Kim8 and I wanted to share the following PMs with you all to bring you into this conversation. Please add your thoughts.

A PM from Kim8 to PhotoNut:

Sus - As I sit here and read your PM and laugh about the 12 course sonic meal, I start to contemplate skinny people. Do you think we'll lose our personalities along with our weight? If it wasn't for self-depricating humor, I might be humorless - what a terrible thought!!!

Oh surely I can still laugh at myself about the big zit on my chin, or my extra stomach skin, or my saggy boobs, or, or, or - yikes... will this be different!

I have such a smorgasbord of things to laugh at myself about .....

(Kim listed several things but I wasnt sure she wanted to share them - although, they were pretty darn funny) and the list could go on forever....

It seems to me that some of the funniest and most fun people I know are overweight - come to think of it, I know very few skinny people who I think have a really funny personality. Maybe I just don't know enough skinny people???

So - do you think we'll lose our sparkling personalities??????????? Please say no!

PhotoNuts response:

Wow, your question has really hit home. I have been wondering the same thing. Part of me wants to think logically and say, but but.. we only laugh because it hurts so much.. and.. wouldn't it be nice to have people laugh and enjoy our company when it's not at the expense of our inner sorrow? But I know exactly what you mean. Some of the funniest times I can remember, the side splitting laughter, tears and gasping for air from laughing so hard, were times when me and my fat girlfriends were laughing at ourselves. You know, I dont think we ever thought it was truly funny. I think perhaps it was just a release.. to laugh was a means of letting out the pent up emotions which weren't really funny at all.

When I first started coming here, i told my husband that I enjoyed reading the posts because everyone seemed so happy and funny. And he said, well of course they are.. they are all fat. (He is too by the way. He's dieting on his own along with my changes. More on that later.) It hit me that he was right. Fat people have always been classified as happy people. But they arent happy at all, are they. Jovial Santa. Round belly, big smile. Aunt Jemima. Big old fat lady, with a big smile. Your favorite gradman image. Fat lady with lots of love and warm squishy hugs. Odd how happiness was ever linked to obesity. Perhaps at one time, it was a sign of wealth.. which would in turn make you happy? I dunno really. Maybe fat people are happier than skinny people, because fat people eat and comfort their stresses and sadnesses. Skinny people have no comfort. They just (let the stress) eat away at their own bodies?

My hope is that the answer is no. We wont lose our sparkling personalities. My hope is that they will be magnified when coupled with the physical ability to get out and enjoy life to the fullest.

You know, this would be a great topic for the board. If you dont mind, I think we should share these last two PMs in a post and see what others have to say.

Kim8 repsonded:

I dunno Sus - I think I'm happy??? I have a pretty good life --- I just think that it would be so much more fun to be able to live life a little more and do the things i'm too self-conscious to do now. Also - it is depressing to go get clothes - that's the only time I'm really not happy - that and god forbid pool parties . So I don't know what the answer to this one is. I'm agreed - you want to post it? It seems like a decent discussion topic to me.

Personally, I don't laugh as much since I've been banded.

I think it's because I was probably "high" on carbs whilst at my largest.

No, my laughter will only grow as my body shrinks. Laughter has always been my way of life and I will always be a former fat chick with all that sass and piazz that makes me unique - without that - I'd just be another skinny bimbo someday and who wants to be just a skinny bimbo?