Because Gravity
I've lost 47 pounds since March. This is more interesting than you may think, at least it is to me.
There is a lot of shit that skinny people take for granted. For example, bones. I never had them before, but I have them now. In the past, people have actually commented on this lack of pointiness in my fizeek:
"You're cuddly!"
"Barrie is fun to hug!"
"You have no bones!"
These are, I'm sure, considered cutesy compliments. But they usually made me feel like a mess of mashed potatoes in a ziploc bag. Or a teddy bear, at best. But I am quickly on my way to becoming very UNcuddly.
I has a wrist bump. I has a collarbone. I has a jawline. Ankle bones has appeared too, but I won't post a picture cause they're incredibly ugly.
You skinny people don't realize how bizarre it is to lie down in bed and have to reconsider your favorite sleeping position because you have this NEW HIP BONE that pokes out. Or the surreality of walking past a shop, noticing something you like and thinking "That isn't gonna fit me," and then trying it on (cause hope never dies) and discovering that it does, indeed, fit you. An entire glittering realm of actually shopping in normal-size clothing stores is slowly opening up. And it feels very, very weird.
Every week there is another *NEW* feature on my body. Try to wrap your head around suddenly discovering things like this:
1. Realizing you could do with coring a THIRD new hole on your belt. I have now discarded this belt because it is just too long to deal with anymore.
2. Looking down at something and discovering that my neck fat doesn't collide with my shirt collar anymore.
3. The tops of my socks don't dig into my ankles and make that bulge.
4. My ass hurts when I sit too long (more bones).
5. I can use the third row of hooks on my bra.
6. I can get comfortable in an airplane seat.
7. I can fasten most seatbelts.
8. There is a space between my thighs. Light comes through it!
9. My rings fall off.
10. Sitting down and not having a belly-table in your lap. It just goes straight down, and I can't stop fondling it....
11. Chokers don't look retarded because I now have a neck.
12. I can now cross my legs at the knee, all lady-like.
13. I have a discernable jawline where there used to be only a stovepipe connecting my head to my body.
14. I am now clearly shaped like a female, instead of a brick.
15. I can make that farting sound with my armpits because I have hollows in them now.
16. I can sit all collapsed in on myself, like a telescope.
17. I got over being able to look down and see my toes a long time ago; now I can see my entire flippin FOOT.
I don't know if I can accurately translate the bizarreness of this experience using Livejournal. All I can relate it to is, basically, having a very slow body transplant. I walk past reflective surfaces and have this moment of panic when I don't recognize myself.
Learning how to pilot this new flesh vessel is also proving weird. I don't take up as much room as before, but in my mind I'm still the same size. I have propelled myself out of chairs and off the sofa with more force than is necessary a few times, and I still galumph around like I weigh a ton. But I no longer shake the bookshelf. A mindshift is also taking place: I'm getting to the point where people would no longer tag me as the fattest person in the room, or even use the "fat" adjective. I am entering the realm where people of *average* weight exist. Chubby. Truly bizarre.
I now weigh 169 pounds (my starting weight in America when I did Atkins was 245-250, and then my starting weight in China when I began again was 215) and I literally can't remember ever being this thin. I'm sure at some point in my life I had to be at that mark, but it was probably when I was about 14 and too short for it to seem thin.
Yes, I used to weigh 250 pounds. Check out this picture from 2002 if you find that hard to believe:
That picture is probably one of the worst ones of me in existence, and if I had known it was being taken, I would have done something about it. Fat people have a reportoire of methods for making themselves look thinner, especially in pictures. Beyond the whole "wear black" suggestion, there's also a whole bunch of stuff you can do in pictures so as not to take up the entire frame. Here's a peek into my personal list of Do's and Don'ts for posing for pictures.
NOTE: I'm not saying these pictures are GOOD ones, they're just the ones that illustrate what I'm talking about. Clicking the pictures in this section will take you to an entire gallery of examples. I tried to put these behind a cut, but it doesn't work.
DO:
1. Put yourself behind someone else. Grab other people and pull them in front of you. Put your arm around someone and shove half of yourself behind them while you're at it. Hug someone from behind. This is basic: the less of your body the camera sees, the smaller you can look.
Hide Behind
2. If you don't have a neck, angle your face downward to create a shadow under your chin. The camera flash is not your friend, cause it removes depth-creating shadows. Get photographed from above, if at all possible.
Chin Down
DON'T
1. Be photographed while eating. Not even as a joke. Fat people are fat cause they eat a lot, right?
2. Wear flat hairstyles. Makes your face look bigger.
3. Be photographed while dancing. Obvious reasons.
4. Don't give your profile. It shows you have no jawline.
5. Don't hunch all up on yourself! It's true what they say about good posture....
6. Don't pose inside something circular! You'd be surprised how many pictures of me standing inside some kind of round object I have. It just makes you look squat.
7. Let anyone "try" to pick you up. All their straining is evident in the picture. And check out that thigh.
And all these examples go out the window when you lose weight. Here's me now, wearing my AWESOME THRIFT STORE LOW RIDER JEANS ($8):
Pretty damn cool.
There is a lot of shit that skinny people take for granted. For example, bones. I never had them before, but I have them now. In the past, people have actually commented on this lack of pointiness in my fizeek:
"You're cuddly!"
"Barrie is fun to hug!"
"You have no bones!"
These are, I'm sure, considered cutesy compliments. But they usually made me feel like a mess of mashed potatoes in a ziploc bag. Or a teddy bear, at best. But I am quickly on my way to becoming very UNcuddly.
I has a wrist bump. I has a collarbone. I has a jawline. Ankle bones has appeared too, but I won't post a picture cause they're incredibly ugly.
You skinny people don't realize how bizarre it is to lie down in bed and have to reconsider your favorite sleeping position because you have this NEW HIP BONE that pokes out. Or the surreality of walking past a shop, noticing something you like and thinking "That isn't gonna fit me," and then trying it on (cause hope never dies) and discovering that it does, indeed, fit you. An entire glittering realm of actually shopping in normal-size clothing stores is slowly opening up. And it feels very, very weird.
Every week there is another *NEW* feature on my body. Try to wrap your head around suddenly discovering things like this:
1. Realizing you could do with coring a THIRD new hole on your belt. I have now discarded this belt because it is just too long to deal with anymore.
2. Looking down at something and discovering that my neck fat doesn't collide with my shirt collar anymore.
3. The tops of my socks don't dig into my ankles and make that bulge.
4. My ass hurts when I sit too long (more bones).
5. I can use the third row of hooks on my bra.
6. I can get comfortable in an airplane seat.
7. I can fasten most seatbelts.
8. There is a space between my thighs. Light comes through it!
9. My rings fall off.
10. Sitting down and not having a belly-table in your lap. It just goes straight down, and I can't stop fondling it....
11. Chokers don't look retarded because I now have a neck.
12. I can now cross my legs at the knee, all lady-like.
13. I have a discernable jawline where there used to be only a stovepipe connecting my head to my body.
14. I am now clearly shaped like a female, instead of a brick.
15. I can make that farting sound with my armpits because I have hollows in them now.
16. I can sit all collapsed in on myself, like a telescope.
17. I got over being able to look down and see my toes a long time ago; now I can see my entire flippin FOOT.
I don't know if I can accurately translate the bizarreness of this experience using Livejournal. All I can relate it to is, basically, having a very slow body transplant. I walk past reflective surfaces and have this moment of panic when I don't recognize myself.
Learning how to pilot this new flesh vessel is also proving weird. I don't take up as much room as before, but in my mind I'm still the same size. I have propelled myself out of chairs and off the sofa with more force than is necessary a few times, and I still galumph around like I weigh a ton. But I no longer shake the bookshelf. A mindshift is also taking place: I'm getting to the point where people would no longer tag me as the fattest person in the room, or even use the "fat" adjective. I am entering the realm where people of *average* weight exist. Chubby. Truly bizarre.
I now weigh 169 pounds (my starting weight in America when I did Atkins was 245-250, and then my starting weight in China when I began again was 215) and I literally can't remember ever being this thin. I'm sure at some point in my life I had to be at that mark, but it was probably when I was about 14 and too short for it to seem thin.
Yes, I used to weigh 250 pounds. Check out this picture from 2002 if you find that hard to believe:
That picture is probably one of the worst ones of me in existence, and if I had known it was being taken, I would have done something about it. Fat people have a reportoire of methods for making themselves look thinner, especially in pictures. Beyond the whole "wear black" suggestion, there's also a whole bunch of stuff you can do in pictures so as not to take up the entire frame. Here's a peek into my personal list of Do's and Don'ts for posing for pictures.
NOTE: I'm not saying these pictures are GOOD ones, they're just the ones that illustrate what I'm talking about. Clicking the pictures in this section will take you to an entire gallery of examples. I tried to put these behind a cut, but it doesn't work.
DO:
1. Put yourself behind someone else. Grab other people and pull them in front of you. Put your arm around someone and shove half of yourself behind them while you're at it. Hug someone from behind. This is basic: the less of your body the camera sees, the smaller you can look.
Hide Behind
2. If you don't have a neck, angle your face downward to create a shadow under your chin. The camera flash is not your friend, cause it removes depth-creating shadows. Get photographed from above, if at all possible.
Chin Down
DON'T
1. Be photographed while eating. Not even as a joke. Fat people are fat cause they eat a lot, right?
2. Wear flat hairstyles. Makes your face look bigger.
3. Be photographed while dancing. Obvious reasons.
4. Don't give your profile. It shows you have no jawline.
5. Don't hunch all up on yourself! It's true what they say about good posture....
6. Don't pose inside something circular! You'd be surprised how many pictures of me standing inside some kind of round object I have. It just makes you look squat.
7. Let anyone "try" to pick you up. All their straining is evident in the picture. And check out that thigh.
And all these examples go out the window when you lose weight. Here's me now, wearing my AWESOME THRIFT STORE LOW RIDER JEANS ($8):
Pretty damn cool.