Monday, August 29, 2011

They've just been doing it longer

I have a different perspective than most, at least I think I do. When someone gains weight as a young adult, it worries me. I have several people I love dearly who have put on a considerable amount of weight as newly married people, newly graduated from high school, etc. I have some young moms who have put on a lot of weight since they've begun having children. Due to my own experience, this makes me very concerned.

When I was about 21 or 22 my oldest sister came to visit me. Since I've lived away from most of my family ever since I went into the Navy, they often go long periods of time without seeing me. My sister had concerns about how much weight I had put on since she had last seen me.

We were at a gas station and when I came back out from paying for my gas my sister said "you hold yourself well for someone of your size". I don't remember my response to that, but I knew she was giving me a compliment. I said "you know what I don't understand?" She said "What?" I said "I eat a lot, I don't understand how some people can be so huge, I can't imagine anyone eating more than I do". She said "They don't, they've just been doing it longer".

Though I have always remembered that conversation, it obviously did not stop me from gaining more weight. I have never forgotten it, and I think about it every time I see a young adult gaining weight. I never had a person who actually was obese try to talk to me about my weight or try to explain things to me. I only had people with no weight problems try to tell me what I should be doing and how I should be doing it.

I had a few people try the humiliation route with me. I had one person who loved me very much say all kinds of horrible, nasty things to me one night in hopes that it would make me do something drastic and start losing weight. It only hurt me and made me feel even more hopeless. This paragraph should have been put in the "demons" post I did last week.

I've been having a Very difficult time in non-weight related personal life stuff, but this isn't the place for it. I will say that I've had NO feedback for the last few posts and I'm feeling like everyone has given up because I am not juicing. I have a truly legitimate reason why I am not and cannot juice right now. I WANT to juice and want to feel really good again. I have a dear friend who is about to start juicing this week, she is very excited about the things I told her about it. In fact..this week the juicer I have is on sale for $69.

Please don't give up on me, I haven't given up.
Dinah

4 comments:

  1. Pffffffft I'm not giving up on you. You're stuck with me!

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  2. Seriously, lack of juicing? NOT an issue :) Whatever is working for you is what you need to do. The only thing I'm an expert on is what works for me and most days even that's a stretch!

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  3. I’m back from vacation and slowly catching up. Your wonderful blog is one of the first places I wanted to visit, Dinah. :)

    First of all, you must do this (lose weight & get healthy) for yourself, not for anyone else. Seriously, the hell with what anyone else has to say, especially when their comments are cruel and hurtful. Never give anyone the power to hurt you like that. Being overweight and struggling with dieting makes you no less worthy of love or respect than anyone else. You deserve to be treated kindly and with respect and should not accept anything less.

    The part about not getting comments: get yourself set up on an online stat counter (something like http://statcounter.com/) so you can see how many people visit your blog on a daily basis. You’d be amazed. Most people visiting blogs are lurkers. Just because they don’t comment doesn’t mean they don’t stop by and read what you have to say, or care about you. Dinah, your personal story is touching many more people than you could probably imagine--and helping others who may be in the same boat as you! So forget about not getting comments. They’ll come eventually.

    And the part about not juicing? We dieters tend to fall into an “all or nothing” mentality, whether it’s juicing or Weight Watchers or raw foods or low carb, lowfat, etc., etc. If we slip up, we’ve failed. Part of the reason is because promoters of different diets, health programs, etc., keep stressing that we simply MUST do it 100% or else we’re not on program.

    What we dieters DON’T need, Dinah, is added guilt heaped upon us. If you feel like juicing, then juice. If you don’t, then don’t. You don’t owe anyone any explanation or have to make any excuses when you’ve strayed from your program. It’s just called being human. Nobody is perfect.

    No matter what your weight or your success/failure dieting, you’re worthy and lovable and you deserve all good things. But me telling you that isn’t half as important as you telling yourself, Dinah. You WILL succeed. In your own way. In your own time. Believe that…because I do! :)

    **Hugs**

    --Susan

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  4. Susan, thank you so much! You always make me smile, thanks for your advice and kind words. My doctor was pleased when he saw me this week, he told me to keep it up. The weather is amazing right now, that makes me feel better too. I love the fall and winter here, lol. I'm sure you can understand why ;)

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