The Habits of a Fat Teacher

FAT AND FABULOUS RESOURCES 

First off, I don’t think fat is a bad word so before you keep reading, know I am OWNING that word. 

I urge you to stop feeling bad about a descriptor. I am not saying to call others ‘fat’, because this may not be their thinking, but for yourself. Seriously. You can be fat and beautiful– so stop.

I am a beautiful, fat-bodied, sometimes fatter-bodied, body changing lady. Cool with it? Well, I am and I continue to work on being cool with it because hating your body sucks. Period. 

A FEW BODY POSITIVE RESOURCES

If that all doesn’t jive you with, please watch:

Ted Talk with Burlesque Performer Lillian Bustle called “Stripping Away Negative Body Image”

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2015/04/85350/lillian-bustle-burlesque-ted-talk

• I am obsessed with this Ted Talk and it changed my life– so if you are having trouble with that word and claiming your beautiful, maybe fat bod. Click that link. 

Another resource is a book that helped me claim this body back: 

“The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce” Edited by Angie Manfredi

• This is a collaboration piece from various fat-claiming and fat-celebrating authors. Read it. Love yourself, fellow fat babes. 

YO YO-ING HABITS 

I am a yo yo dieter. My habits yo yo just like my body– in fact this is the cause of my shifting body.

I tend to live in the very different realms of those that eat-eat and those that don’t or graze. My habits live in the extremes, like most things in my life. Now what I mean is, I go from extreme periods of binge eating, mostly emotional or non attentive eating. Then I can go in the other extreme– periods of fasting, drinking tons of water and flushing my body, eating a half grape in a day. 

BALANCE

Now, my hope is always to find a way to live in the in between. I am always trying to work towards balance, towards baseline eating.

I would give you some great quote about balance but it seems obvious in my head that one wouldn’t want to be in those extremes. These kinds of eating cycles are completely disordered and I truly am envious of those people who just eat naturally well. Praise be your perfect tummy monsters. Mine are always hungry.

TUMMY MONSTERS

Oh, metabolism at work. I have called them ‘tummy monsters’ forever because that is how I see metabolisms working. When you workout or run, these muppet-like living creatures that live in your belly get ravenous and just kind of use the food when it hits. They are lively dancing and jumping to grab the food first. They eat it up and send it. No stomach pain, no belly ache. They send the energy or the replacement stuff where it needs to go right? That is my visual.

When you don’t move, those tummy monsters are tired and sleeping in there. When you put the food down, they don’t use it. They lay in it. They bathe in it. That creates the fat… this is how my young brain processed metabolisms and getting fat– lazy tummy monsters having food fights instead of sending the nutrients around the body and then laying in their own food-fight filth. I mean she wasn’t wrong-wrong. I still think that is basically how it works. 

EMOTIONS ARE HARD

Emotional or just over-eating can sometimes be aligned with the cycles of bipolar that sometimes still break through.  Sometimes that has nothing to do with it though. Sometimes emotional eating comes on out of absolutely nowhere, maybe slowly or out of a quick burst of anxiety from a mere, simple deadline. Emotional eating comes with little to no reason at times or others for good reason. You can’t even imagine how many oreos I’ve eaten during a breakup for example. I guess-timate 1000.

MOD (Math of the Day) 

Let’s have some math humor fun with some real world word problems.  Watch how my silly brain works when I think of stuff. 

BREAKUP SNAX BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Let’s say you eat one full  box of Oreos a day after a breakup. Each box has 3 rows of 13 Oreos. Now this is a typical box, not a small specialty box. When I get the sads of anxiety, I am a traditionalist– so Oreos original [and you know my rule that only original Cheese its are acceptable.] 

BI SEXUAL BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Getting over a woman takes double the time you’re together since your time together is multiplied by two. That means for every month you are together, you move typically the speed of an average two months of dating a man. Typically getting over a man takes half, unless he was particularly attractive. That may give him that double double, but not really sure how the brain works on that one. Those exceptions, man– those people are variables, not constants. Anyway…

WORD PROBLEMS

1. Michie Smash smashes one box of Oreos into her mouth per day, after each day immediately after the breakup. Each box comes with 3 rows of 13 oreos. How many days to the nearest whole number will it take me to get to 1000 Oreos?

Our unknown variable here will be the amount of days that I eat the oreos. So this means let x = the amount of days since breakup

Gotta switch to a white board here. Check my math y’all. 

2. How long was the relationship where I got to 1000 given a double period breakup- grieving period?

This one is simple, no setup involved. We found that it would take 26 days to eat 1000 Oreos. If we say this relationship took double the time to get over, you take the 25 and multiply that by two, the time it takes to get over this person. There you have 50 days. It would take a 50 day relationship to eat 1000 Oreos.

3. Man or woman?

Could always be either! Read exceptions. Not enough information in the problem. Don’t you hate trick questions?  

4. How many Oreos did you consume for your longest relationship?

Given: Longest relationship: 3 year and 15 days 

First, let’s convert this to days. 365 x 3 = 1095 days plus the 15 days. 1110 days times the amount of Oreos in a full box, which we already converted to 39. 11110 x 39 = 43,290 Oeros

5. BONUS- Convert 43290 oreos into pounds. If you click on my Contact Information on the top left of the page, you may email me answers. Even more bonus points if you can convert how many miles you would have to run to burn off ALL of those oreos. Asking for a friend. 

CRAZY TEACHER LADY 

Oh my god, if my students stumble on this page, they will think I’m the most insane math teacher they’ve had who does math for fun all the time, or maybe they do already. My class is so boring. How is it still so boring? Why don’t I use these examples?

Also, students. if you are here and you do the BONUS, that will be extra credit. Your young eyes can read this tiny font. The adult- adults are skipping this.

MONITORING THE TUMMY MONSTERS

Moving on, with emotional eating and the immense possible eating portions of insanity that exists in me, I have to always check in and monitor my nutrition. There are so many ways I do this, but this time it was pretty simple to recognize. There was a shift in what I was eating and how time I was putting into food prep. Honestly, I was getting sick a lot from the food I was eating and how much I was eating. The tummy monsters were not pleased. They are drowning in there– that is why they sometimes um, send it back up, per say. 

SELF LOVE AND HABITS OF A WILD EATER 

I am being loving and understanding with myself, while also pushing myself to move back to good eating habits. 

I will admit my eating has gone ABSOLUTELY wild. I keep working really late which isn’t normal for me. It is worse than watching TV and eating. The wrappers that exist around my desk after the day are a pile up that looks to me like a metallic-manic writing spree. Just everywhere, looking like crap ideas on loose leaf thrown to the floor. 

If Avril Lavigne were fat, she would say

“Sometimes I get so [fat] I even freak myself out. I laugh myself to sleep [with my cherry pie.]”

FITNESS AND NUTRITION HABITS 

Good habits- Fitness

• Just move everyday again, okay? 

Good habits- Nutrition

– 1 to 2 servings of Oreos, 6ish instead of 39 

– Actually 1 to 2 servings of anything, 1-2 not 39

– Eat a vegetable. Please, Michie, our body will thank you. You’re great. That’s called positive self talk- Hiiiiiyah! Sads and anxiety, go away while I eat the carrots!

SMALL, no tiny, CHANGES

That’s it. Manageable. Easy enough. I’ve done this before. 

Those are some nutrition habits I’m going to work on right now with full awareness that this is not the best eating I’ve ever done. I’m working with now me. Now me eats full boxes of Oreos and ANY size box of Cheese its. I can down a half gallon of almost milk with a box of cereal. Large extra value meal with sides and an additional trip to Wendy’s for a Frostee. 

BRINGING IT AROUND TOWN

You can always bring yourself back to you when you lose the you that you want to be.

Right now the me I want to be is a better eater. This isn’t weight focused, it is feel of focus again on what is going into my body. I want to feel good about my eating and how my body feels moving. I am bringing myself back day by day. Habits develop in working on the days- consistency, baby. 

11-5-2020 MICHIE’S SMASHING CHECK-IN

For the record, mostly for myself, I am 198.9 now. I bounced a little bit higher and back but still damn close to my goal. Proud to be here and proud to recognize the change before it got extreme up there again. Yo yo dieting is just my life. I have to work on nutrition more than some other people, but that’s okay. I work on it. 

As my dad always said with his coaching wisdom,

“All you can do is the best you can do.” 

Leave it at that. Leave the past behind. Stop regretting the Oreos, who have always been there for you might I add. Thanks, Nabisco.

PUBLIC NOTE FROM NOW MICHIE TO FUTURE MICHIE 

Dearest Teacher Lady,
         You're important. You only got you forever so treat yourself well. I'm gone, but listen to me. Fitness and nutritionally, learn from me, Dummy. Joking. 

        Be kind to yourself. Let's see positive self talk because you catch more fish with bait… or something like that. You get what I mean.

       Those Oreos were good. You're good. I was there. Whatever. You can't be upset over eaten Oreos. Move on to tomorrow. Still eat because you deserve food every day.

 Pack your food for work; bring a damn veggie. Let’s start there. We can always start back there. 

       One more thing. I repeat: Listen to me.  You NEVER listen. 
        I love you anyway.
                                                                                  Best,
                                                          Autumn Michie of the year 2020  

WONDERINGS 

I’m not sure the country understands this from our political happenings but:

Learning from the past is smart. 

Look back. Reflect. Suck less than your past self– positive self talk alright. Be kind to yourself and give yourself the same advice IN THE SAME TONE as you would give others. 

I mean let’s be better and “do better” like one of my favorite ruggers Nevada says. 

I will end this on one of my favorite quotes because sometimes people say it just the way you wanted to:

“In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It’s always our decision who we are.” -Robert Solomon, Waking Life

We are always in charge of who we become. Habits help you change into a better you and don’t you want to be the best version of yourself?