Bummer

Some sad news: Sarah Watson's blog "Fat Girl on a Bike" is on indefinite hiatus. The story is over at Shapely Prose, but what happened, basically, is this: she got fed up with comments from assholes who saw fit to comment about her weight, health, looks, fuckability, etc. both on her blog and elsewhere. She started her blog to track her progress as she trained for and competed in triathlons. Big deal, right? Except that she had the nerve to do alla that (with photos!) and still be fat. Had she lost weight in the training? Probably. She sure as hell got fit, and inspired a whole lot of us to get off our butts and have fun being as athletic as we wanted without worrying that we were too fat to be seen in public exercising.

And sure, when you post stuff on the internets, you get feedback, and not all of it is nice. But the whole thing got out of hand when she agreed to post a photo of herself, in running clothes -- running, no less!-- in Kate Harding's BMI project (which, check it out). And every creep on the internet descended to mock, or act shocked, or point & laugh, or what have you.

I don't blame her for going offline, but it sure makes me mad.

More fun with duct tape

It's almost Halloween, I gather, so maybe you'll find yourself wearing some kind of sexy electrician costume and you don't want to invest in highly specialized foundation garments just for one outfit, but you might want a little more in the cleavage department. I'm not here to judge you for this, but I did find some highly amusing instructions from the always charming Plumcake over at Manolo for the Big Girl! She says that she learned it from some drag queens in DC back in her modeling days, but her instructions are much funnier (and much more helpful) than the ones I found via my search string log the other day.

Alas, no photos. Not from me, not from Plumcake.

Taking dieting to a new philosophical level

I gave up on diets almost 20 years ago, when I realized that I had -- no lie -- doubled my weight in my 16 years of increasingly crazed dieting. It was the best thing I could have done, and I stopped gaining weight almost immediately. Regaining my sanity took a bit longer.

But as I noted in a previous post, I have gained some weight lately as a consequence of some changes in my pharmaceutical regime. Well-meaning friends have offered dieting advice, but I'm reluctant to try anything radical or crazy beyond trying to eat well and exercise more, which of course I try to do anyway, just because one feels better doing those things. Or at least I do. And in fact, now that my, um, pharmaceutical issues have settled down, I've already lost a few pounds and am feeling much better.

I did, however, get a recommendation I'd like to pass along. The article is a couple of years old, but I somehow missed this book when it came out (finally!) in translation: Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "Fat is Dead" in the late 1880s, but his advice to dieters is surprisingly relevant:

"One must strive to eat dangerously as one comes into the Will to Power Oneself Thin," Nietzsche wrote. "What do you fear? By this are you truly Fattened. You must embrace your Fears, as well as your Fat, and learn to Laugh as you consume them, along with Generous Portions of Simple Salad. Remember, as you stare into the lettuce, the lettuce stares also into you."

The first part of the diet, I gather, is to identify the food(s) that you most deeply dread, and then to eat superhuman quantitities of each until you are no longer appetized nor frightened by them.

According to the article, "Dieters report that they are reveling in the powerful Nietzschean weight-loss message of self-realization, transcendence, and the personal freedom to eat certain foods which are not allowed on the Atkins and South Beach diets." Which, I mean, how cool is that? Naturally, no diet is without its critics.

Detractors say the diet's actual nutritional requirements are vague, that it provides no concrete plan for progression toward weight-loss targets, and that the book consists mostly of unclear and unusually harsh sets of inspirational logical lacunae.

"Those on Nietzsche's diet must remember that, while discipline and mastering one's fear are desirable, the specter of a man striving willfully and joyfully against a frigid universe while drinking deep of 'life's bitter broth' will not precipitate weight loss," nutritionist Dr. Frank Stearns said. "A few more non-allegorical recipes would have been nice, too."

"Stearns said it was worth noting that Nietzsche died depressed, delirious, and overweight in Zurich after 10 years of near-catatonia.

"Those wishing to begin a diet, let alone a highly moralistic pre-Freudian diet, should consult with their physicians," Stearns said. "Otherwise, they run the risk of long-term health problems—not to mention the possibility of their diet being misinterpreted by a rabidly cuisinophobic nationalist sect and used to justify a world takeover by diet Nazis."

Of course, it may already be too late for that last bit.

Sexy? Scary? Whatever. Still not funny.

I first saw this item over at Kate Harding's blog Shapely Prose (which is terrific, btw). Kate also blogs at Shakesville and a couple of other places, and she recently invited two excellent co-bloggers, fillyjonk and sweetmachine, to join her at Shapely Prose. She and her colleagues are writing some excellent critiques of the whole 'obesity epidemic' thing, the weight-loss industry, plus fashion, fitness, and links to accurate health information for fat chicks. And lots of stuff for all of us, whether or not we're fat or female, to think about.

Anyway, Kate was pretty disgusted by this Halloween costume, which was apparently advertised at HalloweenStreet.com, among the usual costume options for adult women: Sexy Nurse, Sexy Demented Housewife, Sexy Brick House (?), Sexy Schoolgirl, etc. ad naus. The name of this costume is "Sexy Anna Rexia," and it comes with a belt and choker that look like tape measures. Hahahaha. I share Kate's disgust. Mental illness is just not funny, especially a devastating one that can cause death.

And I'm not amused by the pairing of sexiness and a debilitating disease that makes a person anything but sexy. I spent way too much time during my teens and early twenties hunched over a toilet bowl puking the rare complete meals I had to eat. Measuring and weighing myself every time I ate, drank, peed, or took a (laxative-enhanced) shit. And when dieting didn't work, I added exercise, eventually up to 5-6 hours a day. Which made me ravenously hungry, and sort of cut into the little time I had for socializing. And despite increasingly desperate efforts, still failed to make me skeletally thin.

But I also agree (to a point) with Carol Lloyd over at salon.com, [you'll have to watch an ad if you're not a subscriber] who said, "Even as Anna Rexia makes my skin crawl like no other Halloween costume ever has, I'm also not terribly comfortable getting worked up about a costume for a holiday that is all about embodying our fears." Which, yeah. The holiday is about dressing up as the things we fear.

So I went over to halloweenstreet.com to see whether the Sexy Anna Rexia costume was available in plus sizes. I would probably not have purchased it, had I found it, but I do in fact fear that obsession, and I still do have to fight with it sometimes.

I couldn't find it in the plus size costumes; nor, in fact anywhere on the site. The links I found all led to something else, and the site search function gave zero results. A lot of feminist bloggers and eating-disorder-recovery bloggers wrote about it, and I guess halloweenstreet.com responded to all the negative feedback they must be getting, and removed it from their site. Maybe you'll find them on eBay or something, after all the fuss is over.

Back on halloweenstreet, though, I was kind of startled by the number of options available in the "sexy" category, at least for women. I know that others have commented on this phenomenon, this increased sexualizing of halloween dress-up options (which does extend to teenage and even little girls' costumes, also kind of alarming in some ways -- I didn't see a lot of that on halloweenstreet, but I've heard parents complaining about it generally).

I do think that it's an interesting answer to the question 'what is it we most fear?' Sexy women? That kind of scares me.

Anyway, the Halloween costume I really want? And have never once worn, even though I already have my very own tiara? Fairy princess ballerina.

Be very afraid.