing?
I had a great time on my internship, apart from the time I was drinking MILK and a random idiot walks up to me at the bus stop and says, "Hey you're gaining WEIGHT."
Hardy har har.
I'm also just a skinny girl waiting to bust out.
But why are people still overweight?
I really, really wish I knew the answer.

Anonymous said...

The majority of people I have helped over the years were interested in losing extra weight. I am experienced enough to know that "you have to do this my way" is not the best approach. However, there are cases when it is impossible to accommodate a certain request. For example, and I don’t know if you thought that literally, but toning upper arms is not really possible. Spot reduction or targeted toning is a persistent myth.

Jennette Fulda said...

iFitandHealthy - Why do you say targeted toning isn't possible? I know you can't target where you lose fat, but if you start lifting weights with your arms regularly, your arm muscles are going to get bigger and thus toned. If you've got lots of fat there it might be harder to see, but it will still be there.