The Fat Lady is Still Riding

[mtkitchn]

Once I stopped competitive swimming and started plumping up in my teens, my dad used to say I looked like ten pounds of sh*! stuffed in a five pound bag. If he could only see me now!!! Not that I'm Paris Hilton, but I don't give a rat's *** what anyone thinks except ME!
Keep on riding, and I'll bet you look AWESOME! Hope you like the way riding is making you feel!

[arnaew]

I'd never been overweight until I hit middle age - now I'm 87k (about 190lbs). I'm 5'8" so I'm carrying about 10k too much according the weight/height indeces for my age. However, I work out with weights, and have never been so strong and I ride around 200k per week, so I'm healthier than any of my women friends. But I still see that look on people's faces as I cycle by - I interpret it as "that fat chick on the bike is on her way to the shop for a packet of Tim Tams (a chocolate dipped chocolate cream filled chocolate biscuit)". Only I know that I've just climbed Norton Summit, a hill that they probably couldn't walk up! I do call myself the "fat chick", as a way of diminishing the phrase's impact. It's a bit like reclaiming "queer", I guess. You have to figure out why you're so sensitive to it - conditioning ? Guilt? Role failure? For me, as a totally unreconstructed feminist, I agree with Susie Orbach that 'Fat Is A Feminist Issue' (1978) - unfortunately, even if you come to terms with your own size, that doesn't mean that everyone else does.
So this fat chick gets upset occasionally, but usually it's misdirected, like when I want to buy some clothing and I realise that the only thing you can buy in size 16 is dull, shapeless, colourless and boring, or worse, when some cretinous manufacturer has labelled it 16 and you can't get it over your chest much less your hips, and you burst into tears because you're just a fat chick... I should be getting angry at the manufacturer/designer/stockist, but no, we turn it on ourselves, we are not worthy etc etc. Bugger them all. I'm going out for a ride on my new bike. Pictures posted asap. (And I just might pick up some Tim Tams on the way back. )
A

[bikerbabe]

Hey thats great..... and your right it dont matter what anyone else thinks so long as your having fun..... you go girl!!!!

Zoe

[Duck on Wheels]

I'd never been overweight until I hit middle age - now I'm 87k (about 190lbs). I'm 5'8" so I'm carrying about 10k too much according the weight/height indeces for my age.

Jus' like me. I'm about an inch taller and a pound heavier, which oddly enough makes me a full size larger, but mostly I'm just not as good a cyclist as you yet. Oh, that prob'ly explains the size thing. Got it. I'm carrying fat; you're carrying muscle. OK. Back to the gym Sunday for another workout. And out to do hill repeats soon as the bike gets here. Hope some day I get to where I can do 200k a week.

As for the shopping thing ... I've found a few places I can reliably find things that fit, that have bright colors, and that allow me to look "zaftig" and/or athletic rather than shapeless. Having found those places, I pretty much boycott the rest. Don't know where such places might be in your part of the world, but good luck looking for them. If it's any comfort, some of us also have to suffer the same when buying shoes. Shoes are very rarely cute in a size 12! In fact, they very rarely fit well, even when they (very rarely) can be found. I once had to buy several days' worth of clothes (for lectures, meetings, dinners) in Zagreb when my luggage didn't arrive. My petite hostess took me all over town looking for ANYTHING in my size at all! Amazingly, I finally found one skirt, two tops, and one pair of shoes -- all still among my favourites.