Ms Fifikins

You know those blog posts that you want to write and know you have so much to say and then for a few days you just mull and try and work out what to say… well this is one of them.

I don’t really watch tv news any more. I listen to Triple J radio more often than not which has 3 minute news bulletins, but otherwise I gain most of my news online.

I have never been a fan of News Limited publications, however I have found that news.com.au (not even going to hyperlink it!) has a good iPhone layout in safari. So most days I flick through some news. I have it set up to show top stories, breaking news, most popular news, Queensland news, technology top stories, IT top stories, sport top stories and afl. Usually I just skim over the headlines and if there is something there I am really interested in I might read it.

I suspect that only reading News Limited headlines gives a false view of reality too, but really, I couldn’t give a damn about Hugh Heffner’s divorce, or the lotto number predictor who is going to reveal secrets.

But on Tuesday there was an article that I read. It was an opinion piece. Perhaps because it was on a news site, it struck home more than it might have on a blog. Yet that is the wrong attitude to have, I know. I suspect if it had been on a blog, I would have just either ignored it, perhaps commented and then moved on.

But this article has stayed with me for 2 days now.

When I first read it I was angry. Saying that most women over size 14 are unhealthy is a bit of a gross generalisation. I thought of a former colleague. She has 4 children, goes to the gym at least 5 times per week (usually for a couple of hours) and is super skinny. Yet I know her breakfast consists of coffee, morning tea is more coffee, lunch is often an apple (with a cup of coffee), perhaps a bag of chips for afternoon tea and a cup of coffee and she eats the kids scraps off their plates for dinner. Hardly healthy.

Apparently there is some douchebag radio announcer in Sydney that people actually listen to. He hooks 14 year old girls up to lie detectors to interogate them about their sexual experiences and stuff… This week he said that Magda Szubanski needed to lose more weight and would do so in a concentration camp. Again the idea that a woman who has lost a quarter of her body weight and dropped 6 dress sizes is unhealthy because she is still a size 14.

But back to the article. A lot of what Susie O’Brien has to say makes sense. Perhaps this is why it angered me so much. Yes, it is extremely difficult to find nice clothes to wear as a size 18/20. However I do believe that if there was no clothing to fit those of us this size, people would complain at the nudity.

Yet the opposite is also true. Why do clothing manufacturers keep making minus size clothes? Wouldn’t it be better for these super skinny grossly underweight people to just wear sacks that hid their boney sinewy bodies?

But let’s get back to what is healthy. You know those BMI charts? The ones put out by the World Health Organisation? These are the ones used by almost everyone to say how morbidly obese you are. Well…

Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet devised the equation in 1832 in his quest to define the “normal man” in terms of everything from his average arm strength to the age at which he marries. This project had nothing to do with obesity-related diseases, nor even with obesity itself. Rather, Quetelet used the equation to describe the standard proportions of the human build—the ratio of weight to height in the average adult. Using data collected from several hundred countrymen, he found that weight varied not in direct proportion to height (such that, say, people 10 percent taller than average were 10 percent heavier, too) but in proportion to the square of height. (People 10 percent taller than average tended to be about 21 percent heavier.) [see more here!]

You see, some of us who need to wear big clothes are relatively healthy. I have low cholesterol, normal to low blood pressure and exercise 3-4 times per week. And I shouldn’t have to try and justify myself here. I could go round and round in circles. We shouldn’t worry about how we look, yet we do. I want to wear clothes that suit my figure. I want to look nice. I want to be attractive. Inside I have both attractive and ugly traits. I am trying to identify them. I don’t need people who have never had a weight issue (having 3 kids and having to buy a gym membership- yikes, how awful!) understand. Just as I don’t really understand how hard it is to quit smoking.

I went to the races last weekend. My photo was taken for the local paper and published on their website. Yet another News Limited publication… I felt beautiful and in some eyes I was. I bought a cheap dress on eBay and paid more to have my hair done than I spent on my dress and shoes combined!

This is me:

Curves and all. Trying to be healthy and not needing to be judged by others, let alone myself.

I joined the gym over 6 months ago now. In that time my body shape has changed. According to my measurements I have lost quite a bit from my waist and thunder thighs and managed to gain an extra centimeter in my bust!

But my weight has stayed the same. Actually to be honest, since the week before Christmas I have managed to find 3.5kg. This morning I signed up again to Weight Watchers. I don’t want to focus on numbers or weights as such, but I know I want to be healthier. I need to set a good example to my kids and I really have found the most amazing man and want to be around to spend time with him.

I like being able to track online (even if the stoopid database hadn’t heard of a cross-trainer!) and have thrown a feeler into the online community boards. I am not on a diet, but am making a conscious decision to change my lifestyle. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

At times, despite my bravado, I can be a pretty insecure person. I am actually pretty easily intimidated and have massive self doubts.

I actually have another anonymous or private blog. My friends know it is me, but, I hope, there is no identifying information there. Part of the reason is that my tumultuous private life over the last few years could incriminate certain people. There are many truths or versions thereof and whilst I know mine is right, others disagree!

Having an anonymous blog also lets me explore more private issues and hide in many ways from scrutiny. One of my biggest demons though is body image. I do think that until I can come out and confront the issues then hiding is not the answer.

I was looking at the search engine keywords that have directed people to this site and the predominant one is 4321 detox or derivatives thereof, which I previously posted about. Actually ‘weird valentines’ or similar comes pretty close too. The weirdest is ‘christian anyone valentine sms’ which really makes wonder if they found what they were looking for!

But the detox seems popular! I survived it. 10 days without gin, coffee or diet coke. 10 days without chocolate or lollies! Since then I have carried on my  healthier habits. In 4 weeks I am down 4.5kg. Yes my pants are loser, and colleagues have commented, but I don’t feel any different. I still see my extremely ugly tuck shop arms and my thunder thighs and my multiple chins. Do I feel healthier? Not necessarily. I am drinking less some of the time, I have only 1 coffee a day and the occasional diet coke.

4kg is a good start. I do wonder if I should throw away the scales altogether though. They are but numbers. It doesn’t matter how much I weigh, unless I am trying to calculate my BMI, which I should just leave to my GP and use his Viagra advertising scales (I do love his sense of humour!) and let him tell me how healthy I am. My blood pressure is fine and my cholesterol is very low.

When I was doing my final teaching prac a few years ago, I was assessed by one of my favourite lecturers. She is a pedagogy expert and absolutely into reflection! We spent a semester in third year writing reflections and I did quite well! Then she saw me teach and her comment was ‘OMG Fi, I have never seen anyone reflect so much during a lesson, chill a little!’ So I suppose that is the aim! I need to chill a little and not focus on reflecting all the time!

God I hope I don’t sound too neurotic here! Normal programming will resume momentarily

I think I have fallen for a fad.

I have always seemed to fall outside the healthy weight guidelines, except for a period when I was about 15-17 when I was a gorgeous size 10-12.

Then life intervened. Deaths, marriage, infertility, mental illness… I have had my fair share of downs. And during this I have tended to eat.

18 months ago I again set my mind to shedding some kilos. And I have. In that time I have lost over 23kg. But for the last 8 months it has been at a standstill. At least I haven’t found it again!

So when a colleague said she was going to do the 4.3.2.1 Slim and Detox™ “a new way to help slim, cleanse, purify and tone your body in just 10 days” I said I’d go along with it. Originally she said no steak, but all it says is a calorie controlled diet. So I am going the no caffeine and no alcohol for 10 days and eating as unprocessed food as possible. Whilst I usually eat fairly healthy for meals, snacks can be another thing. Then there is caffeine… I usually have at least 1-2 coffees and 3 cans of diet coke a day. I have been known to have alcohol free days, but recently I have not been known to string too many of these together.

Today hasn’t been too bad. I did want a coffee this morning and another this afternoon, but drank the detox solution instead. And it doesn’t taste too bad. Food has been fine, but then again no real challenges today. I am baking a cake tomorrow for the boss’s birthday on Tuesday. That should be interesting. Had to hide the gin bottle in the bottom of the freezer…

I suppose if I can kickstart things in the next 10 days (I doubt I will lose the 28kg needed to put me in the healthy weight range in this period!) then I can carry on with perhaps a coffee and a can of diet coke a day and a gin or a glass of wine at night. I am doing what a friend does and throwing all coins into a jar at the end of the day. He ended up with a few thousand dollars over the course of a year. Doubt I will be that lucky! But it may get me to Melbourne again…