Comments on: How’d you do it?

By: Claire

Claire — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:51:58 +0000

Super late to the party, but:

When I went vegetarian I lost about 20 lbs before my body adjusted and leveled back out. I *hated* it. Suddenly I was always cold, I bruised really easily (I play contact sports) and my neck looked like a chicken. This happened at around the same time I started learning about fat acceptance, and it really drove home the idea that fat is not always horrible for you. It exists on my body for a reason, and I hated going without it. I never thought I’d be so happy to gain 20 lbs!

This weekend I was telling this story to a friend who is struggling with his body image, and my mom felt the need to burst in and tell me how I’m “bigger than I used to be” and she’s concerned about my health. Aside from that 20 lbs, I’ve been around the same size since the middle of high school. I know this because I still wear a lot of the same clothes. I’ve gained muscle mass (again, contact sports) but the amount of fat in my body is the same. The only time I was skinnier was when I was a freshman, and rapidly gaining height. I don’t understand where this comment comes from, especially since she knows about my eating habits (very balanced and healthy, and I also don’t eat a lot because I get full quickly) and exercise habits (no car, so I walk those couple miles to class every day, then home, then to the grocery store and home with my groceries, then wherever else I need to go).

By: Laura512

Laura512 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:32:35 +0000

Old, old, old, but this is something that’s happened to me recently and it’s bugging me enough that I’ve stopped being all gracious and have moved to blunt, eye-contact maintaining, make you squirm honesty.

“Wow, you look great – you’ve lost a bunch of weight!”

“I have no idea, but I’m guessing that having my husband take a job 300 miles away, stress and smoking a pack a day will do that!”

By: Forestroad

Forestroad — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:55:13 +0000

Life story ahead alert…

“Since I’d much rather be fat, happy, and not pregnant than slightly less fat, that probably won’t happen any time soon, but there’s one more strike against the calories in/calories out theory.”

Ok, I’m new around here and I’m trying to chip away all the messed up mentalities I have about my body, and reading this gave me a total a-ha moment for myself. I was on seasonique for about 9 months, gained weight, and stopped taking the pill. I’ve been debating talking to my doc about trying a different pill with perhaps less-pronounced side effects (I seem to be susceptible to several common bcp side effects, not just weight gain), but have been very tempted to just stay off the pill bc I don’t want to gain weight. Reading that simple sentence made me seriously compare the possibility of getting pregnant right now versus being a little heavier, and within about half a second I came to the very obvious conclusion that was nevertheless hard for me that I should go see my doc about an alternative bcp.

There may be such a thing as slightly less fat, but no such thing as slightly less pregnant, after all.

So thanks for that :)

By: butcherbaby

butcherbaby — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:41:27 +0000

my best friend, who has always been a beautiful curvy girl, lost 50 lbs in 07 because: her husband DIED suddenly from a brain aneurysm; her roommates kicked her out the day after the funeral, leaving her homeless, she had a gallstone that had gone misdiagnosed for several years that was reaching the point where her gallbladder was DISINTEGRATING, she lost her job from taking too many sick days, and wrecked her car all in a period of about 8 months. her usual answer to “how’d you do it” is “my husband died and i got really sick, i don’t recommend it”. unfortunately, instead of realizing that her weight loss was and is unhealthy (she looks awful and eats terribly) she is terrified of gaining it back, and is working her way towards a severe eating disorder to stay small.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:36:13 +0000

I had a doctor who was very focused on my weight at one time. I was on antidepressants for severe PPD after I had my frst baby. I am 5’8 and he was determined that I should weigh less. Oh my gosh I was wearing a size 10!!! Then got pregnant and had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. I had the baby in my shower and then proceeded to black out from blood loss and was hospitalized…and do you know what he wanted to talk about at my appointment? That I weighed 162 and that I should weigh 140! I was traumatized enough by that month’s events but of course I should have been excerising and dieting even though I was on bed rest because I was at risk for further hemmorgaing!!!!

Also, I was at my sister’s wedding and cannot eat gluten because it gives me terrible joint pain. Someone offered me cake and I said “no thanks” and they said, “good for you!” WHAT! I wish I could have some cake!

It is crazy out there!

By: Cate

Cate — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:23:23 +0000

Friends after 50lb weight loss: Wow, you look great, congratulations!

Me: Thanks. Yeah. It’s cool.

The voice in my head: WOO! See! See! They really DO like you better when you’re thin! Now don’t eat dinner. Or you will be fat and unloveable again. God. Ew. You know how many calories are in that bananna?

I really hate when people mention my weight. I am probably in much worse physical health now than I was when I was fat(ter), getting all my vitamins and minerals, and swimming for a few hours a week.

By: Minna

Minna — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:42:54 +0000

My ma has suffered from depression her whole life, and has an eating disorder (in the form of comfort eating, rather than comfort not-eating). When I was growing up, she’d yo-yo between sizes depending on how happy she was, but what really struck me is that every time -EVERY SINGLE TIME -she got too close to her “target weight”, she would get sick, and keep getting sick, until she put weight on again. Anything much below 100 kilos and she’d just be ill constantly. But she’s 5’5″, so her GPs would keep telling her she’d be healthier if she just lost a bit more weight. And while the obvious answer is malnutrition, but I saw what she was eating, and it was always extremely healthy and very well balanced. Her body just isn’t designed to be that small.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m crazy, because people are so disbelieving of it. :( It’s reassuring to hear that it’s in no way a crazily unusual experience.

By: navi

navi — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:52:36 +0000

I qualify as thin…

The last two times before I recently hit ‘large enough not to get told by the dr it wouldn’t hurt if I gained 5 or 10 lbs, because my metabolism is finally slowing down with age’ I got a kidney infection and lost the weight, pretty fast. No one was that concerned about the steady weight loss, even though I’d asked about it (I’d been in multiple times over the 2 weeks) except for the PA, who realized I’d lost 16 lbs in 2 weeks, and no, that’s not a good thing…

Of course, since I’m small, no one noticed that I gained or lost any weight, so I didn’t have to deal with all those obnoxious comments, but then maybe if I had more weight on me, the drs would have addressed the weight loss…

By: jrp

jrp — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:41:58 +0000

All this sounds familiar! I can remember posting thin doesn’t equal health a while ago. I had severe food poisoning for roughly a month. Everything went right through me and I had spasms in my digestive tract but no one could find anything. Finally I was given what a (male) nurse called the “nuclear bomb” of antibiotics. This seemed to help with symptoms but I couldn’t eat anything with fat in it. Some days I couldn’t eat at all. At one point I had to dilute clear soda just to keep it from burning my stomach. I mostly lived on dry cereal. I also used a liquid multivitamin because I was worried about malnutrition. Weight fell off me but all I could think about was Stephen King’s book “Thinner”. I wondered when it would stop, if ever. I walked through supermarkets full of food I could not eat and mourned every day of my life I had ever dieted. I could still taste food I avoided because it would hurt me. Just losing my temper and being angry would hurt my stomach. All the people around me could say was, “Wow, you look fabulous! How did you do it?” I was so temped to say back, “It was really easy! I got food poisoning and I’m willing to share!”. I felt so isolated, and scared that I was dying, it really infuriated me to hear these comments. After three years I did recover. I eat what I want and I don’t own a scale. My weight returned along with my strength, vitality, and body integrity. I think it’s a good trade!

By: The Rotund » Reduced Fat

The Rotund » Reduced Fat — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:21:24 +0000

[...] loss in general is a hot issue, as demonstrated by Sweet Machine over Shapely Prose and her two recent posts. She didn’t even lose weight on purpose and people are misreading her left and [...]