"Sooo much is changing and I am trying to catch up. I’ve been doing a lot of critical thinking about so many things from a) the way that I am thinking about weight loss and b) the way that I am thinking about my relationship to my body and c) the way that I am thinking about the life path that I am on.
For the past month I have been eating pretty much normally and enjoying exercise very, very much and not weighing myself.So why did I just stop weighing myself? Because I have a really fucked up relationship with the scale. It darkens my mood. It makes me feel like I’m not trying hard enough even when I lose weight. I just can’t take it. But yesterday I weighed myself.
But before I talk about that I want to explain why I weighed myself. So I am on this thing called Facebook which is indeed my frenemy. I don’t enjoy much television because I try to get into a clean space in my mind- Where I am not bombarded with advertisements and the world’s hang-ups or nuerosis.
Facebook screws this clean space. I find myself talking to a few people I really dig and then bombarded with past acquaintances that I care little for or about except on the spiritual level where I respect their humanity.
So, my ex sis-in-law posted this announcement about how she is done her diet, and lost x amount of weight, and now fits into this size. Yay! And it makes me want to puke. Because I know for a fact that she has only been exercising for a month. And now she is accomplished and bragging about fitting into some junior size. And I know being a recent divorcee this is just a coping mechanism but I get so sick of people (already “Normal”) size folks acting like they freaking cured cancer when they lose 5 pounds.
So somehow I decided to weigh myself and realized that hey I had lost- not gained weight but I really didn’t care. Let me be clear- what I care about is getting scary biceps for a girl. Working out so that the stress and anxiety leave me. Eating good food. Challenging my body. Praying and meditating.
So I have made the decision to exit the dominant weight loss blogging paradigm and enter a new one. I am on the borders. I consider myself a “believer” of fat acceptance but also a free thinker. I believe that I have my individual body and I know what it needs. I will not shun my investment in body alteration through exercise or weight modification but I will not hold thinness up as some false diety. I will accept myself and others.
I will talk about how/what I eat. I will talk about exercising and my goals. I hope that there is a space for a fat, Muslim, black woman finding her own voice. "
So with those final words I bid adieu to the world of weight loss blogging and jumped feet first into the world of fat acceptance blogging. So here I am yall. The Fat Hijabi. What does that mean?
I am a fat Muslim lady who wears a head scarf (and long sleeves even in the summer!) I have lurked on the borders of the fat o'sphere reading favorites like The Well Rounded Mama, Fatshionista, The Rotund, The Fat Nutritionist like a lurking spy. I have gobbled up the life-affirming prose and then retreated back to my own world at the intersections of multiple identities.
Yet, now I step forward ready to speak as a fat accepting progressive lady. Hello.
