#oneaday Day 847: You Must be This Skinny to Ride

I’ve been going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I should write about this, but given subjects I’ve happily covered in the past on this blog I figured what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound, or something. Hopefully writing about this will prove cathartic, as I’ve been feeling fairly shitty for a fair chunk of the day.

Today, as you’ll know if you have read recent posts, Andie and I went to Alton Towers. I was looking forward to this a great deal, as it’s been a long time since I’d been and I was very curious about the new rides — as well as going on some old favourites.

All was going well. We’d been on the Runaway Mine Train, the Rapids, the Flume and an awesomely fun rollercoaster called Air that suspends you in a “lying down” position as if you’re flying like Superman, and we were having a great time.

Then I tried to go on Ripsaw. I had a feeling there might be trouble when the seats felt a bit small. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so mortifying, however.

To cut a long story short, I had to get off the ride because I was too fat. The attendant didn’t use those words, obviously (if he had, I would have probably yelled more than a few obscenities at him and/or punched him) but there it was. Apparently the (already very tight on most people) safety harness thingies couldn’t be lowered enough on to me, so I had to get off. They gave me a “Priority Pass” to get on something else immediately, but guess what? All of the rides it covered also had very similar issues. I tried one and didn’t dare get on any others after that, as I was so upset.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so humiliated as when I was getting off Ripsaw and walking across the front of the ride area towards the exit. I didn’t hear anyone laughing at me, but it didn’t matter. I was mortified. I was The Guy Who Was Too Fat To Ride. I won’t lie, it upset me enough to make me cry. I have issues with my body shape as it is, and to have it “confirmed” by strangers was just the worst feeling.

I am totally insecure in my body shape. I’m not what you’d call “massive” by any means. But I have quite a “solid” upper body. I hate it. I feel revulsion when I look at myself in the mirror. I wish I could just be happy in who I was, but when a day out is spoiled by your own fatness, it’s hard not to take it personally, particularly when you’re already made to feel like a social pariah by the way the world is set up.

Every time I see statistics about the number of obese people in the country, I feel bad. Every time someone on Twitter makes some judgemental comment about obese people, I get upset. I gave up on Wii Fit in the end because I was getting so demoralised every time I did the Body Test and it made my Mii swell up like a balloon. I’ve even been insulted by complete strangers in the past because of my weight. The world is set up to make me feel like Being Fat Is Bad and that I should Do Something About It.

Here’s the thing, though: I am doing something about it. I am going to the gym regularly, doing at least an hour of cardio every time (plus some weights work) and burning anywhere between 600 and 800 calories in a session. I am watching what I eat, counting calories and trying to make sure I have a deficit of a decent size, but not so much I’m starving myself. And still I feel like a societal reject because the weight is hard to get off. I wasn’t expecting it to be easy, but I would have expected to have at least a little impact by now. Perhaps it has and I just haven’t realised or noticed. But it’s incredibly demoralising when you discover that despite your best efforts, you’re Too Fat To Do That Thing You Like.

I’m really not sure what I can do beyond what I’m already doing — perhaps trying to up the intensity further on my workouts, and making sure I’m being as consistent and disciplined as possible. But my experience today made me feel like absolute shit about myself, through no-one’s fault in particular. Besides my own, I guess.

I’ve known people who were pretty large who successfully managed to lose a buttload of weight and completely change their body type. I feel jealous when I see those people, and I wonder if I’ll ever succeed. On days like today, it feels like it won’t ever happen.

I have calmed down a bit since earlier. Shit happens, and the rest of the day was fun. I am thirty-one years old, and Alton Towers probably wasn’t built with thirty-one year old men in mind. Perhaps I just need to let go of the past and do things that are more friendly to thirty-one year old men instead of stuff I was doing around half my lifetime ago. Going to the gym. Sitting in the jacuzzi at our hotel (so relaxing — just the thing after a stressful day). Hanging out with friends and playing board games. Playing Diablo III. Being at peace with oneself.

I’m not sure I’ll ever manage the last bit unless I successfully manage to shed a whole buttload of weight. I certainly intend to keep on trying, but you’ll forgive me if I have occasional lapses in hope for my long-term success.

Thank you for indulging me with this post. We’re off to the Alton Towers Water Park tomorrow, so hopefully that will be a much more fun day.

#oneaday Day 714: Run, Fat Boy, Run

It’s back to the gym tomorrow and, all being well, sticking to a relatively healthy eating plan. No, we’re not following a “diet” or anything, but we are going to cook a lot more rather than picking up convenience foods and nomming on whatever takes our fancy. It’s always good to kick off the new year with something like this, even if it doesn’t stick — the new year is, after all, a time for good intentions and all that jazz.

For me, it’s a topic that plays into one of my very many neuroses. I hate being fat, but unfortunately I enjoy the taste of food about as much as I hate being fat. I loathe my own body, but find myself eating things when I get depressed or upset or just for the hell of it at times — a habit which hasn’t exactly been helped by the enormous amounts of food we acquired over the Christmas break. If it’s there, it gets eaten, and it’s often hard to resist.

Why do I hate being fat? Fat people are supposed to be jolly, after all. Well, there are many reasons. First of all, I hate seeing myself in photographs and seeing that I’m bigger than I think I am. Given that I usually see myself from the inside out, it’s perhaps understandable that I have a slightly distorted view of my own body, but I still hate seeing myself in photographs. I hate seeing myself generally. I hate the way clothes hang on me, I hate it when clothes are too tight or I can’t fasten them up, and I hate it when I see photographs of myself from a few years back, when I thought I was fat, but was actually a fair bit slimmer than I am now.

I also hate people’s attitudes towards fatness. I follow a few people on Twitter who are otherwise lovely people, but have seriously discriminatory attitudes towards obesity. I’ve bitten my tongue a few times when reading what they had to say about fat people. I know they perhaps don’t mean it in the way I’m reading it — and since they haven’t met me face to face, they have no way of knowing what I really look like or how I feel about it — but it still stings a bit sometimes.

Along the same lines, I really hate it when random strangers feel the need to point out that I’m fat. This hasn’t happened for a while, but it really hurts when it does. The last time it happened, it was shortly after I’d split with my wife, and I was sitting in a park in Southampton by myself just trying to have a bit of peace and quiet. Some prick decided to start on me with his friends. It was all I could do to turn the other cheek and ignore him — something I’ve trained myself to do from a very early age, as I’ve always seemed to attract bullies. I take small comfort from the fact that I’m a better person than a dickhead who insults people he doesn’t know, but at least he wasn’t fat.

This may all sound like self-absorbed whining, and it may well be. The fact is, though, it’s not as if I haven’t tried to do anything about it. For a goodly proportion of last year, I was running, going to the gym, doing situps and pushups and all manner of other stuff. It had a small but relatively noticeable impact on my body, but I always seemed to “plateau” after a certain stage, and it gets a bit demoralising to continue on that path without seeing visible effects. I know it’s not just about the effects you can see but also those that you can feel, but it’s always far more satisfying to see a substantial dent in that belly than just to feel a bit better.

From this week onwards, then, I’m committing to a long-term plan — gym three times a week as a bare minimum, and running on the days when I don’t visit the gym as a filler activity. I’m going to put myself through the Couch to 5K programme again since it’s been a while since I did any endurance running, and I’ll certainly consider doing something like the BUPA 10K again. Andie will be joining me for the gym activities at the very least, and hopefully our making “proper” meals each day will help also.

Whether or not there will be any noticeable effects remains to be seen, but it’s better than doing nothing. Doing nothing just leads to a downwards (or, more accurately, outwards) spiral.

First day back at the gym tomorrow, then. If you want to follow what I get up to, then feel free to follow me on Fitocracy.

One A Day, Day 28: Customer of Size

“Many of you reached out to us via Twitter last night and today regarding a situation a Customer Twittered about that occurred on a Southwest flight. It is not our customary method of Customer Relations to be so public in how we work through these situations, but with so many people involved in the occurrence, you also should be involved in the solution. First and foremost, to Mr. Smith; we would like to echo our Tweets and again offer our heartfelt apologies to you.We are sincerely sorry for your travel experience on Southwest Airlines.

As soon as we saw the first Tweet from Mr. Smith, we contacted him personally to apologize for his experience and to address his concerns on both Twitter and with a personal phone call. Since the situation has received a lot of public attention, we’d like to take the opportunity to address a few of the specifics here as well.

Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest. He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby. As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy. Our pilots are responsible for the Safety and comfort of all Customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight. Our Employees explained why the decision was made, accommodated Mr. Smith on a later flight, and issued him a $100 Southwest travel voucher for his inconvenience.

You’ve read about these situations before. Southwest instituted our Customer of Size policy more than 25 years ago. The policy requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling. This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator. Most, if not all, carriers have similar policies, but unique to Southwest is the refunding of the second seat purchased (if the flight does not oversell) which is greater than any revenue made (full policy can be found here). The spirit of this policy is based solely on Customer comfort and Safety. As a Company committed to serving our Customers in Safety and comfort, we feel the definitive boundary between seats is the armrest. If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.”

Thus ran SouthWest Airlines’ apology to film director Kevin Smith. I say “apology”, but it’s not really, is it? “Customer of Size policy”? What the fuck? Since when have we needed a “Customer of Size policy”? According to SouthWest, 25 years ago. I’m in awe. And not in a good way.

Mr Smith, of course, regularly refers to himself as a card-carrying member of the larger gentlemen’s club. But, as he pointed out a number of times on Twitter (in between fits of apoplectic rage), he didn’t even meet the criteria for the “Customer of Size policy” to require him to be removed from the aircraft, in that he was sitting in his seat and he had got the armrest down.

“[I was] not just ANY paying customer,” Smith wrote on Twitter. “[I was] a paying customer who fit between the arm rests & was able to buckle his seat belt w/o an extender. TRUTH!”

We’re constantly being told that obesity is a “problem” – and it probably is, from a health perspective. However, implementing such dumbass and discriminatory “policies” as these is a sad sign of the times, where paperwork and tickboxes rule all.

Here’s a thought, SouthWest Airlines: If you’re so worried about the fatties getting on your planes and the comfort of your other passengers, why not get some bigger fucking chairs and space them out a bit more?

Oh, right, because you wouldn’t be able to squeeze as many passengers on, would you? And that would be terrible for your poor little profit margins, wouldn’t it? Poor baby.

Smith, as he is wont to do with most things, has handled this situation rather publicly via Twitter and even through a special edition of his podcast (which is a hilarious listen generally, by the way) – all of which is probably giving SouthWest’s PR department a collective heart attack.

Well, good, I say. Smith has enough public following for this to be raised as a big deal, no pun intended. Imagine how mortifying it would be for a member of the public to be removed from a plane due to their weight. Yes, it could potentially be uncomfortable for someone to have to sit next to a chubster – but the problem wouldn’t be there in the first place if airlines didn’t pack everyone in like cattle.

I’m off to bed now. Fat power.

(I feel like Yahoo! News writing nonsense like this about celebrities. But I think blogs are a far better place for this sort of thing than a site that purports to be about actual “news”. That’s a rant for another day, though.)