Comments for Living ~400lbs

Comment on A thought for the new week by living400lbs

living400lbs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:40:04 +0000

So she’s saying “love your body” and “give up on dieting” is not the same as “give up on life” and “binge eat”.

That was my take on it too.

Comment on A thought for the new week by MaryLeigh

MaryLeigh — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:49:21 +0000

“(This is not the same thing as: Give up and binge.)”

Absolutely. It’s about respecting your body and taking care of it, and just because you’re larger than the ‘norm’ doesn’t mean you don’t do that. True FA involves self respect at its core.

Comment on A thought for the new week by Bilt4cmfrt

Bilt4cmfrt — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:28:39 +0000

Well, by itself, I think it could go either way. But considering the tenor of the rest of the article I’d have to lean towards a warning not to hit the buffet circuit rather than a preempt of the no diet = surrender to gluttony argument we usually get from the ‘Fatties got no willpower’ crowd.
The article is mostly positive and speaks to philosophy in direct contradiction to the FOBT and that ain’t a bad thing at all. How’s about this?-

‘Live the life you have. Love the body you’ve got. (This is not the same thing as giving up on Life. Just give up the Diet.)

-THERE! All fixed.

Comment on A thought for the new week by jaed

jaed — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:36:59 +0000

I read the give-up-and-binge line as being a preemptive dismissal of what some people would think she was saying. If you say to a lot of people, “I’m not going to diet any more, but love and care for the body I have,” they’ll often say something like, “You mean you’re going to give up on being Thin ‘n’ Healthy? You’re just going to start devouring donuts all the time?” So she’s saying “love your body” and “give up on dieting” is not the same as “give up on life” and “binge eat”.

At least that’s what I hope she’s saying.

I did start noticing, after a while, that every time there’s a trial of a Promising New Drug for Weight-Loss, or a Great New Approach to Giving the Obese Their Lives Back, or whatever, when they get around to the actual quantitative results it’s always something like, “Study subjects lost an average of 12 pounds over the 1-year study period.” One-year followup does not impress me. Twelve pounds impresses me even less. It is very typical to see minimal results like this touted as The Answer for the Obese, when even if it’s maintained it represents a minimal loss of weight. (At my height, 14 pounds is about two BMI points.)

(No, I don’t have any idea why I’m Sarcastically Capitalizing everything today. ;-)

Comment on A thought for the new week by shyvixen

shyvixen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:58:44 +0000

I read the Good Housekeeping article that this quote is from and it’s pretty good. My bout with ovarian cancer is what lead me to fully embrace FA. Thinking about all the time I wasted hating my body and starving myself was depressing. After cancer, I appreciated my body and how strong it was.

My only hesitation is her last line about how she doesn’t mean “Give up and binge.” Give up on what? I’ve given up on dieting and self-hatred – isn’t that a good thing? After all that feel-good stuff about aprreciating life and accepting yourself she has to add that last line – why?

Comment on Life at ~400lbs by ari

ari — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:24:02 +0000

you are amazing! thank you for sharing your moments…sunshine, sadness, movement, stillness, day in, day out…you are amazing!

Comment on ADA: Not all fat people get diabetes by crookedfinger

crookedfinger — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:19:40 +0000

I wish I could make my mom understand this so she’d stop using Splenda instead of sugar for fear of catching the diabetes.

I’m sure that asshole doctor of hers probably got her terrified about it (because she’s fat, and all fatties get the diabetes, you know), and then my aunt (not a blood relation of hers) getting it probably sealed the deal.

Maybe I’ll just send her that link and beg her to read it.

Comment on Day in the life: Stretches by Yum Yucky

Yum Yucky — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:37:38 +0000

How is it that I love to stretch but don’t do it enough? I dunno. Your flexy pics are a nudge that I have to be more diligent.

Love your blog. I will dig in more. :D

Comment on ADA: Not all fat people get diabetes by Regina T

Regina T — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:08:38 +0000

” Doctors ought to know better – for that matter, doctors ought to know better than to blame the patient for an endocrine disease that’s caused genetically, and also ought to know better than to treat the symptom (gradual weight gain) as the cause of insulin resistance. But they don’t, by and large.”

This is the part that confounds me the most. Doctors are not doing anything to dispel the myth. I would think they would be the first ones to say that being obese does not guarantee diabetes because it leads people to push for testing in the same way they push for drugs they see on commercials. Wouldn’t they prefer to treat people with real medical problems than participate in performing unnecessary tests? Instead, their eyes seem to glaze over and they just give in to the demands of the patient. Why aren’t more of them speaking to the media about this fallacy? Unless they believe that jumping on the diabetes bandwagon will open the door for them to get us all to lose weight…cuz they don’t like touching da fatties.*

*conspiracy theory*

Comment on ADA: Not all fat people get diabetes by jaed

jaed — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:56:23 +0000

Perception distortion is some of the reason, I think. It’s common for people to think the fat people they know “aren’t really fat” because they’re not Headless Fatties. And people do tend to assume, when they know very fat people casually, that they must have diabetes even if they’re not familiar with the person’s health status. Finally, if you tell them you don’t have diabetes, they’re likely to assume you’ll have it soon.

It’s hard to challenge this because the mindset contains its own defense: if you tell them you don’t have diabetes and aren’t high-risk, you’re “in denial” because you “want to overeat”, or something. The fact that doctors routinely do this as well – assume all fat patients have diabetes, and no thin patients are at risk – shows you just how deeply it’s embedded. Doctors ought to know better – for that matter, doctors ought to know better than to blame the patient for an endocrine disease that’s caused genetically, and also ought to know better than to treat the symptom (gradual weight gain) as the cause of insulin resistance. But they don’t, by and large.

Comment on Living400lbs: Monthly Roundup by Amananta

Amananta — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:17:57 +0000

I am always darkly amused by the “do fat women have sex” questions, or “how do they”, etc. Like – do they need a diagram? I know lots of fat women (including me) who have lots of sex, enjoy it a lot, and don’t seem to have any issues with it except some readjustments to some of the kinkier practices to make them more comfortable. It all still works the same.

Comment on Who reads a 400lb lady’s blog, anyway? by Amananta

Amananta — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:14:08 +0000

Occasional reader here. I’m “death -fat” – 5′5″ and 265. It *was* 300 a few months back, but the only reason I lost weight is because I have an eating disorder and occcasionally starve myself. I have a lot of fury and sadness over that because many well-meaning people will say to me in the depths of such episodes that all I really need to do is control portion sizes and exercise more. But I know from experience that only an extreme starvation diet will let me lose weight, and it will make me sick and I am now sick, and STILL “death fat” after having lost 35 pounds. Eventually even the starvation quit working and I’m stuck at 265. The “funny” thing to me is, when I read standard descriptions of how someone of my size lives (usually in some before-after weight loss success story) I hear that I “must” be bigger round than I am tall, can’t fine clothing anywhere and thus just dress in mumus, can’t walk across a room without losing my breath, and sit around all day long stuffing my mouth with high fat food except for when I waddle off to a fast food restaurant to make a pig of myself. I actually live a fairly normal life. I walk about on my way to school every day, I don’t get out of breath more than most people, I do notice I perhaps walk slower than others, but sometimes people in front of me seem to be walking annoyingly slow. I eat normal food, homecooked, mostly, because I’m too poor to eat out, and not too many snacks (although I do eat some, I mean, snacks are yummy.) I have to go to special stores to buy my clothes and am at the top of the Lane Bryant line on what they carry but I can buy clothes there but find them pricey (see the part where I’m poor.) My main complaint with my size is that the desks at school are annoyingly small – I fit but it’s a bit of a squeeze and I feel self-conscious – and even though all but about an inch of me fits into one seat on the subway people won’t sit next to me unless they are desperate and I am a very self-conscious person and feel guilty about that. I don’t even need seatbelt extenders on a plane (although I find the seats uncomfortable). It’s very hard to accept myself as I am even as I am struggling not to give in to an eating disorder which now has mad me so sick I’m seriously afraid of killing myself by going back, and know most people would think I had binge eating disorder, if anything. I KNOW I don’t eat a lot. I KNOW I will have to eat a dangerously low amount of food to lose weight at a “normal” rate of 1-2 pounds a week. And I KNOW I would get huge societal approval if I did so. And I know the highs of starvation and how it makes me feel. But I want to live, so I eat. And I’m tired of feeling guilty for that.
So I come here, and to other FA blogs, to try to get a bit of sanity in my aching head.
Sorry for the rant >.>