Don't you want to lose weight??

Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that sentence! I don't say a lot at this blog about it, but I am a big girl. I weigh 200+ pounds. I haven't been less than 200 pounds since the birth of my second child.



As a teenager, my mawmaw and my mama (grandma and mom for non-southerners), spent a great deal of time pressuring me into dieting. I always felt conspicuous, never fitting in with a family of skinnies. Now mind you, my biological family on my birth-father's side are very large people. All of them. Noone weighs under 200 pounds, nor have they ever given it much thought. But that didn't stop my mawmaw and my mama. I could tell you of diets where I ate one piece of toast with half a tablespoon of peanut butter and v-8 juice with wheat germ for breakfast. I could tell you of times that my Mawmaw told me I had to be careful, because fat girls smell worse than skinnies.



About a year ago, I started following a blogger called The Rotund. She was talking about something called Fat Acceptance. I had never thought about fat acceptance before, I just knew I was tired of the yo-yo. I was tired of always putting myself beneath someone else simply because they weighed less than me. After all, in a letter designed to make up with me, my ex-husband said "It doesn't bother me that you are so heavy, I just wish it bothered you more." As though I was just lazy. As though I sat on my ass in front of the couch every day eating ice cream and cooking meals designed to make us all fat. So, when I found this blogger, I was intrigued. I pondered how I felt about my fat. And finally, I decided I would claim it. This is me world, all of me!!



I am healthy, I no longer know exactly what I weigh at any given point. I don't really worry about it. I know that if I go to any number of doctors they will tell me I am morbidly obese, that 200 plus pounds should never fit on my 5 foot 3 inch frame. I listen to people at work obsess over their weight on a daily basis. They have recently started another (yes there is more than one) weight loss competition. I work in corrections, and we are all about the competition at work. I feel the looks of the people that I work with, as they decide what they will or will not eat today. And you know what? Most of the time I don't worry about their thoughts, although with my obsessive thoughts I do think about it more than I want to. What made me think about this today was my friend asking "Can I rub your belly for luck?"



For the record, no you cannot rub my belly for luck!! I am not your personal buddha, and my size 20 jeans are looser than they've been in months. I like it when my wife says I have 'kickin' curves. I love the fact that my babies can pillow their blessed little heads on my soft, droopy boobs and comfort themselves. I love my body for giving me three healthy children. I love my body for being here when I need it. Defensive Tactics rocks, thank you very much!!