Man, if I had a dollar for every critic who said this to me on these boards. It's a past time of a certain type of dieter....to send me hate mail and try to shame me for being outspoken.

"You're still overweight! You shouldn't be telling people what to do! How dare you not feel ashamed at that weight!"

Shakin my head over here.

If I wanted to be 140, I could be. Have been. Looked god-awful and felt like I was starving all the time.

If I wanted to be 160, I could be. Have been. I wasn't particularly hungry, got a reasonable number of calories, but thought I looked older.

I like a little more round to my angles. I like less sag, fewer wrinkles. Not real interested in cosmetic surgery. Picked the best option for me.

I like eating 1600 calories a day. I like having space in my diet for a couple pieces of fruit because I think phytonutrients are beneficial and important. I like how i feel eating a high fiber diet. I like room to be a vegetarian some days. I like flexability. It's how I can face this as a lifelong change. It's how I can make peace with food forever....cause I know this plan is WORKABLE in pretty much all situations. I can eat on my plan during a holiday, a funeral, a birthday party....during a power outage, while recovering from an injury, during extreme emotional stress, on the road, and while dealing with my inlaws. LOL.

I typically weigh 165-170 pounds. I LOVE this weight. It is NOT "the best I could do because I couldn't get to a "healthy weight" ", it is an intentionally chosen set point. It's a choice. This is, I am 100% certain...the MOST healthy weight I can choose for myself.

That whole...Arnold Schwarzenegger's BMI was technically Obese when he won Mr. Universe figures in. BMI is flawed. It doesn't differentiate between light muscle frames and heavy muscle frames, bigger bones, smaller bones. Different ethnicities. Different body styles.

My feet, depending on the manufacturer are size 10 or 11. My shoulders are more broad than most men's my height. My butt, thighs and calves are overdeveloped because I rode huntseat and jumped horses for decades, even when I was quite heavy. My husband says they have a kinda superhero quality now. LOLOLOLOL

So here's the thing....If you feel inclined to send me a snarky note about how I shouldn't say anything....because I'm not American Media model skinny, you might have a problem.

As it happens, I have a good friend who models. He's 5' 10", weighs 157 pounds soaking wet, and they STILL wanted him to use coke for a week and fast...to look more sickly skinny for his last national ad campaign.

Our impression of body image in the media is grossly distorted and unhealthy.

And a lot of folks here....get a grossly distorted and unhealthy obsession with their eating habits, their BMI, the number on the scale, and how it defines them.

Please, please, please remember....health.

Physical health, strength, endurance, good labs, fewer medications.

Emotional health...loving yourself, enjoying your life, feeling challenged and happy.

Mental health...finding balance you can live with for a lifetime.

Love your strong healthy body. Love your good food choices that provide good nutrition to nurture that body. Love the flexability to make it work though the tough spots.

Avoid the fixations, the extremes, the inflexable rules, the disordered eating (and disordered not-eating)

You can trust yourself to get to where you need to be....without punishment.

Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself.

2 minutes ago, The Greater Fool said:

I find this, dare I say, obsession with feeling judged interesting.

I suspect many of us have indeed been judged for our weight by family, friends, strangers, and perhaps most of all by ourselves. We couldn't even cut ourselves a break.

So, we decide to take the drastic step of rearranging our innards to finally take control of our bodies.

We research the options and one thing leading to another we find a forum like this that offers support and fellowship of like minded folks with similar experiences and hopes.

Here are people that get it.

But, we are on sensitive ground. Our experiences tell us protect ourselves. We look for the attack history says is coming.

And we feel judged.

If we could just grant folks the benefit of charitable thought. That they, like me, care. That they, like me, want to help.

It will be a more pleasant experience if we can just believe our interlocutors, like ourselves, are good people.

TGF, the benevolent part of me knows there is a lot of wisdom in what you say.

The smaller, ego-centric part of me asks: How hard is it for someone to just say "Wow!!! You look so happy and healthy!! GOOD for you!!"????? I mean, I generally try my best to weigh what I before I speak to people, why can't others extend the same courtesy?

But, that being said, I *am* aware that I can definitely be über-sensitive at times, so...??‍♀️

On 3/24/2021 at 7:17 AM, BigSue said:

Well... I basically hate everything about exercising. I hate spending time on it. I hate getting sweaty. I hate the way it feels. I hate exerting myself. I've always hated exercise and I'm pretty sure I always will. I have never been able to understand people who claim to enjoy exercise. I can't even believe it because it makes zero sense to me. I go for exercise I can do at home because the gym is just about my worst nightmare (plus, I live in a rural area, so I'd have to drive a long way just to get to a gym), but even working out at home sucks.

I highly doubt I would find any exercise "fun," but I have thought about getting a stationary bike with the idea of being able to watch TV while I work out. One of the things I hate about exercise is having to spend time on it. When I do the workout videos, I have to watch and listen to the videos, so I can't really be watching or listening to anything else at the same time. But even with exercise bikes, the popular ones are based on classes where you're supposed to follow the workout on the screen. Plus, they are expensive and take up a lot of space.

I hate everything about exercise too. Being sweaty, exertion, etc. I have a treadmill now and I was using it every day while watching TV until I got an overuse injury (bursitis) in my hip. I would highly recommend getting an exercise bike/elliptical/treadmill you can use in front of the TV to distract yourself, but don't go from never to doing it every day like I did! Also, I was doing an incline so I could get my hr up. Yeah, should have paced myself lol!

The other thing I like is hiking with family for vacation. I like hiking with my parents because they are 70 yrs old so they are as slow as me. I like hiking because I can just stop and take pictures, and every hike is beautiful (well, most of them!). We do easy hikes with not too much elevation because my dad and I are scared of heights.

I could never do a class Like Peloton where you are competing with other people or a gym where the trainer is shouting motivational things at you. Let me just enjoy my tv or the pretty surroundings and I'll tolerate my body moving! (PS - you can get a regular exercise bike that's NOT a peloton!)

Edited March 30, 20215 yr by lizonaplane
word-o

My surgeon actually set my goal weight to 168 pounds which is overweight but said he would be happy with anything under 200. Been maintaining 145 for the last 4 months. My surgeon is pretty happy with that. I lost far more than what he expected me to lose and more than I expected to lose. I had a 54.1 BMI so no interested in being super thin. If I can maintain here at a 24.9 BMI long term I will be thrilled. The goal of surgery was for me to be able to be more physically active without pain. I hike and bike with my kids now. I have so much loose skin though.