Comments on: Weight and identity

By: Robbert

Robbert — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:46:58 +0000

The Dutch drivers license doesn’t have weight.
What possible use could such a number have on you license?

Mind that my current license is still the large paper affair, which has ample space to display all sorts of unnecessary statistics. Not the credit-card sized cards that the US uses (and we have recently introduced here).

By: Giselle

Giselle — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:10:34 +0000

How do you find your porn-star name?

By: Loveandlight

Loveandlight — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:38:32 +0000

It’s so easy to get caught up, even when we are trying to be aware and to fight the cultural messages we receive, in the value messages about weight.

When you start paying attention, you realize that society really does relentlessly condition people’s minds with a mechanical sledgehammer when it comes to weight.

And Sarah N. Dipity would be SUCH an awesome drag queen name I can barely stand it.

My porn-star name would be Phil Aishio. }:-D>

By: Lilli Burlero

Lilli Burlero — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:58:11 +0000

Here’s a cultural difference: in Britain and Ireland we simply don’t use a numerical weight to describe people. The *build* of a missing or wanted person might be described in a news report, but not their approximate weight. I’m baffled by American acquaintances who say, “oh, she was about 5′6″ , 150lb” — *how the hell do you know*? Unfortunately it’ a cultural difference that doesn’t make much difference to the discrimination fat people suffer.

By: The Rotund

The Rotund — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:20:15 +0000

Loveandlight, it is totally a process, it is fine and I appreciate the apology more than you might realize. It’s so easy to get caught up, even when we are trying to be aware and to fight the cultural messages we receive, in the value messages about weight.

I think it is important to keep in mind that, with HAES, weight is value-neutral.

And Sarah N. Dipity would be SUCH an awesome drag queen name I can barely stand it.

By: Loveandlight

Loveandlight — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:54:50 +0000

the negative way that you talk about “ballooning” up to 260 and do you have to be THAT fat actually kind of stings because, at 300+ pounds, yeah, apparently I do have to be THIS fat and it isn’t bad, you know?

{/me blanches}

I’m sorry. One stereotype about gay men that seems to hold true is that it’s really, really, really, really difficult for us not to be at least a little bit vain. (If there are any other gay men reading who have entirely conquered this, then congratulations, dude, you’re a very rare bird indeed!) This has some positive manifestations such as compelling me to shave the “middle-age hairs” that grow in my nose and ears and making sure I don’t relapse into my teenage bad habit of neglecting my personal hygiene. But unfortunately it also tends to make me cleave to attitudes that may impair an entirely healthy and realistic approach to life.

By: The Rotund

The Rotund — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:25:07 +0000

Loveandlight, I might suggest you try truly disconnecting from the number – the weight on the scale really doesn’t matter if you are doing something that makes you feel healthier and better all ’round. It reads, and I mean this in a really gentle, considerate way, like you are still caught up in the idea that a certain kind of fat is TOO fat – the negative way that you talk about “ballooning” up to 260 and do you have to be THAT fat actually kind of stings because, at 300+ pounds, yeah, apparently I do have to be THIS fat and it isn’t bad, you know? Ideally, if you felt just has healthy and good at 260 as you did at 240 or 220 or whatever, the number would be equally fine. THAT is HAES – being more invested in how your body feels than in what the scale tells you.

And, sure, you can be happy if it makes it easier to find clothes or because you feel more energetic or whatever. But if you are solely feeling happy because the number is less? That isn’t really HAES.

By: Liza

Liza — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:30:52 +0000

Hey Alyce – this Liza has never been thin!!! lol

Nor has she ever been in a New Wave band…though in 8th grade my friend and I had a “band” – I played keyboards and she played guitar, we alternated singing and neither of us was very good. We called ourselves the Madcows.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:53:34 +0000

Whenever men found out I weighed 150 they were always shocked and thought I weighed less….I told them that women lie so much about their weight that it would make sense they would think and average girl weiged 120 lbs!!!

My license says 145, but I am probably 153 or so? Not sure since I have stopped weighing myself…..

Love this site!

By: Loveandlight

Loveandlight — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:02:30 +0000

As a Buddist you are probably disinclined from telling that person to fuck himself in the ear. Too bad, as he is clearly a preachy little fuck who doesn’t know the first thing about diabetes.

The amusing thing is, his attitude about weight comes off as very Roman Catholic, in that I have supposedly made some sort of barely adequate start down a long and harsh road of penitence to which I must commit myself fully, or else I’ll suffer the damnation of adult-onset diabetes.

My Buddhist attitude towards the fish-oil and weight loss is that the fish-oil is something I’m doing to just live more in balance, and if some weight-loss occurs along with it, then that’s simply appreciated as serendipity. (In the unlikely event that I ever become a drag-queen, I think that will be my stage-name: Sarah N. Dipity!) Making weight-loss into a goal after which I would force myself to chase would be the very sort of desire-based thinking that so often leads to bitter disappointment.

Have you been feeling better in general since you started taking fish oil?

I do have a fairly physically demanding job, and I notice that I feel less tired out at the end of the day. But I noticed a more dramatic improvement about a year ago when I began taking a tablespoon of coconut oil every day.