How could I not love a blog that is named The Fat Girl’s Guide to Living: a life hacker for the full-figured set. This was an epiphany for me.  There is a group of women out there checking things out for women my size.  YAY!

After I discovered this blog at 2am, I woke up with this post in my head/heart, so here we go.  I was skinny until puberty and then I started to gain weight and diet, I had boyfriends, I married right out of high school, always trying to lose weight.  I did Weight Watchers, Thin Within, and then I went to college and law school.  After that I started swimming at the Richmond plunge at a women’s “fat” swim (we rented a pool and only women over 200 lbs. were invited – you remember that era of divisiveness, 1982.)  I was mid size by their standards, at 275 lbs.  Yes. I have weighed 275 since at least 1990, per my Dr.’s records. And during that period I became radicalized.  I could love myself just the way I am.  Perhaps eat healthier and by then I was exercizing often with either Dr. Deb Burgard or Cinder Ernst, but it did not have to be about my weight.  I had a couple of periods of weight loss, when I fell in love with MonkeyBoy and one winter when I had the flu, but the weight returned.

So that is how Affatshionista evolved into a pragmatic guide to making clothes work at just a little larger than standard plus sizes.  The standard for “Plus Size” is a Size 24 or a 3X.  I am a Size 26 – 28 and a 4x, as I have been for over 20 years. So the blog’s question has become, how do I find clothes that work for me and you?

But size and mobility touch every part of my life.  When I was 45 years old and exactly this size and weight, it was just a social inconvenience but that is no longer true.  It is now a mobility issue and although it has not manifested, perhaps a health issue.  I chose a funny time to give up exercising which I have done for the last two years.  But there is a segue in here, that is where the The Fat Girl’s Guide to Living: a life hacker for the full-figured set come in. I love their ABOUT page, asking questions about all the things I might choose not attempt because I am fat.  I bet you have seen me do that, but you also see me living large.  Which is really interesting since MonkeyBoy and I just had a LONG talk about the viability of going on a cruise next fall for my 65th birthday, longer and harder than the one we just came home from.  I had thought I was going to have my knees done this winter, but that has not worked out.

But somehow I feel some relief that there are these young women out there to speak the things I am up against but not verbalizing to the world.  What is the workaround for? What do I need to know about before?  Thanks for being there for ME!  Yep, that is why my AFFINITY photo is the lead, this resource feels like it helps me and my peeps.  Check it out. Ciao Bellas!…affinity