freemotion said:
Yep, it is rare that a person who eats the way we do is overweight. It is the donuts, danish, packaged cereals for breakfast with a big glass of juice and coffee with sugar and those horrid flavored "creamers"......and that is just breakfast! It is downhill from there for the rest of the day.
i'm sure the intention of that statement wasn't to suggest that all people with weight issues gargle with HFCS and raid the donut shop every chance they get, but it was quite reductionist.
i've struggled with weight my entire life. i was on my first "diet" by the time i was 10. i have
never in my life been a "typical fat person" if the popular images of fat people are as so many like to believe. i've always been active, i spent my childhood running around a farm, not vegging in front of the tv. i hate chocolate and chips and candy bars. i crave oreos and donuts about once a year and then i remember that they are gross.
i have been through every single diet program my overly-concerned Mother could find. at 12 i was taking a diet course at the local hospital. by 14 i had tried WW and some ridiculous church-based diet program. i had doctors telling me i wasn't loosing weight because i was still eating too much when i was almost starving myself. yes, i even went low carb. i did low carb, low fat and low carb, all meat and low carb, no meat. i was a vegetarian for 4 years.
the point to all this is that weight, or health, is not actually as simple as "eat this and be active." there are so many more things that can, and do, complicate that. i have severe hypothyroidism. unlike most, i produce plenty of hormone but i can't absorb it. this is almost impossible to medicate. i eat less, and better, than almost anyone i know and i'm still heavy.
i eat whole foods, i love vegetables, but i have come to a place in my life where i had to be honest with myself about "dieting." it doesn't work for me. and i am tired of being miserable worrying about how many grams of something i've eaten. i like bread and pasta, i just do. i like sweet tea (with real sugar or honey)... i'm from the South. i eat what i like, which just happens to be whole foods that are good for me (well, obviously the carbs are contentious). my doctors are always amazed that someone my size (5'5" and 240 lbs, technically obese) has perfect blood pressure, perfect cholesterol, no signs of diabetes, and is, in general, healthy as can be (minus the hypothyroid and what comes with that, like my hair falling out). even though i'm healthy, they keep trying to "fix" me, because fat is not acceptable in this society, no matter how many of us there are.
for the first time in my life, i don't feel bad about myself for making the choices that i've known all along are right for me. i'm perhaps not
as active as i should be, you aren't going to find me out for a run, because it does take a lot of extra effort to carry around this extra weight. but it didn't stop me from climbing a mountain covered in snow or hiking a glacier or bungee jumping or scuba diving or working this farm.
i know what works for me and what i am willing to go without. i'm also really glad that other people have found something that works for them. if i've learned nothing else through all this, i've at least learned that you can't listen to the "experts," you've got to listen to yourself. but we also have to remember that what works for us might not be the answer for someone else. we can share our information, but to tell others that they are a "ticking time bomb" is to become the people that we all hate: the "experts" who are completely blind to anyone else.
) when they do. Kinda reminds me of the political threads from time to time.
