NO FAT CHICKS!

Can you believe it?? Fat chicks are on the loose and in your neighborhood!! Lock your doors and cover your windows! And whatever you do... DO NOT look directly at a fat chick, you will spontaneously combust!!!  

Sounds silly, right? However, the “No Fat Chicks” mindset is still acceptable in 21st century America. I mean, they even have t-shirts that say this!  When every other minority group seems to be out of bounds to poke fun at, fat people... wait..wait... let me amend that... fat WOMEN are still being made fun of in most movies, tv shows, songs and most definitely on social media. Men who are heavy are just big guys, but women who are overweight are the butt (excuse the pun) of jokes and nasty comments. 

We have come to a point in our evolution of consciousness that we understand that it is no longer acceptable to make fun of other races, religions, sexes, sexual preferences, abilities and disabilities, but somehow we’ve passed by heavy women when doling out understanding. 

We still feel it is ok to represent big girls in the media as if they should apologize for themselves. How could they leave the house looking like THAT?! We are told to hide our bodies in every way we can and god forbid, don’t think you look good, cuz if you do and emit any kind of positive self confidence despite your size, someone will sense that self confidence like a shark senses fear and will immediately go for the jugular and cut you down to size. A smaller size. Their size. 

I know I used to feel this vibe when I was a bigger girl weighing 150 lbs by the time I was in middle school, 180 in high school, about 200 in college and it just went up from there till I was 300 lbs. after I gave birth to my second daughter. Check out how I lost 125 lbs. here.  So, needless to say I had plenty of opportunities to feel that vibe. 

I was the Burger King drive thru girl for my first real job at 15, boys would come to the window quite often flirting with me as I took their money and handed them their food.  It was great for my self esteem!  Until they’d come inside, see me from the waist down and turn around and walk right back out. Not to mention the boys who considered me undateable because of my size in high school.  The first real boyfriend I had told me I’d have to lose weight if was going to marry me. Funny thing is his wife is heavier than I was and he has a daughter who is a big girl. Karma, it is a bitch! 

 I remember once I was in a clothing store in a mall with my boyfriend who would soon become my husband, looking around browsing when a tiny, size -3 sales girl  came up to me and said, “Ummm... we don’t have YOUR size here!” And then another time I was walking down the street and someone yelled, “Fatso!” out a window at me. Oh I could go on and on this is so much fun reminiscing! My point is, I have many stories to tell.  As does any person who has been heavy for any length of time. Why? Because fat-ism is alive and well in America.

We see being overweight as wearing your weakness on your sleeve for everyone to see. And because all of us have weaknesses our ego is very quick to judge and point out the weaknesses in others so we don’t really have to deal with our own shortcomings. Besides, we like to judge. We’re built to judge when we live from our ego, from that place of ‘us and them’...of separateness.

So, it’s easy to see the speck in your brother’s eye or the extra weight on your sister’s ass and not see the log in your own eye or your own weakness and shortcoming... or your own muffin top.  

And yes being overweight is a weakness. It is a sign that something is out of whack.  But not always. Because maybe that large person you are judging for eating that ice cream cone has been working hard to change their habits and is treating themselves for the first time in months. Or that girl who is wearing a skirt that might be a bit too small maybe is pumped up because she has been busting butt at the gym and she FEELS like she looks wonderful!  What business is it of yours? 

Some people are heavier and very fit! Skinny does not equal fit and healthy, just as overweight does not equal lazy and out of shape.  

Yoga Journal came under fire recently for featuring a story entitled “Loving Your Curves.” Yet, the whole article was filled with tips on how to HIDE your curves in yoga clothes! What?? With questions like, “How do I hide my butt dimples?”or "How do I deal with my thicker thighs in my yoga clothes?” the article was insulting.  How is that about loving your curves?? Not to mention that the article followed a photo spread with Alex Baldwin’s yoga teaching wife doing yoga poses in 4 inch heels! Nice! Talk about a mixed message!

Another mixed message is how the culture says it values health and fitness, but there is a McDs on every street corner. We are bombarded and enticed constantly by advertising.  Foods are being created that are designed to make people eat till they bust, but we judge people for doing so.  Want a healthy lunch? Be prepared to shell out $10 at least, but you can get a burger, fries and a drink for less than $5. It’s insanity really!

But, this is par for the course and brings me to my final point: Fat people are everywhere!  Most people have heavy people in their lives that they love. Maybe it’s their mama, or their favorite auntie or sister. But, the thing is most people love someone of size. We see them as the people they are... people like us with shortcomings, yes, but with value and gifts to give. So, why is that so hard to see those things when we look at strangers? 

I remember when I was teaching and a student told me I was fat.  I asked them if I would be a better teacher if I was skinnier or if I were bigger?   Would I be a better hugger or more loving? Would they love me more?  No, no, no. None of those things would change with my size.  They would still love me the same.  

People who carry extra pounds have feelings just like you do.  Sometimes people see those extra pounds and feel like that extra padding makes the person impervious to the ugly words or stares some people make in their haste to judge and make themselves feel superior and therefore better in their own imperfection.

Can’t we all agree it’s time to give big girls a break and stop the No Fat Chicks brigade? 

If we all wore our issues on the outside and weren’t able to hide them as many of us do, maybe we’d find more understanding for those who don’t have that luxury.  We need to see that it is our imperfections that bind us all together.  

When we look at others, how different would our hearts feel if we saw them as people just like us, trying the best they can, bringing the gifts they have, living their lives, seeking love like we all do.  

It’s simple really. Remember the Golden Rule we all learned as children? When we live from that place of treating other people the way we want to be treated, we can see ourselves in each other more easily. And then understanding can flow. Only good can come of that, for sure and truly things can be golden!

Part 4 Of My Weightloss Story- Enter The Pain Body

I’m Baaaaccckkkkk!!!!! ;)  My family has passed the flu around for a few weeks and I began choreographing a musical! Go figure! All that and trying to start home schooling back up again has had me with no time to do the fun stuff- write!  But glorious Sunday mornings... the kids were playing, the hubby still sleeping and I had a few moments to myself to continue the saga.

I know some of you may be eager for some formula that I used to lose my weight.  It didn’t work that way for me. Because my out of control eating was of an emotional nature, I believe it wasn’t  until I got my emotional ‘house’ in order that I began to make real and lasting progress. We all know how to lose weight. So, please bear with me as I tell the story.   

When we left off, I had become frustrated with the track I was on. I was meditating every day, reading many books, praying for guidance, and I was making real progress in my inner work.  I was beginning to understand myself and how I was allowing my past to shadow my future. I knew I didn’t want that. I wanted to let that hurt little girl go...but she kept showing up over and over again. Why?

  Without jumping totally onto the spirituality track, I have come to realize our true selves are never apart from God. Because we are having a human experience, we have a brain and with that a mind. This mind creates your ego/identity and with that a false reality that makes you feel separate from God. You feel all ‘alone’ in the world and apart from everyone, instead of a part of everyone. This is ‘reality’. 

Enter, the “pain body” which is a term Eckhart Tolle uses to describe the accumulation of all our past pains. Without going into great detail (if you want that, please read "A New Earth" and "The Power of Now" by Tolle), every time we experience pain or disappointment our pain body, or all the emotional baggage from the past, will rear its ugly head and get us to identify with IT, not with the way things really are. 

The pain body doesn’t want you to recognize your constant connection to God, because then you would not identify with IT anymore and it would cease to be needed.   So, instead you say, “That is me. I am a victim. My pain is my story.  It is what I am about. Without it, who am I?”  So, your pain body continues to survive on your recycled pain. Any kind of discomfort, anger, emotional drama, etc. will  keep you focused on that pain.  Once again, you become the victim and relinquish control for how you feel to the pain body. You get into the mode of “I can’t help the way I feel!  Just look at all I have to deal with!”  

Your thinking begins to revolve around all the things that make you unhappy. You forget to be grateful for the good in your life, because the bad has now been coddled, magnified and dramatized.  It is also a comfortable feeling.  Kurt Cobain wrote, “I miss the comfort in being sad.”  You have lived most of your life in this state and it feels right.  You may even feel uneasy if things get too good in your life and create drama just so you can feel that comfortable feeling again.  It’s another sick cycle.

So, you get out the china cups and sit and have a nice little tea party with Mr. Pity. He is invited often, but will show up uninvited regularly to make sure you don’t forget that you are a victim and feel helplessly controlled by your feelings. Mr. Pity and your Pain Body are great friends! They have a common goal. As long as they are in control, they run the show. Kind of like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz. Except we want to to pay attention to the ‘man behind the curtain,’ because once we do, we can begin our journey back home, where you once more recognize your constant connection to God. It never ceases to be. We only think it does because we are too busy getting caught up in ‘our story’ written by our pain.  This also causes our bodies to stay in a constant stressed out state. We are always either fuming about yesterday, worried about tomorrow, afraid of what might happen, nervous, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but we seldom find a place of peace and gratitude that causes that chatter of our minds to stop, long enough to actually feel that connection.  It’s not coincidence that the word disease = dis ease. The physical and the spiritual are ultimately interwoven.

As you begin to see the pain body for what it is,  you begin to see the false reality you have constructed.  The ‘watcher’ is a term long used by meditators to describe the phenomenon of standing outside yourself 'watching' yourself as if detached from the situation, like a bystander.  It is the way to dis-identify with your ego and your pain body and see that they are not your true self.  

As I meditated more, I learned how to watch myself and when I would have a meltdown, I began to see things in a different light. So many times I would act in a way contrary to what I said I believed.  As I watched myself, many times I didn't like the way I acted and wanted to change.  But why was it so hard to make any lasting or permanent change?  In addition to improving my relationship with myself and others, I also knew if I was going to get my emotional eating under control, I needed to get my emotions under control first! 

And here is where a huge “Aha! Moment” came for me. I began to see the difference between how I acted and who I truly was deep down inside.  As I watched myself when I had a meltdown, I could see it was me there having the meltdown, but then there is me here watching... who is whom? Who is really me??? The one having the fit or the one doing the watching because I couldn't have the fit and watch it at the same time.  I could 'see' my pain body in action, drawing on every painful experience I had in the moment, to feed itself and grow stronger. You know kind of like when you and your significant other get into a fight and you suddenly remember every instance of disappointment and have no problem recalling each one in great detail, like “back in 1998, I asked you if I looked fat in my jeans and you never even answered me! You think I’m fat!”

I could go from zero to an insecure mess with one comment... Heck, one look.

This was the 'me' I thought I was.  But it is not the real me. I began to see that I was acting in a way that was contrary to my actual nature. My nature was good. My nature was Godly. So why was it so easy for me to act so ungodly??   We come from God right?  If you believe the creation story, even metaphorically, we come from God and the Earth.   How can we be anything other than that of which we are made.  

I think I will end this here for now. It’s getting a little lengthy. 

More tomorrow. Promise. :)

Part 3 Of My Weight Loss Journey or 'Party Time Italian Style'

This is part three in a series about my weight loss journey. If you have not read parts one and two, I encourage you to do so. 

I began meditating in 2006 and enjoyed all that I was learning about myself.  I remember when I began thinking that self introspection was important I would ask my mom about things from my childhood. We would talk about things she or my dad had said to me and how that affected me even now some 30 years later.  My poor parents. They didn't like that so much.  Nor would any parent I suppose, but as I explained to my mother, I am not trying to make you feel bad. I just want to know WHY I am the way I am and I can only do that by examining the past.

 
Don't get me wrong here. My parents were and are still to this day wonderful and a hugely positive influence in my life. They are both genuine, giving and couldn't love their kids any more if they wanted to! They did make mistakes, however, not intentional mistakes; nor were they even aware that what they were saying or doing would have ill effects. I truly believe they did the best they could and honestly thought that they were helping, as did the grandfather I talked about in part 2.  

My mother, who was naturally thin, was the doting Italian mother who used to prepare special meals for me as I tried every diet under the sun. She would encourage me to exercise. She would remind me to step away from the table after I had eaten and was reaching for seconds and thirds. She would help me pick out clothes that made me look thinner too. All meant to help me. My mom didn't like seeing me miss out on things or being sad because I was different.

 My mom used to tell me, "Dina, you need to learn to eat to live, not live to eat." Yeah... ok, Mom. Although this phrase would eventually become a mantra for me,  it made NO sense to my adolescent mind.  I mean, it went totally against my upbringing. 

In my family food was the center of everything!  Someone is coming over? What are we going to serve them? Someone is getting married or having a baby? What are they going to serve us?  Every get together, every occasion was centered around FOOD! 

We are Italians, after all. Our people are known for their love of food. And it didn't help that everyone in my family is a phenomenal cook or baker.  Our entire family took food quite seriously.  I remember when my husband came to his first Christmas at my Auntie Pat's and Uncle Bob's house or was it Thanksgiving at Auntie Deb's? No matter, it's all the same. It looked like most everyone's home.  Beautiful table set, people everywhere mingling and chatting about what's new. 

And then the meal began and you were very busy for a while.  We started with salad and pasta, ravioli usually, but maybe lasagna with melt-in-your-mouth meatballs, fall-off-the-bone ribs, crusty, get-every-last-drop-of-the-gravy bread. And by the way, it's called gravy not sauce! 

Now, I know you are thinking that sounds like a meal all to itself. And it was!  But we were JUST beginning. Next came the turkey and maybe a ham too. And of course everyone brought a side dish, so the table was packed with every good thing under the sun.  And we haven't even gotten to desert which was loaded with so many goodies, we had to clear the dinner table to make room for the 'sweet table!' It was a freakin' several course- open the button on your pants or if you were smart you went with the elastic waistband- kind of meal.

I'll stop before I drive you all to your nearest Olive Garden or all-you-can-eat Italian buffet, but you can see what I mean.  And now you can understand, the food was the reason most people showed up in the first place! I had a love/hate relationship with holidays growing up.  For me, there was always a tremendous amount of stress involved with family gatherings. Oh sure, the food was delicious, but what usually ensued next was something I would undoubtedly have to endure.

Something would be said about how much I was eating and because the food was so good, I WAS eating and loving every minute of it. That was until my weight, how much I might have lost or gained since the last time we all saw each other or what a shame it was I was heavy because I had such a pretty face, became the topic of conversation.  Many times I would end up in the bathroom in tears.  But, I knew it caused others in my family pain too and that almost hurt more. I still can see the look of pain on my grandpa's face  as he looked at me sometimes.   It ached him that I wasn't thinner and thus prettier.  He wanted that so much for me. This is not the grandfather I wrote about in part two, who told me nobody likes a fat girl.  This grampa would never voice that to me directly and always accepted me the way I was, but I could see the disappointment in his ever expressive face. Again, no one was purposely hurting me. I know that now. But, time and time again we'd end up talking about my weight and I was relieved if someone else was the topic of conversation.

Food was not only a way of celebrating every holiday and victory, it was also they way we comforted ourselves or each other.  My dad and I had quite a few years where our relationship was quite strained.  In hindsight, I think my father just didn't know how to deal with me.  I was headstrong and independent and not the compliant child my older brother was.  So, my dad and I butted heads A LOT! 

But, one of the things I remember is that whenever my dad and I had a big fight, he would reach into his 'stash' of Little Debbie or Dolly Madison snack cakes he had in a special hiding place and he would place one out on the counter for me to find after he had gone to bed. It was his way of telling me he was sorry.  He left me a treat as a peace offering; as a love offering. 

My dad struggles with many of the same eating issues I do, so I know he meant well. But, it isn't hard to sit back now and see the mixed messages I got about food my whole life. Food was joy. Food was love. 
I was also expected to have willpower in the face of daily challenges that would bring anyone to their knees. My brother, the golden child, never had a weight issue. He was good looking, had lots of girlfriends and never understood what I was going through.  He would eat in front of me without apology. He has since apologized for such treatment, but at the time it was down right hard to deal with.

So, with the hidden stash calling my name, a kitchen pantry full of temptations, and my mother's excellent cooking to contend with I was expected to stick to a diet while everyone else ate what they wanted. Hence, at times, I felt very much alone and misunderstood.

So, there I was trying to examine my past without hurting my parents or blaming them for the way I turned out. I just wanted things to change.  As I read more and more books on self improvement, I began to see how I was letting my past dictate my future. I wondered why I was allowing the things that happened to me so long ago to have such control over me still. 

I got a visual of the problem one day.  It was as though I went about my life carrying around every past hurt and pain on my back in heavy packs. With each interaction, whether with a stranger or a family member, I would lay my packs down between us and expect them to see through all the baggage and yet still see me.  No one had any idea of my ‘story’ or had any idea of all I'd been through, but I'd still allow all of that baggage to come between us unwittingly.  So, truly all of the relationships I tried to foster at that time in my life had a huge hurdle to get past before anything real and lasting could occur.

One of my favorite teachers, Wayne Dyer, describes it as 'letting the wake drive the boat' which is impossible. The wake can not drive a boat.  The wake is the trail of what's left behind... of where the boat had been...  not where it is going.  So, what or who does drive the boat? The driver and the engine, of course.  You are the driver and the engine is this moment... the energy of today... our right now. That is what is driving the boat.  I needed to get out of the wake and back in the boat! I needed to take back my power to control my own life in the here and now and stop letting the wake/my past drive my boat.  This was another visual I could wrap my brain around and I got it! This was huge for me. I saw how I did this time and time again and it started to become obvious to me when I was letting this happen, so I was able to get back on track before it got too far off course. Finally, I was getting somewhere.

From that moment on, I worked at letting my past go. I mean, that's what everyone says, right? Let go and let God. I had to let it go.  I knew it was better for my health all around. I even did forgiveness exercises where I ceremoniously forgave all the people who I felt had wronged me in my life in one way or another. It is called Ho’Opono and it  is an ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. It was wonderful and freeing! I was letting it all go. Breaking free from the past and all that baggage.

Combined with meditation, I really felt like I was getting somewhere. I felt so spiritual, so connected to God.  Until, someone would piss me off or things did not go the way I wanted.  Then, all hell would break loose and I would be back to square one.  What the heck??? I was learning so much! I felt like I was coming so far! And then, in a few moments I was reduced to a hurting, weeping, out of control child who nobody likes because I'm the fat girl!!

What?????  Not her again!!!! Come on!  It was like there was this little girl taking up residence inside me and whenever I got my feelings hurt, she would come out and have a hissy fit and then retreat to wherever she hid till the next time.  But, I am not letting the wake drive the boat anymore, so why is this happening?? I am dealing with my past and letting it go, so why do I have so little control over my feelings??  For me, the answer would come a little deeper and in a very different package, something called The Pain Body.  Cue the scary music!

cont.