Tag: fat girl

Schrodinger’s Fatphobe: Fashion Edition

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

“I’m all for body positivity, but…”

“I think people should wear what they want, but…”

I’ve heard or read these sorts of statements frequently, particularly in the warmer months of the year (gee, I wonder why), and let me tell you, the “but” is where folks show their ass. That “but” is guaranteed to be followed by some hateful, judgy shit that stinks up the entire statement. This Grade F manure isn’t restricted to just fat women, or fat folks. That “but” can be applied to folks of a certain age, gender presentation, sexuality, or color, too. But for the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on my fat femme presenters because I am a fat femme presenter.

Folks really tend to feel some kind of way about the fashion of fat women. They’ve got a real hang-up when it comes to the way they adorn themselves. They’re all about body positivity, you know, think everyone should wear what they want, but if you’re fat, well, you shouldn’t wear that.

In my experience, “that” can be shorts, crop tops, tank tops, two-piece bathing suits, skirts, dresses that show any leg, arm, or cleavage, sandals, spandex, lycra, anything deemed too tight, anything that shows rolls, anything that shows too much skin.

Because they’re body positive and they believe everyone should wear what they want, but they don’t want to see you wear what you want. Could you please be comfortable and stylish and fat elsewhere? Thanks.

They say it with such authority, too! Like because my cellulite offends their delicate sensibilities, I shouldn’t wear shorts. Well, Sandra, it’s 90 degrees and the humidity has it feeling like 100. I’m afraid you’re going to have to endure my bat wings and fat rolls along with the heat wave.

“If you weigh over X amount, you shouldn’t wear…”

First of all, no two people wear their weight alike. 220 pounds on me looks a lot different than it does on my sister. (No, I don’t currently weigh 220 pounds and I have no idea what my sister weighs. I just remember that at one point in time, the two of us both weighed about 220 and no one would have guessed we weighed the same because of how we carried the weight.) Second of all, there aren’t weight limits on clothes. Nowhere on the tag does it say that I can’t wear yoga pants or a crop top because I exceed the maximum weight limit. The clothes are in my size, I’m going to wear them. That’s how clothing works.

And before someone trips over themselves to point out the people who wear clothes they think are too small, well, that’s the size they want to wear. I suggest you make peace with that for the sake of your blood pressure.

I’m not saying that I don’t judge people’s fashion choices. I admit to being a judgy person. I think I could place respectably in the Judgmental Olympics. However, I’m less likely to be too het up on judging the superficial. I may see somebody wearing something that I find questionable, and I may think to myself, “That is certainly a choice”, and I may question the motives behind the style choice, but as long as they’re comfortable, happy, and feeling good, rock on then. I don’t feel the need to blast my judgy opinion about some stranger’s garb on social media. I definitely don’t feel the need to say it to their face. Remember what I said about other people’s opinions not being my problem? Same goes for me. My opinions are not other people’s problem, either.

Now, if I know the person, if we’re friends or family, if I love them and we have the kind of relationship that allows me to voice my opinions, I may say, “Are you good with your cheeks hanging out of your shorts like that? It seems like an invitation to an awkward sunburn.” And if they’re like, “Yeah, I feel good. I look good. I want to wear these shorts,” then, baby, I will put the sunblock on their booty dimples myself. Because I am body positive. I’m positive you can dress your body the way you want (within legal limits, of course; the only cops we want involved in fashion belong to the Village People), even if it’s not what I would choose, and especially if it’s not what society would have you do.

No buts about it.

What’s My Stretchmarks Rebrand?

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Remember when everyone started calling the stretchmarks gained in pregnancy “tiger stripes”? It was done in an effort to make child bearing folks feel better about the changes their body underwent while they were growing and birthing an entire human being. As a collective, we decided to change a flaw to a badge of honor. As well we should. Growing and birthing a person is kind of a big deal.

So, I have to ask…where’s my stretchmarks rebrand?

My first stretchmarks came from puberty, as did a lot of other people’s. Many of these faded marks on my hips I got as I entered my teens. These deep grooves on my breasts came from a late bloomer blossoming so fast that I went up multiple cup sizes in a year. What are these stretchmarks? Boob grooves? Growth charts? Puberty scars? Puberty is a pretty brutal time of life, anyway. Might as well show the stretchmarks as the warrior wounds they are.

And what about the stretchmarks I acquired through weight gain? Why should they be vilified? There are many tasty treats and lazy days behind some of those marks (a lot of depression, injury, and illness, too, but never mind the negative; we’re being positive here). What do we call those? Burrito bands? Cookie cracks? Buffet lines?

I ask these inane questions because stretchmarks are a mark of life. Most people have them. They are proof of growth during life. Why do they need a rebrand? Specifically, why are only one specific type of stretchmarks worthy of a rebrand?

As a society, we’re kind of hung up on exemptions. It’s okay to have stretchmarks as long as you’ve acquired them because of pregnancy. It’s okay to be fat as long as you’re fat a certain way (“curvy” with a tiny waist, flat stomach, and fat ass, also try not to be over a size 14) or you’re a “good” fatty because you’re actually healthy or you’re trying not to be fat. It’s okay to be old as long as you look younger than your age. It’s wild to think of how many of these sorts of societal standards have asterisks on them. Terms and conditions may apply.

In the long run, stretchmarks as a flaw is a bullshit concept. Pristine skin with no evidence of existence is yet another unattainable standard. As I said, many of us get marked in our early teens. Ruined before we begin, no chance at perfection. Of course, there’s no money to be made if we accept ourselves how we are, now is there? I’m not going to purchase a cream to fade my stretchmarks if they don’t bother me. There’s no means to keep us in our places either, so to speak. You can’t shame me for a flaw if I don’t have it, right? Can’t keep me small and insecure, can’t lower my value over a perceived defect if I don’t perceive it.

I’m going to take matters into my own hands. Rebrand my stretchmarks. Not because I think I need to or because I have to, but because I want to. I think it’ll be fun.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go learn to love my boob grooves and buffet lines.

My Ass Might Be Acceptable If I Didn’t Have a Belly

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Living in a society that makes body types trends and fads is wild. I have never once been in style.

The closest I came was when butts came into fashion. Juicy booties were all the rage and I’ve been growing my own backside since puberty. Which was kinda the problem. My big ass wasn’t big in exactly the right way. More wide than round. Which probably could have been forgiven if I’d had a tiny waist and flat stomach to go with it. Alas alack, a little too much waist and a lot too much belly.

Back in the long long ago, heroin chic was in. You had to be rail thin, no butt, no boobs, no body fat. Not many women (and that’s who these trends are usually directed towards) could achieve that look, though a good many earned eating disorders and body image issues trying. That was back when I was thinner than I am now, but had more boobs than anyone knew what to do with. There was no way I’d ever be able to achieve that look, not with all the anorexia I could manage. I’m not built to be small. Could you imagine taking all of the body fat off of me and leaving only a the most necessary hint of muscle behind? I’d look straight up wonky. I’m sorry, Vogue, but my thighs are meant to touch. That’s just my DNA.

That’s what’s really head-tilting about the whole body trend thing. This idea that people’s DNA is a fad, a hot for fall style, don’t be out of fashion. Like…what? How does that even make sense?

But it does. There’s money and power in that sort of manipulation. You sell diets and implants with that sort of advertising. You keep women off balance always trying to achieve the unattainable physical ideal and have a convenient way of putting them in their place if they don’t.

It’s a mindfuck.

As someone who has spent most of their existence in a fat body, I well know the toll this sort of thing can take on a person living in a society when only certain bodies are deemed worthy. And to narrow that field even further with body trends…whew. It feels like an unending failing.

The body positivity movement has been interesting in this respect because even though it has helped push larger bodies more into the mainstream for representation, there’s still certain trends. You’re not going to see anyone who looks like me…aggressively pear-shaped with a belly and bat wings, for example. It’s a bad look. Definitely not in style.

Ain’t that a bitch?

I’ve never been very good about being on trend. Even if I had the in fashion body, my style has tended to out of sync with what’s all the rage. So, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to obsess with my actual body not being the going thing, would it? And yet! It’s something that still creeps up in my mind. Little reminders that I’ll never be in style. That I’ll always be just wrong enough to miss the trend. Society has a Hot or Not page and I’m always in the Not column. And I should feel bad about that.

I admit that sometimes I do. Sometimes I forget myself and I lament about never having a body that’s in style.

And then I remember that I’m not supposed to. Bodies aren’t meant to be trends. They’re just bodies, our soul’s meat vehicles. Whatever model you’ve got is just fine.

And in my case, I’ve always had more fun being out of fashion anyway.

Objects in the Selfie Are Fatter Than They Appear

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure that I’ve written about this before in various forms, but it’s always worth repeating. Like the meme that I repost on Instagram periodically. It’s always good to remind folks about my reality because it’s not adequately reflected in my selfies.

There’s a reason for that and it extends somewhat beyond just trying to present my best self, though I am absolutely trying to do that with the angles and the lighting.

So, in case you’re new or you need to be reminded, I’m fat. Not low self-esteem fat, not Hollywood fat, actually fat. Midwestern fat. I ballpark my weight at about 250. 100%, Grade A Fat.

However, I don’t carry weight in my face. Even at my heaviest (which was nearly 270), my face looked a little rounder than usual, but that was it. My face has never reflected how heavy the rest of me is. I do not have a fat face. I’m also gifted with some nice shoulders and a relatively slender neck.

And what parts of me are showing when I’m taking selfies? That’s right. Pretty much the cleavage up.

Now I do have fat arms. We’re talking bat wings for days and nights. But with the right twist and the right angle, you don’t really notice the arms. Especially if there’s cleavage in play and the stretchmarks/scars are hidden. Then you don’t even notice my face.

Likewise, when I’ve been taking pictures of my tights and/or fishnets, I do so with my legs propped up on my dresser. I do this because it’s a better lighting angle and you get a better view of my tights and/or fishnets. However, in doing this, it makes my legs look thinner than they actually are. It’s just the result of gravity pulling on my leg fat in a pleasing way rather than yanking on the bulk the way it does when I’m standing, or my thighs just squishing out to the county lines when I sit down.

It’s not a deliberate trick to make myself look thinner. It’s a consequence of the deliberate choice I make of how I show off my tights/fishnets.

What I need is a full-length mirror (and a place to put said mirror). Then I could show off all of my cute tights and fishnets and outfits and my fat as well. Because I don’t like the feeling I sometimes get that I’m hiding how fat I really am. No one has ever said anything to insinuate that I was trying to work any deception, but when I get comments (especially from het dudes) about how good I look, I feel like they’re not taking into account that -as I’ve repeatedly stated and sometimes provided photographic evidence of- there’s a whole lot more of me to look at that isn’t in the picture they’re looking at. See how many compliments they give me when the can see the totality of me.

And I’m not saying that I wouldn’t present my fat in its best light and angles. Of course I would. I’m vain.

But then I’d at least be able to show not tell when reminding folks I’m fat.

There’s a Weight Limit on That

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

“I love it when girls wear white shorts.” Not if those shorts show off some cellulite. Then the best come on you can muster is a cow noise as you walk behind her.

“I love it when a girl eats.” Not if she’s got some meat on her bones and some rolls in her bakery. Then you have nothing but concern for her health that you spit out as snide comments.

“I love a girl in yoga pants.” Not if that pants size is in the double digits. Then she just looks like a slob because we all know she doesn’t actually do yoga, am I right?

When I hear comments like these which remark on a woman’s appearance (which are almost always made by a man), I automatically add the asterisk to it. Because there’s a weight limit on that comment, a footnote on it about the exceptions.

Because there are always exceptions.

Now of course these are generalized comments so they’re not necessarily supposed to include everyone. Most people are just speaking from their own attractions and I suppose there’s no harm in that. But when you take a closer look at the exclusions that apply to those statements, you start to see a pattern.

You see the weight limit.

Even people who claim to be body positive will put that kind of asterisk on their declarations.

“People can wear whatever they want.” “But are you sure you really want to wear that?”

“People can eat whatever they want.” “But are you sure you really want to eat that? All of it?”

These asterisks are so internalized that we don’t even notice them. It’s not something anyone has to say out loud. It’s just automatically understood that these statements don’t apply to those of us over the max weight. And, yes, we even apply those asterisks to ourselves.

These terms and conditions are established by society and just by being born into it, we click accept. Not that we would probably read them anyway. But they are pretty insidious. We agree to look a certain way and be a certain way. And when we violate those terms, we get removed from the privileges the agreement provides us. No seconds for us. Not without further consequences.

Sometimes I feel the urge to call out these comments. To point out the weight limit and watch the scramble to defend or justify or dismiss it. “You’re too sensitive!” Do you not see all of the asterisks spilling out of your mouth? They’re covering the floor like jacks. Have you ever stepped on a jack?! You’d be feeling sensitive, too. Downright sore, even. That shit is harmful.

People don’t like to be called to the carpet over things like that, the internalized bits of societal rhetoric that they blindly adhere too without questioning. They don’t like to think about the harm that they’ve been inflicting on others -or on themselves. They don’t like to take responsibility for a wrong they didn’t realize they were committing.

And that’s why their scales tip when I wear the white shorts.

Max weight indeed.

“How Are You So Confident?”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A variation of this is “I wish I had your confidence!” And I’m going to talk about both of these, but first I’m going to answer the title question.

How am I so confident?

I have a tendency to walk through life with the attitude of “The Universe has questionably allowed me to exist another day and I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem.” My confidence comes from a place of pure spite. My continued existence comes from the same source. Spite gets things done.

Do I always feel confident? No. I have un-confident days brought on by hormones or mental illness or just the poison of a hateful society seeping under my thick skin. Am I confident about everything I do? Absolutely the fuck not. I am a self-doubter through and through. I manage to get by with a generous helping of ego and a little bit of faking it. And spite. So much spite.

The interesting thing about the question “How are you so confident?” or the statement, “I wish I had your confidence,” is how often they’re directed at people like me. And by that I mean fat women.

The style I rock at work tends to include patterned pants. Tropical flowers, jungle animals, black and white window pane, shiny blue mermaid scales, black and white gingham, pink cheetah print, teal plaid, black and white ditzy print. I once had a patron tell me “I wish I had your confidence” so she could wear pants like that, but she was too fat to do it. She said this, with a straight face, to my 255 pound ass. I probably would have popped off if she’d be a thin woman saying this to me, but she was definitely plus size, so instead I was just disappointed. Because the default of society is that fat women are not supposed to be confident at all. We are supposed to fade into the background until we correct ourselves enough so we are worthy of public gaze.

Confidence is generally not something granted to women anyway, but when it is, it tends to be reserved for the women who fit the narrow beauty standards of a thin-obsessed, youth-obsessed society. If any woman outside of those constraints dares to be confident then it’s considered either a miracle or an affront. In fact, “I wish I had your confidence!” has a back-handed feel when it comes out of certain mouths.

Because as I said, confidence is thought to be granted from an outside source. Of course we all know that confidence comes from within and being comfortable in your skin, whatever skin that is (best be your own, though; let’s not Buffalo Bill this), but we also all know that society has the final say of whether or not you’re allowed to be confident. That unmerciful bastard is unrelenting. The constant messages of perceived inadequacies designed to sell you the solutions to flaws that change based on what’s trendy today leaves no one untouched.

Confidence, particularly the confidence of a fat woman, is an act of rebellion.

To be confident in a body deemed undesirable is a slap in the face to a society pushing that ideal and a thumb in the eye to the industries trying to capitalize on that. That kind of defiance stings. And that confidence often gets branded in other less flattering ways. Lazy. Attention-whore. Giving up. Aggressive. Letting yourself go. Pushy. Should you be wearing that?

Don’t be like her. She’s a bad example.

Or worse. That confidence she has is unattainable. It’s a rare thing. Only a very limited number of fat women are allowed to have this confidence and they’re usually plus sized models, or women who’ve aged out and have no fucks left to give. This confidence is not for everyone. It’s not for you.

But it is.

Anyone can be confident. Anyone.

Do it out of spite.

Sometimes I Forget Myself: Fat Ass Edition

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I spent this past summer with my hair dark pink. I was bored, needed a change, and it had been ages (literally about 20 years) since my hair had been pink. Seemed like a no-brainer to me. And I enjoyed the summer with my dark pink hair.

Here’s the thing.

I often forgot that my hair was pink.

Like, I would just go along, doing the day-to-day things in my life, and not once think about my hair being pink. It just didn’t occur to me. Or it would occur to me later, like when I went to lunch with my great-uncle and cousins and then after I got home realized that I had pink hair the whole time. Nobody said anything, of course. It might have been a couple of decades, but they’d seen me with pink hair before. But still, I didn’t think about it at the time because there I was on a Sunday afternoon, having lunch with some family I hadn’t seen for a while.

The same phenomenon occurs with my fat ass as well.

I often go through my day-to-day life forgetting that I’m fat. This is my body and I inhabit it and I move it around and do the things and it just doesn’t occur to me that I’m fat. I’m just me. Existing. Doing stuff. Being. This is my reality. I often forget how big I am. I’m just living life.

It’s a strange thing when I can pontificate about how society abhors a fatty and logically know that I am judged by my size, but also, I’m so accustomed to living life in this body that the bulk of it doesn’t occur to me. I know how to work all this girth. Do I go jogging? Absolutely not. But do I do HIIT workouts? Yeah. Do I do yoga? Yeah. Do I still belly dance? Sometimes. Am I still flexible? Yeah, though I have my less-than days. Can I work an eight hour shift on my feet, busting a butt cheek to get all of my work done? Absolutely. And I do it all without thinking too much about my size.

Actually, I think more about my persistent patellar tendonitis than I do my weight. Probably because the pain from that affects how I go through my days more than my size does.

And I do a whole lot of other things too without thinking about my fat ass: grocery shopping, hanging out with friends, talking shit with my coworkers, reading a book, playing with the stray cats we’ve adopted, visiting with family, working on podcasts, eating, drinking, breathing….the list is endless. I do all sorts of things without thinking about my double digit pants size.

You’d be surprised how much fat people DON’T think about being fat, how much they don’t think about food or dieting, how much they don’t spending every waking moment pining for a smaller existence to better fit into a thin-obsessed society. Because they’re busy doing other stuff, regular life stuff, and they forget themselves in that.

Look at it this way: Once you get used to driving a land yacht, you don’t think too much about parallel parking that beast.

You know how to drive it.

Schrodinger’s Fatphobe

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last week some unfortunate DNA construct posted this embarrassingly bad take on Twitter. And as absolutely fetid as it is, it’s not at all an anomaly.

You see this sort of hostile bullshit is actually pretty typical. Now, I went into it in a Twitter thread when this bebop posted this, but I’m going to do it here again for easy reference, thoroughness, and posterity.

Dollars to donuts says that this human equivalent of megaphone feedback would also trip over themselves to tell a fat person they saw in public that they need to “put down the fork and get in the gym.” And yet, should a fat person have the audacity to utilize gym facilities for the purpose of fitness, well, it’s too fucking late and what the fuck are they doing there aside from embarrassing themselves.

This is Schrodinger’s Fatphobe.

You need to stop being fat, but also how dare you try to stop being fat.

You see the main problem this person has, that all fatphobes have, that most people who wouldn’t even call themselves fatphobic, but it’s a rhetoric so baked into society that no one can avoid it have is that fat people should not be seen in any context. Period. Society absolutely wants you to not be fat, but even in that context they want you to fix the moral failing that is your excessive weight in the solitude of your own home or some forgotten cave until you are fit to re-enter society a beautiful butterfly freed of your fat cocoon. Should you choose to remain a squishy caterpillar of a person, then it’s your own fault for daring to allow your existence to encroach upon public spaces and you deserve the ridicule you get.

Do you not see the conundrum?

Fat people exist. We exist in public. And we exist in various states of health with various fitness and/or weight loss goals. Some choose to pursue their goals in a gym. Some people take that walk around the block that fatphobes are so eager to insist upon. And some have no interest in this sort of thing, they simply leave their houses from time to time to do things, and that’s fine, too.

The point is that at no time do any of us need to be exposed to whatever dogshit opinions a fatphobe might be steaming in that rotten cantaloupe of a head of theirs. Shutting the fuck up is free and minding your business comes at no charge.

Let that last bit be a general reminder.

***

Full disclosure: My 255 pound self exercises, but I do not go to the gym. This has nothing to do with the worry about encountering some fatphobe with mouth-control issues. As you can see, I also have mouth-control issues. Somebody’s gonna cry and it ain’t gonna be me.

No, I don’t go to the gym because leaving the house to exercise gives me one more excuse not to exercise on the days I’m feeling unmotivated. It’s a hell of a lot easier for me to force myself to put on the ol’ sports bra if that’s ALL I have to do. Gotta work with your laziness, kids.

Make It Fat, You Cowards

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Some time back, Twitter user @emilybadly posted the question: “Question for my fellow fat babes: what’s a trait or personality type you wish fat characters were allowed to be more often/at all?”

It’s all linked, so check out that thread and the responses. Feel free to fall down that rabbit hole.

But if you haven’t got the time, allow me to sum it up for you.

We wish fat characters were allowed to be…people.

Fucking wild, right?

It turns out that fat people like myself are looking for the kind of representation that seems only available to thin people. We want to see fat people experience a wide-range of emotions. Let them be allowed to be happy, sad, angry, lazy, indignant, annoyed, ecstatic, depressed, etc. independent of their weight. Not happy in spite of being fat; they’re just happy. Not angry because they’re fat; they’re just angry.

Let them be desired without other people getting grossed out and being all judgy. Let them have sex, good sex. Let them be the object of someone’s crush. Let them hook up with the hot lead. Hell, let them have a long, healthy relationship with the hot lead. Particularly in the case of fat women when it comes to opposite sex relationships. It seems like when it comes to fat men (and their bodies are still played for jokes most of the time), they’re allowed to hook up with thin, beautiful women, but the vice-versa doesn’t play out with the same frequency.

Let there be more than one fat character and not just because you’ve got two of them in a relationship. Fat people are everywhere. You can have more than one, doing different things, having different personalities, relating to different people.

And there’s more than one kind of fat. We come in all shapes and sizes. Big bellies, big boobs, small boobs, no boobs, belly rolls, back fat, flabby arms, stick arms, no butts, big butts, big thighs, skinny legs, thin faces, double chins. Mix and match! And don’t cover those bodies! Let them wear shorts and mini dresses and tank tops and bikinis if they want to. Let them want to.

Let them be brave and adventurous and athletic. Let them be villainous and selfish and greedy. Let them be vain and pedantic and sloppy. Let them be stylish and smart and successful. Let them be actual human beings with a wide range of personalities and moods and issues. Let them be anything. Let them exist without the sole motivation of losing weight or being the butt of fat jokes or eating constantly or getting winded walking anywhere. Let them just be regular people or extraordinary people or anything in between.

I’ll formally throw down the challenge. Make it fat, you cowards.

I am more than happy to offer up my services in this endeavor. If you need a skilled, experienced fat person to assist you, I can be that person. I can be your adviser. I can help you make your fat characters representative of actual fat people.

My rates are very reasonable.

Fat Girl in the New Year

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The new year is ripe for weight-loss related resolutions. Not for me. My commitment issues only allow for me to have half-assed resolutions. My weight requires my whole ass.

Lots of people make weight-loss related resolutions and that’s fine. Some people need that fresh new year to help motivate them in their health goals. I can relate. I always have to start a goal on a Monday. It feels wrong to me to start in the middle of the week.

For me, though, my weight isn’t a resolution. It informs too much of my existence, too much of how society treats me to consider it so casually. And let’s face it. Most people take their resolutions casually, like champagne bubbles made to broken.

It just so happens that I am trying to lose some weight this year and it just so happens that it looks like I started around the first of the year. But this is not a resolution.

It’s like this. In the last couple of years, due to a delightful combination of illness and injury, sprinkled generously throughout with some mild depression, I’ve gained some weight on top of the weight that I’ve already been lugging around and frankly, it doesn’t thrill me.

Now, I’ve tried to get this weight gain under control, but it seemed like every time I started to get back into the swing of taking better care of myself, something would come along and derail it. And then I’d have to go through the struggle of starting all over.

Last month, I put it to my mind that I was going to get back into the habit of exercising regularly. I started around the beginning of the month (on a Monday, of course) and I was doing well with it. And then I hurt myself. Leave it to me to suffer a devastating knee injury while doing holiday baking.

My knee healed enough that I could start doing modified workouts the week of the first (I started on Monday the 31st, of course). And I’ve continued doing them on a daily basis, wearing a brace and increasing the length and difficulty, using modifications when I need them as my knee continues to heal. This regular exercise should help me feel better and help me lose some of the weight that I gained in the last couple of years.

This is a goal. Not a resolution.

When you’re fat, it’s easy for people to assume that when you’re eating a salad, you’re on a diet. They can’t fathom that you might always eat a salad or that you prefer a salad or hell, you were craving a salad (it happens to me rarely and usually in the summer).

When you’re fat and committing to an exercise plan at the beginning of any given year, it’s easy for people to assume that you’ve made a resolution. And resolutions are famous for being quickly disregarded and therefore, aren’t taken seriously. Which is what compels me to clarify my particular position.

This is not a resolution. This is a goal. A goal with the purpose of creating a lifestyle change. A lifestyle change which should help me feel better.

As much as I struggle, I am taking this seriously.

And, weight-loss related or not, casual or not, I’m wishing you well on your resolutions, too.