I know that trying to explain myself here will only come across as insecure and weird (and that I can’t stop myself, compulsive, too), but I was sort of picturing Obama as a movie president rather than a real president when I was thinking of a ray gun. As it turns out, I’m aware that there are real massive weapons aimed all over the place that are not being stopped from killing innocent civlillians, and the very real president Obama is probably not going to be able to solve those crises in the way I’m imagining he would defeat a cartoon-y super villian.

@Noelle – We might. :)

I tried a 1,500 cal – 1,700 cal daily intake and I became cranky to live with!

@ Harriet: I visited the nutritionist (on my doc’s referral) for the first/last time on December 10th (my b’day, what a nice way to celebrate), where she re-explained to me everything I’ve learned about dieting over the past 20 years. Since she was only in her early 20’s I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and tell her I probably knew more than she did about calorie content, portion size, etc.

Amazingly, I stayed on her 1500 calorie diet (I weigh 316, so it was insanity, of course) for 3 whole days before 1) I gave up because I was starving and 2) I found this amazing web site and related blogs. I cancelled our follow up appt for next week because I don’t want to have to tell her she’s dead wrong. Poor girl.

Name: Thealogian, I was in Divinity School and part of our motto is Minister as Theologian (in Latin of course) and I noticed, hey, that’s specifically worshipping/studying a male god at its root and around the same time I took a reading course with a particularly cool professor that we called “Neo-Pagan Thealogies” (since of course, Neo-Pagan writers often work to study the concept of Female Divinity or the history of Goddesses or pantheons of male and female divinities or the Earth and natural cycles (most closely associated with the feminine in the Western tradition), so I decided to call myself a Thealogian (not because I believe only in Female Divinity–honestly, theism in general is a problem for me, but I do like the movements around Reclaiming the female face of the divine). Anyway, so the name serves to both identify me as someone who works in religious studies and to call out once again how the masculine form does not fairly serve as the universal form in English grammar accurately.

Also, as a side, I’m fairly new to the site. I learned about Shapely Prose through Shakesville, one of my favorite Feminist/Political/GBLTQ/Smarty-Pants blogs. I’m also new to intuitive eating and currently I’m in training to do a 5k in August.

And yet I still go to this doctor. She has a nice dry wit and polite bedside manner, and I have dealt with worse.

@Tabby, did your doctor never consider that as a person who doesn’t understand portion control, you might get all crazy and eat more than one Lean Cuisine at a time? Hilarious.

I told her, I’m trying to keep my bp down, why would I want to eat something processed like that? Why not veggies, baked lean meats, etc?

Her answer?

“You don’t understand portion control”

well, yes I do understand portion control, but i’m still not eating my dinner on a baby plate.

I felt like tell her to eff off, take her diet plans and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

Basically this doctor rather me eat lean cuisines, than a plate of veggies, folks.

Mortified side note: I can’t believe I mistyped “advise” for “advice”, too – just goes to show I get a little tongue-tied (finger-tied?) posting on a public forum.

Oh my yes.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll keep gaining indefinitely — just that your set point will be higher. 220 is not particularly fat, so if you’re still able to be active I wouldn’t worry about it… you’ll eventually get comfortable at 220 or 230 in a way you wouldn’t have been at 185 and restricting at an accelerating rate to stay there.

400 probably still not a comforting figure, but, that’s only 50 lbs away for me!

I totally can’t give you advice about goign to the doctor though, I’ve been putting that off since August.

I am avoiding setting up the doctor’s appointment that is due come March because I am hoping I will magically be a little thinner by then – my last appointment a year ago I was up to my highest weight ever and my pants sure haven’t gotten any looser and if I try to do jumping jacks I’ll give myself a black eye with one ginormous boob or the other, that is, unless my knees crack under the strain first. The weight just creeps up and up and up. My darkest fear is that perhaps I will end up 900 lbs and bedridden. Is there such a thing as a person with no biological set point? Could I have broken my set point by dieting viciously off and on for 30-odd years? Gave up dieting 10 years ago at 185, am currently 220 and climbing… argh. The temptation to climb on the Noo Year Diet Bandwagon is nearly irresistible.