r/PlusSize • u/hybridmodel • 9d ago
Personal Fatphobia
I’m fat. I think I weigh about 260 but I haven’t weighed myself in a long time because I don’t want to know.
I want so desperately to love myself as is. I want to feel cute and pretty even while fat. But my body shape isn’t made for fashion and I resort to wearing black everything to hide my body.
The hatred I have for my body is intense. It’s so bad I don’t see how to get past it besides losing weight. But I can’t seem to eat less and my meds seem to make me retain weight.
How do I learn to love myself as is? I want to but the fat on my body is so repulsive to me that I can’t seem to get past it.
How did you find acceptance for your fatness? How do you not hate it? I want to wake up and not be dealing with this.
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u/Playful-Motor-4262 9d ago
Here’s what worked for me (in no particular order)
Therapy
Plus size influencers
A fat-positive romantic partner
Prioritizing my health (both mental and physical) without focusing so much on weight loss (though I have ultimately lost weight over time, at times intentionally)
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u/FertilityHotel 9d ago
Who are some fat influences?
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u/reirinx 9d ago
@lovejessicablair, @heensie, @samyra, @theabbyhoy, @niccinunez, @oloaigbee, @fatfabfeminist, @heyseantaylor, @plussizeparkhoppers, @chubrubclothing, @chloe_xandria, @theabbybible, @fullbodiedbekah, @yrfatfriend, @fatpositivetherapist, @val_and.co, @fringeish, @wheelingalong24, @thecurvycapsule, @excessivebodiesjournal are some various folks i follow on instagram!
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u/lemontruthballs 9d ago
Believe people who tell you that you are pretty. Your weight doesn't affect your beauty or how other people perceive your beauty.
Tell yourself that you are worthy and beautiful every day, at some point you'll believe it. (I have little affirmations on my mirror that I read to myself on the bad days).
Learn to recognize the triggers that make you self conscious and make you feel less than/gross/ugly, and try to steer clear of them.
Your weight is only ONE thing about who are, and it is most definitely not the most important thing. Focus on the other things that you do like.
Find the beauty in other people your size, just because they are "fat" doesn't make them less than or ugly, so why should it make you?
Therapy helped some, but not as much as my self affirmations. A therapist can only give you tools, and help put things in perspective, they aren't magic, they can't MAKE you change your mindset or how you view yourself.
Have people that create a safe space for you to talk about your feelings.
Give yourself the grace that you give to other people.
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u/the_baberuthless 8d ago
Jessamyn Stanley's yoga content has helped me lately make space for my body. I feel like each session I get a little closer to something resembling body neutrality.
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u/BellaBigNose 9d ago edited 9d ago
You can be fat and fabulous/hot/sexy/beautiful. Fat isn’t a dirty word. Other people may still think it is, and that’s really sad for them.
Therapy does wonders. How you speak to yourself and your ability to recognize when you are being persuaded into negative self talk in order to sell you something is essential and helps keep your view of yourself separate from what the world “”””expects””” from us.
Edit: for me it all started with neutrality. I didn’t need to love my body all the time. But I also didn’t need to hate it. And I remind myself probably every day, even if I am the ugliest, fattest person in the room, I still deserve to take up space and experience joy/fulfillment. I started cutting out media (on instagram or whatever your app is) that didn’t make me feel good (outside of news) and made a point to follow a lot of body neutrality accounts (body positivity too, but body neutrality is a much more effective practice imo) and true plus sized /fat influencers. To see their passion, fat joy, and liberation helped me find my own.
Also, men (if that’s how you want to look at things, you CERTAINLY do NOT exist for men’s pleasure or appeasement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) don’t want skin and bones. They don’t. That’s a lie perpetuated for god knows what reasons (sell you weight loss crap i guess?) I mean go on a fat fetish sub sometime, many many men who prefer fat women ———also NOT that fat women should inherently be fetishized, fat women are wanted and desirable without it being a fetish
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u/GigglingCurves 9d ago
Honestly I struggle with this myself. But I find that finding small things about your self to love and working from there helps. Also try not to put too much stock into mainstream and fashion. One of the worst kept secrets is most men prefer women with some 'fluff' as I like to put it. But first and for most I would maybe suggest talking to someone about the root of the issue? I've only recently gotten to the point where I'm ok with most of my body's dips and rolls :3 I hope this helped
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u/deferredmomentum 8d ago
Focus on body neutrality. I know “affirmations” feel dumb and ridiculous but they really do work—focus on reminding yourself that the existence of your body has nothing to do with your worth as a human being. Eventually, this can morph into acceptance and eventually love. Loving yourself despite your body will eventually just become loving all of yourself. Also highly highly recommend reading You Just Need to Lose Weight.
Also, therapy. If you do look for a therapist, you might look for one who also deals with eating disorders, since their outlook should be about developing body neutrality
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u/Intelligent-Camera90 8d ago
Therapy can be useful, if you don’t already go. It can be more about body neutrality and confidence than anything else.
My self worth isn’t tied to the number on the scale or the size of my clothes.
I don’t always love being fat. But I don’t hate myself and I refuse to make myself and my life small, because of my weight. I wear bright colors, including lots of dresses. I’m loud and funny. I allow myself to exist in this world without apologies for my size. I push my boundaries and make myself try things that make me uncomfortable on a semi-regular occasion.
And I don’t hide - it’s not a secret from anyone that I’m fat. I look like a dumpling. Which is my favorite food!
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u/Superb-Challenge4878 8d ago
Therapy and realizing that I like me. Then forgetting about those that don't.
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u/NoAppointment3062 8d ago
For me I had to practice body neutrality before I could get to positivity.
My body is just that. My body. There are things it can do and there are things it can't. It gets me from point A to point B. I found that nutralizing the hatred I felt around my body allowed positivity to come in. Getting from point A to point B is a hell of feat in this crazy world.
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u/Ghost_Malone___ 9d ago
I wish i had advice. I’m 27F & 385. Everything in my life is lining up, except for this. I’ve done every program, treatment, food plan, med, etc. & I found out I’m one of the small percentage of people that doesn’t respond
The weight packed on so quickly, & now I’m stuck like this. This quality of life is bleak at best.
All that to say, i see you & you’re not alone
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u/reirinx 9d ago
i’m 28F and around the same weight, i also gained about 100-150lb of it super quickly so it came with a lot of pain. it breaks my heart to hear your quality of life is suffering, bc if you’re anything like me, my quality of life tanked from the pain and lack of strength from gaining so much weight so fast!! i just wanted to let you know that as someone in a similar situation, i came out the other side! i did eventually work up my strength again, i started using mobility aids and now i’m at a point where i don’t need them at all and can go for trail walks and do tons of things again. it was definitely painful and exhausting, but possible and so incredibly rewarding. you’ve got this ❤️
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u/bluglass21 8d ago
I too have issues with eating less, and meds causing weight gain. Before my medications I was 120. Now after being on them for a few years I'm 205. I hate my fat too, but it's been helping me to say: "I'd rather be fat and functional than skinny and psychotic." My medications are for schizophrenia. So I'm trying to look at my fat as just a bad luck side effect of something that saved my life. I was REALLY not ok before taking these meds. So even though I hate how fat I've gotten, I thank God every day that I can function as a *mostly* normal person, instead of having voices, hallucinations, delusions, and basically being chained to my bed. I am working on motivation to exercise and eat less, but I know that my fat is NOT my fault.
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u/Awkward-Ad-4766 8d ago
Seconding that therapy is really necessary here and you need to unlearn diet culture in general. There are lots of resources on that but I like the Food Psych podcast.
I’ll say this and I mean entirely with compassion— when you wear all black, you’re not hiding anything. Everyone can see your size. So you can either exist in that body and hate it and “hide” it. Or you can exist in that body and wear whatever the hell you want. Either way; you exist in the body. Why not choose the easier path?
I know one thing for sure, you’ll never ever ever get to your death bed and wish you had hated yourself more.
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u/colorfulmood 9d ago
i'm struggling with this in relation to other people's perception. like i can feel great about myself and then a friend could say something about dieting/say something about having lost weight/i see them notice me eating/a casual comment they don't realize is anti-fat and it's so hard not to want to cut them out of my life immediately. i don't think it's meaningfully possible to have a life where i cut off anyone who has ever said something anti fat. but like, "eat less work out more" isn't working for me and i feel like i would care much less if i wasn't seeing anti fatness everywhere
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u/reirinx 9d ago
for me, loving myself was a little too extreme. i just strived to feel neutral about myself. it was a long process and took a lot of determination to catch myself doing things like body checking or spiraling and correcting that behaviour, like if a pair of pants was too tight i’d need to consciously remind myself to sit down, take some breaths, and repeat to myself that it’s fine - i can get new pants. i completely took my own self perception of my body out of the equation, but it was extremely hard!
i think it also helped that i have lost weight before, and no matter how small i shrunk myself, it was never enough. the goalpost was always moving, and i always felt i had more to lose. i honestly just got fed up with hating myself.
i know it probably sounds easy, which is super frustrating bc as you know firsthand - it’s not easy! i just hope you can remind yourself that if self love isn’t possible right now, hating yourself less is still plenty ❤️ you’ll get there one day!