Hey, remember these? I’ve been picking through my Formspring queue after an absence of several weeks. Here’s a couple of recents; ask your own (or read the rest) here.

Q. If someone offered you the chance to wake up tomorrow at a weight which was “appropriate” for your height, would you take that chance? And, do you believe a fat person’s answer to this question reflects their true degree of fat acceptance?

A. I don’t believe in true-believer tests. As I always say — repeatedly and emphatically — body acceptance is a process, often one without a clear conclusion, and certainly one without a finish line. We are raised from birth in a culture that teaches us to criticize and dissociate from our bodies. Some of us, in undoing this education, try to celebrate and reclaim our bodies, which can be positive. But none of us are given the option to just live according to our own unique abilities and limitations, without judgment (positive or negative) from without or within.

Thus, acceptance is a lifelong endeavor, a hill we keep climbing not because we expect to reach the top, but because we don’t want to roll all the way down to the bottom again.
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Here we have two new Q&As originally from Formspring. The first I answered on the Formspring site earlier this week. The second I’m answering here because I thought it deserved a wordier answer than I like to type into the tiny text-entry box the Formspring site affords me. So:

Q. You exercise and and are a veggie lover - What do you eat that keeps you plump?

Kittens, by the handful. And the souls of Jenny Craig “consultants”, since they don’t need them anymore after taking that job.

No. I’m joking, of course. See, nothing “keeps” me fat. Fat is just what I am.

This morning the local news covered a new study that found that moderate drinking helps women to “maintain” their weight. I noticed, as usual, that the concept of maintaining one’s weight, being slim, and avoiding weight gain were all used interchangeably, but these are not interchangeable concepts. This language implies that fat people must necessarily constantly gaining weight, that it is impossible for a fat person to reach a certain weight or size and just settle there. It creates a perception that all fat people must be recently fat, or getting fatter by the minute. The idea is that fat bodies are utterly out of control and wildly accumulating weight at all times.

This is, to put it scientifically, total bullshit. I’ve “maintained” my current weight for a decade. I get no fatter, I get no thinner. I go to the gym, I eat foods that folks who place moral values on such things would think of as positively virtuous. If I didn’t do these things — and there have been periods in my life when I didn’t — my weight still stays the same. It simply doesn’t change.

There is no thin version of me. There never has been. At my slimmest in my adult life (reached as a result of a period of depression and a total lack of self-care during my twentieth year), I still wore a size 20. This is it, yo. I am a fat person. I cannot conceive of a reality in which I am not a fat person. For me, staying fat does not demand effort or commitment or the eating of some special fat-making food at regular intervals. It just… is.

Q. In all other species, there is a range of normal sizes and body fat %, and if an animal is very much outside this range for its species it is an indication that something is wrong. Why do you think humans are the exception?

This is one of those questions that, for me, falls under the logical fallacy known as the appeal to nature. Broken down, the idea is that if something is deemed “unnatural” then it must be bad. I have a few criticisms of this approach. For one, “nature” itself is a culturally-constructed concept. Once you get past the obvious examples of trees and bunnies, what counts as nature? Who decides? Often “nature” is employed to distinguish things that are untainted by human efforts, but that sets up humans as somehow anti-nature, which seems counterintuitive. Are we not ourselves every bit as natural as the trees? Or is it only the objects and circumstances we create that are deemed unnatural?
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My loves, I am sorry. I am all apologies and excuses. I’ve been briefly out of town. I had the norovirus. (”There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!”) I am also doing badly with time management at present. My email is piling up so large that I fear it will shortly evolve sentience and threaten my life for being so neglectful. I have multiple half-finished blog posts that are currently doing nothing so much as standing by my locker smirking and making vague threats about dumping my books after school.

So, until I get my shit back together, I am sharing a few more of my favorite recent questions and answers that you may have missed from Formspring, which is also becoming unmanageable given that over the weekend my to-be-answered queue has ballooned to 49 questions. That said, I welcome you to add to the lumbering horror by asking a question of your own. I will get there. And I promise there will be fresh content, sweet and shining as a spring morning, very soon. Someday… somewhere… we’ll find a new way of living.

(This is what happens, kids, when I am sleep-deprived and overstimulated. You get an abundance of old movie references.)

Q. I think some of the questions asked on here are a bit rude. Yet you still answer so graciously, what is your secret to being so gracious and kind?

A. In every anonymous internet exchange, I’ve made it a habit of assuming everyone’s best intentions. Constantly assuming the worst will eat away at you slowly from the inside like a poison, and that’s how activists get burnt out.

That said, I’m also aware that people who ask rude questions usually do so in order to get a particular reaction. They’re looking for me (or whomever they’re trying to incite) to get angry or act stupid or betray some hurted feewings. Answering graciously, as you put it, effectively defuses that attempt.

If I were capable of taking the rudeness personally, I might find it more difficult to deal with. But the rude people aren’t really speaking to me; they’re speaking to fat people as a monolith, or they’re speaking to the fat family member that disgusts them, or they’re speaking to the fat coworker that they hate, or they’re speaking to the anonymous fat guy who sat next to them on the bus this morning. As a public fatass I’m just a conduit for that, and I accept that it goes with the territory. It isn’t about me, it’s about what I represent: that is, fat people refusing to buy into shame and self-loathing.

Confidentially, I find the rudest questions are often the most fun and challenging to answer in a polite and thoughtful way. If I couldn’t take a punch — or if part of me didn’t dig getting under people’s skin enough to make them take a swing at me — I wouldn’t have been able to do this for as long as I have.

And thanks for the grand compliment.

—

And with that, two of the aforementioned potentially-rude (or potentially-not, I can never tell and try to err on the side of optimism) questions are answered after the jump!
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This has been a slow blogging week for me for a few reasons, and unfortunately I’ve yet to finish the part two of the “Dealing With Parents” post about dealing with kids, with a side of constructive criticism of the drumbeats leading up to the war on childhood OMGbesity, i.e. fat kids are easy targets! (Actual post title will probably be shorter.) Nevertheless, I’ve been trying to keep up with my Formspring questions, so for those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, this should be new content. As an aside, there are a few questions currently in my queue that are a week or two old, because I’m still working on answers to them, so if you’re waiting… I’m sorry you have to wait some more.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve weighed in on the Amanda Palmer/Evelyn Evelyn debacle, whether it’s a problem that it’s mostly fat people who care about fat issues, being confronted with other people’s fat hate confessions, and what I’m listening to lately. Below I’ve collected recent questions and answers all revolving around the topic of weight loss, including some potentially-surprising thoughts on WLS and the difference between personal politics and individual reality.

Q. I’m confused about your anti weight-loss views. Are you also anti weight-gain for people who are underweight? What about muscle gain for athletes in training? What is so bad about purposefully changing your body’s weight or shape in a healthy way?

A. You are correct! You ARE confused!

Body changes are inevitable. I am quite in favor of changes in one’s body, though I admit this is because opposing them is automatically and perpetually a losing battle. We all age; we have accidents and injuries; hormones shift; so does flesh. No getting around that, no matter how many cosmetic surgeries a body may have — change is unavoidable and plentiful. I am not opposed to change, because it’d be like opposing the sunrise.

I am, rather, opposed to a $40 billion dollar industry of diet and weight loss products that promise health and happiness for a price and consistently fail to deliver. I’m opposed to a culture that sets forth one narrow standard for an acceptable body and refuses to acknowledge or represent alternatives. I’m opposed to a health care environment that candidly and blatantly places more emphasis on sheer poundage than on the overall health and wellness of each unique individual. And I’m opposed to a world in which abusing, harassing, bullying, demeaning, humiliating, and hating fat people exclusively because they are fat is considered an A-OK way of life.

I hope that clears things up.
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Hey, did you know? I have this Formspring page! Where people ask me questions! In the past week or so I have talked about NAAFA (twice), the political leanings of the fatosphere, whether I plan on getting a puppy, and the possibility that I may be a Time Lord, amongst lots of other things. Do you have a question? Ask. It may take me a week to get to it, but I will answer.

Below: Why the cardigans? Are the geeky more attracted to fat girls? How can I draw boundaries with my doctor?

Q. Could you post some pictures of your eshakti dresses without the cardigans you always wear. I’m really curious what they look like not covered up (or at least a link to a picture of them)

A. I can try to remember, but it’s unlikely I will. Let me explain:

Firstly, I grew up in South Florida, and now live in Boston. Boston is constantly cold, or at least, it’s never warm. There are maybe four or five days out of every year that it’s warm enough that I don’t bring a cardigan with me during the day. Sometimes I don’t actually wear the cardigan all day long, like in August, but I always have one, because it never gets legitimately hot up here, even when the locals THINK it is. Also there is air conditioning, which often requires I adopt cardigan-based protection.

Secondly, this isn’t simply a matter of me being a cold-weather wimp — I actually handle the cold with aplomb, given a good scarf and coat — but I have a pretty rare (I’m told) allergy that causes me to break out in hives when exposed to too-cold air (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_urticaria). Air conditioning causes this reaction just as often as winter wind. Thus: cardigans.

Thirdly, layers are my jam, yo. It’s what I do. I rarely wear just a dress, without a cardigan, or a scarf, or some other dramatic accessory, because honestly, I think that’s mind-numbingly dull. If I wanted to just demonstrate the wearing of singular articles of clothing, I’d be a model. As it is, I’m far more interested in how to style various pieces, and what I can combine them with, and how far I can go with color or pattern-mixing, and so on.

Fourthly, I am happy to link to stock pictures of the dresses… when they exist. Items have a habit of vanishing off eShakti’s website like evaporating ghosts, however.

I do hope that clarifies the all-important cardigan issue.
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I keep thinking your questions are going to eventually slow to a trickle and then evaporate completely. This may yet happen, but it’s certainly not the case right now. Recently I’ve answered questions on everything from Rufus’ current status to whether I wear dresses to the gym. So, as usual, if you have a question, get thee to my formspring.me page and ask.

Today I’m reproducing two recent questions and answers. The first is notable as a representative example of the truly unimaginative trolling publicly-unapologetic fat people occasionally have to suffer. It’s nearly impossible to take such inquiries seriously, but I do make efforts to be civil and truthful.

The second, after the jump, is a long and rambly musing on marriage and Lori Gottlieb’s new book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, which may or may not make sense but which took me a very long time to write. The subject has probably been covered more coherently elsewhere, but these are my two four fifty cents.

Enjoy!

Q. Why are you so fat ? , its disgusting really .

A. I’ve only written about 100,000 words on this subject just in the past year alone, but since you’ve asked so thoughtfully, I’ll sum up: It was gnomes. Magical invisible fat-making gnomes.

My fatness was first hewn out of flesh from one of the gnomes’ sacred pigs (a majestic animal that was, alas, ritually sacrificed for this purpose), and then, after an arduous process of transubstantiation, I was given life and sent forth into the world for some mysterious as-yet-undisclosed reason, though my suspicions are that bacon is somehow involved. This is where all fat people come from, and having revealed these facts to you and the world at large by answering this question, I will very shortly be spirited away to the gnomes’ reeducation camp, if I am not hanged for treason. That is the truth.

So farewell, my fat-disgusted friend, I hope you appreciate my heavy sacrifice, as I appreciate the heavy burden you must bear in being forced to witness the fatness of all who waddle forth from the gnomes’ secret pig-sacrificing fat-person-building bacon-worshipping kingdom.

Even now I hear them at my door. My time is short. Farewell, farewe—!

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The questions keep coming, and I am trying my best to provide my own plucky brand of homespun wisdom and advice. Want to join the conversation? Click over to my formspring.me page and read the 75 mostly-anonymous questions and answers I’ve posted so far, or ask me a question of your own. Below, I answer a recent question about size and space.

Q. How can I reconcile taking up more space? The hardest part for me, and what can easily derail my day, are the bus rides to and from work. My esteem can be pretty well massacred by the realization that people don’t want to have to be near me.

A. The issue of space — and how much space we’re individually entitled to, and how some folks resent our taking more than our so-called fair share — is so common, and it’s unavoidable for any of us who use publicly-shared transporation, including commercial air travel. I used to joke that if I wrote a fat memoir, I’d want to call it Adventures in Space, because so much of being a body of a certain size in public is about negotiating spaces that are sometimes just too small for us. Booths in certain restaurants, squeezing between clothing racks in a store, theme-park rides: all of these represent scenarios some fat folks have to think about a lot harder than smaller people. And I know, all too well, how a bad experience on the bus or train can ruin a morning, or a day or a week.

Here are some tips in list form:

1. It isn’t about you. It’s not. The people throwing shade your way don’t know a damn thing about you; they’re blinded by their own assumptions, which say more about them than about you, by far.

2. Or, it IS about you, but not how you think. I fly several times a year, and occasionally find myself on not-full flights. More than once I’ve had a seatmate rocket to an empty seat next to a smaller person, and had to fight the urge to take it personally. Until on one flight, a woman seated next to me asked a flight attendant if she could move, and before she did, she paused to tell me, very kindly: “I’m not moving because I don’t want to sit next to you, but I think you will probably be more comfortable if I do.” Oh, I almost cried! It was such a simple, judgment-free acknowledgment of the limitations of space on an airplane. It’s cramped. It’s uncomfortable even for smaller people, and worse still for those who are fat or tall (or both). Assuming that everyone is looking at you with disgust will only make you feel badly, and more than that, it’s probably not universally true.

3. Even if you are getting legitimate bad vibes from someone, you cannot, in the moment, amend the space you occupy. In other words, you canna change the laws of physics, captain. You will take up the same amount of space whether you are anxious and uncomfortable, or relaxed and unapologetic. Remember this and try not to get bogged down in those negative emotions; they don’t help the situation, and only make you more self-conscious. Some people will project their own expectations onto you no matter what you do, but you don’t have to soak them up; they may impose negativity on you, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. Wear headphones, read a book, tune them out, live your life.

Never regret the space you take up. Occupying space is an inexorable part of existing, and regretting it or feeling guilty about it can take a tremendous and exhausting emotional toll over time, as you are, in essence, allowing yourself to feel badly about being in the world. The stranger on the bus who might make you feel badly will likely forget the encounter as soon as he or she gets to work, if not sooner; you shouldn’t carry it around with you either. If someone doesn’t want to be near you, focus on the bright side, remember who you are, and that you’re more than what they see… and enjoy the extra space.

Unimaginably, I am still accepting and answering questions over at my formspring page; we are at 64 as of this posting. If you’ve yet to participate, I invite you to pose a question of your own. Below are three recent questions and answers.

Q. I want to wear dresses and heels, but I always end up feeling like an elephant in drag. Being fat and femme is psychologically difficult when I’m told that my body isn’t what a woman’s body should look like. Any advice for dealing with this?

A. I really love this analogy you’ve created, so I suggest: Embrace the elephant in drag.

There’s no additional context or punchline here. This is what we do. When I first began abandoning pants a few years ago, I struggled with that elephant as well. In truth, I still do, in certain circumstances, in spaces where my stubborn commitment to not-fitting-in makes it difficult for me to feel socially adept, and not like a sideshow. Insofar as cultural reads of the body are concerned, fatness can strip a woman of femininity in the same way it can strip a man of masculinity; it can desexualize and degender a body entirely, if you let it. Luckily for us, being feminine and performing femme are two very different animals. “Feminine” is the default gender presentation of women in the United States; fashion magazines, television, movies, books, pop music, all of it contributes to the lifelong education of women on how to be feminine. The feminine body is the one we often rail against, the one that’s necessarily slender but not too slender, muscular but not too muscular, hairless, graceful, “beautiful”, reluctant to take up space.

Femmeness, however, is interrogated femininity. Femmeness is femininity dragged through some mud, kicked in the stomach, given a good scrubbing, teased into a bouffant, doused in glitter, and pushed onstage in search of a spotlight. At least, this is how I would define it, and you will find as many definitions of femme as there are femmes to supply them. The primary theme is the idea that femmeness by its nature is not a faithful reproduction of the feminine, but is instead a reinvention or reclamation (or ironic performance) of it. I’ve know many a fat femme in my life who’s felt a strong kinship to the concept of drag, and who would argue that all kinds of feminine costume are drag — just some kinds of drag are more culturally-acceptable than others.

But I know how you feel because I’ve felt it too, and I can tell you the only way around is through. The world would have to change for you to not feel the cultural dissonance of putting a fat female body in femme apparel, and the world will not change that fast, so my advice is to accept the discord and learn to make it a part of you. Femmeness is about playing WITH the role and not rotely speaking your lines; it’s about carving out your own definition and exploring what you want to express to the people around you; it’s about you. Even if what you want is as simple as the assurance to put on a dress and heels and stride purposefully out of your house in the morning. Know that you are confronting the forces that police our bodies, and feel proud to be standing up to them, even in the smallest ways. And you start by dressing up and going out and being yourself, one moment at a time.

—

After the jump, read two more questions and answers, on whether fat people who eat fast food can also accept themselves, and how I’d change the fat blogosphere.

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I am still answering questions over at Formspring.me, and will probably continue to do so until y’all run out of things to ask. So get thee to questioning! Below are two recent questions and answers.

Q. I’m aware that you enjoy fresh produce immensely. What are your favorite vegetables and what is your favorite way to cook them?

A. EXCELLENT QUESTION. Here’s the first ten that spring immediately to mind:

1. Brussels sprouts: I halve these, toss them with olive oil, fresh-ground pepper and kosher salt, and roast them in the oven.

2. Asparagus: same as above, though I often add some sliced shallots. I also occasionally do a roasted-asparagus flatbread involving eggs and a bit of cheese that’s excellent.

3. Collards: Fresh greens are SO underrated. My favorite method of preparation here is to saute the collards (never boil — if they’re fresh as they should be, they’ll taste fine sauteed, and when you boil them most of the awesome nutrients go down the drain with the water) with onion, garlic, and crushed red pepper; crumble in some crispy bacon; serve over whole wheat fusilli or some other easily-manageable pasta. Kale can be treated the same way; weirdly, I’m not a huge fan of chard but I expect it’d work too.

4. Broccoli rabe: sauteed in olive oil with garlic and tons of crushed red pepper.

5. Butternut squash: I make a really simple butternut risotto that is super easy and crazy delicious.

6. Sweet potatoes: So much more flavorful than plain old white potatoes, these are amazing just baked, with butter and kosher salt. I have this for dinner at least once a week.

7. Spinach: I am not a big fan of cooked spinach (though I eat it raw in salads by the truckload), but the one exception is this spinach and feta frittata I make. Even my vegetable-fearing husband loves it. [Edit: The recipe for this one is here.]

8. Carrots: this time of year I make a carrot-ginger soup that is just the perfect comfort food. Actually, I should totally make some this week.

9. Cauliflower: Aloo gobi!

10. Artichokes: I steam these whole and eat them leaf by leaf with fresh garlic butter.

I am not including salads here, but I eat at least one big salad a day, usually dressed simply with good vinegar (I have a fig-infused one I’m really into right now) and olive oil, and the omnipresent kosher salt. As a cook I am mostly vegetarian (except for bacon, nothing compares as a seasoning for certain dishes) so stuff like the above is how I feed myself during the week.

Fun question! Thanks for asking it.

After the jump, I hold forth on the changing internets and the inevitable demise (or not) of LiveJournal.
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My Formspring.me project forges onward, tall and proud! If you have a question, anonymous or otherwise, there’s still time to ask. Two of the more common ones I’ve been getting are variations on “why are you awesome?” (I’m not! I don’t know! Lesley is flustered by compliments!) and “when will you write a book?” (soon, I hope, if I can find an agent willing to put up with me). You can read my accumulated answers (44 answers to 44 questions so far, according to the site) and/or submit your own inquiry over on my Formspring page. Immense thanks for giving me so many excellent questions thus far, my darlings.

Q. You stated in another answer that your workout routine is “engaging, challenging, and great fun.” I’m a happy fat-lady who hates working out (with capital H) - what is your routine and/or can you give a girl some suggestions for enjoying it more?

A. I enthusiastically love the gym. I am aware that this is kind of unusual. I am also aware that the gym is this preposterous first-world invention, and even as I am exercising I frequently look around and am astonished at how we’re all basically hamsters on different kinds of wheels, chugging away to nowhere. But I LOVE IT.

Without a gym, I am less in love with working out as a concept. For me, my enjoyment is tied up in the ritual of going to a Special Working-Out Place; in truth, I think part of my love affair with the gym is rooted in the fact that exercise is the best self-care I can administer. It’s a huge privilege to be able to afford and attend a gym, and to me, every time I go, I feel a little of what I imagine some women feel when they go to a spa (though I wouldn’t know, having never been to a spa): it’s a big self-indulgent, a bit luxurious, a bit narcissistic.

I document my own daily workout routines on a chart—I am a nerd, okay—but I’m not going to attempt to reproduce it exactly here, because it’s more the philosophy behind it that makes my workouts fun than it is a particular sequence of activities.

First: Only do things you like, or which are at least tolerable. The second I start trying to force myself to use a machine that I hate, exercise becomes a punishment, which is the surest route to me avoiding it. Be unembarrassed about trying every machine; and be willing to try said machines a few times before writing them off as misery-inducing. Years ago I began a great love affair with the elliptical trainer, which persists to this day. However, at the time I was also enamored of the recumbent bike, which I have since come to despise. If you start to hate any part of your routine, do something else.

Second: Don’t force yourself into a lockstep routine you’ll quickly get bored with. I have a general overall time-spent-working-out as a target, but I don’t require myself to spend a minimum amount of time doing any one thing. If this means I spend 52 minutes on the elliptical and 5 minutes on the treadmill and 2 minutes and 15 seconds on the stair-climber-thing on a given day, then that’s fine. Another day I may do a round of lifty-weight machines and then spend 20 minutes ellipticalling and 20 minutes treadmilling. Another day I may swim laps for an hour and do nothing else. Keeping my routine flexible is a big deal, even though it’s rare I change it up much — just knowing I’m allowed to switch things around at my whim, that I’m not locked in to any particular schedule, is reassuring.

[One thing I DON’T do is the ridiculous habit many folks at my gym have of cranking up the incline on the treadmill to a 45-degree angle, so they have to cling desperately to the console to keep from falling off the end as they plod away. Why in hell do people do that?]

Third: Entertainment! ForEVER I just listened to music (via specially-created uptempo playlists) on my iPod at the gym. It was fun, it kept me moving, it occasionally got me stared at for dancing on the treadmill. Unfortunately my gym, like many gyms these days, is chockablock with television monitors, so eventually I found myself tuning out my music and getting distracted reading the closed-captioning on CNN. Which is not so relaxing, and I mostly go to the gym to relax. In search of something more engaging than music, last year I started listening to podcasts and audiobooks. This was basically the greatest idea I’ve ever had. I get to catch up on NPR, something I actually look forward to, at the same time I’m exercising. I can’t use my iPod in the pool (YET) which is a bummer, but I enjoy swimming for its own sake so much that I rarely miss it.

Really, the best advice I can give you is to find something you don’t hate, and ideally, something you like. Maybe you’re not a gym person and would rather go for outdoor hikes. Maybe you’d prefer something less workout-centric and would dig a dance class (or a yoga or pilates class) instead. Maybe a social sport friendly to lots of different fitness levels would work for you: for example, Boston has a foursquare league (http://www.squarefour.org/) I’ve been dying to check out, if I can get over my fear of competitive sports (there are also local kickball teams in my area). Try everything, and know that all kinds of movement “count” as exercise, even the ones that are fun.