Fatty fatty four by four and crap like that!

George Lopez called Kirstie Alley a pig, basically, on his show. Referring to her feet as, "hooves" and, "she looked like this little piggy had roast beef for lunch and this little piggy had..."She tweeted back, "I don’t want or need an apology from George Lopez... I want his kidney dude, for his x (whom he divorced after she gave him a kidney) and all the other women he's insulted"!

The fact that that this can still happen on national TV, no less in this day and age,  really bugs me! I honestly think that George Lopez is only on TV because he’s Hispanic and its politcally correct to have him on the network lineup these days, obviously whether he’s funny or not. I have never liked humor that’s at someone else’s expense (unless I personally am dishing it out of course ha!).  But seriously, isn’t the funniest humor the everyday things that we do that someone can turn into a story and we laugh because it’s you’re thinking, “oh yeah been there”! On one hand we try to make progress against bullying and on the other have these "so called entertainers" acting like elementary students with no conscience.

Being fat is the last prejudice that’s still out there and openly tolerated.  Fat jokes been directed at fat girls mostly, and you know why it’s tolerated? Because rather than stand up for ourselves, we believe we have it coming. We have been conditioned to that. I know boys have their own issues with being fat but I was a girl (yes, once upon a time) and have taken a lot of teasing, put downs,  and probably worse discrimination.

I started getting “chunky” during puberty. Not sure why because I’d been a skinny, scrawny, sickly kid. But my parents started having marriage problems when I was about ten and between my tenth and twelfth birthdays my pictures I looked like I was a balloon being inflated. My parents fought over what Kathy and I ate. Mom tried to watch what and how much we ate, and Dad’s stance was, “let them eat”. I was always thinking, “Yeah let us eat”! Every time I poured a glass of orange juice, Mom, like a broken record would say, “that stuff is fattening you know! 

  We ate about six times a day. There was breakfast, morning coffee, dinner, lunch, supper and something before we went to bed.  Yep, that’s six times! That was all fine and good for those who were doing heavy labor on the farm but playing with cats, and pushing doll buggies didn’t really qualify us to eat like that. We didn’t have a lot of fun, and eating was fun… Mom was such a good cook! 

By the sixth grade I was being called, “Pam the ham” in school. Our farmland had gotten annexed into the Blaisdell school district and we were forced to go to Blaisdell School from Palermo. We didn’t want to change schools. There were three or four in each grade and only me and another girl in my grade.  There was a boy a grade ahead of me that had the dirtiest mind I’d ever been exposed to! He harassed us, called us dirty sexual names and was just smart ass puke in general. I would go home and tell Mom the words we heard that day in school…and she was astounded we were hearing such things but our Mom never rocked any boats, and just encouraged us to ignore it…not easy. We had a few good time memories there in Blaisdell School, but mostly I hated it. Because Blaisdell didn’t have a high school you could go to high school wherever you wanted to. Most of the Blaisdell kids opted for Stanley High School but we wanted to go back to Palermo and I’ve always been happy we did.

In high school is where I realized the connection between weight and sexuality. I have always described myself as a “Rosie O’Donnell” type. Chubby who used my humor to cover my insecurity.  I was not hugely fat. I always had boyfriends and friends, held class officer ships in my class, and felt popular but certainly not because of my looks. My weight and my teeth were something I had to overcome. Anyone I ever dated, dated me after hanging out as friends first. I always wanted to be like that Suzanne Somers character in American Graffiti. The smoldering, heart stopping, slam on the breaks, “I wanna go with her”, girl. No such luck! Instead I had a sexy friend Charli in high school that everyone wanted to date. I was her fat friend, that was overlooked, looked past or downright ignored by many guys.

Besides the dating scene and school issues, by then I’d been called a “slob” by one of my in-laws that seared my heart like a branding iron. When I had my appendix out the doctor who came into see me stiff and sore and miserable after surgery said, “We had a little bet before we cut you open about how many layers of fat we’d be cutting through and I won”! He said a number of layers too but I can't remember the number, just the put down. 

 Every family picnic was a dreaded event on my part...I didn't know which of my Aunts or Uncles on my Dad's side of the family was going to deliver the crushing blow that day. Every picnic it was a different one in that family. "You've gained alot of weight since I saw you last", "you better watch out our you're going to end up as fat as Lavina", "I really thought you were smarter than this". I remember being a married mother and climbing into my Mom's bed after one of these family picnics and sobbing to her about how fat I was. I remember telling her,  I'm so tired of being the biggest, the fattest and the uglist of my sisters".

                          An attempt at losing weight

I had a boyfriend, a crazy one.... but that’s another story, and probably the most redeeming thing about being fat that I can think of in this stage of my life, is that my self-esteem was so low it kept me from even thinking about doing anything sexual!  Are you kidding me? Take my clothes off in front of anyone?  Anytime my boyfriend even put his hand where I had a roll of fat, I'd move it! There was a lot of that moving the hand,  because there were a lot of rolls, both real and imagined! I was absolutely obsessed with how fat I was! Everywhere we went I’d see overweight girls(like when your pregnamt and see all pregnant people).  I'd ask my Mom, “Am I as fat as her?”  Mom would always say, "well your shaped different"…silently I knew I had a weird shape on top of being fat. I did too, that wasn’t imagined.

 I wore a long line girdle under my skin tight jeans that I had to lay on the bed to button. Of course then I had a huge roll OVER my jeans so I had to wear a sweatshirt and stretch it out just right so it would blouse over the fat roll, and not cling to it.
 
                                                    
                                   Back up

             

I started my yoyo dieting career between my sophomore and junior year in high school, when I lost thirty pounds for the first time.  All of a sudden I had upper classmen and boys from other schools wanting to date me. I really didn’t get it; I was the same person after all. I still felt fat and I still didn’t like myself much. That part never changed throughout my life until now.

                                   Thin when Brendon was in Tball

I met Kerry when I was eighteen and totally loved him from the first time I saw him. He thought I was a tomboy and saw me more in the friend category unless he was drunk . I always think of this when Larry the Cable guy does his …”the cop pulls me over, asks me if I’m drunk, and I say, “why have a got a fat girl in the backseat”? Funny, funny stuff those fat jokes!  Unless you’re fat. Unless you’ve been fat. I think I won Kerry over by being there for him, cooking for him, mothering him so well… and he longed for that. Kerry loves me too I’m not saying that,  but what I’m saying is we loved each other for different reasons and like every other person I dated it wasn’t for my knockout body or looks.

                                        Fat when Syd was young

 Over the years, I was always on my way up the scale or down. I always said, “I’m not an addicted eater”, and I stand by that still today, I just am not active enough to burn off what I eat. I had a metabolism test last year and it was barely off the low end on a bar graph. I was like, “yeah, see there, I’m not a closet eater”!  Kerry never said anything about my weight going up or down all these years but was always more attracted to me going down.

                        REALLY FAT when Mom was in the home

After Sydney was born, and I had a miscarriage a year or so after that, I just sort of stopped trying to manage my weight. I didn’t even get up the energy to yo…ha.  Like I have said, it’s not that I eat so much I’m just not very active. There’s a fix for that, except I hate HAVING to do anything and I’m lazy. I do things like clean house and paint and decorate because I like the result.

                                                               

Thinner for SHelbeys wedding

I didn’t know when I started the sparkle campaign that I’d have these health issues come up and HAVE to do the exercise but whatever it is, I need to do for the end result.  I’m trying to switch my thinking over to working towards the end result of better health, regaining things in my life that I’d given up because of weight, and having more energy and mobility. Yesterday at the Tempe Art Fest I walked all day which I wouldn’t have done a few months ago.

                                       Really really fat (fattest ever) again!!

If I could go back to those young years I’d say to myself… life is precious, and short. Enjoy today in spite of the ignorance that’s out there from people who don’t understand the plight of being overweight, or underweight or drug addicted or mentally ill, or suicidal, or ….. The list is endless. We can’t change stupid or ignorant; we can only change how we react. I finally know my value, and its not about looks or what somebody else thinks its about what you think.  Have compassion for their ignorance because we are all ignorant in different ways. Compassion, however, doesn’t mean we accept it, instead step up and take the chance to educate in a polite but matter of fact way.

 I remember the first time I did that, educate someone,  and it wasn't for me it was for my brother who had had a drinking problem. One of those same relatives I talked about up further, approached me in church no less and said Sonny,  "was a nice guy if he just didnt have that drinking "fault". First of all, of course my Brother is a nice guy, hes my brother so don't give me your opinion of him, unless its a good one. I would and will protect who he was till the end of my life.  Second, Sonny was dead, and the word  fault, sizzled my temper so badly, I dared to come back with "that wasnt  a fault, he had an illness"!  It was easier for me to defend him than it was myself for all my weight comments that family had piled on me. Too bad they have passed away,  most of them because I can defend myself today!

                                                                             

        Down a little and dang it...going down for good i pray!

                                                                        

Our reaction to all the George Lopez’s out there should be to just shut him off, don’t waste your time trying to figure out how someone who already has all he has, can stoop that low for some more green paper. I say, Kirstie Alley is right - who is George Lopez to her happiness?   Have you seen how many tabloids she has endured over the years. I'd be a recluse in her position, so I hope his comments spur her on and she continues to do well on Dancing With The Stars.  Just enjoy your own life; fat or thin, wherever you are, and be your best self!

Ps.  If you’re a Mom with kids, I encourage you, to encourage them, to accept all people, dont make fat jokes or talk negatively about people with weight problems. It matters more how you conduct yourself than how you tell them to conduct themselves. Karma has made some of the skinniest people fat. Put the kabosh on any kind of cruelty or rude comments about other people, when kids say them.