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	sandglass 2009-08-03 06:21 pm UTC (link)
	Whoo, another reason I don't exist. Bisexual English major girl gamer who proudly labels herself fat because "overweight" is offensive and everything else is so damned cutesy. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cie_anthy 2009-08-03 07:02 pm UTC (link)
	Why do you find overweight offensive? (Asks the self-called overweight and fat girl, who is also bisexual and a gamer, though not an English major :P ) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2009-08-03 07:14 pm UTC (link)
	Because it implies I should be a different weight, which I am over. I'd have to starve myself to be smaller, I'm at the weight my body wants to be, not over. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cie_anthy 2009-08-03 07:27 pm UTC (link)
	Aaaah. Huh. I might have to think about whether or not that bothers me (personally, of course). Thanks! (Reply to this)(Parent)

quartz
2009-08-03 09:24 pm UTC (link)

I'm at the weight my body wants to be, not over.

THIS. So much this. Genetics and severe uncorrectable (for now) medical issues mean that my body wants to be morbidly obese. It also wants to have huge (for a girl) biceps and leg muscles that easily do reps at over 600lbs. I get so angry and furious whenever someone implies that overweight is bad because even if I went down to less than 10% body fat I'd still be overweight because of my muscles. The only way to get to my so-called ideal weight is to be genetically modified, lose all my fat, AND all my muscle tissue. That's not going to happen. *hugs muscles*

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kaesa
2009-08-04 05:30 am UTC (link)

Yay for muscular fatties! I'm normally on the high end of chubby, but when I exercise I am STEALTHILY MUSCULAR. I look exactly the same, but I gain a surprising amount of weight in muscle mass. This is awesome because it means I don't have to have different clothes depending on whether or not I have time for karate.

BUT it was a total pain in the ass when I was getting ready to graduate from college, because for some reason rather than sizing the graduation gowns according to some measurement, or even clothing size, they did it according to weight.

So at the beginning of my final semester, after measuring my head and making sure my name was spelled right, they asked me how much I weighed. And I just looked blank and said "Hell if I know. We don't have scales in the dorms, and I don't diet or anything. But I'm probably going to gain some weight anyway, because I'll be exercising a lot, since I'm taking a few PE classes. Can you just put down my shirt size or something? It's not like the gowns are going to be holding us up or anything."

They asked me to repeat the thing about gaining weight from exercise, because apparently none of them learned that muscle mass is relatively heavy, and I could see the "omg gain weight WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO DO THAT" looks of horror.

Finally they called The Man In Charge Of Measuring out, because they couldn't put my shirt size down, oh noes. I repeated myself, he boggled only once "You're going to gain weight? D: D: D:", and then just put my shirt size down.

I kind of regret that I didn't say something gleefully violent, but I did want to actually graduate.

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	mydemand 2009-08-04 05:31 am UTC (link)
	...o_O At my graduation we just got robes on the day, bugger the sizing. That's WEIRD. Don't they take into account height at all? There's a difference between a tiny 60kg person and a tall-as-a-tree 60kg person. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

quartz
2009-08-04 05:55 am UTC (link)

The difference is who has to kneel during the diploma presentation so that their knees don't show in the official photos. It also means that the short people have far more of a chance to be naked under their robes and get away with it. *has fond memories of naked knock-knees parading across the stage at her graduation*

Yeah, the weight thing baffled me, especially since at my graduation they didn't ask if the person getting the robe was male or female. I had to put a dart in the back and a new hem on mine to take in all the extra fabric because apparently my weight meant I was a 6'7" linebacker.

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kaesa
2009-08-04 05:56 am UTC (link)

Oh yeah, they took height into account, but I think just for hemming. And height is way different -- I mean, I know my height. It's on my state ID. It hasn't changed since high school, and no amount of karate will make me get taller. But how much I weigh doesn't necessarily compute out to what clothing size I wear, especially with a loose garment that really only needs to fit my arms and shoulders and not trip me up.

It was especially weird because they were using the same "your size is determined by your weight" system for pear-shaped girls and top-heavy girls and thin people and football-playing guys and tubby guys and competitive swimmers, and all of those people's bodies have different densities and are differently shaped. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of clothing sizes, but it seems like they would be really useful for figuring out what size of clothing you should give someone.

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quartz
2009-08-04 05:51 am UTC (link)

*nodding rapidly* Muscle weights half again what fat weighs and people do not seem to understand that. People keep telling me I look thinner (and I am, all the pants that fit two months ago will slide off my hips without unbuttoning now) and ask how much weight I've lost. The blank stares when I tell them "Not a single pound" is so disheartening as are the comments like "Well, I'm sure you'll start losing soon." I am losing you idiots, I'm losing inches! I'd sure rather lose 4 inches around my waist than lose 15 pounds, especially when it means that I've hit a 0.71 hip waist ratio and have converted fat to muscle.

Plus there's the whole 98lb weakling thing which sadly is true. One of my friends is 5'4" and 135lbs which is the ideal weight according to the doctor and she can't lift a 40lb box. She has to have someone else lift anything that heavy. The girls in high school and college who were size 8 and under had the same issue and were always calling the neighbors (or me) to come lift things for them. I like being able to do my own heavy lifting, it keeps me from feeling like a stereotypical Victorian Romance wilted delicate female flower who always needs to have a Big Strong Man around and validates my sense of self-sufficient Girls Doing It For Themselves power. :D

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kaesa
2009-08-04 06:46 am UTC (link)

Oh man, so much yes on the heavy lifting. (My other PE class that year was weightlifting, where I was the only girl in the class and realized a lot of the guys in the gym were apparently training specifically to gain hyoooge visible muscles but little to no strength. So that was weird to watch.) I'm actually on the planning stages of a superhero story where one of the main characters is a broad broad with superstrength, and she gets a lot of obnoxious media commentary about her body rather than what she actually does with it.

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	quartz 2009-08-04 04:58 pm UTC (link)
	Hee, weightlifting was fun. The guys in it, not so much, but the actual activity is something I miss a lot. Oh, that's a good starting point for a superhero story. is very interested Will it be more along the lines of a novel/short story than an episodic comic book? You are quite awesome. May I friend you? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kaesa
2009-08-04 07:37 pm UTC (link)

I'm not really sure right now; it seems to want to be episodic, or maybe just with long stories and short stories set in the same universe. Originally it was going to be a webcomic, but update schedules and I never get along. (I should warn you she's not the main heroine -- she starts out as the mentor/hopeless crush/bff, and then for a while embraces the role of the villain for what she thinks are the right reasons. So yeah, another fat villain, but you don't see a lot of women in fiction who are short, fat, and dangerous to piss off.)

Sure, although I have not posted in a millionty years, and will be starting some really intensive classes soonish. So I will be boring or nonexistent, depending.

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quartz, 2009-08-04 09:06 pm UTC

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kaesa, 2009-08-04 10:30 pm UTC

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quartz, 2009-08-05 03:02 am UTC

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kaesa, 2009-08-05 03:29 am UTC

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quartz, 2009-08-05 03:37 am UTC

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kaesa, 2009-08-05 03:47 am UTC

	frau_eva 2009-08-05 05:39 am UTC (link)
	YES YES WRITE THIS STORY I WILL BE YOUR FIRST FAN. :O I had a similar idea for a graphic novel, and holy crap, we need more people understanding what it's like to be a woman with real physical strength. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kaesa
2009-08-05 06:56 am UTC (link)

You should do yours too, as all I have written so far -- that I'm happy with, at least -- is the (not very superheroic, and only vaguely cyberpunk) story about what the main main character used to do with her Barbies. (I should post it, though, because it is called "She-Barbarians of the 21^st Century," and I'm very fond of it.) Other than that I have been faffing around with drawing them, and trying to worldbuild.

(Main main character is, and I DID NOT EVEN MEAN TO DO THIS, a bisexual English major girl gamer. So I guess she's implausible anyway, and no one will ever read it long enough to find that her BFF is, despite being short and fat and female, strong and ruthless and mean.)

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	adevyish 2009-08-04 08:43 am UTC (link)
	The last time I tried carrying a 40lb box a few blocks my arms were hurting for days envies you /stereotypical basement dweller, except that I don't live in the basement and I'm not male (Reply to this)(Parent)

	mydemand 2009-08-04 10:10 am UTC (link)
	HAHAHA YES to the blanket stare. Every other month it's "you've lost weight" and I reply "uh, no, still 70kg". It doesn't matter if I've been sedentary gorging out on food, or training in circus 5 hours a week. Still the same. (Reply to this)(Parent)

snarkhunter
2009-08-04 04:46 pm UTC (link)

That's the ideal weight for a 5'4" woman? Huh. For some reason I thought it was slightly less than that. (Hence my railing on "ideal weight" and what a crock of shit it is.)

But not all smallish women are weak!! I'm about that size, and you bet your ass I can lift a 40lb box--and more. I'm proud of being far stronger than I look.

I might look delicate, but that doesn't mean I AM.

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quartz
2009-08-04 05:19 pm UTC (link)

Yup, 135lbs which is two lbs more than perfect. Complete with ribs and hip bones showing in the case of my friend. It is a total pile of manure because she's starting to suffer from massive health problems that she wouldn't be encountering if she had any fat reserves. As is right now she can't go more than an hour without eating something because her body has no supply of fat to go get when there's no food in her system. When she's around I carry emergency chocolate just because of that.

Ah, not all smallish women are delicate little flowers, but the height-weight proportions laid out on the chart in my doctor's office makes no allowance for women who are small in dimensions to have any muscle weight at all. So women who're trying to meet that chart tend not to have any muscles. If they do have muscles oftentimes it leads to such a low body fat percentage (fat weight being replaced by muscle weight) that they end up with severe bone loss and hormonal issues. Gymnasts are a good example of being tiny and strong (and usually fairly healthy), but they have a whole lot of health issues that they have to watch for, which is why they have such a huge medical support base of nutritionists, doctors, and other professionals to make sure they don't fall apart.

If you don't mind me asking, does your doctor ever tell you that you're overweight and should lose so many pounds in order to be healthy regardless of blood pressure, cholesterol, or BMI? I'm shocked at the number of doctors in my experience who, when speaking to patients, equate pure weight with state of health irregardless of other factors and I'm trying to get a better idea of if it's a pervasive medical system idea or just the doctors in my area/health group.

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snarkhunter
2009-08-04 05:33 pm UTC (link)

TBH, I haven't had a non-gyno physical in about 8 years--and 8 years ago, I weighed about 15-20lbs less than I do now. (I was 22, and my metabolism was...speedy.)

So I'm not sure what a doctor would tell me. When I go in for other stuff, my blood pressure is perfect, but my BMI, depending on whether they put my height down as 5'3" or 5'3.5", is either right on the edge of "normal" or is "overweight." I also don't look like I weigh as much as I do--either b/c my weight is in the "right" places (I've got boobs and an ass) or because I have more muscles than I should (more than I should b/c oh, how I hate exercise. HATES it), so the nurses have been taken aback a bit when they weight me, but they don't say much.

All of that said, I don't think it's just in your area. From what I've heard second-hand, it's a pretty pervasive problem.

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mael, 2009-08-04 10:26 pm UTC

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frau_eva, 2009-08-05 05:56 am UTC

frau_eva
2009-08-05 05:31 am UTC (link)

DUDE. I totally understand. Any time I've started dieting, I have a short period of actual weight-loss, evening out, and then weight gain. Even though my pants fit better and I can feel muscle tone NOOOOOO, I must be more unhealthy now! *rolls eyes*

The males in my family usually end up as linebackers, which are at least understood to have a lot of muscle going on under there. If you're a girl though, you're just seen as fat. Working out pretty much only changes my body composition, not appearance(except for the summer of painting dorm rooms in which I gained gigantic arms -_-;).

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kaesa
2009-08-05 06:38 am UTC (link)

I've never actually dieted, because when I'm really hungry, I get to wondering what the people around me might taste like, and whether anyone would miss them. It's a really bad combination of cranky/angry/hungry/tired/stressed/depressed, and I am utterly useless at concentration. And if I'm stressed for long periods, my skin goes OMG LET'S BE RASHY AND ZITTY! YAAAY!

So I figure it's better for me (and everyone else) to be fat and happy than thin and depressed. But, I do work out when I can. It just weirds people out.

It's especially fun when my dad mansplained that if I just walked slowly for thirty minutes a day, I would magically be thin, even if I gave up the hour-and-a-half twice-a-week intense workout that was karate, and the hour-long three-days-a-week weightlifting. Along with the not-insignificant walking, hiking, lifting, and carrying I had to do to pass my academic classes and get groceries. (I bet it was all those fatty organic pears that did it.)

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kaesa
2009-08-04 05:11 am UTC (link)

I feel that way too, but use the word when I'm in conversation with someone clueless, who would do that "OH BUT YOU'RE NOT FAAAAT" thing when I just don't feel like having the "fat != BAD LAZY EVIL PERSON" conversation. I guess if you call yourself fat they feel the urge to reassure you that you're not ugly, lazy, or stupid, but if you're "overweight" they think you are just working to correct your assuredly temporary aesthetic sins.

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evilsqueakers
2009-08-06 07:26 am UTC (link)

Seriously. I was working every weekend at a kennel for a year. I was still a size 18/20 because I had a crap ton of muscle from lifting the grates, cleaning the cages, walking the dogs, etc. It made me strong. I was still fat but I could kick like a mule. I'm very fat right now because the past couple years undiagnosed depression has killed my drive to be healthy. I'm slowly working my way back by walking more and then I'll add other things back but the only time I was a size 8 was when I was about at death's door. I dropped half my weight in a month or so and then found out that I was diabetic. (Another thing that's been killing my workout because I feel like shit afterwards (sugar issues).

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frau_eva
2009-08-03 08:07 pm UTC (link)

Oh, hey, I'm an English major too! And I sort of play games, but things like the Sims that aren't "real" games. I hate everyone.

Seriously, all the other words just dance around the issue; as if replacing it with this one random word will mean that it can never then get the same bad associations. All you're doing is playing a shell game and never really getting to the root of the problem.

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