Buy Walking VideosThe Fat Girl’s Guide To Life
This is not a diet book. This is not an exercise book. This is the first step to a healthier life.
This book will tell you that it’s just fine to stay fat. The author will quote the averages and help you realize that over half the nation is overweight. She will challenge the idea that being overweight will shorten your life. I love this book. I don’t agree with everything she says, but this book is the first essential step to getting healthy.
About a year before I attended my first Weight Watchers meeting, I decided that I was going to stay fat. I decided to never diet again. I decided that I would just eat what I want and exercise when I wanted. Without knowing it, I went on Margaret Cho’s F**k It Diet. I decided to become a Fat Girl.
There was something healing and liberating that happened to my mind when I decided to love myself as I am. Truly allowing myself to be me and truly accepting my body as it was helped me to get to where I am today. After a few months on the F**k It Diet, I realized that I didn’t enjoy eating the way I was. Sure, I liked eating the food, but I didn’t like feeling too full. I didn’t like the gastrointestinal effects of the food I was eating. When it stopped being about dieting and started being about feeling good, I started eating healthier.
At one point, I realized that I had no idea how to eat healthy. That was part of the reason I joined Weight Watchers. The other part was the support. Changing habits is difficult, even if you really want to change them. I needed to have a weekly booster shot of ideas and motivation. I still do.
So, you’ve decided to be a Fat Girl? I say great! Deciding to be a Fat Girl was my first step toward treating myself with more respect.
Great Quotes from The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life by Wendy Shanker:
“Most fat people are afraid to go to yoga or dance class or the swim club or they gym because they think skinny people will be mean to them, or at least think mean thoughts about them. Well, okay, that’s legit. But you know what? It’s a gym, not a playground. You’re a grown-up, not a kindergartner. You are a strong enough person to get over it and do what you have to do for yourself. Screw everyone else.â€
“No one deserves to be at the gym more than you do.â€
“Any doctor who blames you for your disease has his or her priorities screwed up.â€
“It’s time to stop thinking that someone knows something that don’t, that someone has an answer that is being withheld from you.â€
“Fat and beautiful are not opposites. They do not cancel each other out. I am fat and beautiful.â€
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May 29th, 2005 at 7:06 pm
Right on. I remember when I was about 15 pounds lighter, many years younger, and hated my (really healthy and in shape) body. I was used to looking at an “ideal” that was much thinner than me. Then I found “Mode magazine.” It had beautiful “plus size” models. You know, some were even like size 12 and stuff. I poured through those magazines full of women that I guenuinely thought of as beautiful. That was very healing for me.
April 11th, 2006 at 9:53 am
Dear Laura,
I think “The Fat Girls Guide to Life†is a marvelous book. I have been attracted to fat women all my life but I didn’t come out of the closet to really extol the virtues of fat women until just a few years ago.
I think most people who are fat haters are really fat lovers but because of the hype in the media and advertising industry they are afraid to be who they really are or to love whom they really feel attracted to.
Sometimes I feel a little guilty about loving fat women so much because of concern for diseases associated with being fat- like diabetes, strokes related to hardening of the arteries, heart disease, and joint problems. I don’t want to be disrespectful, that is, I don’t want my taking pleasure in your body to depend on you being unhealthy. For me, to love a person is to be fully and authentically affirming, accepting, caring, giving, and wanting the best for them. And that includes good health.
To me it’s very life affirming to read about the liberation that comes in “deciding to be fat” and fully embracing being fat knowing that it is possible to be fat and healthy. From what I understand it is more unhealthy to go on roller coaster diets than it is to just stay fat.
More importantly- having a healthy, positive disposition and attitude, indeed fully accepting ourselves and loving ourselves and others just the way we are- irregardless of socio-cultural norms- is a more significant indicator of health than how much body fat we happen to have.
Fat can be ugly and fat can be sexy! It all depends on one’s attitude towards life including one’s attitude towards being fat and how one carries oneself. Fat women who have come to love themselves and their fat and get how sexy it is to dress in ways to show off their sexy fat are the sexiest of all!
I think enlightened women who weigh upwards of 350 pounds into the 500-pound range are a delight indeed! I love the softness, luxurious comfort and sensuality you large, lovely, fat women exude.
May we choose to be happy; may we choose to be free; may we choose to take full responsibility for living our lives without criticism or blame; may we choose to be motivated by love rather than fear; may we give up trying to control others -overtly or covertly; may we lay down our tendency to harshly judge or criticize ourselves and others. May we come to recognize that domination is a form of violence- that reflecting on this further, may we discover for ourselves the insight that seeds of domination arise from a profound sense of powerlessness, inability to trust, and isolation or abandonment. May we come to understand that one way to relieve the anxiety (angst) that arises from an inability to trust is to control those whom we deem we cannot trust. May we acknowledge where we have been wounded- struggling with thinking we are not good enough, capable enough, worthy enough- of not being worthy enough to be loved- of being abandoned and isolated. May we acknowledge the defenses we have built to protect ourselves from experiencing further wounds. May we become present to our core essence that lies beneath our wounds and defenses that tells us who we really are that we may we cultivate compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and others rather than revenge; may we live fully trusting that whoever lives life in the spirit of gratitude, appreciation and thanksgiving will receive Life’s full promise.
So Laura, thanks for writing this book. I think it is a must for all fat women to read, heed and enjoy! And thanks for affirming my fond attraction to large, lovely fat sexy women!
In gratitude,
Eric Smith HowIdoLoveFat@yahoo.com
PS: You are none other than me and I am none other than you; we are many, yet we all are one- inextricably inseparable from All that Is. We are not alone. Therefore let us treat each other with sincere compassion.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Intersting, I have’t read it but I’m definitly gonna have to pick it up. I personally don’t do the fat girl thing. I have more tahn my shares of issues. I’m interesed as an animation student I want to know the motivations and psychological things mentioned like the f*ck it diet. Thanks for the review.
January 27th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
There should be more books like this to boost us fat woman,because we’re fat doesn’t make us unhealthy as doctors want us to believe. Girls as young as 8 years old get negative messages that if your fat,you’re worthless,so they develop eating disorders and negative attitudes to those of us who are fat. Fat haters are just nasty,hateful ppl who have no self-esteem,they can only make themselves feel better by bringing other ppl down about their looks. Thanks to the internet being fat is sexy, and hopefully will come back into the approved body image it was during the reinassance times.
May 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am
i think what you are doing is wonderful. personally i dont wanna be a fat girl but i do wish to have more confidence for myself so maybe this is the right step to take..farewell ..
May 18th, 2008 at 7:30 am
I think every person should have a positive self image and also confidence even if they are overweight. But people who are overweight no matter if it is genetic predisposition or some sort of health issue that causes them to be overweight, need to realize that it is unhealthy and will ultimately kill you. This is not about being mean to overweight people it is reality. Being overweight will cause you a number of issues to include back, leg and knee problems from the excessive weight being carried around. Our bodies are not designed to carry an extra 150lbs or even 50 lbs , no matter what anyone tells you it does have an effect on your body. Believe me as a person who is 6’2 and once weighed 230lbs, at least 60 lbs overweight, I feel 100 percent better. I now weigh 170lbs and I just ate right for 3 months and stopped over eating. We have been trained to overeat, superize will kill us. I think when an overweight person accepts that they are overweight you have given up.When I was overweight I could barely walk without getting winded and I had developed a terrible attitude towards those who were skinny or in shape. I realized i ddidnt and wasn’t going to be one of those peoople and changed my life and you can too. THere are a number of reasons people overeat of eat things that are not the greatest for you. I come from a family of overweight people and life is hard enough withouth having an extra 100lbs and the bad attitude that comes with it. I think a lot of overweight people use and have excuses why they are the way they are and I did to..From a bad knee to not feeling well, they were all weak excuses for me to not have to do something to change myself. I beleive everyone can change and you don’thave to be super skinny mini like tv and mags make us think we should be , but you also shouldn’t be struggling to walk becasue of your weight! Keep going, keep trying, set goals, and you can do it.NO EXCUSES!!
May 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Billy,
Actually, there is no scientific data that backs up the idea that being overweight CAUSES any diseases. It has been shown to aggravate diseases if you already have them, but there is not proof that being overweight causes them.
Medical science hasn’t quite figured it all out yet. For now, the best thing we can do is to eat unprocessed food and exercise every day.
Best, Laura
March 29th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I am really excited to read this book as well. Being a bigger girl I think the f**k it diet is the best way to go. Billy I do think you make a good point that yes it may not be good for people to carry around the extra weight, but trust me there is nothing worse for a person’s self-esteem than to have someone else tell you how to “fix” your body. The only person who knows what is right for you is you. So unfortunately no matter how many times people have said that I need to lose the weight, whether it be with good intentions, it doesn’t make me want to lose the weight. I think that this book is definitely a great leap in the right direction.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I loved this book it really liberated me and i have recommended to both fat and thin girl friends I was starting to become a bit agrophobic because of my size but now i think i am as i am if you dont like it dont look.
November 20th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Could I just starve myself ? So that I wouldn’t feel so fat ?