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Guest Post: Fat is NOT a Feeling
A few weeks ago, I came across a post by LaCara of Oh La La Curves and I loved it. Â I invited her over to share her thoughts and elaborate a bit more on this topic which rang true to me, AND along the theme of this blog. Curvy.Confident.Chic.
Please welcome Guest blogger, LaCara
Fat is not a feeling.
“I feel Fat”, is what most women say to themselves when they are having an “off” day.
Newsflash: “Fat” is not a feeling!
Feelings are abstract, you can’t touch them, unlike fat, which you can definitely touch and see. It seems that this has become the catch phrase for many women when they feel low, lonely, unhappy, sad etc. Instead of actually dealing with how you feel, you’re lying to yourself about feeling something you cannot feel, either you’re fat or you’re not.
The mainstream media has drilled it into thousands of women’s minds, that being fat is bad. Well ladies, that is a lie, negative feelings or thoughts (lonely, unhappy, unhealthy, etc) is not synonymous to being fat, all those things is strictly down to the individual, for example, just because your skinny doesn’t mean you’re going to be happy.
Instead of pushing the negative things you feel into a corner, you need to address them, for the simple reason is, if you’re not honest with yourself how do you expect others to be honest with you and vice versa. So ladies the next time you’re having “one of those days” where you’re not feeling your usual self and you’re about to utter that sentence, take a moment to actually assess how you feel, address those feelings and be honest. I guarantee that you’ll start to think differently and be able to get know yourself better, because your being honest to yourself.
Love,
LaCara
Please visit LaCara over at Oh La La Curves to catch her outfit posts, thoughts, and insight about plus size fashion or tweet her on Twitter!
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Very nice work, love the blog and will now follow you both. This is a movement to undo all the negative rhetoric we’ve been fed all our lives about why we are never good enough, thin or full figured, and I am in for the good fight all the way! As women we should be KIND to eachother and not so judgmental. It starts with US….accept other women for their unique beauty and stop trying to label and pick on them if they don’t look the way you have been taught they should look (Barbie). When we start accepting how we look, the world will follow. We are our hardest critics and have got to start saying “you are beautiful” instead of “your butt is too big”. The best feeling in the world is telling another woman how good she looks or pointing out her good points instead of her bad…it’s contageous!
I think you struck a note LaCara. I think I may have subconsciously done the same thing. Like when you try on a dress that doesn’t look right you may say, “I feel fat” rather than saying, “I look fat.” I’ll most definitely will me making and effort not to say this again.
I’m so proud of you angel! and I love this post, I’m guilty of saying ” I feel fat” too and just associate it with all things negative. So glad you wrote this <3
I agree. Although I’m pretty sure I’ve said “I feel fat” before I probably meant “bloated”. Because that happens when I get my period. Not a good feeling no matter what size you are.
@Jules – I love you! Thank you for stopping by! I love your energy about it all! Thank you again for the love!
@grenouille – Yes!!! We are so quick to say that- I have been guilty of it! I hope we learn to change our thinking process! Thank you for stopping by!
While I agree that you can be fat and happy. I, for the most part, am a happy person and I am definitely fat. But sometimes I do feel fat. I don’t mean I feel down, sad, lonely. I simply mean that I’m bloated, ate too much, or maybe I just can’t seem to find the outfit I want because today even though I’m in a great mood and I feel as if I look fat in them, more than normal. And that is what I really mean. I feel as if I look fatter than I normally do. And while fat doesn’t mean unhappy- feeling as if I over ate, bloated or whatever is not a good feeling. So when I say I feel fat; I mean I feel as if I look fatter than normal, or ate too much, or that I feel bloated. It’s not an emotional issue. I will continue to say I feel fat and I don’t think it has a negative impact on fat people. I think people in general realize what you are saying isn’t that you feel unhappy but that today you feel as if you’ve gained weight or look fatter than normal. Also while fat isn’t an emotion, emotions are the only thing you can feel {Definition of feel: to have a sensation of (something), other than by sight, hearing, taste, or smell.} I feel the sensation of being fat today. It’s just easier to say I feel fat.
Interesting perspective Missy! Thank you for sharing and stopping by! I am going to think about this, as you raised very true and very real thoughts! Thank you!
Thank you everyone so much for your comments! 😀
@ Mellissa – very interesting points, but my main arguement is that “fat” is not a feeling, while you can “feel” fat i.e. feel bigger than normal, what you defined was “feel” which is not an emotional feeling as I was talking about. “Definition of Feelings- An emotional state or disposition; an emotion or an affective state of consciousness, such as that resulting from emotions, sentiments, or desires”.
Now I know many people who say they “feel fat” because of emotional issues not because they feel bigger than normal, and I also know women who say they “feel fat” because they’re bloated (such as yourself), I was addressing those who use that phrase as an excuse for the negative things they feel (emotionally), and personally I think it does have an negative impact on fat people because there is a stigma that fat people aren’t happy or associated with anything positive. Also when I feel bigger than normal I say I feel bloated because I know it’s temporary I know my stomach will go down, and I know I haven’t put on weight…
I don’t know, sometimes I think when someone says they feel fat they either mean, they feel insecure or they feel bloated.
This isn’t a fair assessment. You don’t know how other women feel, and sometimes we do “feel” fat.
I’m actually quite tiny, but when I go clothes shopping most clothing looks so big on me that it appears to add volume to my body and makes me look frumpy and lumpy and after 5 or 6 hours of looking at myself in a mirror appearing frumpy and lumpy in ill-fitting clothing, I do feel like I look fat. It’s not that I’m sad about some unrelated thing. I’m upset by what I’ve been looking at in a mirror all day.
Again, I was addressing women who use that phrase as an excuse to how they feel (emotionally). And I wasn’t saying ALL women feel that way, but from my experinces alot of women I know say they feel fat for other reasons, it’s just what I’ve heard and seen, and I’m aware every woman is different and for all you know some women actually do say I “feel” fat because of other issues. I also acknowledge that some women say they “feel” fat because they are bloated, but again as I stated before, I’m addressing this to women who use this as an emotional excuse.
Also, I have those days when the clothes I wear don’t fit me properly and makes me look lumpy too, so instead of saying I “feel” fat, I say “I don’t look good today”, because it is what it is, I know I’m not going to look good or feel good every day, but fat or not I’m not going to say “I feel fat”, because either you are or you’re not, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine.