So, we work REALLY FRICKEN HARD to lose weight and exercise, with all those odds against us, work on issues, see specialists, read and learn, weep and try again when we fall...WORK HARD AS HECK to lose 50, 100, 150+ pounds...and they still think less of us? People! That's CRAZY!

New research out of the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, The University of Manchester and Monash University, has revealed that anti-fat prejudice still persisted against former obese women, even after they had lost a significant amount of weight.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/29/overweight-women-experience-obesity-stigma-even-after-weight-loss-study-finds/#ixzz1wNrZB5r9

Personal note:  I had a bunless double cheeseburger yesterday with a salad with gorgonzola, apples, and walnuts plus papaya for meal one. Pretty caloric. Then,  I had egg whites with shredded cheddar and a cameo apple with some walnuts and coconut water for meal two. I went a bit over 2100 calories. And I'm up one pound. Not pleased, but also not feeling terribly guilty. The depression makes me a bit apathetic. Not good. But as I'm not into self-flagellation, anyway, that's fine. I simply state it. Poor portion control.

But moving on....

Ready for Summer Mini Challenge #4: Paying it Forward

Anyone who has followed my weight loss journey--on my old blog or this one--knows I believe in being supportive, being cooperative, and paying it forward.

I have learned from previous WL bloggers, from their peaks and valleys, successes and failures;  so I tried to blog useful stuff--not just from MY experience, but from the experience of others and research and books, etc. And I blog my setbacks.

We all have both--successes and setbacks, and we learn from it all. It's worth sharing.

But I do believe in helping those on the same hard journey: I designed and led/co-led multiple challenges, all of which took time and effort, in order to help others the way I felt helped (but added my own touches that I thought were helpful).

I think when we've achieved some epiphanies or made some progress and learned a few things (knowing it's never all and learning is ongoing), there is a sense where we should try to help. Even if it's just saying, "Here I am, what I've done: You can do this. It's possible."

I put up my unattractive Phat Pilates pictures back in 2010 on my old blog, then here in this newer one, because I could not find good info on dealing with obese Pilates clients. I wanted to see folks as big as me...and they weren't out there. So, I put them up. And my message is: "Don't be afraid to try this exercise if you are big. It can be modified. You can do it!" And I left messages at Pilates sites to tell trainers, 'Please learn how to modify for the obese. Learn to reach out to them. It's intimidating for us big folks to enter a gym or studio. Make us welcome. Learn how to work with our larger bodies."

I've seen progress made slowly with Pilates trainers online talking about obese clients (finally). My own trainer had me as a guinea pig, and she can take on big clients now fearlessly.

I want to encourage every big lady out there--middle aged and older, especially--to realize it's not too late to address our weight issues. It's not too late to take up exercise.

If I've been of help to you--with my blog, my Pilates pics, my challenges-- that was my way of thanking the few bloggers who were special encouragement to ME as I began to tackle this issue.

I try to be of help in real life, too. I smile and give thumbs up when I see heavy folks struggling to work out. I look up nutritional plans for people in my family with particular health issues. I post encouragement at other blogs. I post encouragment and study links on Facebook.

I want to be a small little voice in my corner here trying to help my nation move away from the self-destructiveness of our junk food addictions and sedentary propensities. I want my country to thrive (and the whole world, too, which is why we sponsor African and Asian kids to have education, meals, medical care).

Every little voice, on blogs and in real life, offering hope and information and encouragement is one more push to the tipping point to a better world. Every voice counts.

My spiritual gifts were identified years ago--by me and others. Teaching. Exhortation. So, that tends to be how it manifests in my life (online, IRL). I like learning. I like reading. I like sharing information. I like cheering people on to do better. Including ME. :D I cheer myself on. I like to give kind kicks in the butt. I like receiving kind kicks in the butt. It's how I function. I pay it forward with encouragement, information, and trying to be as annoying, rambly real as I am. :D

Be real. Be you. Share your abilities. Help us go forward a bit more... That's my advice for all in the challenge. Share what helps you most and what doesn't. Share your highs and lows. And be honest. We all gain something from human genuineness.

I like the accountability and self-directedness of the RfS challenge. We have to link up. We make our own goals. Our leader is optimistic, energetic, active, and is wanting what we all want: to improve our health and fitness levels and lose weight doing it. I'm glad I joined in. I may not make the progress some others will (we're all different and at different stages in this journey), but being with like-minded folks is a way to keep our focus and remember that OUR GOALS MATTER.

Community matters in weight loss...at least, I've found this. We are not alone.

Let's all pay if forward...

Day 15 Spawn of SoDDDY Challenge: The deliciousness of fatty Cobb salad convenience, a few chilly glimpses of eclipse, and amazement at the self-sabotage all around us while I have a full-on rant about holiday food nuttiness....

Anyone watch the eclipse? I used to be a real avid skywatcher (got my first telescope when I was 13 and it was love with the stars/planetss/etc thereafter). I used to stay out all night to watch meteor showers and stay through the duration of eclipses, but in the neighborhood we're in now, I don't feel safe out at night in the yard, so my skywatching is curtailed. I did catch bits of it as I went in and out in the chilly night. Lovely. The full eclipse phase was particularly beautiful with the rusty-dark moon in shadow and all around it the most beautiful stars of winter--Orion, Taurus, Canis Major...  I mean, it was a bejewelled display with that smoky red lunar stone as the centerpiece. I hope you caught some of it.

Yesterday, my calories made it to  1569 (42/36/22 ratio, too much fat). Made the water and then some. Had low hunger until later in the day, when appetite came back.

Holding at 238.0.

I gotta say that I could get addicted to that Ready Pac Cobb Salad I picked up at Publix. What caught my eye as I was shopping for produce was the big 290 (for the calories) on the label. Of course, those calories were heavy on the fat! But man, so tasty. It was a crazy flavor bomb in my mouth. If you're watching fat, stay away. If you're low-carbing, this baby is insanely yummy for about 300 cals and super-duper convenient for take-to-work type lunches (if you have a fridge or cooler to keep them in, I guess).

Speaking of fatty deliciousness: What's with all the cinnamon rolls, cookies, pies, cakes, and assorted crap my blogging compatriots are indulging in? Seriously, reading our challenge leader's post today echoed what was in my own brain.

I'm hardly the epitome of any sort of really self-deprivation type dieting, but the last thing me, a conditioned overeater, should be doing at ANY holiday is baking up a bunch of all-out butter/sugar/carb-bombs to tempt the hell out of everyone around us.

First off: We obese overeaters should never be baking a bunch of crap for us or anybody. It's counter-productive for us and it's not good for them. Trust me. Kids, no matter how active and lean, don't need to eat half a dozen cookies and a slice of cheesecake just cause it's a holiday. What? Do we want them to be fat, too, and struggle like we do?

Second: How many can really avoid the temptation? For real...

Third: Do we wanna addict another generation to eating tons of sweets/treats and connecting those with love/holiness and they get to pig-out seasonally as well?

I understand that there are holiday traditions and they have meanings beyond mere taste. Emotions, nostalgia...bonds.

But I've seen a couple bloggers who are not just baking one junk food item that has meaning (and if it's loaded with butter/oil/sugar/flour/carbs or a combination thereof, yes, it's junk). It's an uberfest of baking and frying. Does any family need dozens and dozens of items that strain the pancreas and fatten the belly?

I know my family feast will have certain traditional items--quite a lot sanely nutritious, with actual protein and fiber and vitamins and minerals and spices and good stuff, and quite a lot that are pure trash in the nutrition/dieting-aid dept. I have no clue as to what specifically most of the guests will bring. I can only be certain of a few things, and what I bring, natch.

So, while  accept that the holiday is usually just ONE day (maybe more, but generally the big feasting falls on ONE day), and it's not a horrible thing to enjoy the special foods on that one day, even enjoy more than one's diet-level caloric allotment (here I differ from some other dieting bloggers, and that's fine, the world is not full of automatons, but individuals) in order to bask in those memories/bonds/emotions; why is it that there is a week or two weeks or three weeks of eating all the accompanying crap?

Are we just looking for that excuse to overeat? "Well, it's the season. Let's have another cookie! Let's break open that pie! Let's fry up some churros and hit it with some cocoa made with butter! Just like grandma used to make!"

I dunno. I do think we just want a reason to go nuts and totally lose logic about what's sane treat-enjoyment. I mean, we got this fat cause we AREN'T sane about food. And this is like this retro-trip back to an all out vacation to the Land of --and this is Beth's term, but it fits, and if you hate cuss words, look away and skip to the next paragraph-- Food Fuckery.

Part of me is worried that I will fall into the FF pit, because everyone around me seems happy to dig the pit and stock it with candy cane spikes.

Um, if you have fat people in your family, stop with the baking already, stop with the frying and overloading fridges and finding ways to show love with food. Can we show love with something else? Cause with little kids getting diabetes, the idea of a month of candy canes, sugar cookies, pumpkin pies, caramel popcorn, chocolate truffles, spice cakes, donuts, funnel cakes, churros, and what-not is like saying, "Yes, die sooner. Fewer Christmasses, but we'll die in a happy sugar-fat haze."

Oh, man, I went overboard. Sorry. I just worry about myself and all the obese--and there are LOTS of them--younger folks in my family. Lots of us are HUGE, HUUUUUUUUUGE, and the pies, cakes, and crap will be on display like a trough to get us into our caskets sooner.

Christmas has a lot more about it, going for it, special about it that doesn't have calories. With our weight issues in the US, it's time to find new, non-fattening ways to say, 'I love you. Merry Christmas."

And if that came across mean, sorry. I'm more distressed and worried than mean. Oh, well.

On to another day of taming the food demons. Make it a great Tuesday, k?

It's Not Just Cancer that Medical Research Helps, aka as Thank You, Big Pharma, that I can breathe!

I posted a response to a post that Allan mentioned in one of his blog posts. He got really mad at Becky Johns of My Walk from Flab to Fab blog over an entry on cancer.

I didn't stop to do research or get numbers or anything like Allan. This is personal for me, as in ME. My gratitude for the advances of science and pharmaceutical research and the doctors who have tried to improve my life--and keep me breathing.

But I did want to add my own bit. I tried to comment and got an error message (don't know if my comment went through). But this was my personal reaction, which was spontaneous and maybe not as eloquent as I would have liked. Whatever. Here it is:

I do not doubt there is a great deal of bureaucratic waste and some abuses in ANY large, for-profit (or even nonprofit) system, and that includes Big Pharma.

However, I'm alive because of science, technology and Big Pharma. My brother and I were both born with bad, bad asthma,allergies, immune problems. He is 14 years older and grew up in clean air mountains eating farm food (organic, since they were dirt poor and had no high tech fertilizers and such), eating just killed chickens, fresh laid eggs, just milked milk, running and getting exercise. But he had asthma that sometimes simply put him near death. So did I.

I grew up here. I got the bad food that sixties and seventies and 80's youth likes (fast food, sugary junk), and I suffered as my brother did without the benefits of fresh air and food.

HOWEVER, neither one of us saw significant relief from our crippling symptoms until they came out with inhaled steroids and Singular and antihistamines of the stronger sort. That made life almost NORMAL. Prior to that, I'd miss 50 days or more of school He routinely ended up in the ER, me,too.

I would have died without the anesthesia and medical know-how and antibiotics that took care of my acute appendicitis with incipient peritonitis. My father would have died without his anti-epileptic drugs. My mom would have died without her bone marrow stimulating drugs and transfusions when aplastic anemia laid her low. It gave her 6 years of life she and I cherished.

I am a God-fearing woman. I believe in miracles. I believe in the power of prayer. I believe we should not be gluttons and become fat (like I did) becaus it is a sin. I believe that cleaner food is wholesome, which is why I support local farms and belong to an organic co-op. I buy organic milk, eggs, and a lot of my other dairy...and as possible meats and such. I like the local food movement.

But I will not dismiss the immense benefits of medicine, technology, and Big Pharma. People ARE being saved by meds that the pharmaceutical research develops. Lives are being saved.

Is it all pure and perfect. No way. Greed is part of the human sin condition. As is corruption, not just in big corporations, but in any aspect of life--families, churches, small businesses, sports, etc. Where you find profit, you'll find corruption. Where you find desire, ditto.

But I worked in a major hospital. I worked in the hematology/oncology wards, and I saw those doctors, nurses, and the medications/drugs they used sometimes work amazing things to help. I will add that I and a coworker would also pray for our patients on a daily basis--she a Pentecostal, me a Baptist. And my Catholic mom and I would pray constantly for her own healing. We do give God his due. But I believe the God who made our bodies able to repair (to some degree) also gave us brains to come up with remedies. He's the one who gave us the plants out there from which things like healing drugs are refined. Herbs, willow bark, etc...it's been used for ages.

I think to condemn a whole, when that whole does so much good in its parts, is fanatical and short-sighted.

Mir, Princess Dieter

Is there some selfish finagling involved with the "pnk" campaign. Sure. Probably. But I will happily buy pink products if it means more money for scientists (even if others line their pockets). I want a cure. I'm a woman. I've got boobies. I've got sisters with boobies, nieces with boobies, and I want them and myself to KEEP THEM and their lives as long as possible, as healthfully as possible.

I donate to cancer research, the lung association, leukemia. I've had people I love be affected by all these diseases (I'm a bad, bad asthmatic, and I can live almost like a normal person cause I take a bunch of meds, meds that have nearly zip daily side effects and don't make me nuts like the prednisone and epinephrine and theophylline that were my only options growing up). I would have died at age 4 without the medications during hospitalization that kept pneumonia from killing me. (More than one bout of pneumonia.) I would very likely have died of the HOng Kong flu when I was 8 had the doc not had those meds to inject me with (five of them) to keep my airways open. I was moments away from death in 1974 at the age of 14  due to a severe allergic reaction (exposure to a cat, dog and parrot all at once at a pal's house just was too much). Fortunately, the friend's dad was a cop and, thank Heaven, had his car with the lights/siren and rushed me to the ER, not stopping for red lights in the snowy winter. During that drive,  I made my internal confession and prepared to meet my Maker. It was the drugs they injected into me and the drugs they infused into what was left of my airways that saved me so that I can be here, middle-aged and 50, typing today.

Thank you, reasearchers, who came up with these meds. Thank you!

I would love to see lots of diseases and conditions wiped the hell out or essentilly nullified in my lifetime, especially those that affect people who matter to me: multiple sclerosis, lupus, asthma, prostate cancer, fibromyalgia, insulin-dependent juvenile diabetes, paralysis, etc. And if we can put the kibosh on cancer, especially those that affect people well before old age, hooray.

Big Pharma ain't perfect. But Big Pharma makes breathroughs. And my life is better for it.

And I'm not furious at Becky, like Allan. I am dismayed.

And yes, I disagree vehemently with her about cancer research, yes, but I don't disagree with the value of cleaner foods and more wholesome lifestyles (activity, food, less stress, all the things that sages for ages have said is good for us, nothing new).  I can't help but wonder, though, if Becky or one of her children came down with a treatable oncological disease, would she really reject the established medical regimen or chemo? Really?

I have my doubts. I think she'll rethink.

I'll also add that many, many ladies from the churches I've attended home-schooled with excellent results, and I have seen healing miracles happen (sadly, not for my mom or me, but for others). I did have a church pal get healed from cancer without chemotherapy/radiation/drugs, a gal who went the organic, vegetarian route. BUT...one cannot predict when miracles will happen or when a body will on its own go into remission and which will not. Why reject effective medications and regimens out of hand? Why dismiss research that extends and saves lives? God, in the end, is the God who creates the human brain, human ingenuity, human creativity.  So, I do not diss the choice to say no to drugs or to home school. Personal choice. And I pray almost daily for MORE breakthroughs, MORE cures. I pray God blesses researchers to find the brilliant insight that will save MORE lives.

I find no contradiction in taking my daily meds AND eating organic foods and filtering my water and destressing with prayer and exercising. I see it all as part of being healthier.

And I see no contradiction in donating to cancer research /seeing my docs regularly/ staying on top of the research for my medical conditions AND avoiding certain toxins/ eating a mostly healthful diet/using natural remedies and....praying for miracles.

:)

For a fatfighting blogger-doctor's response, read this.

Watch The "Self-Hate" Talk AKA Hate the Fat but Love the Fatty (especially if that fatty is you)

690 days, 8 hours, and 93 lbs to go...

I'm 50. For most of those years, I have been on the continuum that begins at Chubby and ends at Bigger than a Blue Whale. I've done a lot of fat-hating, self-hating talk.

Interestingly, I've not been a fat-hater, fat-basher, not even when I was normal weight (but chubby by society's anorexia-level standards). I've dated chubby dudes and had crushes on BIG guys (Mario Batali, John Goodman come to mind, and I preferred John Travolta tubby). I also have dated pole-thin guys and had crushes on skinny "idols" (lots of J-Rockers and Japanese actors come to mind, who, collected in a room, still weigh in toto less than me, I surmise. Those bony boys are hot. Yes, that's a slim J-male in the photo below right. And, oooh, remember young Clint Eastwood, whose body was astonishingly vertical? ) I've seen fat women and thought they were beautiful, in art and in real life. It didn't occur to me in the slightest to mentally diss them. (Scroll down for a pic of the big-beautiful Crystal Renn, a plus-size model.)

But when it came to ME, I've been brutal over the years. I've been a self-verbal-abuser when it came to my body.

I'm deciding to be done with that. I've been more merciful to myself this year than others, and I want to continue on that path. I don't believe it has ever done me any good to self-hate cause of my weight. It's just added darkness instead of hope. It has not been a good motivator (and as the book I've been reading on change goes, positive trumps negative in the motivation/change game.)

So, I'm giving up the self-dissing re fat.

I hope you do, too. It's not helping us.

Interestingly, I can say there were other times when I seemed to transcend the social stuff and felt really beautiful in my fat. Fat may look worse than thin, but fat FEELS really good. I understood something my sister-in-law told me decades ago (she and my brother have been married 40 years.) She occasionally gets a bit chunky, but usually diets it back down. However, she'd said in conversation with my other sister, back when I was a teenager, how my brother liked how she LOOKED slender, but preferred her chunkier when it came to the bedroom.

I get it. I love the feel of my fat, but not what it does to my health or how it looks in clothes.

However, despite those fleeting moments when I was free of cultural expectations and felt beautiful and looked in the mirror and didn't let myself be horrified, it has been more common for me to berate my body.

I don't see how this is a good thing. But it is automatic. And I'm assuming it's very, very, very common.

The problem is that hating the fat tended to mean hating me. My problems with self-esteem and self-loathing began roughly when I got...chubby. I was normal weight (slim) from infancy to age 9. Then they started me on injected steroids (bad asthma ) and I started plumping up. It changed my self-perception. I began to feel suicidal at that age, too, which might have been depressions from the steroids or from feeling suddenly all that self-loathing from becoming "unpretty.". Maybe both.

It's really hard to separate a part of ourselves from ourself. I want to hate the excess fat and still love myself (and as a Christian, I believe I am more than mere body).  A couple of other bloggers are talking about this today--visit Kate at Fabulous at Fifty, for example. I share her view of the Fat Acceptance movement: I believe we should love fat people as we love skinny people. We should not consider one to be more deserving of respect, love, caring, jobs, etc. Study after study shows there is fat discrimination, and I suspect many a fat person has suicided over the self-loathing and isolation that comes with fat, when they felt no hope. I know I wrestled with that after yet another failed diet in my younger years.

Fortunately, I have beeen well-loved--both when slim and young and fat and older--and that has a life-enhancing effect that kept me alive.

I worry when I see fat acceptance blogs that go beyond fat-acceptance or anti-fat discrimination and move into "My fat is me and it's staying put and any indication that it shouldn't stay put is insulting to me and shows you hate FAT PEOPLE!"

Well, no. I don't want my younger generations in my family to stay fat (or get fat if they are currently slim.)  When I make lower fat or low-sugar treats for family gatherings, I do it cause I want to lose weight, sure, but cause I don't want to be a cause of gained weight in those who come after me in the bloodline. I don't hate them. I hate that the excess of fat at the obese level clinging to their bones will bring them disease and disability before their time.

All four of my nieces and nephews are overweight. Even the two boys, skinny and active when young, are now men with excess fat--one morbidly obese. Both nieces are obese. So far, the grandnephew and niece are slim and well. I want them to stay that way, but I shudder when I see the mom buying McDonalds fries and nuggets for lunch or letting them eat sugar constantly. I can foresee where they'll end up: where WE are. Too big for our hearts, livers, and circulatory system.

All my siblings who grew up in Cuba remained normal weight (some quite slim, slim) until they were old, when a few pounds creeped up (and by old I mean sixties). I grew up here, the next generation grew up here, surrounded by junk food and lousy fare in schools (greasy pizza, fried chicken, sloppy joes on white buns, greasy grilled cheese) and candy and sugary cereal ads and cars to go everywhere...and we're fat.

I don't hate my relatives. I want them to be well and happy. But I do hate our collective fat.

I hate the fat that's choking my country's people--including me.

But I decided I'm done hating the body as a whole or me as a singular fat being.

I will not throw ugly abuse on the body that takes me through this sometimes excruciatingly lovely world.

I'll join hands with the FA crowd when it comes to anti-discrimination. I will not join hands when it is about inertia or giving up the fight to be healthy. Excess fat is not good for us, so we should struggle to get to a healthier weight--and I don't mean a Hollywood weight, I mean something that improves blood pressure, sugar numbers, mobility, removes undue pressure from joints, reduces risks for certain cancers, allows us to sit in public places without fear of cracking chairs, allows us to get up stairs without wanting to pass out.

Dieting is a dirty word to some. Fine, don't call it dieting. Call it "eating less so I can live more."

How's that?

Mercy is a beautiful thing. Compassion is a virtue. Understanding is important. Self-forgiveness is powerful and often necessary.

But powerlessness is not (and that's a word I take from Kate's post.) The Fat acceptance that sits back and says, "This is me and I can't do anything about it" is powerless and has surrendered to the temptation of food and the ease of inertia.

Should people stop fighting the temptations to cheat on spouses, shoot neighbors who are rude and loud, slap bosses who are overdemanding, rip-off the gullible, cheat on taxes,  or any other evil thing or sin. Well, then the fight against gluttony--which, if you're a person of particular faiths, is often very clearly defined as wrong-- shouldn't be tossed off with a white flag, either. (The flipside being the excess of vanity that causes one to be obsessed with being thin and beautiful to a stunning degree.)

Today, say something kind and complimentary to your body. Appreciate the amazing things it does for you. And appreciate you inner being, too. I am --you are-- more than a body, but you and I live through these bodies. It's an insult to the Creator not to tend well to them. Including appreciating the gift they are.

Today, say a kind word and a prayer for the obese folks you run across. Smile at them.

We all need to know we're welcome in the bodies we inhabit right now.

But don't stop hating the excess fat that shortens our lives and lessens our mobility through this world. Don't stop fighting against fat anymore than you'd stop fighting against racism or sexism or the other --isms that make life miserable for us and others.