Friday 10 October 2014

Fat Woman and the fight of her life

Fat Woman is not a fan of diet porn and has posted before about how she disapproves of The Biggest Loser and its exploitative methods. However, Fat Woman can admit that she has found herself watching "Fat: The Fight of My Life" for several episodes in a row. 

Fat Woman caught one episode of "A Year To Save My Life", which is the previous incarnation of the show, and was fascinated to see a fat person exercising. Not just a single cardio class but swimming, running, even doing a triathlon. Fat Woman simply hadn't ever seen that before. It was amazing to Fat Woman in the same way black people have talked about seeing another black person on television for the first time. Fat Woman didn't think it would ever happen, that people like her would ever be considered worthy of portrayal or representation in a positive way on screen. Fat Woman likes seeing people like her; she remembers what is was like to get to the point where everything felt out of control and even diet and exercise weren't working for her.

Personal Trainer said Fat Woman only liked the show because she fancies Jessie Pavelka. Fat Woman is not denying that Jessie is quite attractive for a US TV star but she realised that he looks rather like Thin Husband (tall, handsome chiselled features) crossed with Personal Trainer (big muscles, trendy hair cut) and that was like being dowsed with a bucket of cold water. Fat Woman did consider the possibility of applying for the show so she could get hugs from Jessie in the bit after the third advert break where the fat person has to have a big breakdown about how hard they are finding it and then pick themselves up and work even harder but like weight loss surgery she suspects she is now too fit. 

Fat Woman is jealous of the weight loss people on these shows get in a comparatively small amount of time. Fat Woman tries not to beat herself up about it because she does still have months at a time where she struggles with a metabolic disorder, putting on half a stone in a week. Ironically, the harder Fat Woman works the smaller the gap between times when her hormones are messed up. It actually works better for Fat Woman to lose weight more slowly as she is more likely to manage her thyroid levels better and not fall into being over-medicated and having weight gain as a result. Fat Woman also accepts that she would never have stuck to healthy eating if she had been limited to just 1500 calories. Fat Woman was eating a deficit of 500 calories each day and could manage a reasonable life that way, not being hungry or unable to eat out. If there is one thing that really stomped on Fat Woman's celebrity trainer crush it was that. Fat Woman doesn't think that someone with a basal metabolic rate of 3500+ calories a day - and that's just to exist - should be on a just 1500 calories a day when they are doing two hours of hard exercise and certainly not for months on end. 

Fat Woman was also really jealous of the last person because they got to do proper open water swimming for 10k and were talked about as a "proper athlete". Fat Woman was just at the stage where she was going to pick a sport to commit to when Small Baby appeared on the scene. Fat Woman misses feeling fit and like she can do anything. Shooting is a great sport but it doesn't make you feel like you're working hard.

Fat Woman would love to know where they get the wetsuits for the fat women. Fat Woman actually tweeted the production company once but didn't get any response. Fat Woman has an open water swimming course all lined up and had resolved to go but couldn't find a wetsuit.

Fat Woman also thinks the boxing pad work shown is a little suspect but she might just be being snobby.

What really put the nail in the coffin of Fat Woman's celebrity crush is that Jessie Pavelka is joining the team of the Biggest Loser. Fat Woman considered Jessie's shows the most positive and helpful thing she'd seen for fat people in popular culture, but to join the Biggest Loser with it's unhelpful short termism, unhealthy regimen and bullying and humiliation is just unforgivable. 


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