I'm a fat girl. I have been for a while now. It's not that I haven't tried losing weight because I have. I have been on just about every diet there is and they all work for about a minute. Then, reality sets in and the weight comes back like a freight train you never saw coming. And usually, it comes back with an extra twenty or thirty pounds.
I've been teased and verbally assaulted for twenty-five years because of my weight by people I loved and people I didn't even know. My youth was a minefield of insults thanks to both my weight and the fact that my last name is Goodyear - it's too bad kids can't get more creative than "hey Goodyear blimp". I've been stared at with looks of disgust when I'm at restaurants even if I order what a thin person might consider a "normal" meal. I've heard the whispers and the laughter, and I've had lewd comments shouted at me as I walked down the street. Surprisingly, fat people are neither deaf or immune to mockery and hatred.
I've also been told that I need to suck it up and eat less, to just buckle down and take care of business, like it's that easy. If it were that easy, wouldn't the other hundred million people in the country that are obese not be fat, too? If it were that easy, why would there even be surgical procedures to help fat people eat less?
I can't speak for the 1/3 of this country that is fat, but I can speak for myself. It isn't for lack of trying that I am fat. It isn't because I have no self-control or will power. It doesn't make me weak to be fat and frankly, I hate to look at myself as much as you probably hate looking at me, too. I'm sure some of my emotional baggage has contributed to my weight, but honestly I love food. I was raised in an environment where food was a part of some of the best memories of my life, and I don't regret a single pound I have gained because of those experiences.
I'm a fat girl, but I'm also a person. I have feelings and issues just like everyone else. I'm not necessarily a food hoarder because of my issues, but they haven't helped the situation. I am, however, a food addict. I love the taste of food and everything about it. In fact, I tend to be a bit obsessed with food because it makes me way happier than any person ever has. The problem with being a food addict versus a drug addict or an alcoholic is that my drug of choice is also a necessity for survival. I can't just not eat or quit eating cold turkey and restricting my eating through a diet doesn't work.
So, here I am. No one has the answers and no one can do this for me. I'm not having a surgery or taking a pill or trying to find a short cut anymore. I didn't gain all this weight overnight and I'm not going to lose it overnight. While that fact depresses me and makes me want to eat a big honking piece of chocolate cake, I am learning to accept reality. I am a fat girl, but I don't have to be a fat girl forever. One pound at a time, one meal at a time, one day at a time. This is how I will learn to live. Food is not life; it is sustenance.
Look out, y'all, here I come.