Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It

Seeing color doesn’t mean you’re a racist. It means your eyes work, but that you are hopefully able to see color not for a discrepancy in normal, but as a beautiful component of diversity.

You are allowed to float around having no damned idea what you want to do with yourself with no actual time frame in which you need to figure it out.

You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger.

Side note: is anyone else grateful social media wasn’t a thing when they were a teenager? It’s like Draco Malfoy and all three Heathers smooshed into one invisible organism that thrives on Internet memes and passive aggression.

First things first, I'm going to tell you why I'm fat, because I actually get this question a lot, much in the way people are asked how they got into live-action role playing or funeral home cosmetology. The answer I'd like to give to people who ask me that question is that God made us all different, and she made some people round-shaped, like me, and some people asshole-shaped, like you. Too direct? Fine, here's the deal. Most kids inherit their best qualities from their parents. I inherited mental illness and fat thighs. Oh, and astigmatism and course body hair.

Instead, I realized that people are allowed to say whatever they want to me about my weight, but it’s entirely up to me how much power I let those words have over me. I’m not obligated or required to accept negative commentary about my looks. I’m not less confident or honest for ignoring that it’s there. I’m just confident enough to know it’s not true.

Just remember this: college is the most expensive place to be confused in the whole entire world.

I’ve actually long suspected there was a skinny girl inside me, but not in a metaphysical way. More like I probably had a twin, but I ate her.

I banned the use of fat as a slur hurled toward myself and strangers. I'm not saying I don't see fat; saying that is akin to the people who make grand statements about 'not seeing color.' Seeing color doesn't mean you're a racist. It means your eyes work, but that you are hopefully able to see color not for a discrepancy in normal, but as a beautiful component of diversity.

Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your business.

I like to put good food in my mouth, and while I am aware of the calories I ingest, instead of cutting them I make them count. I have a full-on love affair with food, appreciating the different cultures and processes within it.

Hemorrhoids Go big or go home! That was my mental response to childbirth. You want me to push? Okay, awesome. I’m going to push so hard that I not only eject this baby from me, but I’m also going to turn my butthole inside out. When I explained the issue to my OB, she insisted hemorrhoids were totally normal, and if they didn’t go away, I could get a quick surgery to correct them, a suggestion that I met with a resounding “Nope!” I had already spent a month in elementary school sitting on a blowup pillow, and I’m not pulling my pants down as an adult to have surgery in my butt. So, here I am, five years out from my last birth and sitting in my chair a quarter of an inch taller.

...the thing about dieting is that it's really horrible and boring for a longer period of time than feeling pretty in small jeans feels. That's just basic math.

Being heavy and wanted was a completely new concept; it never dawned on me that I had a say in all this, or that I had the right to be picky about who I allowed access to my body. I was just thankful someone, anyone, had wanted it.

I just happen to put my words on the Internet because it’s the twentieth century and I’ve forgotten how to hold pencils.

if I had a thigh gap, I’d probably only use it to hold more snacks or not have to pay for a carry-on while flying Spirit Airlines. Dieting

If you don’t find your tribe in high school, relax; some of the best people don’t. We’re merely meant to make it out alive despite an oversaturated environment of both the best and worst examples of human existence, and then go on to assemble our tribes from the people we meet throwing up in bathrooms on our birthday, quoting Caddyshack in line at the DMV, and digging through piles of jeans at the Gap looking for the one size 18. Until

You don’t get to legislate the parameters of my confidence. I get to feel good about myself because I am a person; my size has nothing to do with it. IN

There is no greater species better crafted for emotional terrorism than women. We slice away at the Achilles until our victims are left feeling completely devoid of value and unfit for love, friendship, and in extreme cases, air. We’ve been bred to see others’ successes as a direct assault to our own, and this is especially true when it comes to weight. Seeing someone who is heavier than us viewing themselves in a positive light is detrimental to our own self-esteem. So we attack and tear down until eventually that person feels as bad about herself as we do about ourselves.

You aren’t attractive; you’re basically a fat fetish.” —BONNIE, CNN.COM People are dicks to plus-size women.

I tried to explain to him why I was self-conscious, and then he asked why telling me how pretty I was wasn’t enough for me to get over it, and I felt like a horrible, horrible asshole. Becoming

We aren’t fetishes or last resorts, but we were being treated that way in the media.

I envision my mind as a plot of grass full of sheep surrounded by a perimeter of electric fence. If I'm not constantly vigilant and aware of my thoughts, the electric fence shuts off, the sheep jump out, and my panic gets away from me. The chance for an attack is especially bad just before bed or when I'm distracted or lost in thought in the car, causing me to slap myself in the face as hard as I can or bite the inside of my upper arm. If I can feel the pain, then I am still alive and can begin to focus on rounding up the sheep again. See? This makes perfect sense in my head.

Remind yourself of all the ways you are beautiful, stop the negative talk,

I’m going to tell you why I’m fat, because I actually get this question a lot, much in the way people are asked how they got into live-action role playing or funeral home cosmetology. The answer I’d like to give to people who ask me that question is that God made us all different, and she made some people round-shaped, like me, and some people asshole-shaped, like you.

OKAY, BRITTANY, NOW if you could just walk out in your bikini and pretend you’re just a normal woman wearing a bathing suit?” “I am a normal woman wearing a bathing suit,” I said. “Right,

The Internet is a special place people can go to say all the extra-egregious things they are way too cowardly to say to your face. Writing

In some stores I wear a size 14, in others a size 20. That insanity is on them, not my body;

college is the most expensive place to be confused in the whole entire world. Congratulations!