Back to Health

There is a greater and greater fat acceptance movement, which I think is probably also the same, to an extent, as a diversity acceptance movement. And I agree in large part with the fat acceptance movement, in that it is possible to be healthy at a higher weight. I'm living proof of that, or I was. Twenty years ago, or maybe a bit less, we bought life insurance for me. In those quaint days, they sent a nurse to the house to take your blood pressure and a vial of your blood. So the nurse arrived, a very large blonde woman, and I mean large in all senses of the word. The woman was a Valkyrie, minus the brass bra. She was tall, she was broad...she was fat. She was also very matter of fact. I gave my weight as 200, which I think was a little low, but she took me at my word, and we had a moment of talking about liking to eat, and then she left. A few days later, my husband informed me that it was going to cost more for my life insurance than quoted, because of my weight. I was hurt, I was angry. And then something remarkable happened...the company came back and said that because there was nothing at all wrong with any of my other numbers (those were the days) that in fact, it wasn't going to cost any more. I was slightly appeased. Now, of course, as I've written before, my numbers suck and God knows what my costs would be. But I wonder now if that would even be a possibility, that they would look at the whole picture instead of just my weight. Or if I would be subjected to more tests, because they would think the first ones were wrong. Or, and this is an interesting if, they would even employ the Wagnerian nurse. So I was fat and healthy then. Now I am fat and if you go by my other numbers, not so healthy...though striving for improving those numbers. I got weighed at the gym yesterday, by my teeny little trainer. God bless her, she never blinks at the number on the scale, just tells me how well I'm doing--and I have improved greatly since January, when we first met--and that she knows it's hard and to keep going. So I do, as I said, sort of in spite of myself. But there's so much nonsense, so much contradictory information! We're all obese! We're all diabetics! But I also have hands-on experience with the whole diabetic/not diabetic thing. My father, for many many years, was not diabetic. HIS BLOOD SUGAR NEVER CHANGED, but one day he was a diabetic, because they changed where they drew the line. Interestingly, I think that he instinctively ate in a way that was healthiest for him--fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, a snack before bed (which then kept his blood sugar from plummeting in the night). His last two years of life were full of hospitals and nursing homes and when I was asked if he was a diabetic, I would answer, "Sort of," and then get told, there is no sort of...and then I would say, well, he wasn't until they changed where they drew the line, so yeah, sort of. No one liked that answer, but interestingly, no one ever argued with me, either. And then, of course, the fat acceptance people like to say that diet and exercise make no lasting impact on your weight...which, for myself, I don't believe! I will concede that there are people who can eat 1200 calories a day and work out and never lose weight, but I truly know that while for me, it's not like it is for men (I stopped eating a Milky Way a week and lost 20 lbs, which is only a slight exaggeration) if I eat a salad a day and no junk, yeah, I lose weight! If I fudge and finagle and what-not (I'm trying really hard not to say "cheat") then, no, I don't. But yeah. I do. So are they all lying? Is there a vast reservoir of people out there who can survive famines and forced marches and never lose a pound? And why do none of them live in Ethiopia, the Sudan, or the famine-locale de jour? I'm not being mean. I'm truly just asking. I talked to my daughter about this, and we agreed that we have thrifty metabolisms, to be polite and posited it's because our ancestors survived the Potato Famine, so we have thrifty genes built in to us. So maybe that's it? I don't know. But I'll be the first to say, too, that life has to be enjoyable and good food is a help in that.