Looking for a change in your exercise/activity routine? If you have it, may I suggest Fit TV? The channel does have some questionable content (like a weigh-in at the end of a low-carb cooking show), and talk about “calories burned” is pretty common when it comes to video exercise. If you can get past these things, you may see something to spice up your workout on the Fit TV channel or their On Demand content.

My latest find is Masala Bhangra by Sarina Jain. It is just so much fun. Very colorful and quite challenging. It’s based on an Indian folk dance. I tend towards dance workouts because after years of the drudgery of working out for that impossible goal of weight loss, shifting my priorities to working out for how it makes me feel means I’m looking for what’s FUN. I seem to do things more often and consistently when they’re fun. Go figure.

It’s nice to try out an exercise routine before investing in buying videos or DVDs. Even if you prefer to take real life classes, it can be helpful to try something out at home first to see what you like. I learned my lesson the hard way after buying an MTV Grind Workout and a Carmen Electra DVD sight unseen (not the striptease one, but the “get yourself into shape so you can do the striptease one” one). I got into belly dance and T’ai Chi after free routines offered under Fit TV’s Video On Demand (it’s under the Sports & Fitness category). I ended up liking both and purchasing the corresponding DVDs. I will probably do the same with Masala Bhangra.

I see some comments dotting the Fatosphere from people who say they want to lose weight because they find their fat bodies uncomfortable. I can relate to that. But I have to wonder if they have tried being in those bodies, using them to become stronger and more flexible, and *enjoying* the use of their bodies in graceful and fun movement? This is what I’m trying to do. Namaste!

This post has been sitting as a draft for a while, but a recent comments discussion at BABble made me decide to dust it off. I can see both sides of this issue. Of course on a personal level, the fat acceptance journey IS a process, but I can see where diet-friendliness at prominent FA blogs could be taken as potentially harmful to the movement. I can see it that way because sometimes I feel that way.

I’m not even trying to shun any blog/blogger or hate on them or shut them up. Far from it. But I’m offering this post as a way of explaining perhaps where the so-called “militant FAers” are coming from. Talking about weight like it’s a choice — by either having gained too much or by being able to lose some to a desired goal — makes the FA struggle harder. Maybe not on an individual level (although it does for me personally), but on a “change the world” level. This is all just my opinion. Of course, other FAers may see the movement succeeding in other ways. For me, the crux of changing people’s minds about fat people is convincing them that weight is not a choice. When FAers themselves believe weight is a choice, changing the status quo beliefs that fat people aren’t lazy gluttons seems practically impossible, IMO. I don’t think subtle nuances are going to work when dealing with the “radical” notion that fat people aren’t fat by choice.

There’s debate about this, but I just wanted to go on record about where I stand. Of course fat people deserve to be treated with basic human dignity, regardless of how they became fat. All people deserve to be treated with respect. However, I don’t think arguing this will ultimately further our cause.

For me, change will happen when we’ve finally convinced the world at large that fat is not a choice. I have heard fat hater after fat hater claim to “excuse” the fat people who became fat through no fault of their own: medication, disease, medical conditions, etc. Where could their hate focus if it turned out all fat people are fat through no fault of their own?

I know some in the movement disagree with the use of the comparison, but my mind returns time and again to the growing acceptance of gay people. While I do think my generation (Gen X) grew up more open-minded and tends to be more tolerant in all sorts of things (maybe because we were raised by baby boomers) – and I feel this was serendipity, in a sense — it seems to me that older folks or more close-minded people have come to be more accepting of gays as the word gets out that sexual orientation isn’t a choice, but a birthright. So I can’t help but believe the same would hold true for the acceptance of fat people.

Do I think gays deserve acceptance, equal rights, and kindness even if they chose to be gay? You bet. Fat people, too. But even though I tend to Pollyanna-ism at times, I don’t see it as realistic that the haters will wake up one day — or be convinced by reason, passion, or compassion — and understand that people are people and all are deserving of basic human rights no matter their “choices/preferences.” Just to be clear, though, being fat or gay or Asian or female is not a choice. It just is.

[Also for the record, since I've brought up the GLBT community and this is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want (^_^), I just wanted to say not all Christians are anti-gay or even hate-the-sin-not-the-sinner. I'm Catholic, and I believe that since Jesus was all about love and God made us how we are, whatever way that may be, the sexual/physical expression of any (adult) love -- including love between non-heteros -- is not a sin. It never could be.]

Setting aside for a moment Subway Restaurants’ more recent disturbingly eating disordered commercials (one serving of fries makes you gain 20 pounds?!?), remember Jared and his “Subway Diet”? I just caught a commercial where they celebrate Jared’s 10 years of maintaining his weight loss.

So I decided to do some digging and see if Jared fits my pet theory about the 2 to 5 percent of dieters that maintain their weight loss after five years: basically by engaging in eating disordered behavior.

What I’ve found so far — and I’m probably going to keep looking — comes from an old version of the Wikipedia article on Jared. It states that he ate 1000 calories a day to lose the weight and now maintains at 2400 calories a day. Maintains a weight loss of 240 pounds. Yeah. Right. If this is true, what’s Jared piddling around with Subway for? He’s clearly solved the obesity problem and therefore should be crowned King of the World.

This story flies in the face of everything I’ve learned about dieting since beginning to raise my fat consciousness. If anyone can help me make sense of these claims, I’d be grateful. Sadly, I smell a six-inch rat sub on wheat and think there may be some stretching of the truth happening in this case.

After an exchange I had in the comments to Lindsay’s great post at BABble, I realized I needed a reminder not to be seduced into using the HAES philosophy as an excuse for orthorexia and over-exercising. Especially because this current culture views both as paragons of healthy behavior.

I find it difficult sometimes to distinguish “healthy eating” attempts from dieting. At first, it felt like dieting, and dieting feels frickin’ awful. But a choice chunk of text from Laura Fraser’s book Losing It helped me get a grip. Here she quotes Ellyn Satter:

Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it — not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint on your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times; feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. It is also undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food, and your feelings.

Awesome, isn’t it? What a revelation. Healthy eating is but one part of what Satter calls normal eating. I choose to think of it as functional eating (as opposed to dysfunctional eating). So if I hanker for a bag of M&M’s at the supermarket checkout, that can be a functional choice. When deciding on a side dish for dinner, opting for a small salad over the French fries can be quite functional, too — especially if the salad appeals and I know, hey, veggies are good for you (just like Mom says ;)).

I especially relate to the part where Satter talks of trusting your body. I recently stopped keeping count of the calories I consumed (I haven’t restricted the amount in almost a year), and it’s liberating and even pleasant to trust my body to keep track of the calories I need and don’t need and adjust accordingly. That’s one of its functions, no?

So I may be following HAES, but in my mind I call it FFAES: Functional and Flexible at Every Size. As has so importantly been pointed out before, mental health is a vital part of overall health. Functional eating can go a long way towards good mental — and physical – health.