Take a Picture

Being fat, overweight and out of shape is not a condition that I believe anyone should be proud of.  The purpose of my blog is to promote health, fitness, emotional and mental well being.

I do not think that shame or guilt is a healthy emotion.  I am convinced that we have the ability to control our feelings and being happy or sad, guilty or shamed is a personal choice.  When I ran through the villages in Bali with my shirt off it was not uncommon for the natives to point at me and shout “big body”.  They meant no harm they were just stating the obvious and it was my choice to be angry, upset, embarrassed, ashamed or just accept the truth.  I was fat, I weighed130kg/ 285lbs and even though I had dropped nearly36kg/ 80lbs I was still a fat man and I was working on it.

Ridding the body of fat takes a lot of effort, focus and time yet fat people are about the only sector in the population that it is ok to ridicule when we are doing the things that need to be done to control our weight.  The heckling I took in Napa when I was obese made me feel like a masochist when I peddled a bike or crossed the road.  

 I think it has become okay to openly discriminate against overweight people.  Shouting: “have another doughnut” at an exercising fat person is neither acceptable nor constructive criticisms.   It is unconstructive to try and make overweight people feel disgraced about their looks.  In my opinion it is embarrassment that keeps fat people from going out and doing the things that will get the weight under control such as walking, swimming, cycling or joining a gym and that is tragic. 

 I was raised to be ashamed of being fat, which is why in most of my photos I am hiding.  My shame made me shy around cameras and I have huge gaps in my life with no pictorial records.  It has been a relatively short period of time that I have been able to control my emotions and stop being ashamed or embarrassed because I am fat.

Photo journals are great, I may not always be proud of what I see when I look at myself but I enjoy having a visual record of my escapades.  If you find yourself near a camera, smile big and know its all good and accept your greatness.  If you are too fat and want to drop the baggage, love yourself and do what is best for you and be happy to have your photo taken, In the long run you will never regret smiling for a camera.

Go have some fun

Geo