I was reading along, giving my silent "yeah!"s and "what she said!"s, and I just wanted to let you know that you made me choke on my (full sugar and whole cream, so take that) coffee. 
Shirley, I agree with your entire post. And the sad thing is that I’m probably who you are addressing.
And I would still rather be smaller, so I’m going to stay a Gym Rat.
That, my friend, is incredibly sad.
Hmm.
I’ve got that “Both Sides Now” thing goin’ on.
My youth was spent chubby.
I had my bouts with 20-odd extra pounds in my late teens/early twenties.
I just really like food, and the only exercise I really like is swimming or walking.
I enjoy walking the dogs but I need a bit more than that.
In Colorado, you can’t go to the community pool 9 months of the year.
I lost the weight by accident; I sort of ‘found myself,’ grew up, became a bit less introspective, a bit more active.
Right now I am 50 and the thinnest I’ve ever been–I even got my thyroid checked out. When menopause really kicks in, this will likely change. I’ll probably get back those extra pounds I had 25 years ago. Ah well.
I go to the pool where I swim–yeah I pay to swim–and enjoy seeing all the different kinds of bodies there. Old, young, fat, thin. And yeah, there are the gym rats.
It is too bad when women are obsessed, especially when they pass on their obsessions to their daughters.
It’s all so ephemeral, ya know?
Now and then, Shirley, you write something so painfully honest/funny at the same time that my jaw drops and I envy your husband, your neighbors, your cerebral cortex. Lawdy. That was brilliant. *note to self: never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever hump spouse’s leg again. Ever. Not even for a moment. Never. *
I’m a big boy. I waver from overweight to seriously huge. The charts say I kiss morbidly obese now and then, too. I don’t give a shit what people think when they look at me, but I feel as though I’m drowning when I get too big. So, I see-saw. I use food the way other posters here use it. For e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g-. Tough nut to crack. For the record, skinny women unnerve me, and really big gals give me the warm tinglies. YMMV. 
Cartooniverse
Abbie, no offense, but what do you mean “God” would let you have surgery? 
Me, I could stand to lose about ten to fifteen pounds. My problem though is I’m flabby. I need to get toned up and in shape, but I just HATE exercising, at least the working out kind.
Wow, I had no idea that women thought about their weight so much.
Why?
Me neither.
Between this thread and tonight’s Oprah about women obsessed with plastic surgery, I feel like the most balanced, beautiful woman on earth. Off to drink beer and eat doughnuts!
This is ironic.
I recently looked at some High School pics with friends and I was like, Wow…I had a great body. But at that time I remember thinking what a cow I was.
I think will summarize my life.
I am quite thin now…I watch what I eat and workout like crazy and everyone tells me how great I look…( I gained about 15lbs after I got my heart ripped out in 2001 and I finally got off my lazy ass in 2003 and lost it)
I dont think it is possible to FATHOM how much weight can control a woman’s life!
It shames me to think about it…How vain and shallow am I?
Well, when considering major medical stuff like that I like to seek God’s will before I go through with anything.
I don’t want to go under the knife for something like that without a clear and resounding “yes,” ya know?
Because that’s what we’re judged by.
I don’t conisder the hours I spend at the gym or running the training circuit at the park when the weather is nice wasted or obsessive. I get something I want out of it, a healthy heart, nice muscle tone, a trim figure, and the trade-off is something I consider well worth the cost, both in time and in money.
I understand what Shirley is saying, and that it may indeed be a message many women need to hear, and I’m actually in that 20% that have always been realtively thin, so I realize that my experience may not be representative.
Accepting yourself for who you are doesn’t mean that you can’t try to make yourself better, by whatever means that might be.
If she’s that shallow, she has no one to blame but herself.
I have been 60 pounds overweight. I dieted until I lost it. Then I became severely depressed and gained it back. So I have been there.
I considered losing the weight to be an accomplishment because it made me healthier, and I liked looking better. However, when I compared it to my other successes–a Harvard law degree, close friendships maintained against the odds, surviving serious mental illness–the weight loss was a blip on the radar screen.
Women think about weight and food about as much as men think about sex. Unfortunately.
I just went through a serious bout of anxiety-disorder flare-up, complete with bad meds making me really, really sick, and I feel like someone who had a brush with death. I’ve lost weight three times in my adult life - I’m still 40 or so pounds overweight - big deal. My biggest accomplishment, by far, is overcoming this anxiety disorder. I can think clearly again, and I’ve got my confidence back. Life is far too precious to waste it agonizing over every bite you put in your mouth, and how you look in a bathing suit.
And everything Shirley and Draelin said.
Truer words been never spoke.
The least I’ve ever weighed at my current height is 126 pounds. Let’s just say I’m a lot more than that now. I want that 126 body back so badly, it is a major part of my internal dialog, every minute of the day. Yet, I love food and treasure my reputation as an excellent cook, so it’s really hard for me to change my habits. Loosing weight is harder than anything I’ve ever done. Coping with sick parents, buying a house, getting advanced educational degrees and the minor traumas of my dull-but-happy life don’t compare to the effort it takes me to lose weight.
I don’t understand why people don’t get why others are so weight-conscious. It’s clear to me why.
There’s a coworker in the lab that no one really likes (she works my nerves too, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying I don’t like her). There are many nicknames that could be used to describe her, but what’s the namethe lab has concocted? Lumberjack. And it’s not because she wears flannel and swings an ax well. It’s because she’s 5’5"-5’6" and probably weighs about 150 or 160 lbs. Some of it’s fat, but she’s also muscular. And yet she’s “fat” to them. I’ve come to her defense, but it’s just blown off. The name has stuck.
Now, they might have a nickhame for me that’s awful too. They may think my hair is funny, or maybe make reference to my plain face. But one name that I don’t have to worry about is “fat” right now. And you know what? There are only a few other words out there (two, namely) that I would consider worse than that, so I’m grateful.
Why??
I’ll tell you why. My parents are fat people. Always have been (in their adult life), always will be. And yet what’s the first remark they always have when they reconnect with certain long lost friends or relatives? “Looks like so-and-so has gained a few el-bees, haven’t they? snirk”. Argh, it’s disgusting!
At this point in my life–even though I’m financially independent and live hundreds of miles away from them–my parents are still my primary source of affirmation. They were proud when I graduated with college with honors. They rejoiced when I got a Ph.D. But they will talk about me LIKE A DOG if I show up on Thanksgiving weighing an extra 20 or 30 pounds. My mother will goad me into exercising, despite the fact that she can’t walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. I would feel like a failure, big time. I can blame them, but I also know that the pressure is also self-inflicted.
I have a twin sister. As anyone with twin children knows (especially if they are identical or just look like it), it is close to impossible to not compare the two. We were no exception. I was always the slower, quieter, awkward, uglier* one. I admit that I’ve carried all those years of comparison on my back even today. She got her doctorate before me. She has a boyfriend–I’ve never been kissed. She makes twice as much money than I do and drives a better car.
And she’s skinner than me.
Guess which of the comparisons makes me feel the worse during the holidays, when we’re together? I’m not overweight at all, but the simple fact that my twin is a good 5-8 pounds lighter than me itches, for lack of a better word. I used to dress and undress in her presence. Not any more. I don’t even like I stepping out of the shower wrapped in a towel, for I know her back and shoulders aren’t as “beefy” as mine. Nor does her tummy pop out as far. I won’t feel as “good” as she is until either I lose weight or she gains it. It doesn’t help that I know that’s a sucky, self-centered, immature way of looking at things. I feel this way because I’ve grown up comparing myself to what everyone said was my “mirror”. As much as I rebel against this myth, I’ve also internalized it.
So yes, weight loss or being “thin” is a huge accomplishment for lots of people.
*please no rejoiners about how this is impossible in twins. It was possible for us!
DDR… the game. Where you stomp around on the dance pad to hit arrows as they scroll across the screen. To music. It’s a decent cardio workout, especially when you start getting to the advanced levels. One of the reasons I have trouble exercising is because I find it incredibly boring and inconvenient, but my bf brought over his ps2 and got me the game + pads for Christmas, and it’s cheaper and more fun than a gym. It’s a lot like trying to play Tetris with your feet.
Because if I lose weight, I can find a mate. Two salaries are better than one. I can also find a better job, because after all, what one is judged on is their weight, first of all.
So really, it’s of economic benefit to me to lose weight.
Is it possible - just possible, now - that women overestimate how much men care about their weight? In my observation, it seems like women are the ones who care most about weight, and not just their own! Most of the women I know are obsessed with other women’s bodies. “Damn, I wish I was as thin as her!” or “Wow, I’m glad I’m not as fat as her!” “My God, that celebrity lost so much weight!” “Ooh, some other celebrity sure gained a lot of weight!”
And frankly, as a man I’m tired of being blamed for this. I’m not responsible for anybody’s messed-up body image. I don’t know how much you weigh, and I don’t care how much you weigh. The only way I’ll give any thought at all to how much you weigh is if some woman feels the need to discuss it with me.
That is 100% true. I find women of various sizes attractive and I bet alot of men do too. I once read a study that said the types of women that women thought men preferred were 20lbs thinner than the types that men said they preferred.
Finding info saying that men dont care as much as women think they do wasn’t hard though.
http://forum.lowcarber.org/archive/index.php/t-199646.html
In a groundbreaking new study, this is what Cosmopolitan magazine published in the August 2004 issue:
What’s your favorite female body type?
61.6% Curvy with an average rack
20.4% Svelte with big breasts
11.6% Model-thin and small-chested
4.7% Other
1.7% Big and bodacious
Big and bodacious only got 1.7%, but there is probably 40-50lbs difference between model thin and curvy.
In the past two years, I think I’ve lost a substantial bit of weight, and I do rank it as one of my greatest accomplishments. I don’t feel shallow about that either, I feel like I worked hard and got good results. And I’m not even thin now, I’ll never be thin, I’m just thinner than I was before. For me at least, a lot of the sense of accomplishment comes from the fact that it’s a very personal thing – it’s my BODY, for heaven’s sake, it’s about the most personal thing I’ve got going. I also think I’m fairly successful in my career, but that’s not quite as personal. I recognize that some of it was hard work, but some of it was luck – having good bosses who were mentors, people who gave me opportunities, that sort of thing. So I’m thankful for all of that, but more of it was external.
I also thought this was interesting, and wanted to respond on this topic:
I never would have thought that when I was heavier – it wasn’t denial, I really didn’t think I had out of control food issues. Someone who was out of control, I would have figured, would have wanted to stop at one cookie, but ended up eating ten. I, on the other hand, wanted to eat ten cookies in the first place. It wasn’t until I lost weight that I slowly realized that I had more food/control issues than I thought. One of the weird things I’ve noticed is that being thinner (one of these days I’m going to start a thread about weird, unexpected things you notice when you lose weight), people are more apt to ask if I want another cookie … I guess before they felt like they had to save the fat girl from herself and not offer. And it’s hard not to have another cookie, so hard that I seldom have the first cookie now. It’s a lot easier to say “no thanks” to the first cookie than the second cookie, or the third …
In my experience, a resounding YES.
I have met some guys who really buy into the whole “anything over a size 4 is fat” modern media thing. But the vast majority of guys I’ve met have demonstrated that they care only about a few basic things:
- Boobs.
- Pretty face.
- Pleasing “hourglass” body shape.
They didn’t get especially nitpicky about any of these things.
Also, they wanted girls with good personalities who were good in bed. These things were just as important as looks.
I don’t think much about my weight or looks. I don’t spend much time comparing myself to other women. I’m happy how I am. I don’t care that some people will judge me based largely on my physique because I try not to spend time with that kind of person. It has certainly never affected my academic or professional life.