After an arduous evening of Zumba last night, I had a revelation on waking this morning. Jauntily taking the stairs down to make coffee, I realised that my supple and not-at-all-stiff muscles felt good.
A now well known slogan from the Sports England This Girl Can Campaign
And we worked hard: punching, screaming, facing off, swinging our hips and working our thang. Yeah, it was fun – and the sweat ran down behind my ears and soaked into my already sodden t-shirt.
If you haven’t tried Zumba, it’s an invigorating mix of energetic dance styles set to everything from Country and Western inspired beats to Eastern vibes but always with a Latino swing. It’s more fun than a workout, more work than a night on the dancefloor.
I drank water, I laughed at my missed steps but my thigh muscles remained robust as we were encouraged to drop further towards the ground, legs wide, arms high.
Not caring if I was pig or fox at this stage, I felt the music and enjoyed the look on the instructor’s face as she radiated the dance and the room filled with power and light.
Pretty awesome for an exercise class.
And so I woke this morning with the notion that I don’t do this for the skinny person within. Oh no, I’m not going to wait for the slim Amanda to emerge after months, maybe years of purging, denial and self-loathing.
Oh no, I’m going to celebrate the strong, vital and agile body that’s already there. Right now. Right here. Yes, I’m carrying a little extra flab on my legs but don’t miss the huge, powerful thigh muscles that propel my bike, that keep me running, that fuel my Zumba sass.
So, whether you’re walking, running, cycling or taking the kids to the park today, work the inner goddess you are now. Not for the body you want tomorrow but the one you have now.
And have fun doing it.
For more information on Zumba check out their website. Local classes in the UK are listed.
All from Tu at Sainsbury’s. There is less wobble in my go-faster stripe trousers since I bought them back in January but that’s not as important as the muscle I’ve put into them.
I love running. Now, I’m not a born runner and I’m a big girl so when I made the decision to start running back in January this year, I knew that I’d be up against a very special set of circumstances in order to succeed. Six months on, I regularly run 4k and I’m well on my way to being ready for the 5k race I’m training for in October.
How have I got this far? Well, before I started running, I did some rummaging around on the internet for information about what I would encounter as a plus size runner and I found some excellent sources of information (check out The Fat Girl’s Guide to Running and The Running Bug). But there’s nothing like personal experience to help climb the steep learning curve, so if you’re thinking about taking up the sport or you’ve just started, these are my top ten tips for the fat bird running:
DownloadCouch to 5K from the NHS website. Realistically, it should be called ‘Couch to running for 30 minutes’ because I don’t know anyone who has gone from zero to 5K in nine weeks (but plenty who have gone from zero to hero). Listen to a few of the podcasts, familiarise yourself with how it works and know that it’s all about starting out your way, at your own pace, in your own time. I’m a big girl and I did it from beginning to end without missing a week and it’s started a running habit for life. It’s a flexible programme that gets you walking and running in intervals, slowly building your stamina until you can run for thirty minutes. It is doable and if you struggle at any stage, the option is always there to re-try a week until you feel comfortable enough to move on.
Defeat any niggles about your heart or joints by having a chat with your doctor if you’re really concerned. I don’t know a GP in the country who would consider this kind of discussion a waste of time, especially with current concerns with obesity and the NHS. A personal fitness trainer friend of mine suggested running on grass or mud in order to reduce stress on my joints – which is what I often do (and it means I get to run in the countryside, always a happy thing).
I have a pair of Karrimor d30 trainers. They’re lightweight and durable enough for me but do shop around
Buy a really good pair of running shoes – shop around on the net, try a few on and if you can stretch to it, go to a local running shop and get fitted. Supporting your feet, ankles and other joints is imperative if you’re carrying a few extra pounds with you along the track.
Get some comfortable running gear. Sainsbury’s Tu do a range of great running clothes off the peg up to a size 22. If you’re over a size 18 don’t even bother with Sports Direct – it’s just disheartening. J.D. Williams also do running gear up to a size 32 if you’re happy to order off the internet.
Worry about the jiggly bits. Get a really good running bra and be prepared to spend a little on this because it is really worth it. Mine came from Marks and Spencer and I really feel as though I’m well strapped in when I’m running. It does give a bit of an uni-boob effect but believe me, when you’re half way through a 30 minute run, it really doesn’t matter.
Don’t worry about the jiggly bits. If I wobble here or there, or if I feel I’m showing a bit more bum or belly than I would normally be happy with I think of how hard my healthy heart is pumping to keep me moving. Besides, I’m lapping everyone sitting on a sofa or in a car seat.
Be prepared for it to be more than a little bit addictive. I twitch if I haven’t run for a while, I’ve heard my trainers singing to me from the hallway on more than one occasion and sometimes, I choose to swap my Saturday lie in for a blast in the early morning sun. It has to be said that while the slog is sometimes hard work, the buzz afterwards is more than worth it.
Be prepared to be hungry – and respectfully answer the need. I’m carb sensitive, so I find that loading up with bread, pasta or sugar after a run quickly sweeps away the happy feeling but those kinds of foods work for some people – we’re all different. What’s important is that you feed your body good things because it is a good, healthy, strong body. Reward it, don’t deny it and whilst honouring your body with good quality nourishment is the kind thing to do, remember that the occasional doughnut won’t do any damage (but hating yourself afterwards will).
Zingy and bright, oranges are one of my favourite post run snacks – and not because I’m virtuous, I just find them fun to eat
Be prepared to be slow and steady. I can’t run fast, I’m carrying too much weight – I often see lean runners bounding past and I’m not bothered, I just wonder how much bounding they’d do if they had several stone in weight strapped to their body. I eat healthy and build strength in order to run – losing weight is not my focus, it’s just a happy by-product.
Running really is an inclusive sport. Slogging along the riverpath where I usually run, I often meet fellow runners – often girls with ponytails in pairs lithely bouncing along in pretty sports gear or solo, muscly chaps complete with water bottle and strong legs. Far from feeling intimidated, I always get an acknowledging smile for my effort and very often a fist pump too. Watching the runners finishing the recent Polesden 10k race in Surrey was an eye opener – coming over the line were the faces of exalted pensioners, ladies with more than ample bosoms and in fact every kind of person you could imagine – old, young, slim, heavy, tall, short – they’d all taken on the challenge of the Surrey hills and won. All individuals with the same goal – putting one foot in front of the other until the finishing line.
And so, when I went for a medical appointment yesterday and the nurse had recorded my weight, she was genuinely pleased to hear about my running habit. This makes a happy change from being hassled about my weight which I have never enjoyed or found very helpful.
There is so much negativity around weight when in reality, heavy bodies can be strong bodies. They can be beautiful, healthy and worthy bodies. In a culture obsessed with the fat someone is carrying, it is easy to forget the possibility that a healthy heart and lungs can lie within. So while the debate about whether or not it is possible to be fat but fit rattles on, I know I’d rather be breathing in and out in the sunshine rather than crying into a pot of processed, low-fat goo.
In my mind, the movement of the needle on the scales is not as important as the movement of my feet along gravel paths; over hot, summer grass at the park or to some cheesy tunes alongside the river.
But that’s just my opinion.
Finishing the Polesden run with my husband. Pretty chuffed with my 2K achievement, I was bowled over by him completing his arduous 10K trek – we started running at the same time
Is there anything I haven’t thought of – what are your tips? And have you just started running or are about to? How do you feel? I’d love to know.
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I’ve got a bee in my bonnet again. The model Tess Holliday has come under fire again for daring to promote fashion. She’s a model. That’s what she does.
(Check out her instructions for getting a bikini body in one easy step for Simply Be here.)
Some responses on her Twitter account were unrepeatable.
Tess shows her followers how to wear a bikini in one easy step
In the light of this, consider that last week an Yves Saint Laurent advertisement in Elle magazine was banned by the UK’s advertising watchdog for featuring a very underweight model. The comments in response to this on social media ranged from motherly ‘all she needs is a good meal’ to positively inhumane rants about how the girl looked like a corpse.
Apparently both campaigns were promoting the wrong kind of lifestyle.
But stop and think. What do we mean by promotion? Why does this matter? What exactly is being promoted?
I have a friend who is a professional copywriter and she often says that the objective behind an effective campaign is to sell not the sausage but the sizzle.
In other words, it’s the emotional response to the sausage’s sensory output that is likely to bring the consumer to the table rather than the sausage itself. After all, an intestine rammed with chopped offal doesn’t sound as appealing as the smell of a Cumberland ring fresh off the grill (unless, of course you’re a veggie like me but I’m comfortable running with the sausage metaphor for now).
So, back to Tess in her bikini and the YSL girl laying on the carpet. What’s the sausage being sold here? On a simple level, it’s the fashion but we all know that the printed picture is the end product of a long creative decision making process to create sizzle, so it’s clear that there is some kind of lifestyle being promoted too. Without this spark to fire up the consumer’s emotional response, there’s less likely to be a sale.
In the case of the YSL advertisement, it’s attempting to offer a kind of sophistication but the fact that the girl is lying on the floor in an empty room with seriously wasted thighs and an emaciated chest plays right into the hands of the critics waving the anti ‘heroin chic’ banner. Body dysmorphia is a well-known problem and it’s estimated that eating disorders affect 6.4% of UK adults, so I can understand why there is uneasiness to feature this kind of image in a sphere as public as a popular magazine. At least it got people talking about YSL – and the only thing worse than that, according to Oscar Wilde, is people not talking about it.
Should the advert have been banned? Probably but not necessarily just for the model, I think the shot was poorly styled in terms of the message it was sending. This leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth if this kind of negative publicity was intentional.
Is Tess doing more of the same? What’s her sizzle?
Is Tess really promoting cake abuse as a lifestyle choice?
According to critics avidly waving the anti-cake banners, images of her should also be banned because she too is promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. I suppose if she’d been pictured laying on a kitchen floor surrounded by semi-eaten cream-filled chocolate sponge this would be a fair point.
But that’s not her sizzle. Not once has she encouraged anyone to overeat. She has referred to comfort eating as her only vice but not once has she actively promoted being overweight as a lifestyle choice, like thin people should go out tomorrow and eat the cake store. We’re talking sizzle here, not sausage. She’s not promoting cake, chips, cheese or burgers. She’s promoting fashion, looking good and feeling fabulous in the body you have.
Rather than being a target for do-gooders she should be acknowledged as a champion for the thousands of obese women in this country seeking to improve their self-esteem and lose weight for their health.
And feeling good should be the sizzle that leads to weight loss. Doctors aren’t saying that if people would just try to become a bit more beautiful it will save the NHS, so health should be the focus, not man made aesthetic standards – we’ll leave those to the shallow end of the advertising industry.
Rocking a frock Tess Holliday style – one that fits your curves the size you are now – makes a girl feel good. Who cares if it’ll be baggy in a few months’ time – cinch the waist in with a belt until it’s frock buying time again. Wear red shoes to the supermarket, pout lipstick chops at the mirror in the office and feel sexy in your own behind because it’s this kind of attitude that will get you healthy.
Why settle for the sausage when you can have the sizzle?
A treat for the senses or a plate full of dead animal?
I’m feeling excited. Not just because summer is coming but because change is afoot and I like it.
After having seen the fun pictures of fashion blogger Callie Thorpe and friends at Evans’ #stylehasnosize launch last night, I felt something stir from within. It was a feeling of excitement: that a culture of not just body acceptance but body celebration is growing from within the fashion industry and it’s been a long time coming.
Tess causing a storm on the cover of People magazine this week
Add to this, plus size model Tess Holliday’s feature on the cover of People magazine published today. According to her Instagram post this morning, her remit to the magazine was “I wanted show my body off & they listened”. The result? A beautiful woman creatively captured by photographer James White at home in her own body. She was not an unwanted guest there – she was there by choice and it shows.
Like just about every woman I’ve spoken to, my body has never really felt like my own. Granted, I had some special circumstances to deal with – I grew up as part of a controlling religious organisation that dictated just about every aspect of our lives right down to what we thought and how we acted when we were alone. As young women, our bodies were already owned by our future husbands and children and by the congregation for acquiring new recruits and serving the elders. Man-made rules were handed down as the pronouncements of their god. It never quite rang true with me.
So, when I left at 24 and finally got the education I deserved, naturally I had a teensy bit of a leaning towards feminism.
There, I’ve said it. The dirty word that’s been spat out too many times with regard to body issues and obesity. It’s as though the title of Susie Orbach’s totem of a book ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’ has become an ignorantly misused sound bite for the fat shamers. The loving and taking control of our bodies has become a feminist issue and therefore all about man-hating – like we’re spiders seeking to eat the men that come anywhere near us.
Balls.
They’re our bodies and we want them back because we like them. Incidentally we like men too. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Now, I realise that not every woman has had the same prescribed and damaging upbringing as I had. But I do talk to a lot of women and the same issues keep coming up.
The need to prescribe to a diet – low fat, low carb, no biscuits/cake/chocolate for a month diet. Are you in the Weight Watchers or Slimming World camp?
I’m dieting for my holiday. I’m dieting for my wedding. I’m dieting for my sister’s wedding. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, there is always some external force at work to change the way we look. Somehow this body won’t be acceptable for whatever we are working towards.
I have to lose my baby weight. As if pregnancy, childbirth and the endless sleep deprivation coupled with unbelievable pressure to breast feed isn’t enough (don’t get me started on breasts by the way), then the media is obsessed with dropping the fat ten minutes after you’ve left the labour ward.
A suspended disbelief that one size fits all. If it did, we’d all be wearing the same shoes.
The need to buy and consume what the dieting industry and media are offering, unaware of the irony that our bodies are bought and consumed by the dieting and media industries. Like Tyler Durden in Fight Club says – we are having our own fat sold back to us.
Good grief, this is all starting to sound a little political. Apologies if this isn’t your bag (but if it is, Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susan Orbach is not just a cracking good read, it’s also a practical approach to controlling your weight and The Beauty Mythby Naomi Wolf is also worth checking out).
We’ll return to the fashion bloggers and why what they are doing is so exciting.
I’ve read enough clinical papers, newspaper articles and media sound bites now to know that the medical community are worried about our health. We have a rising obesity problem in the West and the strain this will put on services is causing great concern.
In some minds, frocks to fit a full bust, bigger belts to cinch a waist over rounded hips and a bikini that celebrates rather than hides a gloriously chunky body are going to normalise fatness and make the problem worse.
But don’t they see? Rather than being part of the problem, beautiful, well cut and on-trend clothes are part of the solution.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I believe we should normalise fatness and please don’t quote me out of context. I believe we should normalise people being comfortable with the aesthetics of their own body – in that they should take ownership of whether or not it is beautiful.
So whether you are fat, thin, dark skinned, pale skinned, male, female, short, stocky, tall, lean or whatever innumerable permutations of the human body apply to you, they are yours and no one should be making money out of telling you that they are ugly and you need to change them.
What about health? Improving health is part of this, it has to be.
So to this end, let’s do something radical and separate health from aesthetics and moral judgement. Lumping these things together is not just insulting it’s profoundly unhelpful.
As I’ve said before, a body that feels strong and cherished is worth taking care of. We can’t all be skinny but we can all tweak our lifestyles (or overhaul them if we chose) to make them happier and healthier. And this doesn’t necessarily have to involve giving our money and self-esteem to a multi-billion pound industry bent on getting us to spend more by hating what we already have.
I digress again.
Back to my excitement.
I am old enough to have lived through the fledgling but influential low-fat movement of the 1980s. Protein came under fire off the back of the food combining adherents of the 1990s and I’m now sitting back and watching the anti-sugar/anti-carb evangelists with some interest and maybe even a little cynical amusement now. As a seasoned 40-year old I can’t say I’ve seen it all but I’ve seen enough to know that things move in cycles, absolute truth doesn’t exist and prescriptive diets are not an effective long term solution for everyone.
My interests have lead me to read so many inspiring, insightful and sometimes utterly radical and frankly confusing books about the body. About how it is so much more than skin, bones and organs – about how society paints meaning onto it, how the image we see in the mirror is not always what’s there and how it is used as a tool to control our choices.
And I feel like we have reached a point where if we see enough images of fuller figured girls wearing bikinis, beautifully tailored clothes and red lipstick, proudly showing off shapely legs and glorious acres of creamy white bust, the aesthetics of this will no longer be wrong, evil and worthy of distaste. In a utopian future, self-body-hatred, which so often leads to a negative relationship with food will be gone, leaving us big bottomed girls to get on with riding our bikes, safe in the knowledge that each heartbeat will be a little stronger than the one before, even if we’re wearing size 20 Lycra. Perhaps next year we’ll be wearing size 18, maybe even a 16 but this will be a by-product rather than a focal point of a healthier lifestyle.
Perhaps this new aesthetic environment will bring a smile to the writers and theorists of my university days – who knows but I like to think that the girls in London this week are edging us closer to our utopia and having a massive amount of fun while they’re doing it.
Notes:
In the film The Full Monty, Gerald says “Fat, David is a feminist issue…I don’t bloody know (what it’s supposed to mean) do I? But it is”. Body dysmorphia and the male body is just as important and I’m sorry I haven’t had the space to include more about this in my blog post.
You’ll notice the bevy of beauties I’m referring to in my post are pretty young women with luscious, bouncing curls, milky skin and wickedly long eyelashes. I realise that some critics, with some justification, will point out that in this they are as much buying into the beauty myth as the rest of the industry but – one step at a time eh?
Weight Watchers, Slimming World and the dieting industry as a whole: prescriptive diets work wonders for some people – they take the weight off and keep it off. For these people, I can only feel joy, it must feel wonderful to feel the benefits of their hard work. It doesn’t work for me and it doesn’t work for others like me – we must find our own way of taking control of our weight. Shaming and name calling isn’t likely to work either.
What is it about overweight people that reduces some people to hideous hate speak? Is it our chubby cheeks? Our wobbly bottoms? Or our obvious love of lard, burgers and pie?
‘Obese pigs’, ‘people keep putting a fist full of food into their mouths’, ‘stuffing faces’,’ lardies’, ‘being fat is a choice’ and constant referral to laziness, greed and lack of self-control littered a comment section below an article published by the Mail Online this week, written by physician and journalist Dr Max Pemberton.
No stranger to speaking out, this driven psychiatrist and nutritionist wrote a well-reasoned opinion piece about the stress be believes is being put on the NHS by the obese. In terms of style, the article’s awkward use of punning detracted somewhat from its serious content but it’s not that I have a problem with.
Ewww. Apparently, this is what us fatties stuff our faces with all the time. Personally I’d rather go lick the pavement.
The fat shamers of this country are really not helping the overweight to get healthier and unfortunately Dr Pemberton just fed them as much fuel as they wanted. And what pictures accompanied the article? Someone eating a massive burger and two fat ladies sat on a bench overlooking the sea, their rolls apparent but their faces hidden.
Like so many other features about the obese in the media, his words were accompanied by these negative images of fat people as if this is going to shame the overweight, many of whom already suffer from self-confidence problems, into shedding the pounds. It’s simply not going to work.
He’s a psychiatrist. Doesn’t he already know this?
“Most obese people simply do not care about being overweight…we should make such an attitude socially acceptable” he says “that’s not to say you have to be cruel”. I’m not sure I agree with his first statement one hundred per cent but he is entitled to his opinion.
“We also need to address the issue of what is making everyone fat” I agree with him here and his assertion that a fat tax could “fund psychological help to support those who struggle to lose weight”.
Nice one but there are still two conflicting stories running alongside each other here. On one hand, you have the journalist out to sell an emotive article to a readership and on the other, a doctor who wants to do something about the problem all rolled into one. It creates a mixed message.
So, what now? Personally, I’m going to keep on campaigning for more positive images of fat people in the media.
I want to see sexy, vibrant people who pull on their running shoes, go the gym, walk their kids to school, cycle to the shops – because in reality, that’s what a lot of us do.
Yes, exercise alone won’t tackle a weight problem but a healthier feeling body is a body that feels more worth caring for, worth feeding right. Inactivity isn’t a choice for some people but for those that can increase their exercise, what can we do as a nation to get them out, get them moving, get them feeling a part of something? In my mind it’s giving them self-worth.
It’s getting the message out there that you don’t need to be beach body ready, you don’t have to be running ready, you don’t have to be fitness ready. You just need the confidence to get out, do what you can and see where it leads you.
The This Girl Can Campaign. Let’s make a change through more body positive and less fat hating
So, let’s see Dr Pemberton’s article accompanied by a link to the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign. Why not show a plump woman ordering a salad and falafel at a health food van rather than a chap in a chip shop? Let’s show the faces of the overweight so that they become human beings – they don’t want to be bullied or shamed, they want some answers about why dieting for thirty years has got them nowhere.
They want to know why their perceived lack of self-control is somehow worse and more damaging then that of some Neanderthals commenting anonymously on a website.
For the record, I haven’t eaten meat for nearly twenty years – and I’d rather eat the box than the vegetarian crap they serve up at fast food restaurants. I run or cycle at least five times a week, walk at the weekends and eat more fruit and veg than anyone else I know. I was taught how to cook by my mother and at school but I’m also able to learn. I have never smoked and I drink no more than a few glasses of wine a month.
I am not a faceless human lump, I am a vibrant, valid and beautiful human being who is struggling to lose weight so that I can feel healthy. I don’t see that promoting positive images of plus size women and seeing them as fashionable, attractive, valuable human beings makes me part of the “ludicrous cult of the obese” – (to quote Dr Pemberton).
I’m not interested in being the object of hate for some small minded idiots who’ll stub out their fag and open another can of beer, smug in the fact that their vices are more easily hidden.
Hair slapped back, no make up but wearing a massive grin, this is what a size 22 girl looks like after she’s been out for a run. Put that in your fat-shaming pipe and smoke it!
And as a finishing note, compare the attitude of the fat-haters to the fellow runners I met out by the river early this morning. Slogging my final km, two young women bounced past me, light on their feet and chatting happily. They both smiled huge grins in acknowledgement of my effort and I even got a fist pump. This is what will help us, the fatties, the obese, the slobs, the lumps, the burden on the NHS to lose weight.
Not idiots with empty heads, stupid words and unhelpful images.
