When I was around 10, I started observing my mothers friends when they got together. Somehow they always had a conversation regarding weight. Who had lost what, how much someone had to lose, the one person complaining about how nothing was working. Diets of the week and that sort of thing. I don't remember a lot of specifics. But I do remember thinking, "Why are we so worried about our sizes? Is it really that important?"

I didn't want to grow up becoming one of those women. I thought exercise was ridiculous, and limiting what you ate was worse. As I got older I started understanding why, but never really changed my lifestyle. Now that I have, its strange to think I relate to these women I didn't want to turn into so many years ago...

Its crazy that I run 4-5 miles a day now, just because I enjoy it. That I stop eating when I'm full and for the most part avoid boredom binging. That I enjoy eating healthily, being active, and fit. It just wouldn't have mattered a long time ago...

I don't even know how I hit that point. But I'm sure glad I did...

I've had a similar experience.

I remember thinking that weight watchers and all that was crazy and that people who were limiting themselves just "weren't living." I thought that life was too short to worry about what you were eating and all that.

Except life is a whole lot better when you're fit and eating right! It's too short to spend it sitting around and eating!

This is interesting. I grew up with my mom, and she struggled mightily with her weight. I had just assumed what she was going through was a normal part of adult life, at least until I got into college.

I used to babysit for a family in which the dad was significantly overweight. The kids were healthy, the wife was a normal weight. But you wouldn't believe the crap he used to say at the dinner table, particularly to his son. This kid was redheaded, skinny as a rail. And the dad would always tell him not to finish his dinner, or not to take a second helping, because he was worried that the kid would end up "fat like him." I felt so bad for him, and also in a way bad for the father who felt the need to displace his own guilt and regret onto his kid.

Then again, my family never talked about weight, health, nutrition, exercise, nothing. And I ended up overweight, while the kid with the pressure from his father is still skinny as a rail.

There has to be some happy medium...

I think there are healthy ways to talk about weight and unhealthy ways. Part of the problem is (and I dealt with this too growing up) is when we're exposed to unhealthy ways young (like gossiping about others, associating intelligence/beauty with weight etc). Then there's this temptation to believe that dieting/exercise=vanity/unhealthy behaviors and it shouldn't be done.

However, that's simply not the case. Watching one's diet and exercising IS healthy but it's how we approach it. It shouldn't be all-consuming. If we're slim it shouldn't make us think that we're better than someone else. It should be done, though, to help us love our bodies, to help us feel healthy and strong, to help us live a more comfortable and longer life.

It's how we approach it rather than diet and exercise in and of itself.

I find this sometimes in the fat acceptance movement. There's an idea that you shouldn't want to change your body weight and "just live life and let your weight find a natural setting point". Well, I would agree with that IF you exercise regularly and have a healthy relationship with food already. But many of us don't. I know I sure didn't so at some point I had to start dieting and exercise to make myself healthy.

I guess, what I see as different between the poor examples that I saw growing up and the way I choose to live my life is the understanding that this is for my health and I'm making positive steps to improve my quality of life. That doesn't include fad diets or placing my self-value on my weight.