According to my BMI, I am no longer an Official Fat Chick ™. I am tucked just inside the healthy weight range for someone of my height. My waist measurement is getting close to leaving the alleged danger zone, so no matter what way you measure it, I am soon to be No Longer Fat.

But I still have rage.

I have lost a lot of weight this year, by a combination of not drinking alcohol and eating sensibly. I now know how big a “portion” is, and while it’s not very much, it is in fact ENOUGH. After I lost the first five kilograms, well – it wasn’t all that noticable. I have a large frame, and it was spread fairly evenly. I’d been fluctuating between 91 and 96 kilos for over a year; so a 5kg loss just put me at the lower end of my seemingly “normal” range. When I lost the second 5 kg, though, people could tell.

And people started to treat me differently.

Just a little bit – a “hello” from someone who never used to say anything at all to me; slightly quicker service when I was ordering lunch, and attention from sales assistants when I browsed through clothes…

Right now, I am lightest I have been in five years, and I still have five kilograms to go before I reach my goal weight. I have never been a waif, and even at my thinnest (25 kg and 20 years ago), I was still a size 10. I am not a small person by any stretch of the imagination, and I never will be. I am tall, I can be imposing; and, as far as I am concerned, aside from having baggier clothes, I am no different to the person I was when I admitted to myself that I was definitely fat and that I didn’t want to stay that way.

There’s just slightly less of me. So I cannot really understand why I have suddenly appeared and am now visible to the naked eye. I can get my lunch faster, I can get a salesperson’s attention if I want it, and even if I don’t. And I get a hello, a smile and a wave from people who have barely noticed me in the past (this is despite working two desks away from me for three months).

The clincher came today. I went into the local *trendy* cafe where only the cool and the beautiful get served with anything remotely resembling willingness. The last time I wrent in there was before Christmas (at the height of my Fat Chick period); I waited for 15 minutes for someone to make me a sandwich. I was the only person there when I ordered, and I watched several people come and go with their orders. Today, I was served the instant I walked to the counter, my coffee was made quickly (and it was hot) AND I got asked if I needed anything twice in the five minutes I was there. So suddenly, I have become cool, and beautiful, and most of all – visible…

People can see me where they couldn’t before. And it’s not right. Why the hell should anyone be ignored because of what they look like? Or because they don’t fit the Cool Kid’s preconceived notion of what is Good and Fine? I am not a Cool Kid, never have been, and never will be. But I was never excluded or ignored before, so this has been a whole new and fairly uncomfortable experience for me; not the least because my sudden reappearance in the visible spectrum has just shown me that something I thought I imagined was actually real.

I know that I have judged people based on their appearance; but I have learned that appearances *are* deceiving. I almost always manage to put my personal prejudices aside, and try my damndest to treat people with the respect they are due as a fellow human being; regardless of their physical shape, colour of their eyes, or their fondness for matters of personal hygiene.

Can’t say I am keen for it to happen again.