"I'm noticing certain physical pains that I don't remember having when I weighed even just 100 pounds less." From today's 'Dear Prudie' live chat: "Q. Does Jillian Michaels win if I lose weight? I am fat. Despite this, I'm in mostly good health (just a little joint and muscle pain), and for the first time since I was young, I love my body! I've always been a big woman—now I'm just a little bigger. Lately, I've been joining some fat-positive and fat-liberation movements, because, you know, we deserve to have rights and be a part of life! But lately, my foot has been hurting, and even though I am on good terms with my body, I'm noticing certain physical pains that I don't remember having when I weighed even just 100 pounds less. I think I would like to start trying to lose weight again (just without the fad diets, while exercising reasonably), just until I get comfortable. Only … Jillian Michaels recently said some fatphobic thing about the singer Lizzo (Michaels has a long history of saying vile things about fat people—she's about thinness, not health), and it puts into perspective again how vile people can be to fat people and still get away with it. (After all, The Biggest Loser is back AGAIN.) Am I betraying a worthy cause by losing weight? I love my fat self, but I just want to be comfortable again. I know my body is my own, and I can be fat-positive as a fat person or as a thin person, and I'm not even talking about getting thin, just losing some weight, but I just feel like a fraud for even thinking about it. Should I stop following my fat-positive peers and take a step back while I'm losing weight? AM I a fraud? Am I letting the Jillian Michaelses of the world win? Danny M. Lavery It’s a difficult position to feel yourself to be in, I think, when you hold yourself responsible for the awful things so many people say about fat people, as if you can personally either stem that tide by remaining at some particular weight forever or betray the cause and let down fat people everywhere by pursuing a moderate diet-and-exercise routine. I’d encourage you to talk to your doctor, if you haven’t already (while also realizing plenty of doctors de-prioritize their fat patients’ health concerns), to find out what other short- and medium-term options you have for treating your joint pain so you’re not just grimacing and bearing the pain right now. Even if you do lose weight, if you’re pursuing a safe and non-crash diet, you’re unlikely to lose 100 pounds in less than a year—you deserve to seek out effective pain management strategies in the meantime. That is, I think, the key aspect of fat positivity you should apply here: not that you owe it to anyone else to stay a particular size, but that regardless of your size, and regardless of the pace of any weight loss or gain you may experience over the course of a lifetime, you deserve an opportunity to treat your pain, seek medical attention, and be met with respect. (There may be other factors at play that don’t have anything to do with your weight, and it will be important to investigate all the possibilities so you don’t overlook an important cause of your pain.) That doesn’t mean you have to abandon the goals of fat liberation or stop following the work of fat-positive people; if nothing else, I hope you can stop putting so much pressure on yourself to embody either perfect self-acceptance on the one hand or idealized quick-but-moderate weight loss on the other."