I'm fat.

And I recently gained a lot of weight like super fast - not oh, 10 pounds snuck up on me - but 30-40 came in a few weeks, complete with raised stretch marks.

I am on at least 3 medications that cause weight gain - one of them is my birth control and since periods are murder, no. Another is new and it has given me control over my moods, well as much control as humans can have. My extreme moods have reasons behind them. Being thinner < being happy.

I still remember when this happened in 10th grade. I think it was in Math (2nd period) and I looked at a thin girl older than me and I realized that my weight had nothing to do with 99% of my life. My grades, my social life, my relationship with my family (that makes me quite lucky, I've learned)... none of this would change if I lost weight. They might even get worse, as I chase friends away by counting things, and focusing on my diet instead of homework. Or getting sick (dizzy, light headed) from not enough food makes doing homework hard as well. (As I noticed over the last 2 semesters with the medication.)

A "normal" weight would not make me a better person.

Someone who doesn't know me could say that I'm not a social person because of my weight, but that's BS. I know fat kids and teenagers and adults have friends and boy/girlfriends. I remember being at a friend's birthday party before my weight went up (puberty and thyroid) and I was bored silly. I've always preferred books, and now the internet.

Anyways -

I am in love with the new ABCFamily show "Huge," starring Nikky Blonsky. It's about a fat camp, but the actors can't lose weight in a predictable manner over the show (especially since some are teenagers not done with puberty yet!) which is good. The show made me tear up by the second episode. It's sweet and funny.

And even though the premise is all about weight, when most of the characters we see (minus the trainers and the woman in charge) are fat, they become more than punch lines or sassy friends of skinny women.

The main trainer is horrid, which is the point. One kid needed to catch his breath on the camp's first run/walk thing and she says no and makes him do 25 jumping jacks. He said "I can't." But if he could breathe, he would have said, "I need to rest now, I can't breathe." I assume.

But they also discuss the importance of stretching later on - so they do mean it when they talk about health, at least in some ways.

It's also so realistic - there are so many different ways people are fat and we see this here.

And the second episode broke a stereotype on national teevee - a fat kid who is obsessed with basketball and is good at it and all that jazz.

I'm looking forward to the next episode.

I first heard about it on Jezebel, when they posted clips from the pilot and reviewed it. They also did one for the second episode, but there were less comments this time.

Another reviewer is Iced Tea and Lemon Cake. First episode, second episode. She talks a lot about the fat issues in the show, especially gym in the 2nd episode, which was a big part of that episode.

The best reviews I've seen, hands down, are at Fatshionista. First, second.

Just like women supposedly say "I'm a character from Sex and the City," I'm going to say I'm Becca, the black girl who's always reading. I also think I'm a bit like Will (her goal is to gain weight there), but I don't like having people mad at me if it's not worth it, so I wouldn't do an OTT strip-tease within the first hours of the camp.

It repeats a lot on ABCFamily, it's at their website, and on Hulu. And probably *cough* other websites for people outside America...