I asked a fairly innocuous question and felt like I got attacked in the answers. I imagine that it was not meant that way, but it lead me to wonder.
While losing weight might avert any health problems in the offing, right now, I am healthy even though fat. Maybe lucky? Dunno. The point is that my future health is simply not enough to make me take this on. The fact of the matter is that I am tired of being fat. Tired of being the 'fat mom' in my kids' circle of friends. I want to shop in other than the 'fat' ladies sections, and I just want my front to be flat, and my *ss to look good in a pair of jeans. If that makes me shallow, stupid or my journey less legitimate than the "health" seekers out there, then so be it. I am willing to concede that I am fairly new to the journey, who knows, maybe my attitude will be all about health at some undetermined time in the future, but right now it's not.
And, on a positive note, the scale shows a loss today of 1 pound.
tracyg

I am not aware of your situation or any of the issues raised, but I will say that you are not the only one who has experienced a feeling of being attacked on these boards. (I have never felt that way personally).

Sometimes I think people feel that way because it is very hard to appropriately communicate with others when you can't read voice tone and body language. Smilies are a poor substitute.

But from the remainder of your post, I get the sense that you are doing something that a number of people think is unhealthy, but that you do not. This seems to be the main reason that people feel "attacked" on these boards.

Without having read any of the posts about the situation, I would venture a guess that the people who you feel attacked by were trying to steer you toward a more healthy lifestyle and felt that you may be doing something that could endanger your health or actually sabotage your weight loss efforts somewhere down the line.

Many people who post here have been down the weight loss road many times before. I think many of us tried strategies that were designed to maximize weight loss and didn't care about or focus on health. The problem is, these strategies do often backfire. The weight comes back (with a bunch of friends), and then we are left with a worse situation than before. Many people experience health problems as a result of these strategies...

Anyway, I guess what I am saying is that while you may have felt attacked, probably the people involved were motivated by a sense of trying to help you or to prevent you from going down a road they have gone. Maybe you aren't worried about your health now (and honestly, at your weight you may very well not have experienced any problems yet), but they may have already walked in your shoes and are trying to get you to see the risks you may be bringing to yourself.

I will say that if you haven't experienced any health problems it is easier to take your health for granted and not recognize it for the gift it is.

Okay, I went back and read a couple of your posts and saw that I was one of the people who answered you in calorie counters.

I know I wasn't trying to attack you, and didn't even think you were doing anything unhealthy (so much for my last post!). In my case, I was just trying to help you to take a little perspective (that it can take a while to do this and the scale isn't always reflective of our behaviors).

I guess I saw you as seeking advice, and perhaps that's not what you wanted. In hindsight, I think that is another reason often feel attacked.

So, I'm sorry if I was one of the ones who said anything to upset you. It was certainly not my intent.

BTW, congrats on the loss -- they feel so good when you've been waiting for them a while.

Oh, Tracy, you are definitely not the only one who is losing weight for the shameful "v" word. Although at first I was losing weight strictly to preserve my future health and well-being, I must confess the current reasons are vanity-related. I want to look nice in clothes, get a lot of attention from guys (even though I don't like it most of the time, but that's another story), and feel attractive/sexy. We have girls on here that only need to lose 20 or so pounds who are already in healthy ranges, so they definitely aren't doing this for health concerns. I do feel a bit guilty now that my motivations have changed, but I really don't have any other reason to lose weight. Face it, as much as we don't want to admit it, we all want to look good. But as we age, even having a little bit of extra weight can be detrimental to our health. So the reason is still there, it's just not as ominous as it was before.

Tracy ... never doubt that there is an element of vanity in this for all of us!
I haven't gone to check out those other threads but I'm going to ditto what Wyllen said about the limitations of communicating via the written word. Sometimes the sting is not removed by the placement of a couple of smilies.

I'll be back!

I had a couple of thoughts and am going to ramble.
Perception of the written word on the internet is one of my buggaboo's.
Wyllen covered that quite nicely but I'm going to add just a couple of things.
There are lots of reasons why a post can seem blunt. I have posted in a hurry. I should have waited until I had time to phrase my response more diplomaticly. Some posters think they know the answer and just give it. Some posters do know the answer and just give it. I can be touchy. I can be defensive ... as a reader. The anonymity of the internet allows us to type things we would not say.

I'm going to site this thread ....

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/show...ghlight=follow

.... where there are some interesting perceptions of posts and posters.

I may come under fire for this but I highly recommend that you seek the root of the fruit you've been offered. If a post is bothering you, check the poster out. Some have a lot to offer, just don't present it very prettily. Some talk out both sides of their face. Some truly care and want the best for you. Some like to give advice. Some just like to post.

The good thing about the internet is that anyone can use it. The bad thing about the internet is that anyone can use it.

All in all, I feel far more comfortable at 3FC than I have on any message board I've ever been on (and I'm a message board junkie). The hugely vastest number of folks here are fabulous. Hang in there Tracy.

Tracy, believe me, you are not the only one who's doing this mostly for vanity reasons. Yes, I was having minor issues with my health like getting totally out of breath climbing stairs, being tired all the time, and this awful rash between my thighs and my waistline. BUT, most of all, I wanted to look HOT!! I didn't want to shop in the plus size section anymore. I wanted to go shopping with my friends and actually shop WITH them. I wanted compliments, I wanted to WOW people, I didn't want to be that invisible fat girl anymore!!

I'm gonna be honest about something here -

Over the last couple of years, in my search for support and finding others like me during my weight loss journey, I've been to several weight loss boards. Some of them dead (not enough activity to keep me interested), some of them discussing things I didn't care to discuss (mostly young teens saying things like, "I've discovered the secret to weight loss! Become anorexic!"), boards that advocated pushing diet pills, boards dedicated to particular "diets" only, etc etc etc. I didn't like those types of boards.

I was even on a couple of boards that seemed pretty neat, with enough people to keep things moving, but to be blunt, they were some downright *****es. They would run anyone off that didn't carry an opinion that coincided with their own. If you disageed with them, you were toast.

Disagreement is part of life. No two people are always going to see eye-to-eye. There will always be debate and differing opinions. But I'll tell ya something, out of all the weight loss sites I visited, this one is the best.

Why?

Because there's a good mix of people here. People who only need to lose 10 pounds. People who need to lose over 100. People who do low carb, people who do low fat. You have vegetarians and vegans, you have people on Atkins, South Beach, Low GI diets. And what I was happiest to see was a lot of people like me - people who aren't ON a diet, but making permanent lifestyle changes.

Whatever the case, you have all walks of life here. The mods here are kind and helpful and ACTIVE. They participate on their own site instead of letting it sit and go to **** like a lot of site owners do. You don't have freaks here pushing pills or screaming at you to get a life when you say you need to lose 10 pounds to squeeze into a dress. Or like the "vanity issues" topic where it appears a couple of people feel guilty for wanting to lose weight just so they can look good. Well what's wrong with that! If that's why you wanna lose weight, then do it! Weight loss isn't about perfection, it's about doing what makes YOU feel good. So if you're trying to lose weight to look good in a pair of short-shorts and that's what will make you feel good about yourself, then DO IT!

We've only got one life, why live it unhappy with yourself?

But differing opinions or no, there will always be someone here with a positive word for you. Always.

I've been in a couple of 'debates' on these boards, but it never got childish and out of hand. I'm sure I've said a few things that may have hurt some people's feelings in the past, but I never meant to. Sometimes that's just the way it comes out on the net. But I've never seen true, downright maliciousness here. And believe me, I've seen some nasty stuff out there. One place in particular (I'm not pointing fingers or naming names, sorry) had this girl, we'll call her Miss Priss, who would call anyone that came onto the board giving advice a know-it-all. "Oh you think you know everything! You don't know crap! Why don't you just get out of here! Go lose that weight you need to lose, fatty! Hahaha, I've only got 10 pounds to go but you're a fat cow! Hahaha!"

This is the crap I've seen on other boards. I've never seen that here. This is a nice community where people get along. But because it's such a large community, you're going to run into some conflict. But it's never going to be downright nasty. If someone says something to hurt your feelings and you call them on it, there's a 99.9% chance you'll get an apology. Because these are good people here

Boy can I relate to the thigh rash! I hate that thing! I also have to admit to the vanity thing. Since I'll be turning 45 here shortly, I feel like I'm losing not only my youth, but my looks. Losing the weight will definately help me to feel better about myself. On the other side of the coin, it was my doctor who told me 40 lbs needed to be gone, and no more excuses. I guess that is a motivator also (but a cute pair of jeans and a sweater this fall would be awesome)! Keep it up, Lady, we're behind you!

I am very close to the same weights you are and are shooting for and you know what, I think who gives a rats hiney, I told my dr. I wanted to lose weight and she asked me why, I can keep up with 3 kids a full time job, I can lift anything a man can and I can a run a 12 minute mile. I just keep my curvy figure.

I am losing weight so I can fit into cute little outfits, and honestly, I want to be trophy for my husband to show off. he chased me for 10 years before I finally even gave him a thought. I know I am already his trophy, but why not be a good looking one. My husband loves me and gives me all the support I could ever want.

And just for everyone to know, don't get the whole trophy thing wrong, my husband and I are equal partners in our relationship. I have been on diets for myself before and never went anywhere. This time I say I am doing it for him and I am just melting.

Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to lose weight. I've never believed in telling someone that their reasons are wrong, just because they don't have the same reasons I do.

I see nothing wrong with someone wanting to lose weight just to look good. But I do agree that somewhere in there, within yourself, there must be real motivation. Doing it for yourself, if only just a little bit, is important, I think. Somewhere in there, at least a little bit of this, has to be for YOU.

Hi Tracy

First of all if you felt that you didn't quite get the response you were after when you posted before.

Second of all, vanity is a good enough reason. Heck ANY reason is a good enough reason to get you to a healthy weight. The reason I started out was vanity, the reason I kept going was vanity, the reason I'm still keeping going to the gym, lifting weights and kickboxing, even though I'm at a "healthy" weight is... VANITY! However, along with vanity are a few other reasons, I DO want to be healthy, because I know being healthy will provide me with the best quality of life, AND being healthy lets me enjoy this new-found sexy-bod that I've got from being so vain!

So to vanity and anything else that motivates us, no matter how silly, just don't overlook health completely in the quest for the beautiful

I started losing weight because I needed to set a good example for my kids. I wanted to be healthy, eat healthy, be in good shape so I can play with them. But about 1/3rd of my brain wants to do this for pure looks. I'm tired of looking in the mirror and not liking what I see. I've been doing that since I was in grade school. I even use that part as a motivator to do my exercises. I think we all have a part of us that wants to lose weight for vain reasons. I think it's natural. Once you identify the thing that will drive you to your goal then go with it. It doesn't matter why. Everyone's why is different. Do this for your own reasons.

I do think the people here are really nice and do care about each other.

Yes, the people on this website are the most caring, unselfish people ever! I've never been on a message board before where everyone was so compassionate. We're all here to help and support each other and it's wonderful!!