Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It

by Brittany Gibbons

  Also, I’m choosing to save you my speech about how I think the government uses iPods to track fat people, and just say yes, I get it, we’re all supposed to want to be thinner.

  Being overweight isn’t always a fun life choice. It’s not enjoyable to go to the Gap with your friends and only be able to buy scarves. It wasn’t delightful to spend summers at the quarry faking sickness or my period to get out of taking off my men’s oversize crewneck to swim. It’s not empowering to walk into a restaurant worried that you might not fit comfortably into the booth. Those aren’t fun activities. I spent two decades wanting desperately to be skinny; the desire was always there. Telling a twenty-something girl she looks gaunt or like she might have cancer may just be the best compliment ever. Potato famine was the new black, and I would have traded my soul for a thigh gap, though if I had a thigh gap, I’d probably only use it to hold more snacks or not have to pay for a carry-on while flying Spirit Airlines.

  Dieting was a trick I picked up from friends in college and it never went well for me. Wait, I take that back, I was an excellent dieter at 12 A.M. when I lay in bed upset at the marks my underwear was leaving on my skin. I fell asleep promising myself I would give up carbs for three months until I looked like Nicole Richie with giant boobs. But then I woke up, ate cold leftover pizza, and decided I would easily fix the whole problem by just not wearing underwear anymore.

  BRITTANY’S CHRONICLE OF FAILED WEIGHT LOSS TACTICS

  Last Cake Ever

  The day before I would begin a rigorous new diet regime, I would allow myself one final hurrah before hopping off the fatty train. I’d spend one last day devouring all the sweets and carbs in my house, for two very important reasons. First, they obviously wouldn’t be around to tempt me anymore; second, it’d satisfy my cravings for all the food I shouldn’t technically ever eat again. I’d take one final dance will all my unhealthy vices, gorging to the point where I’d collapse into bed sweaty and swollen, eyes dilated and mouth glistening, like I’d just returned from a heathen solstice celebration, and I’d never want to eat junk food ever again. I call this practice “Last Cake Ever,” and I’d do it every time I woke up feeling fat in my pants. Sometimes I’d have three Last Cake Ever days in a row . . . I was way better at procrastinating than dieting.

  Prescription diet pills

  This was one of my more death-defying stunts. My sophomore year of college I collapsed in the kitchen of my apartment, assuming I was having a stroke. I couldn’t breathe or feel my lips or move my hands. I had trouble even remembering to swallow. My boyfriend rushed me to the ER, where it was determined that I was not having a stroke, but rather, a reaction to the Adipex and Diet Coke I’d been living on for over a month. I sat on the bed in a half-open hospital gown as a gentle nurse peeled the tape from the EKGs off my skin, and I swore I would never take diet pills again. That promise lasted exactly three days, until I justified cutting them in half just to lose enough weight to fit into a skimpy dress for my boyfriend’s fraternity formal. Predictably, I gained back all the weight after the prescription ran out, but not even a health scare or hospital copay could deter me away from being skinny just long enough to retake my Myspace profile picture.

  Tapeworms

  I remember reading an article once about this Australian cyclist who discovered he had a massive tapeworm when he went to the bathroom and found a four-foot segment of it hanging out of his anus. To the average person, this is horrifying, but to a dieter, this sounds like a fun possibility. Is it gross to let a giant parasite hang out in your intestines so you can drink and eat all you want with little to no weight gain? I don’t know, I lived with a girl half a semester in college because her dad owned a Taco Bell franchise and got us free burritos, so I wouldn’t put it past me. Unfortunately, tapeworms have been surprisingly difficult for me to get, no matter how much questionable sushi I eat.

  Cleanse

  I am from the school of thought that you shouldn’t drink your food, unless you were just in some sort of horrific accident that left you in a full-body cast with your mouth wired shut—in that case then yes, blend up that meat loaf. Otherwise, detoxing your body by living on juice and monitoring your bowel movements is no kind of life; three days in and I passed out in a Kroger next to where they make the rotisserie chickens.

  Weight Watchers

  The Weight Watchers program felt like the most youthful of the mom-diet trifecta, Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem being the equivalent of packaged MSG astronaut food. I don’t want to say Weight Watchers is a cult, because that sounds like a bad thing and frankly, the members are so ride-or-die that they terrify me. It’s more like a really dedicated sisterhood that likes to put food on scales and tricks you into feeling like a millennial with all their hip spokespeople and mobile apps. Whenever I talk to someone who’s done Weight Watchers they always tell me about how it’s not a diet, but a lifestyle change. Collecting points like mahjong was fun at first, but there’s something unnatural about low-fat cheese product and skim milk. And they taste horrible.

  No wheat/dairy/carbs/meat/gluten

  Giving up literally every food is the worst idea ever. My mind just can’t forget that these things exist. As much as we may wish it to be true, “close enough” does not a potato or piece of bacon make. I’ve been loyally eating Special K for breakfast since Cher Horowitz in Clueless, and she was able to wear thigh-highs without having them roll down like exploded sausage casings. And now, all of a sudden, cereal and milk is bad? As if, America. As if.

  The gym

  There is no greater motivation to join a gym than to see a photo of yourself taken from the back wearing an outfit you were sure you looked really good in. No matter how the commercials try to sell it, gyms have never felt like a comfortable and welcoming place for me. No one high-fived me or offered to spot me or explained the rules about what towels we can bring into the steam rooms. If I’m looking for a friendly place, I’ll go to Chipotle. All of the workers smile when I walk in and say hi, and when I’m building my burrito, they treat me like an innovative genius, like the Steve Jobs of tortilla stuffing. Chipotle is like Cheers for chubby people; gyms are not. And I just want to add, you know, to put it out there, that people are allowed to not like the gym. It doesn’t mean that I’m inactive or unhealthy; I just genuinely don’t enjoy it. In the same way I prefer not to watch Tyler Perry movies.

  Become an Asian competitive eater, motherfucker

  Aside from not being Asian, I really didn’t see how this plan could fail. You just dip the hot dog in the water and put it in your mouth. I’ve watched many a thirteen-pound Asian girl out-eat ten men three times her size and still shop at Limited Too.

  Just kidding; my hands would stink like hot dogs all day. That smell never washes off. Like gasoline, cat pee, or Shalimar in the rugs of the apartment you rented after that old lady died.

  NOW WHAT?

  My fitness and body aspirations at thirty are different from my aspirations at twenty. At twenty, I just assumed I’d work out until I was so tiny, people became concerned for my health and I’d roll my eyes at them from my Victoria’s Secret bras and Abercrombie jeans. Now I just want to maintain my current weight so I don’t need to buy new clothes. When you look at weight loss, it’s often clothing driven. Weddings, vacations, and high school reunions, all things you are supposed to be thin for. But what if you have a gorgeous wedding dress in your current size, loads of flattering bathing suits, and a killer pair of jeans? Starving myself has suddenly become a moot point. I have options; I’m no longer a fashion pariah. So where does that leave my weight? Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your business.

  I like to put good food in my mouth, and while I am aware of the calories I ingest, instead of cutting them I make them count. I have a full-on love affair with food, appreciating the different cultures and processes within it. In fact, I take entire vacations around eating. It’s how I remember where I’ve been; I’ve either eaten, thrown up, or starte
d my period without the proper supplies there.

  Beignets with my best friend in New Orleans. Too much rum on the beaches of Playa del Carmen on our second honeymoon. Orlando, Florida, the city of emergency men’s tube sock maxi-pads.

  You see, these flabby parts aren’t problem areas; they’re parts of a scrapbook.

  14

  HOW TO BE PROFESSIONALLY FAT ON THE INTERNET

  THERE IS NO greater motivation to be successful than being homeless. Okay not homeless homeless, but without home to the point you have no roof over your head and are forced to move your family of five back in with your parents and their nine pugs and get on public assistance.

  You are probably thinking right now, this sounds weirdly like the life of J. K. Rowling, and I would agree. We live basically mirrored lives; she’s a billionaire living in London writing about wizards, and I’m in Ohio famous for writing about my crotch and stretch marks.

  I bounced a dark-eyed baby girl on my knee as we sat in the pale mustard-colored room of the downtown courthouse. The only window faced a brick wall, and I bit the inside of my cheek and focused on the rain running along the rusted metal pipes outside to keep from crying.

  “I think we’re the only ones who brought a baby to a bankruptcy hearing,” I whispered to Andy.

  “Well, we didn’t have a sitter and I don’t exactly know the rules,” he snapped before softening and grabbing my hand in his.

  Stuff like this wasn’t in your vows. The officiant didn’t ask me to say, I Brittany, take you, Andy, to be my lawfully wedded husband, in happiness and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, in wealth and in the absolute humiliation that comes with bankruptcy, as long as we both shall live. It’s not that I wouldn’t have committed to the vows, but a heads-up would have been nice.

  We had been doing so well. Andy was working in IT for a large car manufacturer, and I was home with the kids, picking up part-time income from the advertising that ran on my blog on the Internet. We had bought our first home, a quaint yellow two-story farmhouse in the country that reminded me of the Gilmore Girls, and Andy traded in his sensible family sedan for a sports car that he leased on his twenty-eighth birthday. We hosted family Thanksgiving gatherings and Christmas morning brunches, took vacations, and sent our boys to private preschool. Andy and I were living the American dream I’d always wanted. No struggling, no stress, no empty stomachs.

  Who could predict that an hour before I gave birth to our third child on April 30, 2009, breaking news would interrupt my labor and a TBS showing of Clueless to inform us that Chrysler had declared bankruptcy. And thirty minutes after that, Andy’s phone would ring telling him that he, and thousands like him, no longer had a job. There were no work, no answers, no medical insurance, and no way my single income could support our new family of five.

  “This baby cannot come out right now,” I pleaded with the doctor whose hand was wrist-deep inside me.

  She laughed uncomfortably, unsure if I was serious, and asked the nurses to ready the room for delivery.

  “I’m serious. Andy, please,” I begged Andy, clawing at his hand with every contraction, “Do something; we can’t have this baby on the day you lost your job!”

  I cried with every breath and every push, until finally our third child appeared, her cries in competition with my own guttural wailing. Just as we had built our lives on our own, accepting no help or handouts from Andy’s wealthy family, we had lost it all on our own as well. It was a blow to our bank account, as well as our ego.

  PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

  I sat in the parking lot of the health department in my two-year-old navy Dodge Durango. I’d loved it because it was big and strong, and I felt safe and untouchable powering through the streets with babies in the backseat. It was my very first new car, and it held its own each day in the car line outside my kid’s school, among the Escalades and the Hummers. Now it had taken me someplace very different: to the Fulton County Health Department to apply for public assistance.

  You see, there is very little room for pride in parenthood. When you have three children and are living right at or slightly above your means, it takes almost no time at all to run out of money. Two months into Andy’s layoff, bills began to fall behind and our meals became less frivolous and a bit more purposeful; meat for energy and carbs for fullness, the bulk of our money going toward diapers for the baby and whole milk for the boys, and even that grew tight. Eventually we had to ask for help.

  WIC stands for Women, Infants, and Children, and it’s an income-based nutritional supplement program for children and expecting or postpartum mothers. Upon acceptance, you receive a coupon book each month for milk, cheese, fruits, vegetables, and grains. I am not sure where conservative politicians get their information, but I can assure you there is no sense of ease or entitlement in government assistance. I wasn’t a blip in the system or exception to the rule. I sat in the waiting room with three children at my legs, surrounded by parents who looked just like me: tired, down on their luck, and embarrassed. Once called back to the patient room, the children and I were questioned about our diets, had blood drawn to check our iron, and then weighed.

  “Are you pregnant again?” the small blond nurse asked me as she adjusted the metal bar of the scale.

  “No,” I answered. “I always look this way.”

  There was no part of this process that wasn’t humiliating, from having your life judged and documented by government workers to pushing your cart full of children and WIC coupons up and down the aisles of Walmart, looking for the kindest cashier with no line to check you out.

  We were on WIC for eight weeks, and as the auto industry perked up, Andy eventually got his job back, but it was already too late. Four months was all it took to break us.

  MR. AND MRS. CONNER

  I’d spent the evening before our bankruptcy hearing packing up our belongings, nursing the baby, and watching marathons of Roseanne on Nick at Night. As a kid, Roseanne was a show I had trouble watching. It hit a little too close to home for me, and I swore I would never let my children grow up in a house where the lights were shut off or the refrigerator was empty. Andy joined me on the couch as I cried watching Dan and Roseanne Conner love each other fiercely, despite being down and out more often than not, with equal parts irony and inspiration. Bankruptcy was a moment. Walking into the health department for public assistance was a moment. Moving back in with my parents for a few months while we got back on our feet would be another, oh my God long, moment. These scary things we were going through were just moments in a life filled with millions of way more amazing moments, and we could either let them drag us down or we could stand up, use them, and keep on loving each other fiercely.

  “Gibbons?” The clerk called from the doorway of the courtroom. “Mr. and Mrs. A. Gibbons?”

  “After you, Mrs. Conner.” Andy stood up and reached for my hand.

  “No, after you, Mr. Conner.” I smiled.

  We sat across from a court trustee as he flipped through a binder of our creditors. Credit cards that we’d maxed out buying groceries and gasoline. Overdue water bills and disconnection warnings. The receipt of repossession for Andy’s sports car, which had been picked up from our driveway only days before, me watching it being towed away from my front porch, my neighbors watching from their living rooms.

  None of our creditors showed up to the court hearing, though they had every right to do so in an attempt to enforce payment of debts. Maybe in terms of the big picture, what we owed wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe they hated showing up to court to face poor people. Whatever the reason, I was thankful to look behind me and see only empty seats.

  “Will you be keeping your home or surrendering it back to your mortgage holder?” the trustee asked softly. No matter how many times a day he was made to say this he was still careful to give it the pause and grief it deserved.

  “We’re giving it back,” Andy responded quietly.

  “Just sign here.” He placed a paper on the table a
cross from us and shoved two pens our way. Signing away our home was the last significant act of the day. I walked out of the courthouse broke and without a home.

  If I learned anything from that experience, it was that I would never put myself or my kids in a situation where the loss of one job would destroy our lives. It was more than just making better choices or creating an emergency fund. I had become far too dependent on my husband, and for the first time in my life, I felt drive, ambition, and blind hunger for my own success and security.

  I AM AN ADULT WHO WORKS ON THE INTERNET

  I started a blog in 2007, after having watched a news story about a mommy blogger who quit her full-time job to write about diapers and cleaning products from home, for money. I had long since quit planning weddings at the country club, and was staying home with two toddlers at the time. The only opportunities I thought existed as a writer were working for magazines or publishing a novel, two things that felt very out of my reach without the degree or the time. But writing on my own terms online was an exciting notion. I’d always been tech-savvy, creating a GeoCities website in college and throwing myself into social networks and forums while the children slept.

  I went to work building my site, never calling myself a “blogger,” because that’s a bizarre word (think: moist) and because in my opinion a blog is simply a medium. I’m a writer. I just happen to put my words on the Internet because it’s the twentieth century and I’ve forgotten how to hold pencils. I’ve also forgotten how to properly fill out checks. Whenever I am forced to do it, I always end up having to google how to accurately spell out the numbers and I treat the “memo” section as a tiny to-do list that serves as a much-needed reminder by the time the bank mails the check back to me.