Who is here for reasons other than “getting skinny”?

I had the same thought, looking through a lot of these threads. Not for nothing, but it always seemed so vain to want to be smaller for the sake of fitting the skinny label. Even the being able to fit into smaller clothes thing never quite had the appeal to me it seems to have to some people on this site.

I decided to get fit for several reasons. The first is that I have a purpose in this life. I may only be a grad student now, but I want to dedicate my career to researching devices, mainly biomedical, that have not been thought of yet, to thin the line between biology and technology so that engineers, doctors, and biologists might have a better chance at speaking the same language. Then perhaps we may make more progress in eliminating some of the ills, both literal and figurative, in civilization. I try not to engineer anything without thinking of who it could potentially help or what kind of knowledge it might give me that would further that purpose.

The other was a group of friends and, especially, one of whom I have very strong feelings toward. Even if I am successful in becoming fit, my general personality, social ineptitude, and inexperience with relationships, I feel it's unlikely she and I would ever end up together, but this thought doesn't bother me much. Because of the above reason, I don't care much about my own personal happiness, and if it meant fulfilling my purpose to make someone else's life better, I would gladly go my lifetime passing up all chances to seize lasting happiness for just myself. None the less, her kindness, intelligence, and general radiance are one of my inspirations to be a better person, because the worse off I am personally, the worse I will be at fulfilling my purpose. Perhaps one day I'll have the eloquence to express how important she is to me, as well as the rest of my friends; if they at least know what they meant to me, it doesn't matter if they reciprocate.

I'm not here to get skinny or hit a certain number on the scale. I am here to learn healthy habits to keep me healthy and fit! Being fit and exercising are a big deal to me because I have scoliosis. Doing DDP Yoga and exercises like supermans have been a huge help in preventing a higher degree in my scoliosis and it has even been straightening out my curve! Also doing cardio has helped strengthen my weak lung that is crushed from my scoliosis.

I accepted long ago that I would never be skinny. It's just not in my genetic cards. These hamhock thighs won't ever have a gap.

What is in my genetic cards is obesity, heart problems and high cholesterol. Unless I keep on top of it. Which is why I'm really here: to learn to manage my health as best I can and try to prevent some of the things my family is prone to, health-wise.

I am autistic. My goals are entirely functional. Could not care less about how I look.

I am here to get my BP under control. I have family history of high BP and some diabetes. I do NOT wanna end up with health problems. And also, i wanna look better. I already have more energy and i never had problems moving but this muffin top is disgusting. So is my double chin

It isn't the same as something like mono, but for years I've had problems with clinical depression. I'm doing better now, and want to stay that way. Part of my vicious cycle of depression is my eating/exercise habits and my weight. I want to get them under control to help remove that part of the cycle.

TBH, I also want to lose weight because I'm tired of being fat, but I also want to get in shape. I want to be better all around. Friend me if you like, I definitely understand how emotionally taxing long term illness (of any kind) can be.

Like this young lady I have struggled with clinical depression for over 10 yrs. I decided I wasn't going to let it control me, my bidy, or my health any longer.

Hi! I'm here to take back my health. I have over 60 pounds left to get to goal, but I feel better already. Whatever size I end up at, well, we'll see. I want to keep up with my friends and family. They're all active, and I don't have the energy to do what I did when I weighed a lot less.

I had mono in 2002 and no one else in my family got it. I was down from the end of January to the beginning of April and it was a dreadful illness, for sure. It took a long while after that to get my energy back. Keep pursuing the CF with your doctor if it's been longer than you think the fatigue is worse or it's taken longer than expected to bounce back. I will pray that you get the answers you need.

I am here because the tools save me a BUNCH of time doing the math that I would probably never otherwise do cause I find it time consuming and tedious. So it helps me stick to a plan I might otherwise either fool myself into thinking I was following but not really; or give up on altogether because of the tedium of all the manual calculations. But if I did that, I wouldn't ever get to my ultimate goal of getting rid of as much knee and ankle pain as possible or altogether if the Lord wills! Doctor won't believe there's anything more wrong other than my weight after my knee surgery last year even though I keep telling him it still hurts and given him a 23 year written history (since WAY before I was even close to overweight!!) of my joint issues. So I finally clued into the fact that the only way to convince him to pay attention is to actually lose the weight, get healthy along the way and go back and ask him what his new plan is when it still hurts like I've said all along. So I'm on a mission to prove him wrong -- but if I end up proving myself wrong by some happenstance, I still win because the goal is to be pain free!! One way or another I'm taking back control of this thing and getting on with life!

I've had insomnia my whole life. Most of that time was spent either not sleeping (therefore being too tired to exercise/put effort into being healthy) or on heavy prescription sleeping pills, which made me feel zombie-like and made me feel like I was hungover every day. Not good.

My doctor told me that I needed to exercise to sleep better. I exercised one day, couldn't sleep that night, and was like "it didn't work, she was wrong". I told her it didn't work and she laughed in my face (reasonable!) and told me I need to consistently exercise every day. She told me to give it 7 days in a row. I did, and I slept like a giant baby the second half of the week.

This was in May this year. So exercise was first, but it wasn't to get skinny. It was to sleep. Then I was learning that what I was eating REALLY impacted the quality of my workouts. That's when I found MFP and started logging. Suddenly, my body was changing (and my boyfriend was like a magnet!! haha). So now it's a big cycle. I exercise to sleep. I eat better to exercise better. Sleeping normally, eating well, and working out is causing me to lose weight and sculpt my body.

It is honestly so surreal to just go to bed and fall asleep. I will never look back. Eating right and working out has changed everything. It just sucks that it took me 28 years to figure it out!

I didn't read the comments yet. I also had a very bad case of mono and a secondary spleen infection when I was 13 and it left me with liver damage. I know that people on here do not like studies, but when you are really struggling with something that is not fully understood by medical science yet (as you are), you are willing to look into different things. Double blind studies, done on humans, with proper dosage are the best. The double blind studies showed that cocoa is so far the only thing that has been shown to help CFS. They determined that it helps CFS if you eat 2.5 tablespoons of real unsweetened cocoa powder per day. Don't mix it with dairy because that interferes with it. You can still eat dairy, just eat it a couple hours before or after the cocoa. You can mix cocoa into a smoothie, with frozen berries and other stuff. There are ice cream recipes made just for this. You can look it up. There is a lot of info on it. I first heard about it on Nutritionfacts.org Cocoa is yummy, so even if it does not help, there is no harm in it if you want to give it a try. I just wanted to let you know. I hope you feel recovery soon! :flowerforyou:

You can add me as a friend if you want.