Save, Repair, Your Favorite Pair of Jeans

Hey everyone,,,, just a quick post about something I just saw featured on a local news show called LX New York http://www.nbcnewyork.com/shows/lxnewyork/

They featured a company that repairs denim jeans. I know over the years I have thrown away perfectly good jeans because only the area between the thighs had worn away. This company has you go online and mark up a diagram of your jeans where you want them repaired. You then mail them your jeans and they send you an quote to repair them. They also have a service where they can convert regular jeans into maternity jeans and then turn them back after the baby comes.

They are here in NY but they also do this service thru the mail.

The company is called Denim Therapy http://denimtherapy.com/repairnow-var1/?gclid=CIOS6p7NgqMCFdFN5QodHCBzaQ and I figured that there may be some in our community that will be happy to know about them.

Cheers,

Ivan

NO NEW KNEES FOR YOU!! unless I can amputate your stomach first

Hello Friends,

My mom and I are hanging out with an old family friend tomorrow who lives in Florida, She and my mom are both in their mid 60's.

This friend, who for the purpose of this post I shall call judy, weighs between 300 and 400 pounds. She also has arthritic knees and while I am not 100 % up on the details of her situation, I will describe them as I understand them. I will get very clear on the details tomorrow as we have plans to hang out all afternoon.

Here is the deal. The doctors wanted her to loose weight before they replace her knees, So they advised her to have the lap band procedure. She did this about two years ago. If she lost any weight, she gained in back. So the knees are still not replaced and she lives with horrible pain.

I assume they went to adjust the lap band to force it to work and get her to loose weight and guess what? They cannot find the device. I never heard of that before. It is not around her stomach and they cannot locate it. So guess what the docs are gonna do now. After the lap band failed. They are still not going to do the operation to replace her knees because surgery is too risky at her weight. What they are going to do is amputate her stomach with a full gastric bypass and while they are in there, they hope to find the dislodged lap band device. Apparently the risks of this surgery is acceptable. It just seems so very wrong that the Doctors are willing to risk her life this way.

I feel horrible for her. Worse is that in the few times that I have spoke about fat acceptance with her, she has been completely unreachable.

I am going to try to reach her again tomorrow. Surely folks in our community can understand the injustice of doctors refusing to provide the pain relieving knee replacements but encouraging the life threatening stomach amputation. Further, we have the insight to understand how someone like my mother's friend Judy could agree with the doctors about the bypass surgery before the knee surgery.

I anticipate my discussions with Judy falling on deaf ears tomorrow. I am sick with sadness about this.

Please friends, send me your good vibes to my brain so what I say tomorrow to her has value.

Gratitude for the Sphere

I am very grateful that there are so many smart activist voices out there discussing Size Acceptance. I myself have been not only been under the radar, but almost completely "off grid" when it comes to following the sphere and watching the different developments and issues here.

Long story short on my absence has been a crisis of confidence about my health choices and a really difficult battle with my own "Bad Fattie Guilt". I probably will blog about it more but right now I just want to say thank you to all the voices on the sphere waiting for me in my special inbox dedicated to the sphere.

Cheers,


Ivan

MAN UP!! -- Bias, Hatred, and Prejudice, Oh My!!

Dr Puhl from Yale did a blog post about the study showing how political candidates are judged when the only variable is their weight. As most of us would expect, the women got the worse reaction for being heavy. The surprising data out of this research is that people have a more favorable opinion of heavy male politicians that thin male politicians.

This got me thinking again about how the male perspective is underrepresented on the sphere. It also got me thinking about how my perspective about this may be unique to me.

Having been around our online community for almost two years now, I am totally tuned into the fact about women having it harder on an overall basis than men do when it comes to weight bias and fat hatred. I get it. Heck, until I got involved in the community I had no understanding about privilege even though I possess it in many ways solely for being white, hetero, and male.

Yet, I cannot help feel that my experience is diminished because as a man I do not have it nearly as bad as a women do in terms of Fat Hate. It gets me asking myself questions like, "What's wrong with me." "Am I one of the only guys that feels the profound sense of oppression for being 400 pounds?"

On top of this I also feel that in terms of good vs. bad fatty, I land squarely in the bad column which I have posted about in the past and will post more about in the future.

I think that what it may boil down to is that I am still working through the powerful programming that taught me I was bad, lazy, unworthy, pitiful, disgusting etc, It still has a choke hold on me. I am just lucky to have two fingers between my neck and that choke hold thanks to the Fat Acceptance community. I am constantly questioning myself. Sadly, the foundation of my self doubt are all those years of the hateful, biased, moral panic induced blitzkrieg designed by a variety of forces all serving their own self interests. Worse yet, not being honest to themselves when they frame their greed based motives as genuine concern for my well being. ughh!

So I am the subject of a mindfuck so comprehensive, so intense, so huge that I struggle to not beat myself up all the time for not doing enough to move from the bad fatty column to the good fatty column.

the kicker is, that even if I found my way into the good fatty column, I'd still be living in a society that hates me.

I think that recognizing that this is a battle that I cannot win overnight. I have to take it a little at a time.

It feels really big to me and I am struggling with all of this right now. Part of me thinks that I am some sort of weakling, somehow too soft, too whiney, to defective because, heck, men don't have it as bad as women. I don't see any other guys on the sphere talking about how hard this stuff is.

I'm lucky in that I can open up about this stuff and seek out support, advice, and even just a hello when I need it. I have to say that with the exception of a little tough love in the beginning about my lack of understanding about privilege, I have got nothing but good luvin from the community for which I am very grateful.

I so sincerely wanna find my place, my peace with my Fat Acceptance. It has been a difficult journey for me. We all have it hard. the girls and the boys.

A trip to the CARDIOLOGIST

I have an appointment with a cardiologist on wednesday. My pulmonologist is sending me to him because I have been short of breath for several months now and there hasn't any improvement there. There also hasn't been any deterioration either. He did an echo cardiogram and told me that there was nothing abnormal there. I think he is practicing a little defensive medicine.

My lipids were fine a year ago and I really do not think I have any heart stuff going on. I have to be honest, I am a little concerned about the cardiologist being a fat hater. Every doctor that I have met through this hospital has been fair and some have been actually remarkably understanding about my fat.

My pulmonologist sent me for am echo cardiogram which did not show anything abnormal.

I think that my breathing troubles are about my lack of movement. I joined the Y and have been to one water aerobics class. I would like to get the these classes more often. I think that I can recondition myself to better breathing.

I just want the cardiologist to be fair. If he is not, I will have to go see another one. I actually would like to get confirmation that there is nothing going on with my heart. I hope I get a sane enough doctor who can help me find out if that is in fact the case.

Is there anyone out there that is willing to share via comments or via links any experiences with cardio docs from a HAES perspective and does anyone knows what medical tests/procedures can confirm that my heart is in fact healthy, please comment.

Citizen Fat

It really feels like there is a huge uptick in the amount of media out there sharing some very important Fat Acceptance coverage that is either sympathetic and/or fairly communicated.

At the same time I watched on one of the lists I follow the description of an attack on a health professional for raising some questions about claims being made about the benefit of weight loss surgery. These questions, asking for data and references to source material for the claims being made. Instead of addressing the questions about the data, the WLS advocates attacked the person for asking the questions.

One of the most dynamic takes on the scapegoating and fat hatred that I have seen, appeared on Marianne Kirby's blog, The Rotund (read through the comments too) It really touched on so many important points and then the comments raised more.

Then via the NAAFA list I was alerted to this about the corn lobby producing commercials about the virtue of high fructose corn syrup.

Just being plugged in enough to recognize an uptick in the coverage leads me to think a little about my own progress. I haven't found a place with my food yet that feels right, but I have made some progress in that I can recognize what feels better. I haven't found my way to regular movement that feels good, but I have found my way to drum circles and the pool at the Y. I am hesitant to think about being out there as an activist because of guilt about my disability and other various shame points that are a big part of my story, but when I had the opportunity I went right up to one of the outspoken fat haters who gets lats of media and called her on the lack of logic to some of her rantings.

So I guess what I want to say is that I am growing as an informed citizen of the Fat Acceptance community and I am grateful for the many sources of education that come my way from being plugged into the various lists and feeds I belong to.

Dignity, Ryan Seacrest, Oprah, & Jamie Oliver

I just finished watching Oprah who had on Jamie Oliver to promote his new show the "Food Revolution" which goes on tv tonight.

They showed a clip where a double size casket was shown. Oprah mentioned that these oversized caskets are a booming business. During the clip they spoke about how there is little chance for dignity when someone is buried in one of these caskets.

Earlier in the show, a picture of a 11 year old Ryan Seacrest was shown as Ryan told Oprah how he was ashamed to go in the pool without a tee shirt on. The photo they showed was of a normal kid. Seriously, the fact that this photo was considered something to be ashamed of was in and of itself sad.

They spoke about dignity. Shame on them. Ryan Seacrest letting kids think that being ashamed of their bodies when they swim is normal. If Ryan Seacrest thinks it, then it must be true. And what a shame, because swimming is great, fun, healthy movement.

They spoke about dignity. Shame on them. How many kids do you think will be teased and shamed about needing a huge casket that requires a forklift when they die after this show is broadcast.

You know, I did notice that when Oprah asked Jamie Oliver about how a family he worked with was doing he said this, "Well, Ya know, ultimately the family they're losing weight, I mean Justin whose 12 years old when I met him has lost 20, 30 pounds which is great but you've got to remember I am not doing a diet show. This is about real food. This is about health. There are just as manny unhealthy skinny people. We can't just label it as obesity. It is about what goes in us, medicating ourselves through food."

He said this in front of a giant casket that Oprah's producers arranged to have wheeled out onto the stage.

Shame on them. I guess it is a win when at least he says something like there are unhealthy skinny people. The town his show is centered around wasn't chosen because it was the unhealthiest town in the county. It was chosen because Huntington, West Virginia was listed by the CDC as one of the most obese cities in america.

So I think Mr. Oliver is talking out of both sides of his mouth when he says "We can't just label it as obesity" when his show is framed around the most obese city in America.

So I am upset. Because I agree with the nutritional stuff and the cooking and the variety of fresh in season produce that he is teaching about. I am upset because all this good information is on network tv because of the moral panic about obesity. This show is not on the air because there is an overwhelming concern about improving the health of all kids. It is about war on the obesity..

I think that this show will have a greater effect on increasing the moral panic about obesity than it will in increasing the quality of the nutrition in schools and on the kitchen tables of America. There will be more teasing, bullying, self hatred and of fat kids and adults than heathy eating.

So one of the things that bugs me about a lot of the blogging in out Size Acceptance Community is that most of what we do is point out the problems, identify with the angst. We are very light on solutions.

So I will make one suggestion here. If you have any contact with teachers this weekend, please try to educate them a little about stigma and bullying and teasing. See if we can get a little empathy about the path a young fat person has to walk in school. See if a teacher can let a fat kind know that they can make efforts to improve their health that have nothing to do with decreasing their weight.