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Dear Reader,
Well, we're back from the book tour, quite tired, but very pleased. We conducted 11 speakouts along the way and heard from a lot of women out there that the time has definitely come for The Women's Campaign to End Body Hatred and Dieting. It was great to meet many of you and to hear so many inspiring stories. We thought we'd share some notes from our travels.
Our first stop, Washington D.C. The speakout was in a lovely women's bookstore, Lammas, and we met quite a few women who have been using the Overcoming Overeating approach for some time. It's always a pleasure to have seasoned nondieters around when newcomers to the approach are expressing their apprehension.
Houston was our next stop. Of course, it was great to visit with Kathy and Karen, directors of the Houston Center, and particularly fun to do some of our visiting/interviewing at the fancy Ritz-Carlton. (Book tours are grueling and exhausting, but publishing companies have great taste in hotels!) Two male radio hosts at different stations responded particularly well to the material in the new book. One is convinced that many of the difficulties in his life are attributable to his being short (an interesting version of a bad body thought) and the other man has always been large. Incidentally, we were able to play the audiotape, "Who Says?" written and performed by Caryl Towner, during most of our radio interviews.
On to Chicago, described by some at the speakout as the "epicenter" of the anti-diet movement given the presence there of the Chicago Center, Jade Publishing and Abundia, represented that night by Cheri Erdman. It was great to see everyone and the speakout at Barbara's was big and exciting. Nice clip on the 4p.m. TV news. 70 degrees on a March day in Chicago!
We missed our morning TV show in Minneapolis due to fog caused by the midwest heat wave, but were able to do the show the following morning. Another feminist bookstore, Amazon Books, and a great crowd and discussion.
We weren't at all sure about Cincinnati, not many Cincinnatians on our mailing list. But again, a nice turnout and a great evening. A 75-year-old woman was one of the first to speak. She said that she'd spent most of her life hating her body, dieting, and obsessing. A few years back, she arrived at some of the same conclusions we write about in our books. She's recently given up dieting and she's determined to give up body hatred as well. In Cincinnati, it was particularly gratifying to hook up with Susan and Wayne Wooley, longtime anti-dieting researchers, activists, and clinicians. We'd never really had the time with them before to hear about the exciting, residential treatment program for eating disorders that they run several times each year.
A few days rest and we were off to the west coast. High tea in San Francisco with a group of women who do anti-dieting/size-acceptance work there and were so helpful in organizing the Berkeley speakout. And Berkeley was Berkeley -- more than 200 women showed up to speak out at GAIA Bookstore. Quite something! Alice Ansfield, from Radiance; Pat Lyons of Great Shape; Laurelei, Carol and Elizabeth from Beyond Hunger; and many, many more women who have moved the anti-dieting/size-acceptance movement so far ahead.
Los Angeles for the day. It was a treat to be interviewed for a feminist program on public radio hosted by Josy Cotoggio and Ariana Manov who was a founding member of The Fat Underground in the '70s.
On to Denver. Seeing how tired we looked, the man at the reservations desk at the Brown Palace Hotel suggested we take the Beatle's Suite. Why not? Golden gates, mirrored floors and ceilings -- we had no complaint. The speakout was in the Tattered Cover's new downtown Lo-Do store. Lots of space, lots of great stories. Here's one of them:
As the discussion at the Denver speakout proceeded, a woman jumped up and said she had to speak. She told us that she'd been severely anorectic for many years and that not long ago, her husband had had a serious talk with her about how she needed to make a decision about living or dying. She made her decision. She went to the store and bought many, many boxes of Hostess Twinkies. She stocked the house, stocked the office; she ate as many as she pleased and offered them to everyone around her. She told us that she's an incest survivor and that, as a child, she'd eaten Twinkies after the incidents of sexual molestation. Twinkies used to be her solace; now they're her declaration of survival. For years, this woman thought that eating Twinkies was a bad thing and felt guilty about it. Of course, now she understands that a really bad thing happened to her for which she bears no guilt or responsibility.
Salt Lake City was next with its wonderful landscape, snow and welcoming, forthright women at the speakout. On the spot, they decided to reconvene a few weeks later for a discussion of the new book and to organize a Spring Cleaning event for May 6th. One woman spoke up and said that she thinks it's ridiculous to be asked what you weigh when you apply for a driver's license. She proposed that from now on, as far as Motor Vehicles is concerned, we all weigh the same. 1,000 pounds? Not enough spaces on the form to write in such a number. 475? Better still, 925!
Home. Out to Long Island for a speakout in Bohemia and then the wonderful welcome at the Upper Westside Barnes & Noble in Manhattan. We couldn't see everyone hidden behind the bookshelves, but we're told that 200-300 women showed up. It was very exciting to have friends, family, and so many of the women who attend the New York workshop at such an event. The testimonies were wonderful. One story we'd like to share:
A woman told us she'd been invited to a wedding and had decided to look for a new dress to wear. At the time, she was traveling in California. She found a store in Haight-Ashbury that had a lot of spandex and sequined outfits. Looking at a spandex number, she was wondering how she'd ever fit into such a thing, when a salesperson came up to her and said, "Don't worry, it'll fit you."
"I had visions of them squeezing me into it," the woman told us, "but finally I understood. The salesperson told me that many tranvestites and drag queens shop in the store and that they make everything to fit the customers who, not infrequently, are 6 ft. tall. What a relief to find that it's the dress that needed altering, not me!"
The moral of the story? Look what happens when men decide to buy dresses!
Last stop Florida. The Renfrew Center of Coconut Creek sponsored a speakout at Liberties Books in Boca Raton. First we went to a lovely reception at Renfrew where we had a chance to meet many of the staff and to see this very impressive facility. Then on to the speakout and a whole host of old friends and family. One young woman, very upset, was there with her fiance and told us that at her last bridal fitting, her dress was many sizes too small. We're sure you can guess our advice to her.
We hope to do more speakouts in the future. If there's a bookstore in your area that would like to sponsor one and there's some way to fly us out, we'd be delighted to come! For now, we're looking forward to the weeklong workshop at Lake Austin. Hearty Appetites!
Overcoming Overeating Online is yielding rich and varied discussions between OO'ers -- from new comers to veterans, and everyone in between. With their permission, we take pleasure in sharing some of the wisdom and work.
"Lately I notice more and more how terrific other big women look. As much as I have trouble doing mirror work and interrupting bad body thoughts at times, I am really learning to look uncritically at others. I notice how some women look comfortable and professional in their clothes, and how many different shapes look good. I am feeling wonderfully connected to this family of beautiful big women..." E.V.
"I see my body in the mirror now and am getting better each day at being kind to myself. I used to try not to look because I knew I wouldn't see that Sports Illustrated swimsuit model figure that I knew I should have (Ed.: the Sports Illustrated model is wishing she looked like her picture, too!). Because I didn't see it, I felt less valuable. It takes a long, long time. I've known about mirror work for years, yet have only really been trying to be more accepting since the OO-group online came about. It has helped me so much..." A.
"Yesterday while cleaning out my garage I found a picture of me, taken in 1980. I was 22 years old. Charlie, my live-in companion at the time, was taking a picture of me in front of the car we'd just bought. I remember my objections: "I'm in a tank top and shorts and everyone will see my fat thighs." His response was "Who cares? Everyone knows your thighs are fat." Reluctantly, I posed, standing at an angle so as to...hide my horrible thighs. I look at the picture today with great sadness. Was that me? Why didn't I feel fine the way I was? Thinness didn't bring happiness. We were lied to." K.B.
(Ed.: Bad Body Fever, the learned hatred of our bodies, comes in every size. Self-love is possible at any body size as well.)
"When I was in the eighth grade my mom decided I was getting chubby and took me to doctors who put me on my first diet -- 1/2 head of lettuce, 4 bananas and a quart of skim milk per day...My very restricted diet taught me one thing -- HOW TO SNEAK FOOD!! For the past 25 years I've been a sneaky food eater and still can tend to sneak it in behind my husband's back. I've not shared (the work I'm doing with) Overcoming Overeating yet, but need to sometime soon." A.
(Ed.: Sharing OO with spouses and partners is a concern to many women doing this work. We'll address it in a future issue and welcome cyberspace contributions to the discussion.)
"I cleared my closet and have nothing but clothes that fit and make me feel beautiful. Today as I dressed...I felt very Loretta Youngish (one of my all-time favorite actresses.) Now that is a major gift I've given to myself." G.G.H.
"Since starting (to work with) the Overcoming Overeating approach I've said, "Who Says?" about a lot of things. For example, who made up the rule about what colors match in clothing? Have you ever thought about that? Where did we get all these ideas? Why can't we change them? Maybe purple and green do go together! I think it's great that OO gets us to challenge ideas handed down to us in lots of areas, and find the courage to think for ourselves! It's very empowering!"
(Ed.: Bravissima! Let's hear it for finding our own colors in clothes and in life!)
"...It's so ironic that the very thing I'd been avoiding all my life was the thing that finally set me free: EATING! It's scary for us -- we want rules, we want our diets even though we don't think we do (Ed.: see this issue's NOTES FROM CHICAGO for more discussion of this issue)...It's really scary to be turned loose in a world of food...We're too scared to trust ourselves. We think we'll never stop eating but once we get past the fear...that's when the magic starts happening!" J.B.
"A suggestion (for carrying a food bag): if you can't figure out exactly what to carry in your food bag, simply start carrying something and see how it feels to have some food on hand when you feel hungry. Then as you become more comfortable with food in general, maybe you will want to start packing things you really need and enjoy. Hang in there...it takes time." G.H.
"I went for several months not weighing myself and feeling pretty good. Then one day I thought well, I feel like I might have lost some weight so I'll just weigh myself to see." I jumped on and I was about the same as I'd always been. IMMEDIATELY I felt terrible! I felt disappointed, angry...you know the rest. That was the day I realized that little box with the numbers had a definite impact on how I felt about myself. So...I picked that thing up and walked outside to the trash can and threw it in!" C.O.
(Ed.: We find it helpful to ask women we work with: What feelings lead you to "measure" your self on the scale? You might want to look at the desire to get on the scale as a Bad Body Thought, and try to decode it (see Volume 2 #1 for details on decoding). For example, your language to yourself after "weighing in" was that you were "about the same" as you'd always been. Had you been thinking about something else in your life that hadn't changed? Did something other than you body size feel disappointing? And was it that feeling that then led you to the scale in the first place, to see if you "measured up?" How terrific that you were able to say "No more!" and toss the scale out with the other trash.)
To join the Overcoming Overeating Online mail list, see our E-mail Discussion Group page.
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Robyn Posin is a therapist, artist and writer who lives in Ojai, California. She also has a mail order business, For The Little Ones Inside(c) , through which she makes available tools and treasures to help women learn to unconditionally love and nurture themselves. The card reproduced here is one of a 64-card deck Rememberings and Celebrations. To order: Send a check for $15.50 ($16.50 California) payable to For The Little Ones Inside, Box 725, Ojai, CA 93024. For complete catalog, send self-addressed long envelope with $.55 postage. Robyn's phone number: 805-646-4518.
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When I was eight (one year and who knows how many pounds after the birth of my sister), my fashionably slender, exasperated mother yanked me around the Chubbette Collection at Lane Bryant (known then as "the fat lady store") looking for skirts with expandable side zippers. She pushed me into the dressing room in the "Boys, Huskies" section of Friedman's Department Store with pairs of outsized fly-fronted slacks (long before it was even remotely thinkable for a girl to wear such things).
That same year, my favorite (and somewhat rolypoly himself) Uncle Charlie began greeting me daily with "Hey, Belly, where you goin' with that girl?" (Because, he told me, my belly came into the room before I did.) Uncle Charlie also began pointing out every large woman on the street, whispering that I would grow up to "look like THAT!" if I didn't start watching what I ate. I began noticing that my very beautiful mother and Aunt Toby rarely ate anything other than hard-boiled eggs and melba toast. Not surprisingly, that year marked the beginning of my personal version of the American Everywoman's struggle of fear and self-loathing around food and body size.
By 1971, I was 23 years into the battle between the Food Fascist and the Ravenous Rebel inside of me. I was taking 75mg of Preludin (a then popular major appetite suppressant and "upper"), two strong diuretics and four herbal laxatives daily. All were easily obtained with automatically renewed prescriptions from my unquestioning gynecologist. He, of course, completely understood my need to control my weight. Most days, a small glass of grapefruit juice, a poached egg and dry toasted English muffin with jam started a day in which I then subsisted on endless cups of strong black coffee and equally endless cigarettes. These effectively erased whatever might have been left of my suppressed appetite.
On the rare days I ate more than that, I kept accurate and restrictive track of the caloric value of every morsel that passed between my lips. On the terrifying days when the Ravenous Rebel wrested control, I ate as much as I could stuff into myself of everything I wanted. As I ate, the Food Fascist verbally harangued and abused me even as the Ravenous Rebel made sure I got to eat what I longed for. I was "fat, out-of-control, disgusting, contemptible, hideous and [worst of all in those days] unsexy." All this existed as the hidden underbelly of my life as a feminist psychologist in a successful private practice and a feminist marriage.
In May of 1971, while helping to birth the Peer-Counseling Training Program of the New York Feminist Psychology Coalition, I met a most extraordinary woman. Carol Munter had spent the preceding year with a group of radical feminists she had gathered at the Alternative University. In a class she instigated and incited, they explored theoretically and practically the food/body-size oppression that was, even then, of unquestioned and epidemic proportions. It was for all involved an inspired experience of searching for sanity in their relation to food and to their bodies.
In those days, Carol was never without a large, fashionable shopping bag filled with food. She ate, unembarrassedly, wherever and whenever she felt the need to. I was stunned, awed and incredibly excited by what I saw, felt, and heard as she and I immediately connected around this very heretical, radicalizing behavior. An enduring and profoundly nourishing friendship began as I shared what I had learned about doing therapy and she shared what she had learned about feeding oneself sanely in a crazy world. I at once began the simple yet incredibly difficult practice she had developed for ending the crazy-making, constrictive compulsions of eating and starving that had so run my secret life for over 20 years.
In the early months of my practice, I spent many weeks lovingly feeding myself limitless amounts of all the forms of chocolate (cakes, cookies, candy bars, ice creams, sauces, thick shakes) that I craved. I ate chocolate before, during, after and mostly instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner. I gave up meals and mealtimes as external impositions. I discovered that it pleased me to eat little bits of things I wanted as I wanted them throughout the day. Food became a voluptuous way of pleasuring my whole being many times a day, always giving myself exactly what I wanted. As I moved through the various forms of chocolate (and successively all the other proscribed foods), my consistent behavior gradually assured the Ravenous Rebel that my commitment was dependable.
The next, deeper layer of my practice involved coming to know the difference between the hungers that were truly physical and those that were emotional hungers seeking comfort from food and self-feeding. As an anthropologist might, I watched whenever I felt moved toward food. I looked in and around myself to see if it was physical hunger or hunger of a different sort that moved me toward a meeting with food. Without judgment, I noticed. With attention, I sought the foods I wanted. With love, I fed myself. With focus, I noticed when I felt enoughness or an end to the hunger. Without pressure, I considered whether something other than the food would have satisfied me more directly. Without judgment, I explored whether I had the same loving permission to move toward that something as I now had to move toward food.
As I moved into these new dimensions of the practice, I discovered that I had hungers for many experiences other than food. I was hungry to speak more of my truths, hungry to say, "This isn't okay with me," or, "No, you may not speak to me in those ways." I was hungry for more rest, for more bubble baths with candles and soft music. I was famished for more quiet, empty space with just myself. I was yearning for less steel and concrete, more green, growing "unimproved" Nature. I was starved for a sense of timelessness. I was ravenous with the need to say, "No!"
The empowering process of learning both to feed my body lovingly and to find my natural rhythm in relation to food served to open an enormous universe of possibility for me. I began to apply the practice to every other area of my life in which I was depriving myself or yelling at and abusing myself with self-castigation, self-devaluing and self-loathing. In each such place, I noticed how I had been trained and enculturated to always look outside (and often upward) of my own being for information on how it was right, appropriate or expected for me to be, think or feel. In each such place, I gave myself permission to listen inward to how I needed to be, think or feel, to what my needs and yearnings actually were. I gave myself permission to act from and on these knowings and yearnings; permission to act on them with the same dedication to careful, loving self-nourishment I had developed around feeding myself with food.
I gave myself permission to set aside the "diets" of constraint, restriction and judgment by which I had been taught to keep myself tidily "in-line" and "out-of-trouble." I practiced healthy responses to the voices outside of me that said: "You can't," "you mustn't," "don't you dare," or "It's not good for you to," or "it's controlling of you to..." I responded sometimes internally, sometimes vocally with some emotional version of, "Who says so, why are they saying that?" And, "What is it that they really want of me that leads them to try to stop me from being, doing, feeling what is, by my own reckoning, right for me now?"
The more I silenced the external voices, the more clearly I came face to face with the harsh, critical, judgmental stopping voice inside of me that I called the "Hatchet Lady" or "Nazi Mother." She reacted loudly and nastily toward me every time I took significant steps in the new direction. She called me names, warned of dire consequences and made sarcastic remarks ridiculing my new ways. I struggled with the agonizing push-pull between this internalized critical voice and the deeper knowing place that was now guiding my choices.
Gradually, I came to see this frightening harridan in me as a Wizard of Oz kind of image cranked up by a frightened little child. This mean, inner policewoman acted on behalf of that child. She did what she did to keep me from doing things that might bring unexpected and much more dangerous attacks from those outside me. Gradually, when this abusive voice came up, I would stop and take time to search for the hidden frightened little part. I asked that little one what she needed to feel safe enough to let me go forward. Her answers helped me move slow enough and in ways that felt less dangerous and threatening to her. She was willing to venture forth in baby steps as long as she could trust me to stop and take a break the instant she felt fearful or overwhelmed. When I moved only as fast as the slowest part of me felt safe to go and she no longer had to beat up on me to get my attention, the push-pull resolved into a more gentle pace and the Hatchet Lady all but disappeared.
From the practice of feeding my body, I've learned that it's absolutely not okay to trust anyone else's ideas about what I need or don't need to do. I've learned that when I can make the space to listen inward to my deep knowing self, I will hear what I need to know in order to best nurture my being, my body, my heart and my soul. And, I've learned that if I do only what feels safe for the slowest part of me to do at this moment (even if or when it looks "wrong" or "crazy" from the outside), it will always lead me to where I need next to go. It will do this even and particularly when I seem to have no conscious idea of where that next place is.
I have learned from the practice of lovingly feeding my body-being that it's important to always be as gentle and forgiving with myself as I can possibly be (especially forgiving myself for not being able yet to be even more gentle than I am being!). I have learned not to force, push or rush my tender self to be anywhere I think I might like to be when I'm not yet ready to be there. I've learned most of all that my body and my being can be profoundly trusted. They have a natural rhythm and flow that is healing and healthy and safe for me. I've learned that whatever I do to control, discipline or externally impose pace or order on my process inevitably interferes with, distorts, derails, detours or subverts that magical flow. There is an organic, organismic order that always will emerge if given time and space enough.
Through this practice I have learned enormous trust in my body-knowings and in my emotional responses. I have learned that when I give myself safe space in which to be feeling raging, howling, crying, grieving, screaming, vegetating, or sleeping when I need that, it never goes on forever. Only when I keep trying to control and transcend these emotions do they seem to become overwhelming and bottomless. I have learned that peace, serenity, graciousness and true generosity of spirit are born out of a compassionate commitment to take loving good care of one's own being, first. I have learned not to trust any tradition, spiritual path or teaching that asks me to discipline, disconnect from, or get beyond my emotional and body feelings.
I celebrate this womanly, emotion-filled physical temple that is my body. I celebrate its often messy, complicated, juicy feelings and all its intense hungers. I celebrate the joyous process of learning how to nourish, nurture and care for it in an ever more sacred and honoring way, as a part of all creation. How I feed and care for my body and my emotional being is how I feed and care for my soul and how I feed and care for the circle of all beings and souls of which I am a part. I am always doing the best I can; if I could do better, I surely would. And when I can, I surely will.
Dear International No Diet Coalition,
We heard about your No Diet Day, and I thought you might like to know how we celebrated it.
We are a group of fat activists called the Fat Guerrillas. We hate what the diet industry does to women in the country. We decided we wanted to do something that would have an impact on would-be dieters, but we didn't want to have to work with the media, because they usually get stuff wrong.
For this operation, we chose code names of beloved fat animals, either real or cartoon. We were Garfield, Miss Piggy, Babar, Dumbo, Porky Pig, Winnie the Pooh, and myself Shamu. We took on the names of oppression -- names many of us had actually been called -- in order to rob those names of their power to hurt us.
We reconnoitered to form our battle plan, and to gather supplies. We took diet warning labels, the ones that list all the health problems associated with dieting. The full text of the labels, if you haven't seen them, is: "Warning! Dieting has been shown to lead to anxiety, depression, lethargy, lowered self -esteem, decreased attention span, weakness, high blood pressure, hair loss, gall-bladder disease, gallstones, heart disease, ulcers, constipation, anemia, dry skin, skin rashes, dizziness, reduced sex drive, menstrual irregularities, amenorrhea, gout, infertility, kidney stones, numbness in the legs, weight gain, compulsive eating, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, reduced resistance to infection, lowered exercise tolerance, electrolyte imbalance, bone loss, osteoporosis, and death." (They are are available from the Body Image Task Force, P.O. Box 934, Santa Cruz, CA 95061, $1.00 for a sheet of 7.)
Our other main supply was a bookmark which reads: "Stop! Diets don't work. Dieting can harm your health. It's time to stop hating our bodies. Try a different a approach: Health Problems? Insist on good, respectful medical advice, and do what will improve your health other than losing weight. Feel unattractive? Get yourself a consultation, from a friend or a professional, and make yourself over in the image you want to project. Embarrassed by jokes at your expense? Fight back! Let the bullies know that body bigotry is unacceptable. Wish you could move more easily? Find a form of physical activity that really feels good, and give yourself the gift of making it part of your life. Can't stop eating compulsively? Get help from a professional who uses the non-dieting approach. Skeptical? Think about the billions of dollars the diet industry would lose if people decided to start liking themselves just the way they are. Never heard of this stuff before? Read more about it in the books and magazines listed on the other side." And the other side has a little bibliography of important books and magazines. (Bookmarks are published by the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination, P.O. Box 305, Mt. Marion, NY 12456, $1.00 for 10 bookmarks).
So we loaded up on bookmarks and labels, and set off in two cars. We had CB radios, and made sure to speak only in code:
"Porky, come in Porky, this is Dumbo."
"Porky here."
"We are approaching target number one, will meet you there. Dumbo out."
"Right. Porky out"
Target number one was our local library. We parked outside and sent in two Fat Guerrillas. They found the weight-loss section and placed a bookmark in every diet book in the library.
Target two was a bookstore, but parking was difficult, so we decided to split up and let mobile unit two take the target while mobile unit one handled the health food store and drug store in the shopping plaza.
"Dumbo, this is Porky. Mission accomplished at target two, meet you outside your target."
"Dumbo is on a mission. This is Shamu. Your message received, Porky, and good work. Rendezvous outside our target. Shamu out."
"Roger, Shamu, Pork out, Pig out." (Porky and Miss Piggy used that as their sign-off from then on).
We were pleased to find out that the health food store no longer carried Dick Gregory's Bahamian Diet Powder®, even though Dumbo had been looking forward to getting the chance to place warning labels on those canisters. Anyway, we were able to send a serious warning to anyone who goes to Fay's Drugstore intending to buy Ultra Slim-Fast(tm) or Dexatrim(tm), and the health food store's bookshelves were appropriately enhanced with bookmarks in all the diet books.
Next, we traveled along the local roads, seeking out posters for the "Magic Diet". These posters, laminated in plastic to make them last longer, have been stapled to utility poles all around our region. They gave a local phone number, belonging to someone known to the group to be a sleazy character who preys on innocent, desperate fat women. He sells a diet powder -- the kind of product that is responsible for most of those health problems listed on the warning labels -- and tries to get his customers to become distributors of the stuff, so he can make commission. These diet pyramid scams can be found all over the country. Since the FTC has not yet moved to stop them we decided it was up to us.
We knew that he had no legal right to post "Magic Diet" signs on public utility poles, poles which carry our electric and telephones lines. So as we found each sign, we would stop and park and Garfield, our valiant warrior, would get out and unceremoniously rip it down. We call this the highway beautification program, and later decided that we had an obligation to adopt these local highways, and that if this litter should ever reappear, we would plan forays to once again re-beautify the region.
We covered a lot of territory that day. We went into the nearest city and hit a large department store and several stores in the mall. Porky almost got caught labeling Slimfast at a large department store, but all the clerks could figure was that we were trying to shoplift, and they couldn't see any place for us to hide those big cans. We put a bookmark in every Susan Powter book ( and many others) in our local mall. We cleaned up the entire highway, removing "Magic Diet" posters all along the commercial strip.
When our missions had all been successfully accomplished, we went to the soft ice cream drive-in, and celebrated with cones and shakes as we sat around the statue of a nice, plump cow that adorns the drive-in. On our way back to Fat Guerrilla base, we hit a supermarket we had missed before (Miss Piggy needed to buy food for her dog anyway).
A week has gone by, and we have heard no repercussion of our actions. Perhaps we will never know. But we can imagine someone, feeling terrible about her life because she thinks she's the fattest person in the world, picking up a book in the library, finding the bookmark, and reading about the anti-diet movement for the first time. Maybe it will get her thinking -- maybe she'll decide to learn to love herself just the way she is. And maybe someone will buy a can of Nestle's Sweet Success(tm), hoping to lose weight quickly so she can feel less self-conscious in a bathing suit, and before she uses it, she will read about what diets can do to you health. Maybe she'll change her mind, and decide to go out in the suit just the way she is now, and hold her head up proudly, knowing that her smile and self-confidence can't harm her, and will probably make her more attractive than any weight loss.
And maybe someone who had decided -- in desperation -- to call that Magic Diet guy, won't be able to find the number, even though she was sure it was on the pole down the road. Maybe instead she'll decide to go to the library and get a book on dieting...
The Fat Guerrillas will continue to plan and execute direct action hits like this one. We will keep you informed. We invite our fat activist sisters and brothers to form groups like ours and take a stand against the oppressors.
Yours in struggle,
Shamu
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Hearing about the experiences of women who "speak out" is encouraging to others who have thought about speaking up but don't quite feel ready to do so. Here are some samples. Send yours in for the next issue!
It makes my blood boil when I see catalogues advertise styles through size 26, yet the model wearing them is clearly a size 12. As a one-woman boycott I have begun sending back the order forms with the following in bold handwriting: "Please remove me from your mailing list. I spend $2,000 - $4,000 a year on clothes, but I refuse to order from a catalogue that doesn't show plus size clothes on plus size models!"
--from Marty, Chicago
I went in to the doctor because my wrist hurt. She commented, "Haven't you lost any weight yet?" I have never spoken up about the new way I feel about my eating and my size, but after all these years, I took a deep breath and said, "Didn't you take some blood work on me?"
"Yes," replied the doctor. "And it was all excellent. You're in terrific health."
"Then" I said, "Please take your fat phobic comments and set them aside so that you can respond to people in the direct way they deserve."
--from L.B., Chicago
I've always put up with my doctor asking about weight at my yearly checkup. I endured the question, and then left, happy with my body as it is and quite comfortable with my eating. This year something changed. After listening to the recitation of my excellent blood work -- low cholesterol, normal blood sugar levels, etc. -- and my completely healthy internal system, the doctor once again stated, "But you really need to lose weight." I looked her in the eye and said, "Let me understand this: my blood work is excellent?"
"Yes," she said.
"My heart is healthy?"
"Yes," she said.
"My breasts, my pap smear, my mammogram - all fine?"
"Oh, yes," she said.
"Then, doctor," I commented, "What's your point?"
She had nothing to say.
--from V.T.
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All over the country, women are working hard to end body hatred and dieting. However, as you know, the diet paradigm is embedded in our lives and requires vigilant and repeated efforts to dislodge it. One day everything is "going fine" with legalizing and demand feeding and then suddenly, "It isn't working" anymore. Usually, when this happens, we have unknowingly turned the Overcoming Overeating guidelines into a diet. We then rebel against what we now experience as rules. Even when we are truly nondieting in terms of our eating, we often discover that the dieting mentality has a firm grip on other aspects of our lives. As Anna commented in one of our groups, "It was only when I legalized food and began to demand feed myself that I realized how many other 'diets' I'm on in my life." Anna found, as you may, that her belief in and need for rules extended far beyond her eating and her body.
In this culture the diet frame of mind is like a huge psychic magnet. The Overcoming Overeating approach as well as the other life-changes it inspires is counter-cultural at its core. No wonder we periodically revert to diet-like thinking. "Sometimes I wish there were one right answer," sighed Melinda. "It's difficult to keep going inside myself to find out what's right for me: I want someone to tell me it's okay to feel a certain way."
To find out if you are operating within a diet frame of mind, look over our basic checklist, compiled by our groups here in Chicago (we welcome your additions!):
YOU'RE IN THE DIET FRAME OF MIND IF YOU FIND YOURSELF SAYING:
In our Overcoming Overeating groups, women have become adept at hearing each other's diet language, and even better at catching the multitude of diets that exist in their lives. Remember, the main characteristic of a diet is setting expectations of perfection, and feeling like a failure when you do not measure up to them. Food diets instruct us when, what and how much to eat and life-diets tell us when, what and how much to feel, do and think.
So, from women in Chicago, here's a highly condensed list of some of the diets we have discovered in our midst. We'll start with the ways we turn the approach itself into a diet and then move on to a sampling of other diets we have uncovered in our lives.
1. The "I'M GOING TO DO THIS APPROACH PERFECTLY" Diet
On this very common diet, you set up the Overcoming Overeating guidelines as rules which you believe you "must" follow. When you don't, you feel like a failure. The Overcoming Overeating "diet" sounds something like this: "I am going to eat only from stomach hunger," "I'm not ready to get rid of my scale or my small clothes, so obviously I'm not doing this right," or "I should be looking at myself in the mirror, but I hate what I see." As we've said in previous columns, the process of nondieting is so profoundly different than anything you have done before that it is difficult to comprehend that although the guidelines are firm, the path towards ending body hatred and dieting is unique for each individual. The process of nondieting is a quintessentially human process and therefore has nothing to do with achieving a state of perfection.
2. The "I WILL BECOME MY OWN INTERNAL CARETAKER" Diet
Recently, a woman in Chicago called this diet to our attention. In one of our groups, we had used a visualization using the image of the Internal Caretaker (see Carol and Jane's new book, When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies, for an in-depth discussion of this concept). It was designed to help women in the group find ways to use an internal caretaker instead of food at moments of discomfort or anxiety. Laura found the exercise so beneficial that she vowed to use it regularly during the next week to help her intervene when she had mouth hunger. But in group the following week, she reported that after several days of living under this injunction, her Internal Caretaker took a vacation and was nowhere to be found. When Laura saw that she had turned a guideline into a diet, she changed her words. She said to herself, "I'm very interested in using this visualization as much as possible," and her Caretaker returned immediately.
3. The "I'M GOING TO DEMAND FEED MY CHILDREN" Diet
This diet reflects our wish to share our new-found freedom from food and weight obsession with our children. If we have restricted our children in the past, we want to unrestrict now -- RIGHT NOW! Group members have often found themselves attempting to "get" their kids to begin eating only when hungry. "Get" is the diet word here, instead of, "I'd like to help my child move gently in the direction of eating from stomach hunger." Watch how quickly a child gobbles up a candy bar if she's asked, "Are you SURE you're hungry right now?"
4. The "AS LONG AS I'M PRODUCTIVE WHO CARES WHAT I FEEL LIKE AT WORK?" Diet
As women put an end to body hatred and dieting they often become more aware of how they function at work. Many of us are on a diet of expectations regarding how we should function at work, how we're supposed to feel, how we ought to use every second productively (or feel guilty if we don't.) This is the case if we work outside of our homes, or in. When we go off the work diet, it's much easier to identify what we like and don't like about our jobs and to set limits around what we can or cannot do. Many women discover that when self-nurturing becomes as important, if not more so, than productivity, they find ways to spend more time doing what they want to do rather than what they should.
5. The "I HAVE TO BE A PERFECT MOTHER" Diet
This diet forbids any behavior that does not conform to what we believe constitutes a "good mother." When we yell at our children, are not as available as we might wish, or experience other "imperfections" in our mothering, we chastise ourselves as if we'd fallen off a diet in which we expect ourselves to be perfect all the time. Most often our concept of a "good mother" is one who is unfailingly loving and nurturing, rather than authentic and good enough. As with most of these diets, leaving this one behind is tricky because the Be a Perfect Mother diet is socially sanctioned. In order to abandon this diet, you need to ask yourself continuously, "Who Says?" that there is such a thing as a perfect mother? What do you enjoy and what do you want to change about your mothering? How can you contemplate changing something about your mothering without clobbering yourself for what you're doing now?
We hope you will be able to identify some of your own "diets" whether they involve your work with the Overcoming Overeating approach or exist in other areas of your life. Our motto is: If it feels like a rule, it's a diet! (Even if it's a rule NOT to turn Overcoming Overeating into a diet!) When you discover yourself dieting in any area of your life, see if you can move from abstract rules back to your unique personality, set of wishes, and ways of working. As you unclench your fists and stop gritting your teeth (two other signs of dieting) try gently to move back into yourself with compassionate and non-judgmental language (and if you have trouble with this, don't yell!) Some suggestions for how to talk to yourself:
Remember that working hard at not dieting does not make it a diet. There's a difference between being vigilant and striving for perfection. Confusing them is a natural by-product of living in a dieting culture. Ending body hatred and dieting is not a linear or smooth road; it is filled with many interesting learning experiences. Judging ourselves as we learn only holds us back. As one of our children commented one morning in response to a misinformed request to do his best when Mom felt he wasn't performing up to par: "Mom -- my best is not the same every day!"
© Copyright 1995, The National Center for Overcoming Overeating
Contributors retain all rights to their work. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the National Center for Overcoming Overeating, P.O. Box 1257, Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113-0920.
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