Sun, Feb-02-14, 11:20
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Senior Member
Posts: 579
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Plan: Atkins
Stats: 390/231/200
BF:
Progress: 84%
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This quote comes to mind: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Easier said than done. I used to work with a guy who regularly called me Pizza the Hut. There was no wink involved. He was simply letting me know that I'm inferior to him, as is his right. I used t think he was just immeasurably shallow, but now I'm pretty sure he's a sociopath. Anyway his third wife (he's on his 6th now I believe) told me that he threatened to divorce her if she didn't lose ten pounds (6 months after having his baby), then he produced a ten pound bag of potatoes and heaved it at her. Needless to say she was pretty traumatized by the time the marriage was over.
He was a fatist pure and simple. Fat people can't control their calorie balance and are therefore inferior. Racists tend to be circumspect because of societal pressure, but there's no equivalent pressure for fatists. Our society embraces the idea that fat people bring it on themselves through weak/sinful behaviour.
I had internalized all this pretty well by the time I stumbled onto Gary Taubes book*. His arguments were hard for me to accept, I was so eager to blame myself, because, well obviously I'm fat because I'm weak, right? One year later I've lost 90 pounds. I'm not hungry, I don't struggle. All I had to do was stop eating processed foods. I felt kind of stupid once I realized this, like Dorothy when the witch explained all she ever had to do was click her heels together. Well, WTF didn't you tell me this 30 years ago!?!
Fatists, like racists, are just ignorant. They're blessed with DNA that allows them to tolerate industrialized food. But, being outwardly thin doesn't protect them from the ill effects of the poisons they're eating. My co-worker, the fatist with the seemingly perfect body, has now (in his early 60's) survived prostate cancer, micro strokes, and open heart surgery. I know, schadenfreude is totally inappropriate at this point but I never said I was perfect.
*If you haven't read Taubes' book, you have to read his book. Why We Get Fat. His argument puts the onus on society, not the individual. Our supermarkets are flooded with processed food that is making us fat. Our culture nurtures an erroneous understanding of nutrition and obesity that exacerbates the problem. I'm withholding judgment on the veracity of his claims till I reach my goal. By then my body will be the only proof I care about.
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