The Fatslayer Chronicles

It’s finally becoming noticeable that I’m losing weight, and occasionally I get a thrilling little surprise when I catch sight of myself in a mirror and see that I’m actually not all that big any more.

I went clothes shopping at the weekend, and all the sizes I initially chose to try on were too large – obviously I’m still looking at myself through my fat goggles. I need to lose those and start seeing myself as I really am.

It’s weird, because when I was getting bigger I was in denial, and totally underestimated how hefty I was looking, whereas now that I’m losing weight I keep on overestimating how large I still am. I look in mirrors expecting to still see tons of blubber, and it’s a pleasant surprise to see that even to my critical eye I’m now looking more ‘overweight’ than ‘obese’. I AM still obese, but I’m not in the Jabba the Hutt league these days, and that feels pretty bloody fantastic.

At the weekend I was showered in compliments by my parents, and I tried hard to accept them graciously without saying all my usual things like “oh I’ve still got tons of weight to lose…” or “of course I’m not looking skinny…” I must stop doing that.

On the one hand, it was nice to be complimented, but on the other hand I felt sad that the only time my folks ever say positive things about me and my fat sisters is when we start to lose weight. My one skinny sister is perennially the golden girl, but the rest of us only get a little gilded when our parents judge that we’re approaching a more acceptable size. That seems so shallow and trivialising to me (sorry, mom and dad, but it does!).

I once had a boyfriend that acted in the same way. He always said my size wasn’t an issue, but really it was, and that became more and more obvious as time went on. We lived together for 4 years, and when I was in a losing phase he was always much more attentive, romantic and complimentary than when I was in a gaining phase.

In the end I started to resent the fact that as my weight dropped he’d get as horny as a five-balled bull. I wanted him to love me and find me attractive whatever my size, and patently fat girls didn’t really do it for him.

In the end we split because I felt I deserved better, and he needed to find himself someone who ‘fit’ him better. I didn’t want to end up resenting him for having a preference for one body shape rather than another (after all, the poor guy couldn’t help his predilections!) and I figured I needed to find myself a man whose preferences were less fixed, and who would love me and want to fuck me as much when I was fat as when I was thin.

I wasn’t going to settle for anything less, especially as I didn’t want to turn into one of those women who diet constantly just to keep their man happy.

Whilst it’s possible to give shallow boyfriends the boot, it’s not so easy with parents, is it? My folks are on the verge of their eighth decade, and they’ve judged people by their weight their whole lives, so they’re hardly likely to change now.

I know this. I even accept it – but I don’t have to like it!

They’ve totally changed in their attitude towards me the last couple of times I’ve visited, and are much more loving and warm - and I mistrust and resent their altered behaviour.

Whatever drivel came out of my mouth was greeted with effusion and warmth by them, as if I’d suddenly developed magical powers of witty oratory. Conversely, my elder sister (currently fat) said a few things that my folks would have found funny and amusing if I or my skinny sister had said them, but because they were uttered by my fat sister my parents barely cracked a smile.

It must be so tough to succeed as a fat comedienne! Talk about working with a stacked deck – getting belly-laughs must be like getting blood out of a stone!

Anyway, I digress.

Suddenly I can’t do anything wrong because I’m getting skinny, and she can’t do anything right because she’s getting fat – and I hate it!

Hate it hate it hate it.  

I hate it almost enough to put all the weight back on out of spite…….but not quite!

Childish, moi? Whatever gives you that impression...?

I hate it almost enough to throw my toys out of the pram and tell them that I’m not doing this for their approval, or to be a ‘good girl’, or because they want me to do it - I’m doing it for ME.

But that would hurt their feelings, and at the end of the day they still wouldn’t understand what I was getting at, so I guess I’d better bite my tongue.

The fact that they’re being so blatantly different towards me has got me thinking though. If my own parents have completely altered in their attitude towards me just because I’ve dropped 50 pounds, imagine what it must be like to be drop-dead gorgeous. It must be a real pain in the arse.

Beauty of that magnitude would simply attract lust-crazed bone heads and empty-headed wannabe-best-friends, whose fawning would get really annoying after a while.

I never really felt sorry for babes before, but I’m beginning to have a bit of sympathy for them!

One of the very real benefits of being fat is that it doesn’t attract that kind of attention. The friends you make when you’re fat are the real Mccoy, attracted by personality and intelligence, not just looks.

Real friends.

The trick is to find those folks when you’re fat and hang on to ‘em when you finally make it to skinny ‘cos friends like that are rare and precious!