Thank goodness I used to be FAT
 

Why on earth would I be grateful for THAT?

I've had thoughts like this off and on for awhile and cb's thread reminded me of it...

Thank goodness I used to be FAT. Or actually more correctly, thank goodness I spent my teen and young adult years overweight. Waiting until almost 40 to be thin may be ideal

When I see my impossibly skinny friends (I have 3 that are 5'7-5'8 and 115-122 lbs) bemoan an extra pound like its the most disgusting thing that ever happened to them I am grateful for the perspective. Am I HAPPY that I regained 6 lbs? no, but mostly because I regained it doing behavior that makes me sleep poorly etc. But neither am I disgusted with it.

When I see my always have been thin friends despise the changes that occur when they are blessed with a pregnancy. I LOVED my pregnant body, for the first time in my life I wasnt FAT, I was PREGNANT. I felt like earth momma. I never felt like I was "a huge cow" to quote. When I hear 2 friends say the sole reason they dont want a 2nd baby is that they hated getting fat it makes me want to cry. (I can think of LOTS of other reasons to stick with an only, but that is off topic!)

When I see these same women despair that their hips are permanantly wider or their waists are still thicker even though they are back to their prepreg weight. I am not sure what my prepg waist was, but whatever it was, its better than that now!

When a survey went around awhile ago "how normal are you" and most of them would "rather be run over by a truck than gain 50 lbs" ("as long as I dont die or get paralyzed"...which wasnt explicit in the question) Sad to not know that life can be beautiful no matter your weight. And that weight is not the most painful thing life can offer you.

When several friends gave up breastfeeding "so I can lose those last 5 pregnancy pounds". This time is SO short, is 5 lbs for one more year, 6 more months, THAT bad?

My feet and hips would probably prefer that I had never been fat, but I am starting to think the rest of me is grateful that I never learned to think that being thin was vital to being happy.

Pretty sure my ;) adopted ;) grandson (kiddo #2) is glad about it too! :hug:

I absolutely positively hear and understand what you are saying. And I think it's a great realization.

I am more then happy with my imperfect body. In fact I love and adore my current body. I'm sure most women would not feel that way if they had my body from the onset. Heck, I'm sure *I* wouldn't feel that way had I not been sooo morbidly obese for soooo long in the first place. I am so thrilled to do ordinary things with such ease, things that I know most people take for granted. I know I would not feel this way had I not been so heavy.

But I can't say that I'm actually HAPPY that I was fat in the first place. Probably because of the "level" of fatness that I got up to. I really wasted a huge chunk of my life sitting on the side lines ......... the couch, anywhere I could. In other words - I wasn't too active. I wasn't a full participant in life. I really was very, VERY unhappy. I don't dwell on it too much. But a thread like this brings it up for me.

Though I am sorry I didn't lose the weight earlier (or never got SO fat in the first place), I am grateful that I got it off when I did - and not a second later.

I remember measuring myself late in my pregnancy. I was 35" for all three measurements (bust, waist, hips). I was impressed with how big I was! Wouldn't I like to be 35" now for two of the measurements! I weighed 132 and 134 at the very end of my pregnancies. The only size that permanently increased, was my shoe size. I breast fed both babies. That was back in the day when BF was just coming back into "style" again. Within weeks of delivery, I was back to my starting weight, or less. My point is, it wasn't pregnancy, breast feeding or anything else related to reproduction that made me fat. It was from eating too much and exercising to little. :lol: Surprise!

I am lucky that I grew up in a time when it was not considered necessary to be stick thin. In fact, there was a long time in my young life when I thought I was too thin. I still have trouble thinking of myself as a fat person.