The Art of Self-Promotion

by sylvia

Ahh, so it looks like the theme for this weekend is “The Art of….” or I’m just really lazy and can’t come up with anything else.

So it looks like someone named “Sylvia” (?!?!?) nominated us in the “Best New Blog” category of the 2009 Weblog Awards.

Surprisingly enough, we have 0 votes already, and as far as we know, neither us nor any of our loved ones voted!

We’re not sure if voting will make us actual nominees or not, but would appreciate the votes, nonetheless!  And the more “votes” we get, the more inclined we’ll be to make cookies and have gift-card contests, ifyouknowhatI’msayin’….

Here’s the link.  Just do a search on the page for “zaftigchicks” and click the “+” sign next to our name, not our site (it’s tricky in there) to add another nomination!

The Art of the Compliment

by sylvia

So I don’t know if any of you know this, but I’m a big girl.  Not necessarily in a figurative way, but definitely in a literal way.  I’m 5′10″, I have size 11 feet, wear a 44G bra, and weigh about 270 (+/- 10lbs).  And that’s not muscle.  I also have big hair.  Plus, I take after my mom’s side of the family, so am also big-boneded, in a German-stock stereotypical way.

So I’m a big girl.  Some might dare say “husky”, but if they did, I’m sure my passive aggressive self would find some way to make them feel bad about it.

But I’m coming to terms with that.  However, that is not the point of this drivel.

I’m not sure others are comfortable with it.  Sure, it’s true that if you have confidence in yourself, others pick up on it and you can almost trick people into believing that you are not as fat as you really are.  Wait, can you actually do that? 

But because a lot of people assume that fat people are automatically self-conscious and therefore should be complimented like walking on so many eggshells, I find it an interesting behavioral phenomenon.

For example, talking to an older man today that a lot of us around here know.  He saw a shirt on my desk from one of the companies we do business with.  I asked him if he wanted it because A) he would get more use out of it than I would because B) it was an XL and C) it was white.  I get stains on my black clothes, so white shirt + boob shelf + love of food = ruined shirt.

He told me it was too big for him, but I should keep it because it would fit me (how little did he know).  And then he proceeded to say, “you know, because you’re bigger than me” (no biggie – ha – he is kind of a little guy) and I agreed with him, and then he started stumbling, thinking he said something wrong and when he tried to “fix” the situation, I stopped him and said “it’s a no win situation.”

He laughed, and I explained to him no matter what he said at this point it was going to seem like either an insult or creepy.  And not because I would think it either way, but I could see the embarrassment welling up within him. 

Because even though his intentions were benign, the way society works sometimes is against those who are trying to be nice.  I believe he was honestly trying to compliment me (I think he actually said “you’re bigger, but it looks good on you” or something like that), but a few years ago, his statements would have made me feel terrible.  And I would have harped on them for at least a day.  But now, not so much.  Cuz I am a big girl – DUH.  Did you see my stats up there?

But it also reminded me of this woman who is on the new season of Tough Love.  If you’re not familiar with Tough Love, it is a reality show where a professional matchmaker (who can also be an incredible douche) brings 8 women who have dating problems to this house for a 10-week Boot Camp.  Check out the link if you want to learn about what their problems are, but I find it fascinating because I think all of us can relate to some of their behaviors, and it’s interesting to see them come to terms with them.

The person I am most interested in watching the development of is Jenna.  Jenna was overweight her entire life and just recently lost a lot of weight.  But she still thinks like her fat self.  When she watched men talk about their interaction with her, all she picked up on was what she thought were insults.  In actuality, they had great things to say about her, but she heard someone say “thick” or something to that effect, and she heard nothing else.

So she’s not fat anymore.  But she’s still insecure.  Big surprise, right?

And all she hears are insults, and completely missing the compliments.

I can totally relate.  I just hope she learns to love herself in the process, not just find love.  I’ll be watching, if and when I remember, to see what happens.

Toys Toys Toys

by sylvia

Ok, so you may have picked up that I LOVE cartoons.  I watch them all the time.  But the side effect of watching cartoons aimed at children is having to sit through the repeated, painfully annoying commercials.  I know, poor me.  Boo hoo.

Don’t get me wrong – I love toys and cute and robots and junk, but some of these toys I just don’t get.  Sure, I’m not the demographic they’re advertising to, but I could be a consumer one day, if I ever have any kids (we’re working on it!) or any of my nieces and nephews have any children anytime soon (which I hope to God doesn’t happen, as the oldest one is 19).

But, if you can, please explain these to me and whether or not they appeal to you or any kids you know (and just for the record, I’m not shilling for Toys R Us, it was just the most central place to find all these gems):

• Baby Alive Real Surprises Doll - WTF?  Seriously.  I was a little girl once and can’t imagine being interested in a doll in which I have to clean up its ‘real surprises’, aka POOP.  The recommended age is 3-6 years, so there goes my theory that it could be used a potty training device (’see how gross it is to clean your diaper, sweetie?  now get to using the damn toilet!’).  And it’s $39.99, y’all.  I’m sure parents can find something that poops for less money.
• And since we’re on the topic of baby dolls, this one freaks the fudge outta me:  Little Mommy Walk & Giggle Doll - ok, the toy at first glance isn’t horrible, except that it is your standard blonde haired caucasian doll (no other ethnic options), but have you seen the damn thing in action?

Umm….the hair is bad enough, but WTF on every thing else.  In the actual commercial, it was just her voice that freaked me out, but now that I’ve seen her in action without all the glamorous lighting of Hollywood, it’s easy to see how scary she is.  And sweetie?  You’re not sleepy – it’s called a concussion.  Oh, and did you catch the price tag?  70 mothafuckin’ dollars

• To continue the trend, how about these monsters?  If you read my post referencing the Cabbage Patch Kids, then you know I am not a fan, and do have some childhood pain associated with them.  But these are especially horrendous.  I think what bothers me most is the commercial (sorry, I couldn’t find it anywhere to show you), where they are showing off the product by the girls “popping” (shoving) these “hair extensions” into the Cabbage Patch Kids’ heads.  So really, when you think about it, I should actually quite like this toy!
• Bendaroos - ok, I just don’t get these.  From the commercial, it looks like you would need many many MANY additional Bendaroos to actually do the things with the Bendaroos they show in the commercial.  Plus, it does not appear to be that fun.  And the commercial where the kid from Iowa gets all excited about all the crazy things he did with his Bendaroos makes me never EVER want to visit Iowa (sorry if  I offend thou).  I asked Bianca’s Zeta about it once, as she seems to be the age of the kids in the commercial, and she said they looked like fun.  Like mother, like daughter, I guess (zing! burn…)
• Next up are the potential choking threats that are ChixOs!  So basically, if you don’t know what ChixOs! are, I’m not sure how much I can tell you.  You have a WIDE VARIETY of tops! bottoms!  feet!  heads!  to choose from, you stick them together, spray them with water and then they take a “glitter shower” (which sounds kinda dirty, but totally what me and Bianca are going to be doing for our Holiday Party, but also sounds really awesome), and then that’s kind of it.  You have all of these selections to choose from, but once you spray them with water and glitter, you’re shit out of luck.  You can’t change their clothes or shoes, you just have to create MORE CHIXOS!  Yes, of course, that’s a great “marketing” move,  but the little girl in me would rather get a damn 9″ ‘Fashion Doll’ from the dollar store,  because I could at least change her clothes once in a while. But wait!  Did you know that you can CREATE things for your ChixOs! by using PixOs!?  PixOs are the “safe version” of “Aqua Dots“, for those of you not in the know about children’s toys.  Just sayin’

I’m just glad “Bratz” Dolls are not around anymore.  I couldn’t be subjected to any more of those big heads, pouty overinflated lips and skank outfits.  But now we have all these girls’ dolls with “self-esteem” and junk.  Case in point:

How Do You Define Health at Every Size?

By Bianca

I have not had a healthy relationship with food since I was kid. And that makes it hard for me to practice Health at Every Size. Mainly because I still haven’t figured out yet what it means. 

I mean, I get The Health.At.Every.Size part, but I am still trying to figure out how to incorporate it into my life, given my eating disordered past.

For instance, I know for the most part that dieting won’t make me thin. I know this because I have tried about 600 of them. My body does not like to be deprived. The only time I have ever lost a large amount of weight was when I starved myself.

But.

I do wonder sometimes if I made some “lifestyle” changes, if I would lost weight. Not so much because I want to lower my dress size, but because I am truly curious if it would work. I wonder what it would be like if I has a normal relationship with food.

I do believe that I may be fatter than I could be, simply because I eat too much. I am not saying this makes me bad, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I often binge after my husband has gone to bed, and since attempting to practice HAES, I eat a lot more junk food than I use to.

Actually, I’ll be more blunt. Since I decided to try and listen to my body, and not feel guilty about what I eat, I have gained weight. Around 30-40 pounds. Maybe more.

In the course of a year and half I’ve outgrown lots and lots of clothing. I have new stretch marks. I’ve developed fat in areas it previously had not been.

It’s hard. It’s one thing to accept the body that you’ve had for a long time or most of life, but it’s another to accept one that keeps changing.

In addition to what I would call unintentional weight gain, I purposely gained weight when I auditioned for The Biggest Loser. Yes, I know, stupid, stupid, stupid. I did assume once I stopped stuffing myself in an attempt to achieve my 15 minutes of fame, that those 20 pounds would come off.

They didn’t.

Now before you get your big girl panties in a twist, I am not saying that I want to lose weight.

I am saying that I can talk about accepting myself until I am blue in the face, but none of that is helping me now, when I am still fairly new to even the idea of HAES, and doing my best to try and conform to what I think it was.

Maybe it’s Health at Every Size, ur doin it wrong? Or maybe it’s much more complicated than that, and what defines HAES is different for each person?

How do you define Health at Every Size?

Dresscapades

by sylvia

So, about a week or so ago, I wrote about shopping (big surprise) and trying to find dresses for our upcoming Holiday Party.  You can read about it here.

I decided to order the dress from Kiyonna,

Oh yeah, I totally look exactly like this

and Bianca and I went shopping again this weekend to try to find something for her.

It was going to be hard to outdo last year.  I mean, I literally wore an evening gown, something I haven’t worn since Prom, and Bianca’s dress was beautiful.  When she saw it on the rack last year, she just knew.

So this weekend, Bianca found a dress, and even though it didn’t have the pizzaz she was looking for, it did look really good on her.  Plus, it was like $50.  She decided to just “bling it up” (thanks, Mom) with jewelry and shoes, etc.

And we did find us some shoes.  I won’t say any more, because we made a video about it, and don’t want to spoil the surprise (I know, I know - I’m so cruel, making y’all wait for some blabbering drunk boobalicious chicks talk about shoes). 

And my dress came today.  I’ve been worried it wasn’t going to fit and/or look really bad then I would have to return it and then shop for something else.  I hadn’t allowed myself that kind of time. 

I tried it on here at work.  Bianca’s response was “it looks fine”, which is the equivalent of “it’s got a good personality.”

But I like the dress – it’s comfortable, it’s pretty, but now I’m letting Bianca’s “fine” comment get to me.  And I’m concerned that maybe it isn’t fancy enough for the event.

And that’s coming from me, who – for the last 8 years has been wearing whateverthehell I could find at the store, which was always some boring black dress.

And how does one compete with an evening gown?  I mean seriously, this isn’t the Inaugural Ball.  I just dropped a $150 on a dress that is beautiful, comfortable, and something I can definitely wear again.  Why am I stressin’? 

Plus, it shows off the girls quite well.

Anyone got any tidbits of advice to offer?

The Zaftig Chicks Do a Meme, or Whatever It’s Called

By Bianca

About a week and a half ago, we were tagged over at Flying Cupcakes, as the most awesomest blog to have ever have existed on the internet ever. Like ever ever.

What?

Ok, maybe not the awesomest blog ever, but it was still pretty cool to get The Honest Scrap thingie. For those who are wondering, I’m the honest and Sylvia is the scrap.

So we decided to go ahead and tag a few other bloggers, who better respond immediately or we are going to use the considerable power we don’t have and get them kicked off the internet forever. We are totally down with resorting to bribery if we have to.

So here are the rules of winning this award:

1) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

2) Tell those 7 people they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.

3) Share “10 Honest Things” about yourself.

We’ll start with #3, because as you all know, Sylvia and I love to talk about ourselves.

But we are also lazy, so instead of hurting our heads with trying to come up with 10 things each, we decided to do 5 each, and let you guys figure out which 5 belonged to each of us.

I can tell the suspense is killing you, so without further ado:

1. I was in a movie that stars Harrrison Ford

2. I never went to the same school twice until I was in 7th grade

3. I knew how to draw a beer from a tap (beer keg) by the age of 5

4. I’m not a big fan of long walks on the beach

5. I lived in a teepee when I was 3

6. My nickname growing up was “Rocky”

7. I am related to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key, and Mary Queen of Scotts

8. My first word was ‘Schlitz’

9. My husband used to date Bryce Conway

10. As a child, I was a vegan, anti abortion, anti death penalty and would not allow my mother to buy products that were tested on animals.

We also decided to flaunt the rules by tagging 9 bloggers insetad of 7. Why? Because we can.  No offense to those not on the list!  We love y’all…..

In no particular order, here are our picks:

Sun

Corpulent 

Atchka 

No Celery Please

Fat Sisters

Ivan in NYC

Big Liberty

Sleepy Dumpling

Life on Fats

Just Move Mondays – Running a 5k! For Reals!

Today’s Guest Post for Just Move Monday comes from Danielle, and it makes my boobies hurt just thinking about it!

Enjoy! 

I’ve never been much of an athlete.  I had boobs before most other girls so gym class quickly became one of my least favourite classes in school and I promptly stopped taking it as soon as I could.  Being curvier than most of my friends lead me to avoid recreational team sports throughout university and listening to sporty roommates make fun on fat people at the gym in sweat pants instead of the usual shorts convinced me I wouldn’t feel welcomed there either.

Eventually I moved to the downtown of a big city which meant I was too poor for a car or a bus pass but lucky enough to live within walking distance of most things and became an excellent walker as a result.  I began to realize that what I lacked in speed and strength I made up for in endurance, often walking hours without realizing it.  I made one or two more attempts at becoming a gym bunny but still never enjoyed it enough to make it a regular means of exercise.

One winter, I found myself living alone for the first time in my life.  Without roommates to chat with at the end of each day, the nights dragged on and I began to get kind of sad.  I decided I had to find more ways to get out of the house and enjoy my new neighbourhood, despite my lack of funds and the cold that was dragging well into March.

I don’t know why I did it.  Maybe I had always secretly envied those people I’d seen on my way to work, in their black tights with their ipods strapped to their arms.  Maybe I wanted to show the world that, despite the hips and the boobs, I had become one fit bitch and could do what the skinny people did too.  Whatever reason, I decided to try running.  Running to me had always been the thing that seemed to separate the healthy from the athletic; you didn’t fuss around with teammates or have distractive whistles and rules.  You just ran and until this point, it had looked like the most pointless, boring and gruelling activity on earth. 

Again, I’m not sure why I did it, but I started looking for running plans on the internet, the kind that take you from no running to twenty minutes in eight weeks.  I don’t think I ever expected to stick with it long enough to finish but suddenly there I was, running for twenty minutes straight with nary a desire to puke at the end.  A friend pointed out to me that someone able to run twenty minutes would likely be able to get themselves ready for a 5k without too much hassle.  It had never occurred to me that I could be one of those people, number pinned to their chest, running through the streets at ungodly hours for charity but a mere three months after the first time I laced up my sneakers and ran one minute, walked two, I was running with 35, 000 other people in a 5k Breast Cancer run.  Since then I’ve run a couple more 5’s and this year worked my way up to not one, but two 10k races.

A few things to note: I admit that when I started running, I hoped it would help me lose weight.  I think I’m better at accepting my size than most people, thanks in part to the genetic proof that this is the size my body wants to be that confronts me at every family reunion.  But like others I have, at times, wanted to walk into stores not assuming that I need the largest size they have (and I fully acknowledge the privilege I have in getting to shop at “normal” stores at all).  So yes, I hoped I would lose weight.  But I didn’t.  In fact, I think I gained some.  My body shape changed a little; my waist got a little smaller and my thighs got bigger.  I found, though, that I didn’t care.  Any validation I would have gotten from losing weight has been far outshone by the praise and admiration I get from people when they hear I completed an event.  I think about my weight a lot less, in fact, and judge my health on my accomplishments instead.

Second, I run slowly.  Incredibly slowly.  I run alone and as such I get to control my speed.  I’ve decided I prefer running far to running fast and so I measure my runs in distance instead of time.  This is all fine and good when you are by yourself, but I admit it gets harder to feel awesome about yourself when you run an event and spend the majority of the race being passed by people.  To wit, here are my official time and placement from the last event I ran:

standings

Those, my friends, are pretty amusing stats and did cause my boyfriend to chuckle a little.  But again, this is just another facet of acceptance.  I’ve come to accept the limitations and accomplishments of my body, regardless of what the others around me are doing.  Do I look different than most of the runners there?  Yes.  Did it piss me off a little that I was passing the 3k marker while the frontrunners passed me at their 7k marker?  Yes.  Was I any less elated when I passed the finish line, having accomplished my personal goal of not walking?  Hells no.

So that’s my story.  There are a few things here I didn’t address, like how self-conscious I was at first to jiggle my way through the neighbourhood or how annoying it is that most running stores do not carry clothing that fits me, but I wanted to focus on the positive aspects of my experience.  If I could offer any advice to people who think running is too hard it would be to do the same.  That, and to buy the best sports bra money and the laws of physiques can afford.  Happy jiggles!

You’re So Vain…

…you probably think this blog post is about you.

 

 

Don’t you?

And the Winner Is…

by sylvia

So who was the big winner of our Amazon Gift Card Contest, you ask?

It was CTJen!  Visit her over at http://knittinginterrupted.com/.

She correctly guessed that the #3 search term people used to find our blog was She-Hulk!  Yep, She-Hulk.  I’ll self promote and link to the original post I wrote about She-Hulk here.

Congratulations, CTJen, and thank you all for participating!

We Have Our Winner!!!!

By Bianca

 

More details in the morning. Thanks for playing guys!