http://www.dorothyhickson.com/crafts/fbr.html

The essential goal is being healthy. What happens to your weight is a side-effect. For some people the side effect is losing weight, for others it’s gaining, or staying the same. Since you do get a lot of social kudos from the weight loss version, it’s pretty hard not to see that as a good thing. Of course, that can cause you to lose focus: I didn’t exercise for a month, but it’s OK since I didn’t gain weight? Nu-uh. (Yes I am talking to myself.)

It’s all your fault. Rabble-rousers.

Liza, here’s the thing. You cannot be simultaneously accepting your fat and trying to diet it away. That cognitive dissonance is a step almost everyone goes through while they’re trying to find their way to FA, but it is not fat acceptance. It’s like saying, “I accept my gay daughter, I’m just sending her to conversion therapy for her own good.” It’s not acceptance if you’re trying to get rid of it.

The things you mentioned are all very good reasons to do things to improve your health (not that that’s a moral imperative), and I’m very happy for you that they’re working and you’re learning about your body and yourself. This society tries so hard to disconnect us from ourselves that finding your way back is always a victory.

But what happens if you’re one of the 95-98% of people who gain the weight back? Because diets don’t work. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing them for your health or your partner or yourself or because you want to look good in a bikini on Ipanema Beach; they don’t work.

So if the weight comes back on, as the odds are it will through no fault of your own, how are you going to feel about that? Would it not be better to look at your health and wellbeing as independent goals — as targets you can reach regardless of what it says on the scales? Because there are hugh health benefits to be gained from eating more mindfully and moving more, but they have nothing to do with the number on the scale and by twinning things you can control (your own actions) to something you can’t (what weight your body wants to be), you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Fat acceptance (with a side of HAES) is the one movement that says you don’t have to lose weight to be healthy. And you can be losing weight while working toward fat acceptance by all means, because the whole point of this thing is that it’s your own damn body and you can do what you want. But fat acceptance and deliberate weight loss don’t go together. They’re pretty much diametrically opposed. Because that’s what fat acceptance (as a political movement) is.

:) Lately my scale has been primarily used to weigh things I’m going to sell on eBay. Usually what I’m selling doesn’t register by itself, so I weigh 3 cookbooks, then the 3 cookbooks + the thing I’m selling in its box.

My suitcases do register on their own since they’re at least 20lbs. But again, good to confirm the bag is under 50lbs at home while you can still change it!

As far as presents, I learned to crochet on Saturday, and now am on my fifth and sixth scarves. Scarves for everyone for Christmas this year!

They can. If you’re losing weight because your health is suffering, you are out of shape and your quality of life is poor, plus you are working on accepting your body while learning what is and isn’t possible, it’s a very real and positive combination,

I speak from experience. I had to lose weight for the reasons I mentioned (though I maintain that my reasons are my business and I shouldn’t have to justify them just to be OK with FA people). I’ve gone from 300-ish to 230-ish in the past year or so, through healthy and doctor-supervised means. I’ve also learned a lot about myself and my body. And I’m working on loving it (I’m a hell of a lot better but not there yet). I’ve learned how much exercise my body can handle and what kinds. I’ve learned what foods make me feel good and bad – not because they are “good” or “bad” foods but because they are healthy or not and actually physically make me feel a certain way. Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is that my body simply will never be thin. Size 6 is not in my DNA. Hell, size 10 or 12 may not be. I generally wear a 16 now and am a lot happier in it than last time I was this size (which was high school – before I ballooned to a 22/24 in college – and I thought I was disgusting).

So, to sum up, yes, weight loss and fat acceptance can work well together.

In that vein, maybe a gift certificate for a massage, a mani-pedi, a facial, a haircut, whatever is appropriate for her. Everyone needs a little pampering, especially when they’re recovering or fragile. Or tickets to a concert or lecture or museum she would enjoy, something like that. Or pro house cleaning. Who couldn’t use THAT?

Oddly, even though we’re very close, I do feel like a shower chair would be too intimate of a gift. Because it involves nudity? Or because it’s a very overt acknowledgment of disability? I’m not sure. She’s got a lot of pillows in the bed, and I believe at least one of them is memory foam (so’s her mattress, though it really needs to be rotated — we should do that while we’re there), but she spends a lot of time in her recliner and I bet she could use more comfy pillows there.

That Theracane thing looks amazing, but I’m not sure she’d have the strength/leverage to do it… she injured her rotator cuff fairly recently and is still doin PT. I kinda want one, though! And some kind of massager would be a good idea.