Honest thought. Am I wrong?

SamanthaPeake wrote: »

I've been overweight all of my adult life. I have always loved the plus size bloggers and follow what they wear and wish I had their confidence. To clarify I'm talking about the very large bloggers 250lb plus. But since I've started this weight lose journey I've started to look at them differently. I've been on diets all my life loosing a stone here and there and then always putting it back on and more within a few months. This time its so different. I'm weighing myself which I've never done before, I'm changing everything about how I eat, buy food, move, think about food. I'm cooking, I'm using MFP religiously and I'm truly starting a real journey of being fitter and thinner. Now I look at these bloggers with sympathy and I'm feeling so guilty. I suppose deep down I don't believe that they really are as happy and healthy as their blogs and photos make them out to be. I've got so much weight still to loose but now I've made the choice to change and it's really working I can finally admit to myself that I was unhealthy, unfit and unattractive and making myself ill. Am I wrong for feeling this way toward these women that have inspired me for so long. Am I projecting my negative thoughts onto them. Can you truly look and feel attractive and happy when you are obese?

I think it's time you started a blog.....you are now the inspiration to those women that think they are happy.....go GET'EM tiger!!! You can be the one saving lives!

Very interesting post, and I can see the point the OP is making. I think people, including me previously, convince ourselves that we are happy as we are as that is easier than doing anything about it. Now that I have done something about it, I can see I was wrong and I'm sure other people would be happier if they did the same. It is one of those things we will never know for sure as if someone says they are happy, maybe they are, maybe not, but I think it is human nature to think about these things. Personally, if someone wanted help losing weight I would be more than happy to help in any way I can - but would not bring up the conversation to anyone unless they brought it up with me.

Kudos to you for posting this, OP

I feel exactly the same way..

I used to follow quite a few plus sized bloggers and their 'fat and proud' (their words) attitude inspired me, uplifted me and stopped me from hating myself so much. I guess I kind of related to them because I was overweight too yet I had yet to be as confident as any of them. To me, they were 'real women'.

Now I've lost my excess weight, I don't look at them as 'real women' anymore. In fact, the phrase itself sickens me. Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with how they live their life or their pride - good for them, but I now know WHY I was such fans of theirs. I was in complete denial that my excess weight was actually unhealthy and not good for me at all. I was looking everywhere for some kind of acceptance for being overweight instead of doing something about it because the thought of losing weight was too hard for me to even get my head around. I refused to give up my food and instead shunned 'thin people' and claimed to have a 'REAL figure'. All of a sudden, these very overweight women were speaking up and flaunting themselves over the internet with nothing but confidence and they convinced me that it was better to be 'fat'.

The truth is, it isn't better to be fat. It isn't better to be underweight either. What these women are doing is making a statement to the world and demanding to be accepted for what they are. I accept EVERYBODY. Absolutely EVERYBODY. Regardless of size, colour, weight, religion - I accept you. But you absolutely cannot deny that being significantly overweight is medically unhealthy and this kind of plus sized 'flaunting' is JUST as corruptive as pro-anorexia sites. Why is it magazines are constantly bashed for featuring 'stick thin models' on their pages? Yet as soon as an overweight woman is featured - she is considered a real woman. Surely a balance is vital? It is not healthy to be underweight. It is not healthy to be overweight. Being proud of who you are is BRILLIANT. We should all be proud of who we are - I was proud of myself as an overweight unhealthy woman. I'm proud of myself as a healthy weight woman.

But we should not encourage extremes.

As someone who has lost 100+ pounds. I still follow plus sized blogs because I still admire those who love themselves for who they are. I changed for ME, but that doesnt mean I think everyone should change.

Crochet180 wrote: »

I think (and this is my opinion only) that you're starting to realise that you're not happy being over-weight. You're enjoying the journey so far and this does have an effect on the way we see other people. However, we can never really know what someone else is thinking/feeling so I would be thinking solely about how you feel, surrounding yourself with positive, healthy images and role models and reaching out for support when you need it. How others feel is their business, how you feel is yours.

This. You do you. If they're happy (or pretending to be happy), it's their business, not yours. If you aren't viewing them as role models any more, find other role models.

Additionally, I hate the phrasing "very large bloggers 250+" I am over 250 lbs and absolutely not "very large". But that's just me being offended. See above paragraph for actual advice.

HappyCampr1 wrote: »

oh_happy_day wrote: »

SamanthaPeake wrote: »

I've been overweight all of my adult life. I have always loved the plus size bloggers and follow what they wear and wish I had their confidence. To clarify I'm talking about the very large bloggers 250lb plus. But since I've started this weight lose journey I've started to look at them differently. I've been on diets all my life loosing a stone here and there and then always putting it back on and more within a few months. This time its so different. I'm weighing myself which I've never done before, I'm changing everything about how I eat, buy food, move, think about food. I'm cooking, I'm using MFP religiously and I'm truly starting a real journey of being fitter and thinner. Now I look at these bloggers with sympathy and I'm feeling so guilty. I suppose deep down I don't believe that they really are as happy and healthy as their blogs and photos make them out to be. I've got so much weight still to loose but now I've made the choice to change and it's really working I can finally admit to myself that I was unhealthy, unfit and unattractive and making myself ill. Am I wrong for feeling this way toward these women that have inspired me for so long. Am I projecting my negative thoughts onto them. Can you truly look and feel attractive and happy when you are obese?

Yes, you are projecting your thoughts about yourself onto them. Don't pity them, that's patronizing. I don't believe that anyone is as happy as their blog/instagram/facebook makes them out to be. That's partly social media and partly how some people earn money and create a brand. Just because you follow them on social media doesn't mean you know their internal experience. They may well be genuinely happy with themselves. I don't believe that self-confidence, self-love and happiness are dependent on your weight. For many people there may be a correlation, but just as there many thin people who profoundly lack in self-love/happiness/confidence, there are also larger people who feel truly beautiful and confident. And that's not for you to judge. Furthermore, you can love yourself and feel good about yourself and still decide at some point that you want to improve your fitness or make lifestyle changes. Whether people look attractive or not is purely subjective to whoever is looking at them. Sure there are culturally accepted standards of beauty but that varies according to the time and place. It also doesn't account for individual preferences.

I agree 100% with this. I was obese for almost 25 years. I was always happy with myself, even when I was second category obese. I never internalized being "fat", I just was. It was my knee that decided enough was enough, so when I started having pain, I decided I needed to lose weight. It wasn't because I hated being fat. It was for my health because although my bloodwork had always come back good, I have a low pain threshold (and the thought of being disabled scared the crap out of me). Strength training and losing 72 pounds took care of my knee issues.

OP - the mental aspect of losing weight can be hard. Not many people talk about it, but it is real and it definitely takes some getting used to. Knowing yourself and how you react to things can be helpful. I, for example, didn't have any issues until I got to a US size 6 and was still 10 pounds overweight. At that point, my mind decided I didn't want to be too small. I liked having a bit of "heft". I started to feel that if I weighed less, I would be less. I changed my goals and have spent the last 14 months five pounds overweight. My mind has now caught up to my body, and last week I decided to finally get down into normal BMI. It took me 14 months to become comfortable with myself in this new body.
Don't feel bad if you feel the need to get some help wading through the emotions. Many successful weight losers have sought help along the way.

Thank you for that, you are right in hat it's rarely talked about but it's a powerful driver for most everybody.

I had become so comfortable as a "big guy" that I have found my self at a tense crossroads between my goals of being healthy lean and strong and my old comfortable existence as a large guy and all that entailed.

Hell, just the normal experience of getting bumped into and being moved where a year ago most of the time people just bounced off me has given me a new and not always comfortable perspective lol.

I'm in the medical field, and I can tell you for a fact that a hundred pounds of excess weight is just not healthy. It causes so many problems. Everyone is living their own life and everything, people can look out for themselves, but you are trying to make yourself healthier and you should never feel bad for that. It's one thing to be happy with how you look; it's quite another to be healthy. Lots of people are skinny and unhealthy as well as fat and unhealthy. You do you, okay? You should never compare yourself to anyone else, just try to be the happiest healthiest you that you can be!

I think there's plenty of evidence that fat shaming only provides more stress to its victims, which in turn makes it more difficult to lose weight . . . and for many women, they're not just fighting our society's propensity for fat shaming but also their own genes, career stress, you name it. Every fights their own battles, everyone has their own journeys. The bloggers who fight back against fat shaming are heroes - they know that for most people, change can't happen until fat shaming ends. They also know that sometimes there's no diet or work out plan that will change their body to fit our 'standards', so in order to be accepted, they have to fight the standards. They don't sound like victims to me. I think they're making a great difference in how we approach health, wellness, and perception of beauty.

I can tell you from my journey, I put on about thirty pounds over the past ten years or so just from stress and aging. After I switched to new job with much less stress about a year ago, I lost about twenty pounds. It wasn't any real special realization, epiphany or change in my thinking, it was just that I finally had enough money and time to join a gym and cook for myself. I don't think that anyone talking to me about my weight before my job switch would have made a big difference, honestly. I was pretty stressed out and glued to the computer all the time. There wouldn't have been much I could do to lose the weight, and it probably would have just upset me more.

But the reaction I received from people surprised me - a gentleman in my church insists that I must be starving myself, (I'm still ten pounds over that useless BMI standard, so I don't have a clue as to why he thinks I'm suffering from malnutrition). I'm pretty appalled that people would think that's what's happening, or that I'm doing something very special or different - I just got lucky this past year to actually achieve what I've been trying to do for a while. And yeah okay it took some hard work . . . . but it wasn't going to happen until I got my career path in order and could settle into a decent 9-5.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that every health journey is personal. You don't have to feel anything for or about your bloggers - it's not your job to tell them that they're wrong, they're just on a different journey.

SamanthaPeake wrote: »

I've been overweight all of my adult life. I have always loved the plus size bloggers and follow what they wear and wish I had their confidence. To clarify I'm talking about the very large bloggers 250lb plus. But since I've started this weight lose journey I've started to look at them differently. I've been on diets all my life loosing a stone here and there and then always putting it back on and more within a few months. This time its so different. I'm weighing myself which I've never done before, I'm changing everything about how I eat, buy food, move, think about food. I'm cooking, I'm using MFP religiously and I'm truly starting a real journey of being fitter and thinner. Now I look at these bloggers with sympathy and I'm feeling so guilty. I suppose deep down I don't believe that they really are as happy and healthy as their blogs and photos make them out to be. I've got so much weight still to loose but now I've made the choice to change and it's really working I can finally admit to myself that I was unhealthy, unfit and unattractive and making myself ill. Am I wrong for feeling this way toward these women that have inspired me for so long. Am I projecting my negative thoughts onto them. Can you truly look and feel attractive and happy when you are obese?

I thought I was the only one who felt that way! I started blogging my story after I had lost about 50 lbs. When I started my blog, I started subscribing to other fitness and weight loss bloggers. There are links for the most popular weight loss blogs and that's how I found them. As I've continued blogging and writing about my story, my success and my journey along the way, I've continued reading their stories. Where I see progress in mine, I see sadness in theirs. I do feel badly for them and I wonder why they are so popular? Is their LACK of progress really inspirational? Is there inability to overcome life's challenges preventing them from working towards their fitness goals? I mean, that, to me is tragic.

My life is not that difficult. I have normal, every day challenges. But I have had my share of trials and I remain committed to my fitness journey.

On that note... happiness is something from within. I am not happy because I've lost weight. Losing weight has allowed me to feel better, to enjoy life, and THAT has made me happy. When I weight 232 lbs., I was in constant pain and depressed. I felt like my life was out of control. Now, I go hiking on the weekends. I ride my bike and enjoy nature. I pursue new opportunities. I feel alive. That makes me happy.

Here's my story: http://traceyfit.blogspot.com

After I quit smoking, when I saw someone smoking I felt sorry for them and so proud of myself. That didn't feel very good to me. So I started to just send a quick blessing to them in my thoughts so they might find the power to quit too. I do that when I see overweight people too. Just a quick "I honor you and your path." We can never really know what is best for someone else or what their journey entails. Everyone is just doing the best they can.