Modifications

One of the more revolutionary things that happened to me in the last 12 months was hearing Roxane Gay talk about the difference between people like her (and me) and people who are "Lane Bryant Fat." Lane Bryant fat women are the cute ones, the body positivity mavens who can still fit into most of the chairs and walk into the Lane Bryant store and buy just about everything in there. Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being Lane Bryant Fat. If that's the size you are and you're happy with it, I'm happy for you.

In fact, I'm rather impressed with LBF women. They are challenging the narrative about what is acceptable as beauty and health and fitness. Some of these women run marathons. Some of them are incredible dancers. Some of them are even able to stand on their heads. Yes, I'm serious about that. There are fat women out there who can do amazing things with yoga and it makes me profoundly happy to see them do it.

Before I continue, I would also like to say that I am very well aware that these women owe me nothing. In fact, I would be very much in the wrong to expect anything from them. Even though these women weigh a couple of hundred pounds less than I do, they're still women living in fat bodies in a society that hates fat bodies. Everything they do to just move ahead with their lives is commendable and I see no reason (nor should anyone else) to expect them to do more than just focus on that.

Recently, I looked up 'fat woman yoga' on Youtube. There is quite a lot of stuff there, which is great. I started watching the videos and realized they were done by LBF women. In some ways, fat is fat. But in other ways, like when it comes to movement, it isn't the same. Someone who is 250 lbs is going to be able to move far better than someone who has 200 lbs more than that on their bodies. These ladies were (quite impressively) bending their bodies in ways mine just could not do.

Now, this is the point where decisions have to be made. I could have just gotten frustrated and sad and let the whole idea go, depressed by the idea that SOME people get to join the party, but not me. I could have gotten angry and spent hours being resentful and hurt and, again, let the whole thing go, but immaturely blaming others. Or I could get clever.

I got clever.  While looking through the basic fitness videos, I noticed there was a section of ones where people were recovering from injuries/surgeries and trying to modify their workouts accordingly. So perhaps I could find one where an LBF woman was talking about the modifications she had to take after she suffered an injury. After all, that might put her close to my level.

And you know what? I found one! She was in recovery from a knee issue, which meant limited mobility. Some of her stuff was still beyond me, but I could do enough of it to use it as a launching pad! If (IF) I can keep up with this, I might even be able to do all of her stuff eventually.

I am one of the smaller number of extremely fat women in the fat women minority. If you are a minority within a larger population of a minority group, things can be frustrating at times, but that doesn't mean you should derail the whole system. It also doesn't give you an excuse to quit. There is no reason to assume things will be perfectly suited to what you need. Sometimes, you just have to dig a little deeper.