Fatty 3 – Fit Fat Chicks
Posted by fatty3 on January 18, 2008
OK, I just had a day and I did not want to go the gym after work. What I really wanted to do was go to M&S for happy hour and have a couple of adult beverages to go with a plate of french fries. And, don’t forget the tartar sauce, thank you very much. But no. Instead, I was good and I went to the gym. And it was a hard run. I had an exercise induced asthma attack (like somehow it’s substantially different from a non-exercise induced asthma attack), and I was sweating like……someone who sweats alot, and my knees were hurting, and I was wearing one of my least comfortable and/or attractive work out outfits (it was all that I had clean) so I felt even more like a sweating, middle-aged, fat chick. It was just an all around bad bio-rhythm day.
So, I just want to give myself a little wut wut and a pat on the ass. And I also want to give a shout out and a go girl to all the other fit fat chicks out there. We rock!
If you have never carried around extra weight, you can not know the sheer willpower that it takes to become fit when you are fat. There is virtually no positive motivation to becoming fit when you are overweight. There is plenty of negative motivation out there, but not really anything that makes you go “Yeah, I WANT to workout and become fit even though I’m 50 pounds heavier than I was 10 years ago”.
Everything hurts, so you have to find just the right exercise/sport/activity/gym/personal trainer that will allow for your bad knees, flat feet, personal proclivities and hormonal shifts. After narrowing down to the activity that will create the least amount of additional pain and/or injury, you have to prepare for the fact that you will be uncomfortable no matter what. This discomfort is in addition to the normal discomfort of starting a new physical activity. You have to deal with the discomfort of finding clothes to work out in. There are few athletic stores that carry workout clothing for anyone who isn’t a size 8 or below, so that leaves you to order clothing on-line without first being able to try it on. And, as I’ve bitched about in a previous post, if you’re like me and you’re under 5′2″, then you’re screwed, because I have yet to find athletic clothing in petite/short sizes.
The next discomfort comes the first time you move in a way you aren’t used to and you feel your fat (something that I will go to great lengths to avoid). I hate yoga for this very reason. I can’t do many of the poses because the belly/breast combo prohibits it. If you take up running as I did, you’ll notice every jiggling bit on your body, and your knees and feet are inevitably going to take more of a pounding.
The psychological discomfort can be the harshest. Perceiving that people are looking at you as the fatty that they hope never to become, thus becoming what motivates them to work out harder. This can suck out every ounce of good intention, and is probably the #1 reason fat people quit the fitness endeavor.
The thing is, anyone who is not fit, whether fat or thin, is going to have a hard time at first with any new regimen of exercise. However, I think that as fat folks, we tend not to remember this. We think it’s hard because we are fat, when in fact, it’s hard because gawdammit, it’s hard! New exercise routines are just frickin hard. And you have to just get through the initial discomfort. And, we have to keep reminding ourselves that we have just as much right to be fit as anyone, and that we don’t have to lose 20 pounds first.
Whenever I go to the doctor, the nursing staff is always surprised at how low my blood pressure is, because even though I’ve weighed less in my life, I’ve never been accused of being skinny. I always say “It’s because this fat girl is in shape”. I have always had excellent cholesterol and have never had any co-morbidities. I’ve had some doctors who were actually kind of irritated by the fact that I wasn’t pre-diabetic or on the verge of having a stroke. And now studies are showing that being fat and fit is far superior to being thin and unfit. So, there.
So, and I say this as much for me as for anyone else who might still be reading this post, if you’re a fat chick and you are getting fit, don’t quit! It’s really worth it. There was nothing for me that compared to the first time I ran all the way around Greenlake (Seattle, WA) without stopping. Completing the Danskin Triathlon was a huge accomplishment. And you know, if I can do it, you can do it. So, get out there and run like a girl!
