So I saw an article on CNN.com about a young woman who lost 100 pounds and said she was finally able to have a life, a boyfriend, a better job, whatever. And I'm thinking to myself, "I've been thin and didn't really feel a sense of happiness as a result of it." It's not like there's a party that is thrown when you reach your goal weight and you automatically get handed an all-inclusive pass to an exciting life. That's not how it works. You may be just as miserable when you're thin than when you're overweight, depending on the circumstances in your life.
And she even had the nerve to say that she dumped the supposedly only guy that would date her because he said he like women who "have something to grab onto." She said she couldn't stand dating someone who had a fetish for overweight women. How does liking something to grab onto equate a fetish for overweight women?
As a journalist myself, I can't look at her as a credible source. She obviously had her mind so made up that her weight was excluding her from life that it became a self-fulfilled prophesy. Now, I'll be the first one to admit that there are a lot of jerks out there and I don't exactly feel comfortable playing the bar scene or partying it up. But guess what? I'm a book nerd. The bars ain't my scene, anyway. And if I want to go out, I do. With my friends. And no, not everyone is looking at me thinking "Holy crap what a whale. She doesn't belong here." If there are people that do that, they probably have a messed up self-image about their own bodies and are projecting it onto others.
I am so upset at this article. I feel as if it's saying that overweight people can't have a life, only when they lose the weight can they begin to live.
this is a very good point. I think sometimes people put too much time into thinking that once they're thin everything will be better...thin people have problems too, you know! haha.
I think that some(just some, not all, obviously) people say "I'll start really living once I'm thin again" & mean that their health conditions will get better, their confidence higher, & their smiler brighter. I'm like that. I have clinical bi-polar(manic depression) but I'm not a sad person(not always). I think that as long as you take a healthy road to weight loss & do baby-steps, you will be a better person at the end.
Because weight-loss isn't just about a size on your t-shirt or a number on a scale...it's regaining a part of you that gave up on yourself, re-finding a part of you that was lost. <3
I've always had a life. I was alive. My heart beat, but I sure as heck wasn't living my life the way I wished I could at 333 pounds. Being SUPER-morbidly obese was like a death...no, take that back...It WAS a death sentence for me.
So yeah, I kind of understand what the chick in the article meant. It's not that I finally have a life...it's that I finally have a non-difficult morbid-obesity-weight related life.
I agree that weight loss isn't going to solve your problems, and if you think it will you maybe disappointed. But I can tell you that I enjoy my life so much more now as a thin person. I don't feel judged, I feel great in clothes, I feel attractive, I feel like I fit in, I have confidence, I could go on and on. But that's me. Granted I still have other issues and insecurites they seem easier to handle now that they're not coupled with weight issues. I also still have food issues that I battle with, but again I feel like if I can be on plan 90% of the time and maintain my weight loss for just today I can work on these issues. I don't know, I feel like I can live my life the way it was meant to be lived now that I don't feel awful about myself ALL.THE.TIME. I was just thinking about how fabulous I feel now, when I was at a concert few days ago. I had a rockin outfit on and I felt hot! A few months ago I would have felt insecure and like a slob. Not everyone needs to be thin though to validate their self worth, so I think it's an individual thing. I've been thin, then fat and now thin again and for me, my quality of life is significantly better when I'm thin, but that's just me.
I'm with you, hippy27. There are a lot of things I don't do because I don't feel well enough to, and a lot of things that I WON'T do because I'm too ashamed of how I look. I wish I weren't like that, but I am. Sigh.
I just know that I have to lose this weight, I want to be healthy, I don't want to die young, and I'm tired of being so physically miserable!
I am starting to feel better already, and I know once I get rid of more of this weight I'll regain some confidence and won't let my fears rule what I do and do not do. Plus when I'm smaller I won't have to worry about the things that ARE dictated by size..... like whether or not I'll fit on rides at an amusement park.
I know what you mean though, Luna1982. A woman who has one of the most exciting lives of anyone I know is heavy... she has everything going for her, fabulous personality, her pick of guys.... and I think a lot of it is because she has the most amazing attitude, and she just oooozes confidence. I envy her!!! On the other hand, one of the most unhappy people I know, who hates her life, is thin.
"I've been thin and didn't really feel a sense of happiness as a result of it." It's not like there's a party that is thrown when you reach your goal weight and you automatically get handed an all-inclusive pass to an exciting life. That's not how it works. You may be just as miserable when you're thin than when you're overweight, depending on the circumstances in your life. ...
I just had to comment on this too. You see, I must be tickled by little things, because once I reached goal, (actually long before that) I felt like I was handed that inclusive pass to:
Restaurant booths
tiny bathroom stalls
rickety chairs
airplane seats
roller coaster
water slides
regular sized bathtubs
sports cars
combine "buddy seats"
long walks
hikes
rafting
horseback riding
dancing for hours
painting my toenails
TMI hygiene
(and on and on and on)
This is just a partial list of exciting things I now have a pass for that I was unable to do when I was 190 pounds heavier. To me, it is a solid gold pass to life.
I understand where you are coming from, and also with the person who wrote the article. Maybe she had more confidence to go out and do things? I know I feel my weight holds me back. I know looks matter in today's world. I could go out and do things now and have a life, but I feel it will be easier when I'm thinner and more confident. I actually KNOW it's better since I've been thin a couple of times in my life, maybe I looked better or just had more confidence, but life was easier to enjoy thinner!
I spent many years fighting the stereotypes of all the things fat girls weren't supposed to do. And on one hand, it is painful to see someone thinking their life couldn't be even half-way decent until they lost all the weight, I also understand where that stereotype comes from.
This woman didn't invent it, she lived in the same culture we all do - the culture that tells us fat women are second-class citizens. We're not worthy of decent boyfriends, we shouldn'twear anything colorful or might otherwise draw attention to us, besides we shouldn't waste the money. Any guy interested in us, must be a loser....
Of course those aren't the only messages we hear - and some people get more positive messages than negative, and a few of us our stubborn, strong, and independent enough to scoff at the sterotypes and live life to the fullest possible in our current bodies.
I can't judge this woman too harshly, because I've been there. Not often (Thank God), but I have been there - thinking that life sucked and that I deserved it to suck because I was fat. That any guy worth having, wouldn't want me, and any guy that wanted me wasn't worth having.
I was smart enough never to date someone who was preferentially attracted to fat women. I only dated guys with very flexible preferences, because I didn't want to choose between losing weight and losing a boyfriend, or with having a boyfriend who preferred me fatter than I preferred me to be.
It is a shame that this woman (and many, many like her - even here) can't enjoy their life until they're at a specific weight point, but I understand it. We're brainwashed to believe it, to a certain extent.
In movies and television, the "fat friend" almost never has a life, heck if you believe tv land, glasses make a girl practically undateable. Even as a small child, I could tell that the "ugly girls" in tv shows, were really just pretty girls with glasses and an unflattering hair cut.
If that was "ugly," what hope did I have?
I'm not saying that the brainwashing is complete, because many of us get a lot of positive, affirming messages along with the ego-crushing ones, but we never know about the inner-turnoil of anyone but ourselves. You don't know if everyone in this woman's life, from the time she was tiny, told her that fat made a woman worthless.
It really isn't a surprise, that some people internalize the message that overweight people can't have a life, only when they lose the weight can they begin to live. We see that message almost every day in ads for weight loss products. And while most of us realize consciously that these messages are overexagerations designed at getting the money from our pockets - on a subconscious level, it's hard not to believe some of the messages. Especially when we see celebrities, and even our relatives, friends and neighors, endlessly talking about weight loss. And everyone seems to agree that being fat is more limiting than it physically has to be (people talk about fearing going out in public, and the inappropriatness of swimming or wearing bright colors...) There are so many things fat girls aren't supposed to do.
It doesn't shock me how many people believe that fat people deserve no better, what shocks me is how many of us do know better.
I believe confidence and weight loss often have a chicken-and-egg relationship. For some of us the confidence came first - then the weight loss. For some of the reverse, but for most of us, I think it's a blurry, complicated, blending that can't be easily separated. Did confidence result in the success, or did the success build confidence?
Perhaps she meant that she could not enjoy her life until she had lost enough weight to feel better and therefore physically enjoy her life? I know at my weight I am looking forward to feeling better physically, so that I can enjoy my life free from the hardships of being so heavy. If that makes sense.
I am, too--but maybe she isn't. Maybe the sort of pleasure we get from reading and ideas, she gets from social interaction with a wide variety of people. If that's the case, it is a flat fact that social interaction is easier when you are attractive--thin is part of that, but so are other things.
Honestly, if being fat made it hard for me to read, it would have been 2000 times worse. If being social is her reading, then I imagine losing weight has made about 2000 times more of a difference to her than it has to me. People's experiences and priorities and pleasures are different.
Unfortunately, I self-edit my life when I'm significantly overweight. I become almost cripplingly self-conscious and basically become a shut-in. I'm too uncomfortable to go do the things I really enjoy, which is very, very sad. Nobody makes me live that way except me, but it really isn't much of a life. I can totally understand why it suddenly feels like having a life when you get free from all that self-doubt and baggage.
Last edited by My Michelle; 09-06-2010 at 08:33 AM.
To me it's not about how other people view me when I'm fat, but about how I view myself. I am not the same person fat. I'm just not. It's about everything Lori listed. Life is just easier now, no question.
Just last night my family went to some spectacular fireworks. I dragged my feet about going because getting there and back is not easy. It's a massive, massive crowd and there's a lot of walking involved while carrying stuff. I haven't gone in eight years because of that, and I love this event. It wasn't nearly as bad as I remember, and in fact, wasn't hard at all. Around me I saw people who are my past weight and they were out of breath and waddling. That was not living, not for me. Really living for me is to be able to get up and go.
For me, it's about being able DO anything I want to do.
I have to agree some things are better. It was a lot, lot easier to climb those stairs at the football stadium yesterday to my seat in the nosebleed section. A bit easier to fit in my tiny space on the bench as well!
I know a wonderful man who is a true fat admirer. He's not attracted to women who are smaller than a size 16. It makes sense that she wouldn't continue dating him as she found a healthy weight if he is a FA, because he wouldn't find her attractive.
It seems that some overweight women have such poor self-esteem that they don't have a life until weightloss. It's often self-imposed, but I know I try to avoid Debbie Downer if I can...thin or heavy. It's about confidence, not the width of someone's posterior.
to me, it can be a tricky mental tightrope, because I do believe I am happier weighing less than at my heaviest, and that I could and would be happier if I lost more of this weight -- mentally and physically. but I don't think it's mentally healthy for me to equate thinness with happiness, and to put a hold on everything that I may want to do until I'm thin. I seriously don't think being at my ideal weight will make every problem I have disappear in a poof of smoke.
yeah, I do think there are social prejudices, and I know my own thoughts about myself, make life more difficult/less enjoyable being big. actually, to be truthful, I think my own thoughts are much more powerful than the social prejudices I experience. I think to some extent along the way I became more sensitive to the social prejudices. It's like a small number of experiences tends to color the whole. I can let the one guy with the "no fat chicks" bumper sticker cancel out all the nice instances of other guys flattering me. It's like looking for the reinforcement of the negative view of myself as a large sized woman.
that's why I think it's a good thing to work on liking and accepting myself AS I AM NOW, and NOT seeing that as I don't want to lose weight or change myself in any way that might make me feel better. I think that nagging feeling of always needing to be different from what I am now to be OK can be crippling and self defeating.
I imagine some people can relate to what I'm saying, and some won't see the qualification.
besides, the term "overweight" covers quite a spectrum. and different bodies carry and tolerate that weight differently.
to the OP, don't let the article upset you, it's one woman, the story gets run because it fits into a stereotypical way of thinking that appeals to most of the readers (you're a journalist, so you'd get that). of course, larger sized women can have a life, and relationships, and be active. anyone with common sense knows that. and yes, when people tend to put down other people in public, it usually is because they are 1) immature, 2) have self esteem or their own body issues, or 3) a mix of both.
when I was a (pre?)teen, I used to read all the Nancy Drew books, ha. I remember Nancy had a great bf, Ned, and a girlfriend, Beth, who was chunky. It always seemed like a slightly embarrassing thing, that made Beth less than Nancy. What if we rewrite it: Nancy is chunky and Beth, the best friend, slim. Nancy still has the great bf, Ned, is smart, successful, solves all the mysteries, everyone likes her. Beth is a supportive sidekick. Pretty funny, right?
Why do I have to lose weight to have a life?
I know a wonderful man who is a true fat admirer. He's not attracted to women who are smaller than a size 16. It makes sense that she wouldn't continue dating him as she found a healthy weight if he is a FA, because he wouldn't find her attractive.
