Food for thought for those of you struggling with loved ones who are not eating healthily: there are many psychological studies out there demonstrating that simply "modeling" a particular behavior (whether it is exercising, being open-minded about race, spending time reading instead of TV watching, etc) is nearly completely worthless when it comes to changing the behavior of those around you. So is nagging, and so is (after a certain point) education about the good or ill effects of the behavior. What works? PEER PRESSURE: spending time with a social group that values the behavior in question. You want your daughter to lose weight? Get her to hang out with a diet- and weight-conscious social group. Want your husband to exercise more? Join a gym and start socializing with other gym members. I'm not saying it's easy, just reporting the results of the studies.

Shannon, I leave for Paris on Thursday (eek). Need to pack and do 100 little things between now and then. And I still don't know how to say "dressing on the side" and "steamed not fried please" (and any number of other useful phrases). Oh well, it will be what it will be, diet-wise.

Saef (I wish I knew your actual name- I feel foolish calling people by their pseudonyms), it's very cool that you feel comfortable baring your arms. It was a HUGE NSV for me that I bought some tank tops and a sleeveless dress this year. I understand exactly how great it must feel to wear that pretty blouse without worrying that someone is observing the jiggle on the backs of your arms.

Happy to report no off-plan eating for the last 2 days (I know- not saying a whole lot). Happy maintenance everyone.

Andrea "Happy to report no off-plan eating for the last 2 days (I know- not saying a whole lot)." It's very hard to read any emotional tone into things posted online but to me you don't sound very positive :cb: about your 2 days on plan. As long as there are more days on plan than off I think most of us are doing well with our maintenance. As are you. :D

As for peer pressure the only "friends" DH has would be his band mates. Two of them, despite being smokers/beer drinkers, do exercise daily and are both at healthy body weights.The third is a little overweight but not a smoker or a drinker. DH sometimes tells me about diet and exercise things they all discuss (yes guys do talk about these things - right Bill and Gary?).

I'm pretty sure DH has to be motivated initially by me :coach:, as I am wife, peer, social partner etc. etc. As he is for me - I also have no peers. We have joined several groups in the past but we always end up in a corner, talking to each other. We are both very shy introverted people. We also don't have a lot of money.

Toronto is all about how much money you make, what you wear/drive/where you live to show off that money etc. Even when we do go out DH is always intimidated by the people around him. I can "pass" for middle class and often do. Dh is much more obviously "working" class.

I hope that, after he loses a bit of weight and finds it easier to walk/bike/kayak he will start to develop some self-discipline :drill: and self-motivation. I was able to do that, after years of seeing myself as a victim and blaming others for everything wrong in my life.

And a quick note about moms. Mine veered between being rail thin (which she maintained by not eating, drinking black coffee, smoking cigarettes, and taking amphetamines :eek:) and then ballooning up to over 200 lbs. (she was 5' tall). This was before her full-blown alcoholic days. Her attitude toward any form of exercise was "ladies don't sweat". And she never, ever divulged her true weight to anyone. She wore a lot of "tents" and had "big hair" to try to disguise her obesity.

But she did help me with any :crazy: diet I chose to go on (even though I was less overweight than she). And then sabotaged :devil: me by bringing home granola (the healthy :p kind with about 5 kinds of sugar in it), cookies, and ice cream.

I too, like saef learned about how to be healthy by reading, reading, reading. I'm still learning - thank you 3FC peers! :D

Dagmar :strong:

Get her to... huh... good luck with that!

The part about education not working makes sense to me. If education worked, none of the kids would be smoking!

My mother wasn't able to live out any hopes through me--in fact, she didn't know what to do with me--because I wasn't the girly-girl she was or that she had hoped for. I also was not overweight as a younger person. Questions of having the "correct body" just never came up. It was a different time.

I have found that it's best to concentrate on myself and not try to interfere with others. I don't mean I never feel concern. I just realize that people will change when they are ready; they may never be ready; and it's not up to me to pass judgment on them. What is up to me is to behave with compassion and kindess toward them, to the extent I am able.

Jay

Dagmar all you can do with DH is keep on trying...how ever frustrating that can be....:hug:

On behalf of all moms out there....

they just didn't have the resources that many of us do today...

of course my kids are the same age as some of you...son 30...daughter "my baby" turned 28 yesterday....step-d 23...nephew 20...

Now my son/daughter and step-d really take advantage of what we have learned as a society in health and exercise...

my nephew...not so much...so like his Uncle Gary...lol

EZ to educate ourselves...

it's the doing part some of us stink at!

Many places are like this. (I live in one of them & work in another one.) But this is not true of everyone inhabiting a particular plot of land. It is only true of certain groups. You need to "find your people." They may not be your coworkers or your neighbors, though they could be. My guess based on your posts here is that you will mingle more comfortably with craftspeople, artists, adjunct college teachers & the many people who make a living servicing the wealthy while also doing their art or pursuing their passion on their own time. (Paul Fussell called them "Class X" in his wonderful book on social class,* because they simultaneously exhibit traits of the middle class, the lower class & the upper class.) Every city has these people, but they're particularly profuse in large metropolitan areas. Do you know any of them?

Yeah, here we differ greatly. When I got my first therapist, to help me with my anorexia-which-then-became-bulimia (yes, Allison, I'm the woman who does it all quite thoroughly, when she dedicates herself to something), the words that came up a lot were "enmeshment' and "individuation." Which is why I have given some thought to the mother/daughter relationship & why the dialogue about food, eating, weight & bodily control has all kinds of crosscurrents in it.

And it's all because of the best intentions. My mother didn't talk about health; it was about appearance. As a beautiful woman, but one who hadn't done that well in school, she knew what kind of power beauty bestows. Not just sexual attractiveness; I'm sure everyone here has seen the research about good-looking people being more likely to be hired, promoted, rated well, etc. She wanted that for me. Since I was a "such-a-pretty-face-if-only..." girl. She saw unfulfilled potential in me. My triumph would have been her triumph, too.

Unfortunately, I did not become a baton twirler, like her.

I'd rather do unassisted pullups.


______________________

*Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. Touchstone. 1992 [1983]. ISBN 978-0671792251. Highly recommended by saef as it's not only informative but really funny.

http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-.../dp/0671792253

.

This is me. I used to wonder how DH could build the homes he does and work with these ultra-wealthy people and come home to our little house. Granted we've "moved on up" in the past few years and can hold our own in these groups, but we'll never be equals to them. Seriously, you can PAY CASH to build your $5 million dollar home? (Said as we're in the process of refinancing to save an additional $400 per month on our mortgage.) I won't even go into the cars here...

Not much more to add here. I spent most of the day yesterday reading about Costa Rica and formulating my wardrobe. I have to go buy some hiking/kayaking sandals, and these are the ones my friend recommended as being versatile and very comfortable (but that I find very ugly): http://f.keenfootwear.com/fileserver...=120&h=120&c=1

Saef - I think a lot about the mother-daughter relationship in relation to my self image as well. My mom was always slim, and was very athletic when she was younger. She had me younger than she planned and it threw off some of her long term plans, sent her life in a different direction from what she expected. I outgrew her pretty young, and while she never specifically criticized my weight she often lamented that I couldn't share her clothes, commented about boys not liking chubby girls, similar types of comments. I didn't like to shop for clothes, didn't wear much makeup, downplayed my appearance while desperately wanting to be pretty. Along came my now SIL when I was in college and all of a sudden my mom had the skinny, girly girl who liked to shop, was drop dead gorgeous and loved purses and shoes. She and mom would shop together, often picking up things for me that didn't always fit - usually too small. It, along with feeling a little unwanted from the beginning, has created some complications in our relationship over the years. Even now she still will buy me clothes in the wrong size, though now she buys ones that are too big more than too small. We are getting better as I get older and learn how to filter things that I know really aren't about me so much as about her. I'm old enough now to know that she has an eating disorder and probably an unhealthy self esteem, and that she was so young when I was a baby.

On the modeling behavior topic - I agree that it can only go so far. On the peer pressure side, I've seen that work. I surrounded myself by people larger than me in college, so I didn't feel any pressure to get control of my weight. When I started surrounding myself with healthier people, real and online, I began to work to get healthier. I started running because of my competitive streak wanting to run like Midwife, PhotoChick and my desire to be in EZ's 5ks of a few years back.

Andrea - two days without off plan eating are two successful days. I have to look at every day as its own chance to be successful - lather, rinse, repeat, etc. :) I'm so jealous of your trip, even with working while there. Enjoy yourself and be safe!

Me, I had 13 on plan days (with a planned wedding, that I don't count as off plan), then fell off plan last night with midnight McDonald's. I have to just chalk it off and start again today.

My AC was serviced yesterday morning, when we got home last night we found that the downstairs zone wasn't turning on and that the system wasn't pulling as efficiently. I think that the filters the AC tech put in are too thick and that they froze the system. He is coming back this afternoon. Argh. The frustration over that is what led to the late night snacking.

On the social class discussion - I grew up in a household without much money, my dad had five jobs when I was a child, and even as he moved into computers and was able to only work one main job he always worked a lot. We lived a lot on credit cards back then, and even though we were in a tiny house we never gave the outward impression of less. I still as an adult am surprised by the house I live in and the things that I have, sometimes feel like I'm out of place somehow.

alinnell, my partner LOVED those sandals. They are great for outdoors, and very comfortable. Not only that, but she got a lot of compliments on them. Go figure! I'd say they are very much worth it. I say this in past tense because she developed a foot problem--a bone spur--and now can't wear any kind of backstrap. Sigh.

Saef, when I was a pre-teen, I sent away for body-building materials from the ads in the back of comic books. My name was ambiguous enough that I figured they wouldn't know I was a girl.

We didn't have any kind of hand weights, but we did have some old window weights taken out of double-hung windows. They were light--only a pound or two, I think. I used to use them for biceps curls, etc. Back then, it was not considered proper for women or girls to do anything like that. I'm glad that times have changed.

My mom was very thin, especially when she was carrying me. I think she weighed under 100 pounds. Later on, though, she put on quite a bit of weight. (I managed to surpass her in that when I got to be that age.) I wonder about her relationship with food. I never knew her to do any formal exercise, but life was more strenuous then anyway.

We were working class, but my parents were not uneducated. I grew up thinking everyone listened to classical music. But, we never had a lot of money, and both my parents had Depression Mentality (referring to the 1930s). What that means is, they were cheap, but at the same time lacking in a clear idea of what a "lot of money" would be. I have to be careful myself because of that--I tend to think that if I have $10,000 I'm rich.

OK, back to work for me.

Jay

Wow.... you notice that so many of us have "mom" issues when relating to weight, but no one is mentioning "dad" issues?

I also have horrible memories regarding my mom and my weight. My mom was always anorexia thin (5'7" and the most she ever weighed was 120 and usually 100 or less)-- she smoked non stop and drank black coffee non stop. She never exercised and ate what she wanted, when she wanted. When she was upset (which was often-- she was bipolar)-- she wouldn't eat. She always lamented how horrible it was that she couldn't find clothes small enough. I didn't commiserate. She and I had a rocky relationship to say the least and she often called me fat and worse. I'm sure my problems started there. I was determined not to do the same to my dd's, but no matter what we say or do as parents, we somehow make mistakes.

Andrea-- I hope you have an amazing trip!! Don't worry about your food/weight too much. I'm sure you'll do fine and any damage you do will be temporary and fixable when you return.

Don't worry Michele, I have "dad" issues about my weight. :lol: It's true though, my dad was always obese and he was far more critical of my weight than my mom was (at least, if she was thinking things, she didn't say them out loud). My mom had her own issues with her weight and body image. My dad just claimed he was telling me I was fat and I need to lose weight so I wouldn't end up like him . . . except for the part where I was 13 years old and at a perfectly healthy weight at the time. :rolleyes:

My DD adopted a little grey kitten today. At first she wanted to name him Pickles but has decided that doesn't work for him. Anyone have any suggestions? He's 2 months old.

The only time a parent mentioned my weight to me was at a family gathering. We were all sitting in the living room, and my father looked at me and said, "Jay, how did you get so fat?"

That was a conversation stopper for sure.

I was in my 40s at the time.

My father was an odd man who did not have much in the way of social skills and also took a certain pleasure in saying mean things to people.

I said, "Dad, I ate too much."

The conversation moved on.

My father no longer had the power to hurt me by this time, but I do still remember it, obviously.

Jay

Re: the comments on shoes, take my advice and throw away your flip-flops. this morning while walking my dog, and wearing flip-flops I tripped and fell face down on the sidewalk resulting in a trip to ER and nine stitches on my face. I threw out the flip-flops and the tee shirt and shorts I was wearing , too bloody.I have the start of a beaut of a black eye.