definatalie.com

After going to TEDxBrisbane and seeing Dallas Clayton’s video on publishing “An Awesome Book” I have been feeling inspired to self publish a book. I’ve also been reading a few old zines, the FaT GiRL zines from the 90s in particular, and I thought I’d start out by publishing a zine on body image – your body image.

So, I put up a question on a Google Form: Tell me about your body in 10 words or less.

Lots of people have contributed their statements already! Some of them are sad, some are funny, but all of them speak to me of honesty and struggle.

So, how do you feel about your body? You can contribute too. You don’t have to put your real name, but a name is nice because I can illustrate your words and then attribute those words to you. The end product will be an A5 sized zine – I am yet to figure out the details, but I hope to have enough interest in the book to have it colour printed. I will also make the zine available online for free.

If you’re interested in a printed zine, please let me know so I can start figuring out numbers!

In a culture where negative self talk is actively encouraged most of us have days when we feel like we don’t measure up. This practice of comparing ourselves and our bodies with others rarely produces good outcomes. It’s such a damaging culture that even those with high self esteem aren’t immune. Even those who are activists, advocating for fat acceptance, aren’t safe.

When I find myself in these moments where I compare myself to others and despair at the ways I am lacking, I try to remember this. Some people are surprised that I can fight for size diversity, human rights and self-love so fiercely yet still be afflicted with bouts of crippling low confidence – but I’ve got to tell you right now, this is proof of our self-hating culture.

Margaret Cho, someone more eloquent (and hilarious) than I, says it really well.

Copy and paste this in a txt file, or make it your desktop. Read it all the time and remember it.

I just had my first ever pedicure and it was THE WEIRDEST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. Nick and I decided to pamper ourselves after all our intrepid plodding last week, and surprisingly Nick was the one who was enthusiastic about getting a professional to tend to our sore feet. I was less into it because it takes a lot for me to let someone into my personal foot bubble of space.

Being pretty terrible at small talk I like to avoid most feminine-oriented beautification services (please see chapter 4: My Fear of Hairdressers) and I was quietly terrified when Nick looked up a place to get our marital mani-pedi. When the technician (I think that’s the proper job title!) put my feet in a warm bath that vibrated I started to get into it, but then she snuck her hands in the water and started rubbing my heels. Cue the freak out.

As more of the 75 minutes of pedicure torture ticked over I awaited the next attack on my poor unsuspecting feet. Exfoliation, massage (I actually liked that bit), some foot… shaving with a pumice paddle, a bunch of oily moisturising stuff slathered from toes to calves, and then… the paraffin wax. I thought my blood was going to boil in my veins, it was so hot! After it cooled it sort of felt nice, despite the squicky feeling of stuff between my toes. After having some time to myself while the wax set I grossed myself out by thinking about how much dead skin had been sloughed off in that little room. Ew. Finally it was time for some polish – a pale pink.

The whole process was a little bit shocking to me, having never participated in such an experience before. Once I tuned out a little bit and had a giggle at all the hilarious comments on the Grill’d blog post I started to feel like I was being rightfully pampered. I’m sorry to the lovely woman who professionally tended to my feet, I’ve totally forgotten your name, but seeing as you’ve handled these feet I feel we are the most intimate of friends now.

It’s hard to escape some of the more cringe-inducing messages in the lead up to Valentine’s Day in the western world. It’s a day that was created to fete early Christian martyrs (yes, plural – Valentine was a popular name for martyrs!) for things that people forgot about long ago, and for reasons of sacrifice rather than actual kissy-kissy romance. Early Pagans held a fertility celebration called Lupercalia in February and it’s thought that the creation of the Valentine holiday was an attempt to Christianise Pagan celebrations (remind you of Christmas?) As time went on the myths and practices surrounding Valentine’s Day became more romantic and were intended to celebrate the romantic love between a man and a woman. People exchanged cards with ribbon and lace, and eventually some entrepreneurial sort came up with the idea of mass manufacturing these trinkets. And you know the rest.

There’s a lot to disagree with when it comes to Valentine’s Day. It’s a Christian tradition celebrating hetero-normative love bastardised from Pagan celebration, basically. For years I was a single girl wondering about love and Valentine’s was always a day that mocked my inability to find a partner. To find a little joy I would make cards for my friends, drawing and gluing to show my appreciation and love for the people around me. Some years I would take time out to spoil myself, with home-made facials and manicures. When I started going out with Nick it didn’t really seem important that he shower me with gifts, so we never really made a big deal out of the day and preferred to spend it with friends. I really appreciate this new tradition we’ve created and feel like it’s a lot more enriching than selfishly squirreling our love away (though if you’re a parent it’s probably a good time to score some time to yourselves!)

SOME LOVELY THINGS TO DO
For yourself and others

❥ Paint your nails a crazy colour. Or red. Or any colour, really. (Photo by lauren the zebra)
❥ Give yourself a face mask and put used tea bags on your eyes (I have no idea if it reduces puffy eyes effectively, but it feels nice!)
❥ Make cupcakes for your friends.
❥ Have a picnic in the park and nap in the sun (good if you’re Australian, maybe not so good if it’s still frosty in your part of the world!)

❥ Nibble your jam sandwich into the shape of a heart (I used to do this all the time) or you could buy a proper cutter (they don’t sell the above one anymore though!)
❥ Book a date with a new friend.
❥ Doodle sweet things on cards and give them to your family and friends.
❥ Take a grandparent out to the movies.

❥ Stand in front of the mirror and practice cute poses. Do not leave until you have smiled at yourself.
❥ Write yourself a Valentine and put it in a book (so you or someone else can find it years later).
❥ THROW OUT YOUR SCALES.
❥ If you live with someone and their scales are in the bathroom, blu-tac a positive message over the display.
❥ Do absolutely nothing all day.

If you’ve got any body-positive all-inclusive plans for Valentine’s Day let me know in the comments!

I love playing with how I look, by and large I’m pretty fortunate to live in a country where I am free to do just so. I may get odd looks, people whispering behind their hands and others who simply express their delight/ confusion to my face; as an introvert it’s not really my favourite part about being “wacky”, but I guess it’s par for the course. We have been trained all our lives to tuck ourselves in, to blend in with everyone else and to avoid marginalising ourselves (if you’re privileged you’re fortunate enough to get to choose this!) and those who do not are accused of crying for attention. It’s really not as simple as that.

As a fat person I have been instructed by society through implicit and explicit signals that I should not be visible. Obviously, if you know anything about me, you’d know I think that’s a load of rubbish. As a woman, I have been instructed in other ways to be ever polite, kind, beautiful and ladylike. I also think this is rubbish. We are taught to keep our knees toghether, but why? To hide our bodies (our genitals, mostly) from the view of people (who in all likelihood have genitals also); to maintain a feminine mystique; to reinforce this systematic conditioning that sets us up as enemies with our bodies? Why are bodies supposed to be such secret hidden things? And sidenote: what is so offensive about people wearing tights as pants? I really don’t understand the outrage!

I look how I look because I very consciously question societal gender and body conditioning. I know it challenges a lot of people, my parents especially, but I just couldn’t be me if I did everything everyone wanted me to. My self esteem directly benefits from this, because I’m not as concerned with hiding bits of myself as other people are (even though I still battle this!)

So I have crazy hair styles, wear the outfits I wanna and let my laughter ring like a bell (reportedly a very LOUD bell.) If people take issue, it’s not my issue! I do not dress for other people. I may dress to an occasion but I am VERY adamant about not seeking the approval of other people when I style myself. I feel that it plays a huge part in compromising your confidence and esteem. I put make up on, tease my hair, and put together outfits as a way of expressing how I’m feeling; or if I’m feeling glum, to express how I want to feel.

I find identity and styling fascinating, and would love to know: am I alone on this? Do you think about how you style your body, or is it just about putting on clothes every day?

The other day when I was getting ready to go out I thought I’d record my ritual. This is my “bare minimum” face for being presentable outside my house and I’ve done it since I was in my teens. I have acne that is impervious to over the counter treatments (believe me, I’ve wasted so much money!) so make up has always been my mask. I feel very self conscious if I am without foundation and in a way, it is quite limiting having this anxiety about showing my real face. I guess this video is about unveiling my mask and my ritual, more than anything.

The song “Marie-Claire” is by Elfes, and the lyrics are in French but when I passed them through Google Translate (I hope that link works!) they spoke about body image anxiety – so I thought it was rather appropriate!

I think everyone picks themselves to pieces – even the most seemingly confident of people. Sometimes I think that my low self-esteem exists so that I don’t get too full of myself, and other times it really gets me down. I’m very guilty of comparing myself against other people (in terms of fashion, looks, professional skills, etc!) and it’s only this year that I’ve decided to become conscious of myself when I do it, and try to turn it around. It’s rather hard! I was stoked to see that Georgie Love, Frocks & Frou Frou and No More Mumus have started a mini-meme in the Australian blogging sphere, and they’ve answered the $64 million question, “What do you love about yourself?” So now I’m going to do it!

What I love about myself:

• I seem to be able to pull off nearly every hair colour.
• My sense of humour and general irreverence.
• My lips, which I used to be teased for!
• My height.
• I’m willing to give anything a go.
• I love that my hands create things.
• My drive to keep learning.
• My problem solving and resourcefulness.
• How one of my eyes is half brown.
• I’m nice.
• My eyebrows (over tweezing when I was 15 lead to low maintenance brows!)
• I’m willing to go out on a limb to make people feel comfortable or happy.
• My passion.
• Last of all! I love that I am a billboard for myself. I love that I don’t take myself too seriously. I am not afraid to express myself through my body, clothes, art, blog etc etc etc!

You are now under strict orders to blog about how much you love yourself! If you don’t have a blog, leave a comment

I did a vlog version of the “How to love yourself in 8 really hard steps” today because I thought it might be good practice to get into the swing of talking and making videos. I actually surprised myself – I think I had about 20 minutes of babbling that I had to edit fairly brutally in order to come under YouTube’s 10 minute limit!

Please watch, rate, comment, subscribe and give me your first born child’s toenails. I bronze them and sell them on Etsy as earrings.

I have been absolutely OVERWHELMED with responses to “How to love yourself in 8 really hard steps“, so I want to maintain some of the body image vibe in my blog from now on. In this post, I want to share one of my secrets to feeling confident and loving myself – and it’s just a simple matter of taking a photo of myself! I have been following flickr groups like wardrobe_remix, Fatshionista and No More Mumus for a while, and on the odd occasion (when I’ve remembered) I submit a photo. I really love to put my outfits together, and even though I don’t have any kind of budget for designer stuff, I still feel great about myself when I wear things I feel comfortable and awesome in. My main failing has been consistency – often I’m running late enough as it is to be bothered with pulling out my tripod, or trying to get Nick to take a photo of me where my head isn’t cut off!

I think photographing and documenting our outfits has so many benefits. I’m slowly learning to pose myself – something I’ve always had difficulty with. Usually I’m the girl who pulls a face in a photo! I think photographing your outfit can also help you to find peace with your body shape and how you look to everyone else. I take inspiration from other flickr outfit posters, especially from the plus size groups, and find myself becoming bolder because of the influence I take from people like tootsicle, 52 stations, Girlchile and pining for the moon. I’m also an avid reader of The Musings of a Fatshionista and Young, Fat and Fabulous – Christina and Gabi are amazing fashion role models for me, who take HUGE risks. I bought wet look tights the other day just because I heard Chris chanting “DO IT DO IT DO IT” in the back of my head.

So from now on, I’m going to make a concerted effort. My friend Sonya, of the No More Mumus blog, really inspires me because she consistently takes photos of her amazing outfits and posts them to flickr. I don’t go out a whole heap, but I’m pledging to myself that when I do dress up – I’m going to take a photo. Hell, if I’m going to the shops and I’ve pulled something together that makes me feel great, I’m going to take a photo of that too!

Some tips for taking photos of your outfits:

• Use a tripod if you have access to one.
• If you don’t have access to a tripod, use a human being who can take directions well.
• If you don’t have a tripod or a human being, find somewhere you can prop your camera at about eye height.
• If you have a remote, use it! Disguise it by putting it up your sleeve, or putting your hands on your hips.
• If you don’t have a remote (my new camera doesn’t!) use the 10 second timer.
• Turn your camera around so it’s of portrait orientation. We want to see your head and your feet!
• Try to put yourself in a place where the light is behind the camera, not you.
• If you take photos during the day, and you’re in a well lit area, don’t use the flash. If you can’t avoid the flash, that’s ok! Just ensure we can see the details, colours and textures in your outfit.
• Try not to have distracting things in the shot. I’m pretty guilty of this, so I’ll forgive you quicker than others
• Take photos from a few angles – front, side and back! And include detail shots of brooches or your shoes. I love outfit posters who do this!

I have been so busy lately, but I want to tell you about a few purchases I’ve made in the last few weeks – from We Love Colors, Yours Clothing and Evans. But I need to create a few outfits first to fully illustrate them – so hold tight, they’ll be coming soon!

Body image has always been something I’ve been interested in and at uni it took the guise of identity and styling, or the ways in which individuals dress themselves in order to assume an identity. In my last 10 years as a fat woman who has never felt ashamed of being fat, I have thought a lot about how anyone who isn’t slim manages to style themselves. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible, and I’ve found it a kind of delightful challenge to style myself as a woman who fits into anything between an Australian size 20-24. I’ve had a particularly privileged journey to body acceptance, because I’ve had loving family, friends and partners along the way as well as access to incredible resources online. For many people, it’s not only difficult but upsetting, and when I’m asked how I can love myself or how I can help them love themselves… I’m often at a loss.

I figure though, that I’m in some kind of special position to help guide people to a place of contentment and, gasp, love when it comes to their bodies. In the past few weeks I’ve even begun to think that I could be some kind of coach – so this post is my first draft: A guide to loving yourself in 8 challenging but rewarding steps!

1. Talk about your body.

I think one of the reasons why so many people are ashamed of their bodies is because they aren’t really sharing what actually goes on. It’s all about normalisation – share all the fun stuff, the scary stuff and the downright weird stuff with your friends, family and children so we don’t treat ourselves like alien entities.

2. When someone compliments you, just say thank you.

Don’t have a ready-prepared quip specifically designed to disarm the compliment giver. A compliment will not hurt!

3. Question the things you used to take for granted.

When you hear a report on tv or the radio about the obesity epidemic, question where they got their information from. The American study that is so oft quoted figured the number of deaths from obesity at 400,000 but unfortunately none of the media agencies pulled their flailing arms out of the air when that figure was brought down to 25,814. That’s a huge revision, and while the CDC released the revised number, the media and marketing people clung to the hype (interesting article from the Skeptical Inquirer). Turns out, reducing the “Obesity Epidemic” to a load of bunkum doesn’t make anyone money. Question every thing you see and hear about the Obesity Epidemic OOGA BOOGA – you usually find that the people funding these studies have fingers in a few interesting puddings (eg: those nutrient devoid Weight Watchers desserts!)

4. Don’t assign good or bad values to food and exercise.

When you eat something because it’s “good” or exercise because it’s “good” you’re just punishing yourself. Do things that you actually factually ENJOY and the reward will be twofold. Listen to your body and it’ll tell you the things it needs to eat, and the activities it needs to partake in. This is one of the key parts of Health At Every Size – by “honouring your body” you’ll consume things that you’re absolutely besotted with, and move because it moves you.

5. Wear clothes that fit you and make you feel good.

Shame is the worst way to motivate yourself, and it will work against you by letting you down AND making you feel bad. And feeling bad is not the objective here – feeling fabulous is! Clean out your wardrobe and dump every single item of clothing that makes you feel bad about yourself. Do not keep items aside because you think you’re going to fit into them one day – give them to someone who can actually wear them! Hold a swap party like I did, donate to your favourite organisation or give special things away to special friends.

6. Think about activities you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to try – and do them.

Take joy from moving your body in ways that you actually take pleasure in, and get out of the rut of thinking that you only need to go to a gym or use home equipment. This is not about “having to” it’s about “wanting to”. By doing what you want, you’ve got an inbuilt motivational mechanism right there. So many people wonder why they end up wasting their gym memberships – it’s probably because they don’t actually enjoy it. So find something you absolutely love! Join a roller derby team or a synchronised swimming group, learn how to ice skate, or go rock climbing. Move in ways that make sense to you!

7. Don’t weigh yourself.

In Screw Inner Beauty, the authors sum it up perfectly: if your clothes fit the way they did yesterday, you don’t need to freak out. Throw out your scales – they are just little electronic demons squatting in your bathroom, making you feel rotten.

8. No negative self talk.

This is a hard habit to break, but once you tell yourself that you’re going to be on the watch for negative self talk, you’ll notice that you can usually flag yourself as you’re thinking terrible things. Tell your friends and family that you are a “negative self talk free zone” – and you won’t put up with negative self talk from yourself or from them! I extend this to “no diet or weight loss talk” but it depends how far you want to go. I consider weight loss talk to be incredibly harmful, and forbid it from my conversations.

9. Bonus (and compulsory) step: Tell yourself you are awesome.

Look in the mirror, do a little dance, and congratulate yourself for being fricking brilliant.

Never think that those who accept their bodies never have a moment of doubt, because it’s only human to have those low moments. What gets easier is bouncing out of those low times. I’m not even going to begin to kid you on this: changing the way you perceive your body is incredibly hard work. The alternative is the status quo, so you may as well start today because you’re just wasting time! I strongly believe that every person is capable of loving and honouring themselves and that we all have the right to at least give it a burl!