Very few people can imagine anything good at all about being large or fat.
(I’m still not sure what language to use about size. I think I prefer “big.” See Fat or big: What’s in a name?.)
If that’s you, if you can’t think of anything good about being big, then you should go read 5 Things I Miss about Weighing More Than 300 Pounds by Kelly Coffey. It’s a terrific article.
Here’s one of my fave bits:
Being fat gave me natural physical strength. As a thin person, I have to go out of my way to be strong. Despite daily strength training I’m nowhere near as powerful as I used to be. Once upon a time I could confidently lift a couch into and out of a moving truck (a U-Haul, not a truck in motion — being fat never did give me super powers). Today, I labor under the weight of heavy things. I miss the natural, organic strength that I used to take for granted, the sheer power born of moving under the weight of my own fat day after day.
Trading strength for a smaller size makes it clear there’s a loss. It reminded me of Holley Mangoldin.
I worried about U.S. Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangoldin’s decision to take part in the Biggest Loser in this post From the Olympics to the Biggest Loser? Say it ain’t so Holley.
We say “strong is the new skinny.” But really, few people mean that. The strongest women, like the strongest men, are big. That’s why lifting has weight divisions. And we tend not to see pictures of strong women like Holley on the “strong is the new skinny” fitspo posters.
Of course, not all big women are strong. Just like not all thin people are marathon runners.
And some small people are very strong. See Rebecca Kukla’s post I was wrong. She’s half my size and can deadlift more than me.
But generally speaking big people are stronger than smaller people. And that’s especially true for big people who work out. Everything we do is strength training. Try running and doing burpees wearing a weighted vest. (Some of the people I do CrossFit with do just that.) Welcome to my world.
