So I generally ignore those messages any more. I try to ignore society’s messages about how I should feel bad about myself. I know now that even if I had lost 20 pounds when I was 140, I still would have been too fat for someone. And frankly, I don’t long to weigh any less than 120, ever. At this point, the low end of my goal range is 125. (The high end is 145. The ultimate goal… I’ll know when I get there.)

I’m not trying to be mean, and I debated about even posting this, but I watched that Posh Spice “reality show” the other day and found it a little painful. I just don’t think it’s hott to have to carefully lower yourself into a seat because your bones will hurt if you drop down too quickly. My beloved dog is that thin and I worry about her constantly (she’s 14.) Yet Posh thinks she’s the hottest thing ever. I resist allowing disordered eaters and body dysmorphics to decide what I should look like.

I’ve definitely gotten to where it’s about health and performance, not looks.

It’s really not that hard to make good recipes that don’t involve soy, as long as you’re not trying to fake something.  I guess I don’t get the appeal of faking something I don’t want to eat anyway.  I want to eat real meals, not meals that are trying to convince me they’re something else.

Stories like this make me feel deeply ashamed.  I’m not yet too fat for X-rays, but I am right up there in the obesity statistics.  I am obese.  I have been fighting obesity for six years now, and I have been losing.  Six years.  I can get all this other great stuff accomplished in my life, but I can’t do something as simple as control my own weight.  I know nutrition.  I know the dangers of being overweight.  I exercise.  I log what I eat.  But I cannot lose weight.

I have this Australian book called Confessions of a Reformed Dieter, by AJ Rochester, who lost about 70 pounds by exercising and changing her eating habits.  I love this book, and listen to it on audio, as well as read it.  Sometimes, though, I get a little bitter and wish that I had started out eating entire pizzas and 20 beers in a night.  Then I would have someplace to improve from.  Then, the things I do would make a difference.  I would see that the changes I make do some good.  I don’t even eat fast food, though.  I stopped eating candy several months ago.  I stopped drinking pop about two months ago.  I’ve been eating 4-5 servings of raw fruits and veggies a day for a long time, like four or five months.  I’ve been running since April.  All I really have to show for it is about two kilos, give or take half a kilo.  (Remember, too, that what I’m working on now is the extra, extra weight I gained from grad school.  Then, I have to lose the extra weight I gained from moving to the states.  Then the last 5 pounds I was trying to lose of my baby weight.)

I just get so discouraged when I read these articles.  I feel so ashamed. It makes me not want to ever seek medical help.  I don’t want to be treated like trash because of my body weight.  No one does.  No one should be.  But even though we fat people are the majority, we still get treated like we’re not even people.

A British article by a reporter who spend a day in a fatsuit. I’ve spent the last six years in a fatsuit.  I’m tired of these emotions only being valid if the person can be a size 10 the next day, or be Tyra Banks.  The real experiences of living it are not valid.

I’m also tired of fat not being studied for real.  I mean, it’s studied as a way to demonize people, or to blame someone for high medical expenses, but what I want to know is WHY I’m fat.  What role does getting only three hours of sleep a night play?  What kind of crap is in my milk?  (I grew up drinking British milk.  There’s a part of me that wonders, strongly, whether the junk in America’s milk plays a role in our obesity problem.)  Is there really a thyroid issue and in 20 years, everyone who’s being demonized now will deserve a gigantic apology?  I think there’s much more than meets the eye.

I won’t say that losing weight in Germany after I had my son was easy.  It was hard.  But it wasn’t the complete and utter sacrifice of all that is good that losing weight seems to require here.  I could still have a little chocolate pudding dessert, or a hot chocolate, or a cappuccino– every day if I wanted.  I drank pop about four days a week.  I could lose weight on 1500 calories (and add more on days that I exercised).  No longer.

I wish I was a funny weight loss blogger.  But I feel so discouraged and so ashamed and so confused.

(BTW, if you’ve tried to comment before, I’ve fixed my commenting issue.)

An article about how, yet again, our food industry thwarts our health.  There’s something incredibly warped about America’s food industry, combined with the insistence on relying on our “air-conditioned wheelchairs” (as Edward Abbey calls it) to get everywhere.  We’re like veal.  But what are we being fattened up for?  Why do we consistently make the wrong decision?  If there is any decision to be made, we will invariably choose the one that leads to more sugar, more fat, less walking…

(That reminds me– a local ad shows a woman taking her little niece to visit grandpa and grandma’s pharmacy chain.  At each store, the child is given a soda, a smoothie, ice cream, or candy.  This is all in the space of a day.  Creating a future customer, here?)