Comments on: You say “freak of nature” like it’s a bad thing

By: Meems

Meems — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:03:07 +0000

I’ve often called myself a freak of nature…proudly! (This is in reference to a naturally low pulse, blood pressure, and super high HDL.) I don’t quite get why someone would be offended by the comment. Most people can’t lose weight and keep it off. If you can, good for you, but don’t expect that other people necessarily can!

By: sweetmachine

sweetmachine — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:15:06 +0000

I’m absolutely terrified of gaining this weight back to the point that I’m sure I’ll have to kill myself. I can’t face my family, especially my mother, as a fattie again.

Beth, wow, I didn’t see this comment when you first left it. I’m sorry that you are feeling this fear, and I hope that hanging around her does help. I also want to encourage you to try to see an HAES-friendly therapist, if you’re not already. You sound like you’re in serious emotional pain, and you shouldn’t have to have all that guilt and fear put on you. Good luck.

By: Sharn

Sharn — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:07:41 +0000

I’m a little late joining this discussion, but this is something I just thought of a little while ago and I had to share.

If I mention that anyone who’s lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for a long time is a freak of nature, someone always chimes in with some variant of “Well, I know at least THREE people who have maintained huge weight loss for years! What’s the likelihood of me knowing so many freaks of nature?”

Uh… pretty high, actually. For example, twins and triplets make up about 2% of the total human population, making them freaks of nature. However, an informal poll of a dozen people I know revealed that every single one of them knows more than one set of multiples. All but one person had a set in their immediate or extended family. I myself know five sets of twins and one set of triplets– for those of you keeping score at home, that’s THIRTEEN freaks of nature.

I only know three people who have lost 20%+ of their “before” weight and kept it off for at least five years. If we’re assuming that “successful” dieters make up less than 5% of the people you know (because nearly everyone has lost at least some weight on a diet of some kind at least once in their lives), that means maintaining weight loss is TWICE as common as twins and triplets, yet I know 1/4 as many of them. Hmm.

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:10:03 +0000

I ghost here from time to time, usually catching up on a couple weeks at once, so it took me a while to see this. I just have to comment.

I had WLS surgery last September. I’m totally there with the FA movement as long as it doesn’t apply to MY feelings about MY body. I went from a size 26 to a size 10, and I’m still losing. In a lot of ways, I’m healthier–though if my mother had never started me on diets in high school in an attempt to reduce my size 14, I never would have hit size 26!

I’m absolutely terrified of gaining this weight back to the point that I’m sure I’ll have to kill myself. I can’t face my family, especially my mother, as a fattie again. I desperately want to be a freak of nature.

I know I need to deal with these feelings, and that it’s ridiculous to say I believe in FA for other people, but not for myself. Reading this blog helps, I hope.

By: ladykuri

ladykuri — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:10:26 +0000

Ohhh! Can I be a freak with you? I’m a freak either way, but it’s fun to be freaks together….scares the mundanes more ;)

The funny thing is, “fat feminist freak” has been a pretty good description of me since I was about 12 or so. And now I’m proudly raising the next generation of 3F girls! My 12 yo has pretty much embraced her inner freak, and the 7 yo was pretty much born marching to her own drum (seriously, she’s the child that none of the books are written about!), so we’re well on our way to securing another generation of scaring the social norms :)

By: JenK

JenK — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:43:06 +0000

Becky,

Soooo agree with you on FA & exercise. There can also be a challenge in unlearning bad habits like, “If I don’t lose weight exercising then the exercise is a waste of time and money.” My mom hammered that one into me about my youth soccer and aerobics classes, and I’m STILL trying to unlearn it.

By: Nettle

Nettle — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:27:22 +0000

Fillyjonk, that’s definitely me – my set point is at about 180 pounds and has been for many years now. Just about five years ago, I had an Unpleasant Life Event that led to illness and weight gain. When I got over the Unpleasantness, I did the diet-and-exercise thing and went from 220 back down to my normal 180. At the time, I didn’t know about the whole set-point thing and thought I was the Diet Queen for dropping that 40 lbs so easily and couldn’t figure out why I had “plateaued” at 180 lbs even though I was doing everything right. Then I figured out that I could not eat ice cream and lose no weight, or eat ice cream regularly and gain no weight, chose the happier of the two options, and have “maintained” my 40-lb weight loss for five years.

I’m sure that if I had taken part in some commercial diet program they would be describing me as a Success! Story!, when all I really did was get back to my normal.

By: Becky

Becky — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:19:49 +0000

Babyfem, FA is very positive about excercise. We just consider excercise as something to be done for enjoyment and/or overall good health, not for weight loss. If you want to encourage people to excercise without shaming them, say something like: “I run, and it makes me feel really good, maybe you should try it” rather than something like: “I run and I’ve lost some weight doing it, maybe you should try it” (because you could sure stand to lose some yourself you fat fatty).

By: Katia

Katia — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:58:00 +0000

I think of “freak of nature” in a positive way. “Freaks of nature” usually have some outstanding ability or characteristic that most people/creatures/living organisms don’t have because if it were a common characteristic it would (of course) be ordinary. I’m a classical musician and when I hear “freak of nature” I think of someone who can do huge feats of memory, or do astonishing feats on her instrument, or who just “got” at age six what I am still working out in my fifties.

The problem is when someone says that everybody can or should be able to do the same feats and there is something wrong with them if they can’t.

By: fillyjonk

fillyjonk — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:49:45 +0000

Related to conversation upthread… what percentage of the “I lost x pounds yadda yadda congratulate me” crowd do you think actually RE-lost those x pounds after many stable years at n minus x pounds? I ask because when pressed they often admit that they were always thin, but managed to temporarily gain some weight, and then lost it again — which is of course not freakishness, but a spectacular vindication of the principle that it’s just as hard to make thin people (or even less-fat people) permanently fat as it is to make fat people permanently thin. I mean, I just lost 40 lbs or so over the last couple years, but that’s because this is my normal weight — I just happened to gain a lot of weight very fast from Lexapro. There’s nothing unusual about me slingshotting back to the weight I was for years prior (despite multiple dieting attempts!).