This thread has me confused. And here is why. It isn't this thread but many threads on 3FC.

I see over and over again in threads people saying if you should be happy with your weight no one should judge you. Or usually in threads regrading significant others (the male most of the time) is chastised for saying something about the weight.

Well I was never am not now happy about my weight. How could I be? I think that is totally normal. I NEVER want to be happy or ok with being as overweight as I am. NEVER. But the same time I would never not let people see me or take pictures or have Facebook. I know this is just me as an individual but I am not going to hide from the weight. I am not going to pretend it isn't there. I KNOW I am not my weight. Own it, conquer it, deal with it, overcome it, is my approach.

I also separate weight from other things. Am I a good husband, friend, father, worker, son? Yes. I also happen to heavy which I am never happy about and even worse resigned to. I had been resigned to it and I think that is the worse and I totally understand it happens from time to time.

Hated the pictures of me also. I get that. But they are what they are.

But anyhow I get very confused on the boards where people are, rightfully, saying you should have good self-esteem, and weight is weight not who you are as a person. I agree with all of that. But then doing all the things listed in above posts. Just very confusing.

You're right, I do think that everyone agrees that we should all have good self esteem, we should feel comfortable with ourselves and value ourselves, and while recognizing that we need to lose weight (for our own health and because we want to, not for anyone else), we shouldn't let that bring us down by letting it define us.

But simply put, it's easier said than done. More than anything, I want to be happy with who I am and not feel embarrassed about my weight, but it's not a switch I can turn on and off. I can't wake up one day and say, 'that's it, today I don't care what the world thinks, I am who I am and I'm ok with it'. I'm sure I speak for many people here when I say that we are trying to get over our fears and are trying not to let our weight hold us back, but it's not an overnight thing it does take time, and we are trying.

Hope that answers a bit of your question

I guess this is why it is so confusing. I DON"T think you should ever say you are ok with it. I think that is the WORSE thing. I have a weight problem. But it isn't going to define me. There are plenty of horrible, awful people who SHOULD be ashamed of themselves and are skinny.

I am a good person, happy with myself as a person, not happy with my weight, not EVER ok with it. But I am not going to HIDE from it. And I get if people think I shouldn't be what I weigh. I myself don't think I should. But the weight isn't me, it is an aspect of me, and not a defining one at that.

It has also helped me to understand all the politics, money, and big business interests in creating such an unhealthy food/weight environment in the US. That has helped me in two ways. Realizing there were forces making it at the least, very easy to get overweight. And anger at those forces and wanting to well, frankly, shove my good and improving health in their faces and never partake of their products ever again.

I totally relate/get what you're saying. That wasn't my intent of this thread. I actually had just avoided yet another skype encounter with an old college friend and I was sick and tired of it. The loss of my old confidence (when I was a healthy, thin weight) kills me more than anything else...and hearing about other people's similar struggles/avoidance actually motivates me to keep the transformation going. It's both solidarity and commiseration, but never acceptance. I accept mySELF but not my fat. I accept my body for it's core strength, but not the layers of abuse I've piled on top of it. I hope that makes sense!

eh. Money follows money. If people aren't interested in a product, they wont get investment. Throughout history people have been hedonistic, and human nature itself gravitates toward pleasure and path of least resistance. Business is amoral. Individual choice is key. Bottom line? We chose those products when we could have chosen another.

Yes that is exactly what I am saying.

And the individual choice thing is not the whole story. There are food islands. There are many millions of poor people who don't have reliable transportation and the only food, literally, available to them is starchy, high carbs, fattening, extremely unhealthy food.

We artificially deflate the price of corn and inflate the price of sugar. Look it up. Sugar costs more in the US then anywhere in the world. So America, by far, has the highest HFCS consumption per capita in the world. Kids and adults of course are bombarded by fast food commercials. We have allowed happy meals and toys and all that. In many locations the only playground is a McDonalds.

This is the tip of the iceberg. It is a complete and total illusion that it is JUST about individual choice. The USDA has promoted low fat over low carbs for decades and look what happened. The environment is supremely unhealthy and it isn't just about giving people what they want. It is about every trick in the book to promote the most unhealthy but most profitable food. It is very much the companies themselves promoting and advertising in every shameless way whatever is most profitable.

Let me say individual choice is extremely important. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford healthier food, not everyone is. But it is costly. And for economic survival we have to have two incomes. I know most do. I am not complaining. But that does complicate always being able to eat at home. And within a block of our house there are a multitude of fast food places. Not many healthy places or choices. And the corn fed beef is artificially subsidized and the bread in the bun. Think someone serving a healthy choice can create a $1 menu item? Really hard. That hamburger is subsidized by all of us in many ways.

Growing up I got school lunches. I am sure I got a lot of HFCS. But that was the choice, the only choice for me. Thank goodness they were available, not complaining about that. But they probably were not very healthy. There is not a level playing field. A lot of the most unhealthy aspects of American diets are given heavy advantages by very powerful groups. We are the HFCS capital of the world NOT because of individual choice but because of politics. I doubt there was an American CONSUMER around that said yeah give me HFCS. But there were plenty of business people who saw a killing, sadly literally, to be made.

diamond,

I made peace with my weight for a number of years. Did I think it was the highest and best form that my body could manifest? Clearly no, but like a scar from an injury it was what it was and I needed time to heal from the injury that caused the scar in the first place. It is only now that I am able to deal in a healthy way with that scar or roughly 100 pounds of fat.

In my response I said I shied away from pictures like many of the others but I also noted that I was camera shy well before I was fat (and as a child). After thinking about it after I posted that bit of intel, I realized that I was never fully comfortable with myself as an image. I tend to live inside my head and what I saw in photos for good and ill was "not me" essentially. I can't explain it better than that. I may always be camera shy.

As for meeting old friends, family, classmates, people that haven't seen me since gaining weight, it's a hard thing, especially I think for women who tend to be judged on their appearance more than any other criteria and much more heavily on that criteria alone. The look of shock was the first bullet to take. In the past I had old co-workers (mostly male) that were so uncomfortable talking to me on a chance meeting after I got fat that for their sakes (as well as my own) I tend not to attend reunions of folks that I haven't seen in a very long time.

That might also be the truth for me after I've lost weight. I don't know if I can bear the comments about my appearance, even for the good. I am the same person. I can't abide being judged for my shell and yet I'm a realist. It happens all the time. Unless you've been in those situations where the person you are talking to clearly wants to bolt or is distinctly looking for a fast get away or on the flip side yadda, yadda about how good you look now, you just can't get how uncomfortable that situation is for both parties really.

Even some members of my family are "ashamed" of my appearance (still after all these years) even though I'm always well groomed, well dressed and attend scrupulously to details of hygiene. Until I didn't care any more about what they thought, I only came back to the states for important funerals.

It's not as much about self esteem per se, it's more about preserving whatever level of self esteem you have. I don't think anyone wants to have whatever self esteem they possess be it high or low voluntarily shot through with holes. For example I suspect Oprah Winfrey has pretty high self esteem but I don't see photos of her parading around in a bathing suit or skimpy clothes. She chooses her battles like we all do given our own personal weaknesses.

That's how I see this issue. Because I've been fat for so long I've tried to live my life to the fullest, not putting things off for when I'm not fat, which includes strenuous activity, sailing, travel, the beach, nice clothes (as nice as fat clothes can be) a nice home, hobbies, a good marriage, but I also pick my battles. I tend to fly first or business class because I'm large and mildly claustrophobic, I gird up for visits with the family and I don't volunteer to make myself and others uncomfortable by going out of my way to meet what are essentially old strangers.

My 2 cents.

Vintagecat,

I respect all of that. Very well articulated. Makes a lot of sense. And yes even as a guy I know what not to wear. I even have a 'tucked shirt' exemption from my boss (I am only joking a little). I was just never OK when I had a huge gut tucking my shirt in. I didn't want to see it, I am sure no one else did.

My gut is way down but still don't tuck my shirt in.

Back to HFCS just a little. Found a great, recent article. We always check labels for it now. And I have given up soda, even diet for almost a year now. Very little fast food since May. 2 visits to Five Guys for a burger on lettuce, really tasty btw. But it is really scary HFCS and the United States.

http://www.sott.net/article/266575-F...outh-of-the-US

This. Exactly how I feel about it.

diamond,

I agree with you on the HFCS. It's a travesty in the richest country in the world that we have such general poor nutrition and crappy food choices. I made a comment earlier on another thread about our young girls carrying most of their excess weight high, little pre-apples in the making. I blame hormones in our foods and possibly HFCS. It's a disaster.

Additionally meat eaters have very little choice. We are doing okay financially but we can't afford range fed hormone and antibiotic free beef with any regularity. As far as I know, chicken that is organic and hormone free is not regularly available in this town.

Our food system is sad indeed. I try to opt out with growing my own, buying organic and from farmers markets when possible.

Totally agree with what you are saying- I don't want comments about my weight in either direction. I don't want it to MATTER to other people.

not to mention, diamond, women in western society (and others) are valued for their bodies over everything else; men do not suffer from the same issue. additionally, because of this difference, overweight men see positive representations of themselves in media - male, overweight sitcom characters frequently have beautiful wives and an awesome family, for example. women do not get featured as main characters this way, let alone overweight women.

media representation has a huge influence over self esteem; it affects how others interpret you and how you see yourself. crash diets are more frequently targeted to women, unrealistic weight goals are pushed, and many women are led to feel that they are worthless if they're above a certain body fat percent. because "diet" is a word that is so largely associated with women, dr pepper came out with a product called "dr pepper 10" and its entire campaign was based around the idea that this was a drink meant for men, belittled women in the commercials to create a deeper separation from their product and femininity, and boasted that it wasn't like all of those other diet drinks because it had "10 masculine calories".

another example of what i mean: i was watching how i met your mother a little over a year ago and the main character, ted, went on a date with a really beautiful girl; everything was perfect and they got on the subject of eating habits, and ted made the comment that she shouldn't feel ashamed of what she eats and that she should be able to eat whatever she wants. it then came out that she was a "former fatty". the punchline was that he fled the scene as soon as this was revealed and all of his friends approved of his actions. this had been before i'd started dating again and i'd avoided dating for months, despite wanting to, because of it. in fact, i've never told any of the people i've dated about my weight loss because i'm ashamed of it and fear this exact scenario.

anyway, tl;dr: women face much different hurdles than men do and our self esteem, because of societal representation and thus societal expectations of how a woman should be, is much more rooted in the external.

Diamond, I understand your confusion. It is a mixed message. And in my case, I think it's because my thoughts and emotions are two very different things. I have two ways of responding to everything in life: logically with my thoughts and emotionally with my feelings, and as intelligent as I am, my emotions are usually more powerful than my thoughts. I can be very logical when giving advice to others, and I understand fully what I "should" do when it comes to my own behavior, but the bottom line is my emotions usually overpower my thoughts and no amount of logic is going to change the fact that I am too embarrassed to be seen at this weight by my former friends and classmates who knew me when I was thin. With my new friends, who have always known me at this weight, no problem. With my family, who loves me unconditionally and has watched me get larger over the years, no problem. But with my old friends, whom I've been separated from by location for years, I can't get past how embarrassed and ashamed I am that I let my weight get this out of control from the time that they knew me, and I am horrified at the thought of letting them see me like this. It's an emotional reaction. I "know" I shouldn't let these emotions keep me from seeing them or letting them see me, but the guilt is more powerful than the logic. I could argue all the best reasons for why I shouldn't let the guilt rule me and I agree wholeheartedly with the reasons, but my emotions still overpower my thoughts. So the best solution for me is to lose the weight and start doing the things I've been fearful of doing, like going to class reunions, and that's the path I am now taking.

I could have written this. I tend to avoid Skype and Facebook for those reasons, too -- I just don't want anyone to see what I look like now, and it feels like I'm missing out on a lot. I also avoid cameras, going out with friends, clothes shopping, fun activities that require a certain level of fitness, and dating.

I know, but not first hand, the judgement and pressure on appearance is more for women. More INTENSE.

But don't think for a second the media gives a free ride to overweight guys. The fat guy is usually the funny, sweet, asexual friend. Not taken seriously as boyfriend material. Often not taken seriously at all.