Resolution rebellion continued

I haven't made New Year's resolutions in probably 25 years, and this year isn't much different. I have things I want to do, and things I want to accomplish, but I am not resolving to do them. I found out a long time ago that any time I resolve to do something, life has a way of throwing all kinds of roadblocks or detours at me. So, while I want to get back into doing my counted cross stitch (I love making Christmas tree ornaments), and I want to make a soft-sculpture mermaid doll, I will work on those things when and if I have the time and inclination. I also want to get back into sewing, I have some ideas for tunic and tee shirt tops I want to make. But again, it will be if and when I have the time (I also have to be in the mood to sew, because if I'm not, I get frustrated and nothing turns out like I want).
I'm also going to keep on my journey to self-acceptance and HAES. I don't know if I consider that a resolution, I think it's more that I'm feeling better about myself than I have in a long time, and I want that feeling to continue. Is it a resolution to want to continue doing something you've been doing for a while, no matter how short that while has been? I don't think so.........
So how do you feel about New Year's resolutions?

RightFit is confusing

Okay, I got my thank-you from Lane Bryant for blogging about RightFit jeans ($100 gift card). So today, DH and I went to the LB in St Cloud so I could try on the jeans and see if they really do fit. According to the online sizing, I should wear a blue 10 (I normally wear a 26/28 in knit pants). But because I had been reading that the sizing runs big, when I got to the store, I tried a blue 8 in talls (they didn't have any blue 10's). Well, they fit great, other than the fact that the talls were about 5 inches too long (and I take a 32" inseam, so WTF is up with that?). So I tried the average length and they were perfect. The only other problem I might have with them is that they were just a bit hard to button, but the saleslady said they would stretch after I've worn them a bit (and I've read that from others). So I am now the proud owner of two pairs of RightFit blue 8 flares in dark blue. I think I'm in love.
Then I headed over to Catherine's to check out their clearance racks for tops, and today was my lucky day. I found a pink top, short sleeves, with navy trim, and silver butterflies and gothic printing I can't read, and a teal top with short sleeves and silver flowers and rinestones around the neck. I got them both for $29 (normally would have been $55, so I'm glad I stopped in (I love saving money when I'm spending it....lol). I saw a few other tops I might like to have when I was in there, but I'll have to hope they are still there and still on clearance when I can afford to go back the end of January. I saw some really cute tops with long sleeves, but I'm just not fond of long sleeves (I usually end up pushing them up to my elbows and then getting pissed when they slide back down). I could cut the sleeves off and hem them, but I really don't like to do that since the hems I do never quite match the original hems.
While I was in LB, DH was checking out a gift shop across the way, and found a silver dragon with a blue opalescent crystal ball and a sword (the sword is removable and can be used as a letter opener). So he got that for me (he knows I like dragons), what a sweetheart he is. Then we checked out a shoe store that carries the New Balance shoes (he heard they were good if you have to do a lot of standing or walking on concrete all day). So we found him a pair of those that he liked and got those. He about shit when he found out they cost $105, but like I told him, if they keep his feet from hurting (and therefore his knees and back) and they last, then they are well worth the money.
All in all, it was a good day, especially considering that I don't like shopping.

All colors, shapes, sizes: "body Drama"

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This looks to be an awesome book, and from reading the article, all I can say is "It's about time!"
The interview with Nancy Amanda Redd at the end is great.

The brains behind this unusual book is a bubbly ex-beauty queen with the soul of a feminist and a girlie demeanor that masks focused determination.

"I wanted a body book with boobs and vaginas and cellulite and birthmarks and all the things that get erased away," said Nancy Amanda Redd, 26, who laughs freely and often while speaking at warp speed.

And this is another great point:

Filled with practical, big-sisterly advice pitched to the adolescent ear, it celebrates the lumps, bumps, sags and smells that make us human while also sharing tips on fake tanning, hair removal, PMS and other health and beauty issues.

It doesn't just tell, it shows -- through frank, unretouched photos of exuberant young women of all sizes, shapes and colors. Women who flaunt stretch marks, dimpled behinds, keloid scars from piercings, uneven breasts and rough elbows as if to say, "Yeah, this is how I am -- so what?"

You really should read the whole article, I'm in love with it, but go see for yourself.

I'm back, finally, with a few updates

Well, Dh's knee surgery went well, and he's walking on it already. All of his tests on Wednesday went well, but his surgery was rescheduled from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Thursday (this just broke my heart since I didn't have to get up at 4 a.m. to have him there in time). Then when we got there at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, we were told it was rescheduled to between 11 and 12:30. Now DH was told no Metformin at supper the night before, just his insulin, and nothing to eat after midnight, nothing to drink either. He was also told he would be given 15 units of long-acting insulin before surgery, then the short-acting insulin and something to eat after surgery. Instead, they gave him 5 units of the long-acting before, nothing after, and he had to make do with crackers and juice after the surgery. So anyway, he changed into the nice little hospital gown and robe and pants at 9, we went to the surgical waiting room, they came for him at 11:10, and he finally got into surgery who knows when (I called at 3 and they said about another 1/2 hour before he'd be done). The surgeon finally came out to talk to me at a quarter to 4 and said as soon as the spinal wore off, DH would be able to go home. At 4:30, I still hadn't heard anything, so I called the number they gave me when we got there, and no one was there (they all left at 4). Lovely, I have no idea what in the hell is going on, no way to call anyone to find out, and I've been stuck in the waiting room all damned day with nothing to eat or drink because I don't want to miss them just in case they do send someone to talk to me. Can you tell that by now I really don't like the VA? So at a quarter to 5, a nurse comes to get me, DH is ready to go, but we have to go to the pharmacy and pick up a couple of prescriptions that were called in (and that was another hour's wait). We finally got out of there at 6:20 p.m., neither of us had had anything to eat since supper the night before so we hit the first McDonald's we found on our way out of town. DH took his pills and insulin after he ate, he said he didn't care if it was wrong, he was fucking hungry. So we didn't get out of the Twin Cities until after 7 p.m., but that was fine with me because most of rush hour traffic was over by then and we had a fairly decent drive home. And was I ever glad to get home, get the van unloaded, and pet teh kittehs (they missed us).
Then on Friday, I called his case manager (nutritionist) because we had less than 1/2 of his last vial of insulin left and hadn't gotten any more from the VA (they mail it to him). She was gone, but had left a voice mail with another case manager to call, so I called her and left a message. When she called back, the only notes were from back in November, when she said to increase his insulin from 10 units twice a day (this is the 70/30 insulin) to 12 units twice a day. I had talked to her 3 times since then, she knew that when he was working, he was taking 25 units twice a day, and on his days off, it was up to 35 units twice a day. She had also said she would tell his Dr. so that more insulin could be sent(the last time I talked to her was on the 17th). So when the other case manager called back, and I told her all of this, she said his Dr wasn't there, she would have to ask another Dr to okay the added insulin, and we wouldn't get it until late next week because of Christmas. She did say that she thought we could get the 70/30 at the drug store without a prescription if we absolutely had to (which luckily turned out to be true, thank you Wal-Mart). The thing is, DH put 20 years of his life into the Navy, retired with disabilities, and was told he wouldn't have to pay for medical care or meds. So we had to pay for his insulin because his doctor thinks that 12 units of insulin twice a day is going to take his blood sugar from averages of 350 down to the 150's (even with the low-carb eating we're doing, that won't work, it's taking 40 units twice a day when he's not working, plus his 1000 mg of Metformin twice a day to get down to the 150-200 range consistently). But we don't know anything, we're not doctors.*headdesk* X 10
I did have some good news when I got home, though. I blogged a couple of weeks back about getting an email from someone at Lane Bryant wanting to send me a thank-you for having blogged about RightFit jeans. I wasn't sure if it was a scam or not, and asked if anyone else had gotten that email. Glen, at Full Figure Plus, had, and sent them his mailing address and got a $100 gift card for having written about the RightFit jeans. So I dug out my email from them, sent them my mailing address, and when I got home from the Cities, there was an envelope with 2 $50 gift cards in it. So it wasn't a scam, and there's a Lane Bryant in St Cloud. I'm going to call them and see if they have the RightFit there in a blue 10 (that's what I'm supposed to wear, according to their fit guide online). I should be able to get 2 pairs of them for that, and I'll have jeans again....HOORAY!!!!

Going out of town for a few days

DH is having arthroscopic surgery on his knee this Thursday, so we'll be out of town Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'll catch up with everything when I get back since I won't have computer access while we're gone (gives me time to catch up on a few books I've been wanting to read). Y'all have a good week.

Don't wait for thin to do what you want

I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the yard and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time working.

Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event such as gaining a friend, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now

I'm not sure what others would've done had they known they wouldn't be here for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their favorite food was.

This was part of an email I got today, and it hits on how I feel about waiting to do this, that, or the other until I lose weight. I'm doing what I want to do now, I'm not going to wait until I get thin (which probably ain't happening).
What made me really think about this is the talk I had Saturday night with my 14 year-old grandson about some things going on in his life now (he lives with his dad, my daughter-in-law's ex b/f). He says he can't talk to anyone but me because they just don't understand his feelings, but I do (because I'm a cool grandma and I've been where he is now, feelings-wise, and he knows I'll listen and not judge him). So that's one of the things I've always done without waiting till I get thin, and if I can do that, then I'm not waiting on anything else I want to do either.

Don't fall for the big fat lie

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Reading this article made me stop and think about the obesity epidemic in the United States. When every article you read about it is accompanied by a picture of a morbidly obese person, it's no wonder that people are hysterical about fat. They are being told (whether it's directly or just inferred) that every overweight person looks just like that anonymous fattie in the picture. If people would just stop to think about how many people that size they actually see on a daily basis, they would know that the 60% of the population that is overweight/obese don't all look like that. The majority of the overweight/obese people you see on a daily basis can't be told from the so-called "normal" weight population.

There are three main points to be made about fat. First, it is not nearly as extensive as claimed. Second, being a bit overweight is not as bad as most people believe. And third, there's not much you can do about it anyway.

This is quoted for Australia, but I don't see why it isn't true for the good old USA as well.

The first step in this is to separate the terms "overweight" and "obese", which are hugely different but are always lumped together to increase the size of the alleged problem. When we do this we will find that the weight of the general population has not increased dramatically in recent decades.

Well, duh, fat activists knew that all along. Are they the only ones with any critical thinking skills left? I sure hope not.

Basham says 1 or 2 per cent of the population of a country such as Australia has a real obesity problem and needs to be helped. But pretending everyone is at risk of obesity and should be monitored and even assisted is a misuse of resources.

Hey, hasn't this been said before? By fat activists?

But it is important to note that worrying about being overweight is rarely useful. Dale Atrens, a reader emeritus in psychobiology at the University of Sydney, has made an extensive study of scientific literature in this area. He says, "The injunction to lose a little weight is probably the most common medical prescription. It is given to untold millions each day through both official and unofficial channels. Globally, the weight loss industry is approaching a trillion-dollar turnover. This is astonishing in light of the fact that there is no systematic evidence that any of the weight loss schemes (except surgery) have any more than transient effects."

The next time someone, even a health minister, tries to make you feel guilty about carrying a few extra kilos, just say no.

Yep, I've decided to just say not only No, but Hell No!
And Dale, not even surgery is guaranteed to keep that weight off forever for everyone who has it (if they survive it, that is).

Awesome meatloaf tonight

I made a meatloaf for supper tonight and DH raved about it (this is good, I usually get told dinner was either okay or good). He actually told me I should make it this way more often, that it was excellent (since I don't much like cooking, I was very pleased). Recipe follows:

1 lb ground beef
3/4 lb bulk sausage
2 eggs
4Tbs barbecue sauce
1 box Stove Top stuffing (I crushed the bread crumbs so they were very fine)
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup shredded cheese
I used my electric mixer to blend the sausage and hamburger together, mixed the eggs and barbecue sauce together, used the mixer to add the eggs/bbq sauce to the meat blend, added the onions and cheese and crushed stuffing mix. I mixed it all until it was very well-blended. I put in a 8" X 8" glass baking dish, baked at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
If you like more bread in your meatloaf, you can add a second box of stuffing, although the texture is good with just one box.

I wish I had known before how well the mixer worked for blending ground meats. I've spent years trying to do it by hand and not being very successful (and that's spending 15 - 20 minutes trying to mix it with my hands). The mixer did it in 5 minutes, no problem (low speed). You would think that as efficient as I pride myself on being, I would have figured this out years ago. But I've never seen it mentioned in any recipes for meatloaf either, so maybe this is something everyone already knew and no one ever told me about it.........

My movie meme

Saw this at Fatadelic and thought I would see what movies on the list I had seen, and how many of the ones I had seen I liked.
Feel free to take part if you want. Bold movies you have watched and liked (if not loved), italicize movies you haven’t watched all the way through and strikethrough what you couldn’t stand. (And feel free to double up, i.e. strike and bold movies you watched and hated, and italicize and strike what you stopped watching because you couldn’t stand it).
For what it's worth, here's the list (the ones in bold I've seen and liked, the ones in red bold I've seen and didn't much care for).
I don't have any movies that I didn't watch all the way through, I'm an optimist and always hope they'll get better.
The Godfather (1972)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] (1966)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Casablanca (1942)
Shichinin no samurai [Seven Samurai] (1954)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Star Wars (1977)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Rear Window (1954)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Goodfellas (1990)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Cidade de Deus [City of God] (2002)
C’era una volta il West [Once Upon a Time in the West] (1968)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Psycho (1960)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
North by Northwest (1959)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Fight Club (1999)
Memento (2000)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Matrix (1999)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Se7en (1995)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
American Beauty (1999)
Vertigo (1958)
Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Le [Amélie ] (2001)
Léon (1994)
The Departed (2006)
Paths of Glory (1957)
American History X (1998)
M (1931)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Chinatown (1974)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The Third Man (1949)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Laberinto del fauno, El [Pan’s Labyrinth] (2006)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Alien (1979)
The Pianist (2002)
The Shining (1980)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi [Spirited Away] (2001)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Leben der Anderen, Das [The Lives of Others] (2006)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Untergang, Der [Downfall] (2004)
Boot, Das (1981)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Metropolis (1927)
Aliens (1986)
Raging Bull (1980)
Rashômon (1950)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Rebecca (1940)
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Sin City (2005)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
All About Eve (1950)
Modern Times (1936)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Sjunde inseglet, Det [The Seventh Seal] (1957)
The Great Escape (1963)
Amadeus (1984)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Prestige (2006)
Vita è bella, La [Life Is Beautiful] (1997)
Jaws (1975)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Sting (1973)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Apartment (1960)
City Lights (1931)
Braveheart (1995)
Nuovo cinema Paradiso [Cinema Paradiso] (1988)
Ratatouille (2007)
Batman Begins (2005)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Blade Runner (1982)
The Great Dictator (1940)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Notorious (1946)
Salaire de la peur, Le [The Wages of Fear](1953)
High Noon (1952)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Fargo (1996)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Unforgiven (1992)
Back to the Future (1985)
Ran (1985)
Oldboy (2003)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Mononoke-hime (1997)
Per qualche dollaro in più [For A Few Dollars More] (1965)
Ladri di biciclette [Bicycle Theives] (1948)
Yojimbo (1961)
The Green Mile (1999)
Annie Hall (1977)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Gladiator (2000)
Battaglia di Algeri, La [The Battle of Algiers] (1966)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Diaboliques, Les [The Devils] (1955)
Notti di Cabiria, Le Nights of Cabiria(1957)
Ben-Hur (1959)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Life of Brian (1979)
Die Hard (1988)
The General (1927)
The Incredibles (2004)
Finding Nemo (2003)
The Killing (1956)
American Gangster (2007)
Platoon (1986)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Smultronstället [Wild Strawberries] (1957)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Children of Men (2006)
Amores perros [Love’s a Bitch ] (2000)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Graduate (1967)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Crash (2004/I)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
Heat (1995)
8½ (1963)
Gandhi (1982)
Harvey (1950)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The African Queen (1951)
Stand by Me (1986)
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Grindhouse (2007) - have only seen the Death Proof half
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
The Conversation (1974)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Wo hu cang long [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ] (2000)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Duck Soup (1933)
Belle et la bête, La [Beauty and the Beast] (1946)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Trainspotting (1996)
Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das [The Cabinet of Dr Caligari] (1920)
The Thing (1982)
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens [Nosferatu] (1922)
Snatch. (2000)
Groundhog Day (1993)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Sleuth (1972)
Patton (1970)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Toy Story (1995)
Scarface (1983)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Glory (1989)
Out of the Past (1947)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Ed Wood (1994)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Spartacus (1960)
King Kong (1933)
The Terminator (1984)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
The Exorcist (1973)
Lola rennt [Run Lola, Run] (1998)
Frankenstein (1931)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Hustler (1961)
Stalker [Сталкер] (1979)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
The Lion King (1994)
Big Fish (2003)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Mystic River (2003)
Umberto D. (1952)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Magnolia (1999)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
In Cold Blood (1967)
Stalag 17 (1953)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies] (1988)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Roman Holiday (1953)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Du rififi chez les hommes [Rififi] (1955)
Casino (1995)
Manhattan (1979)
Ying xiong [Hero] (2002)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Rope (1948)
Casino Royale (2006)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Mou gaan dou [Infernal Affairs] (2002)
Cinderella Man (2005)
Idi i smotri [Come and See] (1985)
The Searchers (1956)
Finding Neverland (2004)
Inherit the Wind (1960)
His Girl Friday (1940)
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Shrek (2001)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Ikiru [Living] (1952)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

The Doctor Lecture: Morbid Obesity For Morons

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I found this today through one of my google alerts, and what with the disappointment from my last doctor's visit, I thought it was very appropriate (not to mention how many of these turn up on the Fat Hate Bingo cards). I am going to respond to the ones that pertain to my particular situation.
1) My weight is killing me, and my death is to be soon… even within the next five years (endlessly renewable as five year allotments pass.)
2) I am in denial by refusing to go into hospice by thinking I am not near death when it is obvious I am dying soon due to being so very fat.
3) I lie continuously and consistently about what I do and don’t eat.
4) I obviously do overeat but refuse to admit it.
5) Either I am a pathological liar about food and weight issues, or I am delusional or both.
6) Maybe I am unaware of portion sizes, caloric values, the glycemic index, or other fine points of nutrition.
7) I am apparently ignorant of the research and proof (and I am instructed to go read up on it if I am unconvinced) of how my weight is killing me and need to read more research on it since I am very determined to stay so huge.
8 ) I have never considered or even thought about the possibility of losing weight.
9) I am incredibly lazy and either sit around or lie around all day, refusing to move. But, some doctors do add that if they had even an extra 100 pounds on them, they wouldn’t want to do anything either.
10) I need less self-acceptance and more losing weight.
11) A 1000 or even less calorie diet is healthy for me because the alternative is death.
12) I need the gastric bypass surgery to make all my troubles go away. In fact, each doctor knows several people who have lost down to their normal weight and have no need for their former medicines. Some patients have even been cured of diabetes this way.
13) Obviously I have no self-control or will power, so the only hope is the gastric bypass.
14) It is my fault that none of the medical equipment, none of the doors, and none of the facilities are accessible or accurate for me because of my size, but I am to struggle through the agonizing pain physically and emotionally as well as paying the many fees for the services that don’t fit me and/or do not help me. After all I need the exercise anyway.
15) Doctors hate seeing their patients, specifically me, killing themselves, but this is a part of the job, alas.
16) Only I can choose what I do or don’t put into my mouth. If I would choose to eat less, I would lose weight.
17) I need to exercise and move about or die.
18) Anything I say or do that does not support the theory that my weight is killing me and is caused by my deliberate and willful choices is either fabricated or an obvious misinterpretation of whatever happened.
19) I am too stubborn about medicines and the side effects. All medicines have side effects. But if I choose not to take a medicine, a cholesterol lowering medicine for example because it caused jaundice in me, then that is my choice. However, I should be aware that my choice is killing me. And, what is the point of taking a fasting lipids blood test if I am not going to be taking any medicines anyway?
20) Since I am in a lot of pain, I need pain medicine not a firm diagnosis of what exactly is going wrong to cause the pain since I have already been told that my pains are caused by my huge amount of adipose tissue crushing and killing me.
21) My too tight control of my diabetes is hindering my losing weight.
22) Every condition is caused by and exacerbated by my fatness.
23) I need psychiatric help because I am so huge and determined to stay that way.
24) No professional medical person – nurse, OT, PT, practical nurse, nutritionist, dietitian, or social worker who comes to my home and sees my conditions here has a true picture of how I eat or not eat and, hence, have all been brainwashed by me to lie for me concerning these matters.

(sarcasm on)
1 - After 35 years at this weight (or thereabouts), I'm really tired of waiting to die. You've renewed it 7 times already, can we just say you don't know WTF you're talking about here?
2 - See 1 above.
3 - Send someone over to follow me around 24/7 for a week. I promise I won't eat any differently then than I do now (but I'm a liar, so I guess that won't work, now will it?).
4 - Can we say overeating is not what makes all fat people fat? But we're all liars about what we eat, so obviously it does make us fat.
5 - Yep, pathological liar and delusional to boot (that's how I was able to raise my son on my own, hold down a challenging job, and go to college). Nice to know that in spite of being delusional, I was a contributing member of society. Nice to know that being a pathological liar is an asset when working too.
6 - After all the diets I've been on, it's just so easy to forget what a "sensible" portion size is, I can forget the caloric value of everything I put in my mouth, and glycemic index, WTF is that? I haven't had any of this information pounded into my head every time you insist I diet, now have I?
7 - I've read the research to which you directed me, but I'm a liar and delusional, so how on earth am I supposed to understand it? Not to mention the fact that you pick and choose the research that only supports your point of view and conveniently forget to mention that it's been paid for by the pharmaceutical and diet industries, who have a lot of money to lose if all those dieters finally figure out they're being lied to.
8 - Nope, never considered it at all, considering all the diets I've been on that failed (but I'm a liar and delusional, so maybe I only thought I was dieting and losing weight there for awhile).
9 - I am incredibly lazy and lie around all day doing nothing? Who the hell cleans the house, does the laundry, does the shopping, cooks the meals, does the dishes, etc, etc? Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a liar and delusional, so it must be those pixies who come in and do all that stuff for me.
10 - Less self-acceptance and more losing weight? And then if I lose the weight, how do I learn to accept the new, improved me? Or must I keep on hating myself and finding more and more things to improve? Sorry, so not going there, so STFU already.
11 - 1000 calories or less or death? Well, since it's been 35 years already, and I haven't dropped dead of TEHFATZ, and I've been more or less enjoying what I eat (when I can ignore your whining), I think I'll just keep on eating the number of calories I need to actually function in this world without passing out from starvation, or having headaches from low blood sugar. But I'm a liar and delusional, so those things don't happen, do they?
12 - Gastric bypass, huh? Been there done that, didn't work. Oh, I should have it done again? What, you aren't satisfied that it didn't kill me the first time around and think I should give it another shot? Yeah, right, death is just waiting to claim me, and it doesn't matter how I die, it's gonna be TEHFATZ or WLS that does me in. I don't think so, asshat.
13 - No self-control or willpower? Nope, it doesn't take any of that to work a full-time job, go to college part-time, and raise a kid alone. But I'm a liar and delusional, so maybe none of that happened?
14 - Heaven forbid that I not fit into your cookie-cutter mold of perfection (and chairs, medical diagnostic equipment, exam tables, etc, etc). I need the exercise anyway, like I don't get enough of that, trying to jump through your hoops, whatever they are?
15 - Uh, doc, death is part of life, and if you don't want to see death, don't get born, ok? I'm killing myself with TEHFATZ, and I've been killing myself for the last 35 years and haven't managed to complete the feat yet, so it may be another 35 years before it actually happens (or I might die in a car wreck tomorrow, either way, I'm just as dead and you can't stop it from happening).
16 - Hey doc, I did choose to eat less, quite a few times, for quite a few months/years, and I did lose weight. But yanno what? You can't live on a starvation diet forever. I quit losing weight on 1000 calories a day, and started gaining. So if I can't keep the weight off at 1000 calories a day, which is less than what you need just to keep your body running even if you do nothing but sit on your ass and breathe, I'm going to eat what I need to sit on my ass and breathe, what I need to be able to do all things it takes to have a good life (like clean house, do laundry, wash dishes, cook meals, go shopping, play with the grandkids, have sex, etc, etc, etc). So STFU already, ok?
17 - See 1, 2, and 9, nuff said.
18 - Yeah, that thing about living for the last 35 years as fat really doesn't support the fact that my weight is killing me, does it? So my life is fabricated and is a misinterpretation of the fact that I'm not dying, and probably won't die of TEHFATZ any time soon. Sorry to burst your little bubble there.
19 - Ah yes, medicines and side effects. Medicines can be useful when they actually help whatever it is you're trying to improve, but I'll take them only when the side effects aren't worse than what you're trying to cure (can we say Alli, here?). Shitting my pants in public is not something with which I want to deal, thank you very much. I'd rather deal with the hoots and catcalls of fat-phobics. And we won't get into the side effects of the phen-fen you prescribed, ok?
20 - It's just so much easier for you to treat the symptom than it is to look beyond TEHFATZ for the real cause of pain, isn't it? After all, everyone knows that TEHFATZ is the cause of every problem every fat person ever has, even though thin people have the same problems (but they have real issues because they aren't fat, delusional liars).
21 - Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't. You preach control, control, control, and when it is controlled, you preach that the control is too tight, ease up so you can lose some of that weight. Sorry, doc, you can't have it both ways (I don't get this, but DH does). Some people will lose weight when they get diabetes under control, some won't, it's as simple as that (but simplicity is not your strong suit, is it, doc?).
22 - Yeah, that ingrown toenail I had is because I'm fat, and so is the arthritis in my right knee (but it's only one knee, so I'm not sure how all my other joints have escaped TEHFATCURSE of arthritis).
23 - Psychiatric help? Doc, 10 years of therapy and Prozac didn't do a damned thing for my fatness, and I don't think another 10 years of that would do much good (and since TEHFATZ is going to kill me in 5 years anyway, what's the point, hmmmm?).
24 - This one I can't answer, since I've never had anyone come to my home to see what I do or how I eat or anything else.
(sarcasm off)
Need I say more?

Another tool for obsessing about food and exercise

link1 and link2
This is just exactly what we need. Another tool for obsessing about what we eat and how much we exercise. Not to mention that it's designed around Windows only, and only works well with IE7 (which is a whole 'nother rant). Not only do you have to wear the damned thing all the time, you have to input exactly what you ate, using their list of foods (and how complete is that, does it cover recipes you use at home and have modified? Probably not). The cost is another obstacle, $399 for this little baby, and you have to subscribe to the website to use it. Yeah, this is really something I would want to use if I were interested in losing weight. It's bad enough that they expect us to throw good money after bad away on Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, NutriSystem and other diets that don't work, now they want us to keep throwing money at them on a monthly basis after we've found out that those diets don't work because this tracks calories in/calories out. Now we all know how well that works, been there done that, sorry, don't need any more t-shirts, hats, or key chains to prove it.
But hey, we're supposed to be buying into the OMGOBESITYEPIDEMICKILLZ and be willing to do anything, spend any amount of money in order to get thin. Sorry, think I'll just keep on opting out of that hysteria. I have better places to spend that kind of money (like on fresh fruits and veggies, books, DH, grandkids, etc, etc).

Happy Anniversary to us

Well, today, we've been married a year. If someone had told me 2 years ago that I would be married, and actually have made it this far, I'd have told them they were nuts. I had given up on finding a man who could put up with me. Most of my relationships with men never lasted more than 6 months, some were abusive (and the one man my mother wanted me to marry was a really abusive asshat and she thought he was perfect for me), and some were users. And can we say that of those men, my son didn't like any of them? That should have told me something, if I had had the sense to listen.
So when I met DH, I was not sure I was ready for this thing called marriage. After all, I'd been on my own, and alone for most of 35 years. And I was really not sure how my son would like him (he's really protective of me, which is kinda sweet, considering the stormy relationship we had when he was a teenager). But the more I talked to Mike (we talked on the phone for about 2 months), the more I found that we had in common (we both have a really sick sense of humor, and that's really sexy to me, go figure). We think a lot alike, and have a lot of the same opinions about some things (and there are things we disagree on, but nothing major). So I took the plunge and set up an in-person meeting (did I mention he saw my personal ad on Yahoo?) at Mystic Lake Casino (I always meet someone new in a very public place with lots of people around, just in case). I have to tell ya, when I saw him, it was like love at first sight (and I didn't believe in that, at all). We spent the weekend together, walking around the place like a couple of teenagers, holding hands, making out in the elevator, goofy stuff like that (and at 50 and 52, it was fun). And talking, and talking, and talking. And he proposed, and I said yes. When it was time for me to go home, I didn't want to leave him (oh yeah, I had it bad). So I went home, and didn't tell anyone what had happened (I lived with my son and his wife at the time).
Mike and I made plans for him to come down and meet my son and his wife one weekend, and I was on pins and needles about it, I can tell you. But they actually got along, and I think what helped is that Mike likes to play euchre, and so do Jon and Tina, and we played, and they were beating us, and Jon handed Mike a box of tissues and told him we had plenty, so if he wanted to cry, he could (and we all laughed our asses off over it). And they did a lot of talking when Tina and I were busy, so I knew it was going pretty good. So when Mike left, he asked me if Jon liked him, and I said "Yeah, he talked to you and teased you. Believe me, if he didn't like you, he would ignore you."
Then I told Jon that Mike and I were going to get married, and he said that if Mike made me happy, that was cool with him. So we did, and he does, and we lived happily ever after....I hope.
My grandkids love him and call him grandpa, so that's kewl too, and Mike's step-kids like me (and that seems a little strange to me, since their mother is Mike's last ex-wife, but they're all adults with families, so it makes it easier that we can all get along). Mike's grandkids call me grandma, and that's cool (hell, my grandson's cousin calls me grandma).
So, on average, with all its ups and downs and in-betweens, life is good, and married life seems to be agreeing with me, the woman who thought she was a loner and didn't need or want a man in her life (just took the right one showing up to prove me wrong....roflol).

I can see this happening.....

Make-up, beauty ideals, and artificiality

From Creamy Nougat Lair
This post got me to thinking about why I don't wear make-up very often, why I don't own any dresses anymore, and why I'm not really a girlie girl, so to speak.
When I was growing up, and going through puberty (you know, getting hairy legs and pits and stuff), my mother refused to let me shave my legs, wouldn't show me how to do that, and as a result, I went around with strips of skin missing off my shins and ankles (no disposable razors in our house at that time, I don't even know if they made them back in the mid to late 60's, we had those double edge blades that were a bitch to adjust so you didn't carve yourself up like a Thanksgiving turkey). I wasn't allowed to wear nylons (and my allowance wasn't enough to let me buy them on my own very often), I had to wear anklets with my shoes. Then I got a summer job, and found out I didn't have to wear nylons and a girdle, there were such things as pantyhose (I think I was one of the first girls in junior high to wear pantyhose).
Back then, we had a dress code in school where girls had to wear dresses, no jeans, no slacks, nope, nope, nope. I hated wearing dresses, the style back then was short hemlines and I had the thunder thighs from hell (doing a lot of roller skating can do that to ya). The dress code didn't change until my sophomore year in high school when a bunch of us who weren't the in-crowd cheerleader types got together and all decided to wear slacks to school one day. We were rounded up and sent to the gym for a talking-to by the principal, who told us we had to go home and change before we could come back. We refused, and were sent to see the school superintendent. He told us that there was a right way and a wrong way to get the dress code changed and we had done it the wrong way (of course, we had been asking the principal to change the dress code for most of the year and he was refusing). Anyway, the superintendent told us to get the student council to vote on it and ok it, then the principal had to ok it, then the school board had to ok it. Well, I can tell you that enough pressure was brought to bear that everyone in the so-called chain of command ok'd it, but with restrictions. Slacks were ok, but only if the fabric was what you could make a dress/skirt out of (trying to keep jeans out). So, jeans were in, a couple of girls had denim dresses or skirts. Then, since they couldn't keep jeans out, they couldn't have any holes in them. Fine, I patched my holey jeans with cute embroidered appliques: flowers, butterflies, mushrooms, whatever caught my fancy (can you tell I was a rebel?). And I hardly ever wore a dress to school again.
As far as make-up goes, I think it's usually mothers who teach their daughters how to apply make-up, but I wouldn't know for sure, since my mother had no intentions of letting me wear it, let alone teaching me how to apply it. I didn't learn anything about it until after I graduated and was out on my own, and then it was sorta kinda maybe learning on my own, reading those fashion mags that told you how to look a certain way (I learned the most about it though, from a stripper roommate I had, now she knew how to apply make-up to make the most of a girl's looks). And doing my nails? Well, let's just say that I was a nail-biter until I was in my 40's and ended up having what was left of my top teeth pulled and got a denture (was too hard to bite my nails with that damned thing). I actually have fingernails now, a decent length, but I don't do nail polish that often, and I absolutely abhor the fake nails (too long and I can't do anything when I have them, and if I get them done for a special occasion, they come off immediately after, so I can't justify the money it costs to have them for a few hours). But it's funny about the make-up, most of the time I just couldn't be bothered to wear it (I was always in a hurry to go somewhere). So even though I didn't wear it often, even after I learned to apply it, I still had plenty of guys who wanted to go out with me and thought I was hot without it. Go figure.
I'll never forget the one time I went with Roxie (my stripper roommate) to the club where she danced (I usually went with her to keep guys from hitting on her, she told them she had to take me home because I didn't drive). Now, when I went with Roxie to the club, I always wore jeans and t-shirts, no make-up, and my hair was clean, but not styled (wash it, towel-dry it, comb it and go was my motto). One night, Roxie said I should wear a skirt/blouse/jacket combo I had bought (no clue why I bought it, didn't really have anywhere to wear it), she would do my hair and make-up for me. So I said what the hell, why not. Well, when we got to the club, we were sitting at the bar, where I normally sat, and the bartender called Roxie over and wanted to know who the new chick with her was. When she told him it was me, he said no way, that I had never looked that good. Then he came and talked to me and was shocked as hell to find out it was really me after all. And this has happened to me every time I put on make-up. It changes how I look, and I don't like that. I don't even look like me to me, if you know what I mean. I feel artificial and fake, like I'm misrepresenting who I am.
I don't own any dresses anymore, I've always had a hard time finding ones that fit properly. If a dress has a waist, it hits me too high (my waist is right at my bellybutton, and dress waists want to hit me a couple of inches above that, uncomfortable as hell). If it's an empire waist, there isn't enough room in the top for my rack of doom (love that phrase, btw). And since I have veinous insufficiency and my legs swell (it went undiagnosed/mis-diagnosed for 8 years), I have severe discoloration on my lower calves (it's all red, and yucky, scaly skin that no lotion will get rid of). So to wear a dress, it either has to be a floor-length one, or I have to wear tights (and I have trouble finding pantyhose to fit [that don't bag and sag, anyway] 60" hips, 32" inseam, and thighs that are 30" around, so tights are probably even harder to find).
Add to all of this the fact that I've always been more comfortable out climbing trees, riding horses, working on cars, building stuff than I have been cooking and baking and whatever else it is that women are supposed to like, I guess I'm not a typical woman (if there even is such a creature). Don't get me wrong, I like to sew (making clothes and fabric dolls is fun), and I was into counted cross stitch and embroidery for a while, and I like doing crafty stuff, but I also like running a hammer and screwdriver and circular saw/jigsaw. When I was working on cars, even though it was out of necessity (cheaper to fix it myself than pay a garage to do it), I enjoyed it. I don't know if I liked the fact that I could do something that a lot of women couldn't/wouldn't do, that I was as good at it as a lot of men (and knew more than some of them, my dad was a mechanic and taught me a lot), or if it was just satisfaction that I didn't have to have a man around to do those things for me. I don't do car repairs now, ever since they started putting computers in cars, there isn't a hell of a lot you can do to fix one unless you have those expensive diagnostic machines that tell you what's probably wrong. I'll let my mechanic do the work for me.
I don't think I've ever fit the cultural ideal of beauty, I've never been a Marilyn Monroe/Liz Taylor type, or a Twiggy, and I'm too old now to even think of trying to be what is considered conventionally beautiful by the media and Hollyweird. Not that I really care, either. I've grown fond of who I am and how I look, it's me, all me, the real me. What you see is what you get, pretty much. And I'm satisfied with that.

When the truth hurts

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Ya know, I read Dear Margo regularly, and I have to say, she's way off base on this one. She pissed me off so much with this advice that I wrote to her and told her so. What I wrote to her:

Dear Margo, your advice to Concerned Friend who has the "very overweight" co-worker is way off base. Being a fat woman myself, who worked before I got married, if a so-called friend came up to me and told me that I needed to lose weight, wear make-up, and change the way I dress in order to snag a man and live happily ever after, she just might be picking herself up off the floor. Do you really think that fat people don't know they are fat? It's not like we aren't bombarded with fat-hate messages on a daily basis, now are we? We don't know that being thin/beautiful/blond/tanned/toned is the life goal for all women, do we?
I'm the same type of woman as the overweight friend, I'm fat, I don't wear make-up, and I'm not fashionably dressed, but I have a husband who loves me, and a nice home. I have a son and daughter-in-law who love me just as I am, grandkids who love me, and my husband's step-kids, wonder of wonders, like me too, JUST THE WAY I AM.
Concerned Friend needs to mind her own business. If their boss doesn't see a problem with the way the fat woman dresses, it's no one else's business either.
Fat and Proud

I want to know why in the hell everyone thinks they have a right to tell people how to dress? Maybe this woman can't afford any better clothes than what she's wearing. Been there done that when I was working. My clothes were always washed, but sometimes they had minor stains on them that didn't wash out, and I had to wear them to work anyway because they were all I had and I couldn't afford to replace them. That could be the case with this woman, no one knows (and it's really no one's business as long as her boss isn't concerned about it). I never wore make-up to work either ( one: I'm not a girly girl and I don't like make-up, it's just not me, two: I'm allergic to most of it and couldn't afford the hypo-allergenic stuff when I worked, three: I'd rather sleep another 15 or 20 minutes than spend that time applying make-up). And there were times I went to work with my hair wet (and it's short, not long) because I overslept and took a shower and washed my hair before I dashed out the door to make it to work on time. Does Concerned Friend know for sure this isn't the case with her co-worker, at least occasionally? And is it really any of her business anyway?
And guess what? I managed to find a husband (not that I was looking for one) even though I'm fat, don't wear make-up, and don't dress fashionably. Gee, who woulda thunk it?

Disappointment

Well, I went to see my doctor today and things didn't go quite the way I had envisioned them. I wanted to ask about fibromyalgia, my knee, and my hernia. I didn't object to being weighed, I was kind of curious to see if following the low-carb WOE for DH's diabetes was helping me maintain my weight. I was shocked to see that I had lost 10 lbs (and I don't know how the hell that happened, I sure as hell haven't been watching portion sizes or calories or anything like that, just cutting down on the carbs we eat).
As far as the fibromyalgia, my doctor won't make the diagnosis, I have to see a rheumatologist and she said it's really hard to get in to see one (I'm guessing we don't have one in our small town, which means going to Minneapolis, no way am I doing that in the winter time). She said from my symptoms, I probably have it, but getting meds will have to come from the rheumatologist. She also said it was good that I had lost some weight, and that losing a bit more might help with that (*head desk*). I had thought she was above all that nonsense (and she gave the tired old spiel of calories in/calories out). Yeah, right, tell me all about it, I'm sure I'll believe it this time around. She did say that I shouldn't weigh myself at home (yeah, I haven't found a home scale yet that goes over 350 lbs, so I don't think that's going to be a problem) because then you start obsessing over the number on the scale. Uh, up until she weighed me at my physical in February, I hadn't stepped on a scale in 8 years, why did she think I would be starting now?
For my knee, she recommended that I see an orthopedic doc (and again, even losing a little weight will lessen the pain in my knee, okay, you're sure of that, are ya?). I guess there are shots that can be given for knee pain (I knew about cortisone shots, but she was also saying prednisone, and there are some new ones too). I also asked her about my back, since it cramps up when I have to stand or walk for any amount of time, and then I can't stand to have anyone even touch my back, it hurts so bad (and it still hurts quite a bit even when the muscles aren't cramped). She said maybe physical therapy could help, but didn't recommend where to go or who to see (fat lot of good that does me). So, I have an appointment to see the orthopedic doc, and I'm going to ask him about using a recumbant bike for exercise once my knee pain is under control (I think that will help with strengthening my leg and stomach muscles, which should help my back problems). Why the hell do I have to figure this out on my own? I thought doctors were supposed to be so fucking smart and know what will help us? All she can tell me is lose weight, even if it's only 20 lbs, it will help and I will feel better (and I just so believe this, right?).
She did say that diets don't work because you can't stay on a diet forever, and the minute you go off the diet, you gain the weight back (no shit? tell me something I don't already know). She says you have to change the way you eat, but didn't really have any recommendations, other than keep on with the low-carb diabetic WOE we've been doing since that seems to be working (I'm not doing it to lose weight, I'm doing it because it's too damned expensive to do low-carb for DH and regular meals for me, plus it's not fair to DH to have stuff in the house that he shouldn't eat because it will send his BGs sky high).
And for my hernia? Well, she couldn't feel anything along the gallbladder incision (which is where they repaired the hernia from the GB surgery and where I can feel a bulge). She said I'd need a CAT scan for that, and we should wait to do that until I've lost some more weight to see if it's still a problem (since it only hurts when I do a lot of laughing, evidently it's not a big deal). Like I'm going to try to lose weight. I don't think so. I'm going to keep on eating low-carb, for the reasons I stated before, and because it seems to be a fairly healthy way of eating (at least I'm getting more fruits and veggies than I did before, and finding out I like more of them than I thought I did). I'm going to keep on doing what exercise I can handle, when I can handle it, but I'm not doing this with losing weight as my goal. I just want to feel better, I don't want to hurt anymore, I'm fucking tired of hurting all the damned time, and if she isn't going to help me with that other than by suggesting weight loss, then I'll figure out how to have less pain on my own.

Stocklaufer granted 2nd adoption hearing

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Well, Mr. Stocklaufer has lost almost 200 lbs and has been given a second hearing on adopting the baby that was taken from him and his wife.
The court was so worried that a man who weighed 550 lbs wasn't healthy enough, wouldn't live long enough, to raise this child (despite the fact that he and his wife have an 8 year-old adopted son) that they took the baby away and gave it to another couple for possible adoption. So Mr. Stocklaufer had WLS in August and has lost almost 200 lbs in less than 4 months. Yeah, judge, that's really healthy, mutilating a perfectly good digestive system and losing almost 50 lbs a month is just so good for a fat person. You're willing to condemn a man to a lifetime of side effects and possible death because fat-phobia has run rampant and you have bought into the hype that no way can a fat person be healthy, their fat is going to kill them sooner than anything else possibly could. You're willing to deny this baby loving parents, who are related to him, just because one of those parents is fat.
I'll tell you what, judge, there are no fucking guarantees in life. Those thinner people that you gave the baby to, they could die tomorrow in a fire, a car wreck, or any one of a number of accidents that can't possibly be foreseen or prevented. And then where would that baby be? Without parents again. And I can guarantee you that that baby isn't going to give a rat's ass why his parent died, just the fact that a parent is gone is devastating enough, without blaming the parent for his own death. Judge, you really need to educate yourself on the facts of weight, and not go by the hysteria dished out by the media and the pharmaceutical industry.

The big issue.......maybe

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I'm not so sure I agree with the writer's premise here. He seems to be saying that women are their own worst enemy when it comes to size and accepting/loving themselves. He also seems to be saying that thin women aren't womanly, only women with "curves" are womanly.
Since this is a British newspaper, and his main "woman with curves" seems to be Nigella Lawson (and I don't have a clue who she is since I don't watch British tv, hell, I don't even watch that much American tv), I can't say if she's "average", "thin", "overweight", "obese", or whatever.
I will agree that women are harder on themselves than they should be, and we are prone to judging each other by size/shape/hair color, etc. But, and I think this is a big but, has it gotten so bad because women are naturally so judgmental of other women, is it because we are competing against each other for whatever it is we want out of life, or is it because we've been programmed by the entertainment industry, the diet industry, and the cosmetics industry to try to reach some unattainable ideal of beauty and fix every little teeny tiny flaw we have (or maybe all of these)?
I will admit, that before I found FA, I was as guilty as the next one for judging on the basis of looks alone. I don't know how many times I saw a thin woman and said "I hate skinny women (actually, it was skinny bitches), they don't know how good they have it" or a fat woman and said "Damn, I'm glad I'm not that big (or: "fuck, I wish I was her size", if she was smaller than me)." I never stopped to think that the issues I had about my body applied to every other woman out there, no matter what her size happened to be. I never stopped to realize that the perfection we are supposed to strive for and attain is impossible for all but a very few (and they have it because they were born with it). And even though those born with that supposed ideal beauty probably still have issues every day that they aren't perfect either. I'm not proud of the fact that I used to think that way, but I'll tell you what, I am damned glad I found FA and that I can see the way I used to think is nothing but programming/brainwashing/whatever and that I have the ability to realize that and change my attitude about myself and other women.

“I don’t think that it has necessarily got worse: my mother was obsessed with weight,” says Feltz. “But now, nobody ever says, ‘Handsome is as handsome does, and so what if she’s put on few pounds – she’s still fascinating.’ That’s the real difference.”

I wonder though, even when people said that, did they really mean it? Did they really apply it to the people they knew, the people they met? And did a person's weight, back when that quote was popular, have little bearing on how handsome/beautiful a person was considered? I don't know how many times I was told "you'd be so pretty if you just lost some weight" (and all that did was make want to punch out the lights of the person who said it).
Everyone has biases, and it's impossible to eradicate all bias, but just because you have a bias about some aspect of a person doesn't mean you get to treat them as less than human. Everyone, no matter their size/looks/intelligence/ability/whatever, is worthy of being treated with respect and dignity. If they're an asshat, on the other hand...........

Target/Lane Bryant rewards for touting merchandise

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I read this, and I think what Target is doing now is damage control. They set up on Facebook and MySpace, and have members of those communities recommend merchandise from Target in return for rewards, but don't want anyone to know that those are paid recommendations. When someone thinks that's unethical and posts about it on Target's Facebook or MySpace, her posts are either archived or removed, presumably to keep the secret. Once that is found to be impossible to do, they spin it by saying it was a mistake and worded incorrectly, and then they change the wording to make themselves look good.
My point for making this post is that I got a couple of emails from someone saying she is from Lane Bryant, thanking me for posting about their Right Fit jeans, and wanting to reward me with a holiday gift, just send me your mailing address so we can thank you. Well, I'm naturally leery about that kind of thing, and I didn't respond, and trashed the email.
Then about a week later, I got another email telling me about a free mp3 I could download:

Right Fit has a new song, I Can’t Believe It’s Me!, that invites women to celebrate themselves and love their bodies. You can download this song to your blog!

Now, I don't have a problem with advertising, how else do we learn about new products and decide if we want to try them? I also don't mind linking to websites that I've found that have awesome clothes and products for fat women. But for some reason, and I haven't quite figured out why, this just kind of makes me uneasy.
I don't have anything against Lane Bryant, per se, other than the fact that they don't use larger models for their clothes, using the excuse that even fat women don't want to see their clothes on larger models (and if that's really the case, why does Catherine's use larger models and sell as many clothes as they do?). About the only thing I ever buy from LB is slacks, because I know how they are going to fit me, and I know how they are going to look on me. As for tops and dresses, I won't buy from LB because I can't tell from looking at a top or a dress on a thin model how it's going to look on me (we're talking catalogs/websites here, I don't like their stores much, and that's a whole 'nother rant). I have a humongous rack of doom and hips that don't quit, not to mention thunder thighs that make a storm pale in comparison, so how can I tell what it's going to look like on me when the model isn't even close to my shape or size? Ain't happening, folks. That's one of the reasons I won't download their song to my blog, another is that I listened to it and I don't really care for it (I'm really not into the hip hop style of music, and the lyrics seem rather repetitious to me). Now if they had wanted to do that song more on the order of Free Your Mind by En Vogue, I would have jumped on it in a heartbeat (love that song, can ya tell).
I know I'm not the only blog out here who has talked about Right Fit jeans, so I'm assuming I'm not the only one who got this request? Does anyone have a different perspective on this? I'm open for suggestions.

Exercise, obese kids, and insulin resistance/body size

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Ok, this is a good article, as far as it goes. I would like to know exactly what kind of structured exercise they used for these kids, did the kids enjoy it, and is it something that could be used in schools for physical education classes? After all, school would be the safest place for kids to be able to get exercise, particularly kids who have a lower socioeconomic level. If this is something that kids would enjoy doing, and would be willing to keep on doing, it might be a worthwhile effort to make it available to all children, no matter what their size or economic status.
The conclusion of the study, that insulin resistance improved and cardiorespiratory fitness improved even though the kids didn't lose any weight, is something that should be shouted from the rooftops, IMHO.
I don't think this will stop all the healthnannies from saying "portion control, low-fat, no sugar, and exercise, exercise, exercise" for kids (or anyone else) will make you thin or keep you thin, but it is a start, to at least say improvement can be made without weight loss.

Frog-kissin'

Well, I am just a little miss posty pants today, making up for the time I missed last week and the beginning of this week, I guess.
Belle of the Blog has a wonderful post today (link) about loving the unlovable. I think this also applies to people who don't appeal to you aesthetically, personality-wise, or any other -wise.
Jumping to conclusions about the love-ability or like-ability of a person based exclusively on how they look means you just might be missing out on knowing a really neat person. I've met a few people that I didn't like at first meeting. Sometimes that was based on looks, sometimes on attitude, sometimes on personality. But, if I took the time to get past that first impression and really pay attention to what the person was like (and get to know them), most of the time, I ended up liking them. I also realized that if I hadn't taken the time to get to know them, I would have missed knowing someone who could add insights I might not otherwise have had, and I would have missed knowing someone who could add, even vicariously, to my world of experiences.
That has taught me to look past the exterior of a person, and value what they really are, deep inside, over looks. I've known people who were considered ugly (not conventionally good-looking), but I thought they were just gorgeous/handsome people and they really appealed to me because they were good, kind, humorous people with a unique way of looking at the world.
And really, how many people do you personally know that have absolutely nothing worthwhile in them at all? Even my mother, who I dislike intensely and wants nothing to do with me, has her good points (I think, I wouldn't know for sure since I haven't talked to her in 9 or 10 years). I guess one of them would be that she loves my Dad (she must, they've been married for 55 years). I love her (after all, she is my mother), but that doesn't mean I have to like her as a person or that I have to deal with her on a daily basis (the fact that I'm in Minnesota and she's in Illinois helps a great deal with that). And I'll tell you what, anyone who can deal with my mother and walk away whole, can deal with anything. Dealing with her for most of my life has helped me realize that people are far from perfect, and we are all products of everything that has happened to us in our lives. Those things are not excuses for us to be asshats (ie...my mother was a bitch to me so I can be a bitch to everyone else, I was abused as a kid so I can go out and abuse others or kill and maim, etc, etc, etc). Those things are opportunities to learn and grow as people, and know that, since it happened to me, it could have happened to others, and maybe I should cut them some slack. It's funny, but people who know me and my mother have told me quite often that they don't know how I turned out as well as I did with the kind of mother I had. I just tell them that I did it to spite her (best revenge is living well when someone expects you to be miserable all your life).
So, go kiss a frog today, you never know what you'll find.

gmail added group chat

Now this is pretty cool, I think. Gmail has added group chat to its line-up (I love my gmail account). I'm thinking that if any of us in the phat-o-sphere would like to get together and chat, this might be the way to go (if you need an invite to gmail, I have quite a few I can send out, ummm, like 50 invites I haven't used). This would allow for chatting without having to download anything, and all chatters would be in one window (like on mIRC, I used to chat there a LOT).
Anyway, this is not something I think we have to do, but if anyone is interested..............

US Obesity Epidemic may have topped out

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I don't know if this is good news or not, since the epidemiologist who did the study can't explain why the numbers of obese/overweight people aren't increasing (at least not in statistically significant numbers). Could it be that enough people have seen that dieting doesn't work for friends/family and have decided not to jump on the bandwagon? Could it be that maybe, just maybe, people have finally started to figure out that dieting is a not a permanent cure and have quit? After all, if they quit doing the yo-yo diet thing, they aren't getting any fatter. Could it possibly be that more people are discovering HAES and applying it? Could it be that people have gotten tired of eating over-processed foods and have gone to eating more fruits/veggies/whole foods?
If you read the article, you notice nothing is said about all the interventions to prevent the OMGOBESITYEPIDEMIC being the reason. Could it be that they have finally realized that all their so-called good intention interventions aren't working, and never will work? Hey, maybe people actually know what is best for them and don't need a nanny government telling them what, how, and when to eat/exercise.

Dr. Ogden said that not only has obesity prevalence increased in the past 30 years, but so has the number of extremely obese people. According to NHANES data, people with a BMI greater than 40 were almost nonexistent in 1980. Several percent of the population had passed that threshold in 2005-2006.

Well, I'm glad to know that I didn't exist (or was almost non-existent) in 1980, since my BMI back then was over 40 (and I was 27 years old at the time). People with a BMI over 40 existed, but the OMGOBESITYEPIDEMIC wasn't getting all the hysterical press coverage that it is today, so I don't think anyone actually looked for people with really high BMIs. Because we existed, really, we did.
edited to add:
link
Sandy Szwarc at JFS has a good analysis of this study at the above link.

Finally, I got my pictures from childhood and on...

Vesta's pics from childhood through 2006
Ok, here are the pics I asked my mother to send me. She didn't send all of the pics she has of me, and most of them don't have dates on them, so I'm guessing at ages on the ones when I was really young. I don't remember a lot about most of them when I was really little.
I do know that looking back at them now, I wasn't fat at all. In fact, I was pretty damned hot until after I got pregnant with my son and gained a lot of weight (and even then, I was still a damned good-looking fat woman). Hell, I don't think I've changed much, looks-wise, in the last 25 years, maybe that's why people have such a hard time believing that I'm 54.
The pictures aren't in any particular order, but they are all dated as well as I can remember. The ones of me in Spokane in 1973-1974 were when I weighed about 175 and wore a size 14 (I don't know what that would be in today's sizes). I got hit by a car in 1972 and went from 235 to 175 in about 3 months (2 weeks in a hospital and 6 weeks in a nursing home with a broken leg and fractured pelvis will do that to ya). The ones of me in 1970-1972 from high school, I weighed 175 and wore a size 18 (can we say I was in better shape in Spokane? Probably from all the walking, bike-riding, and roller skating I did, not to mention the drinking and not eating).
I think I liked having my picture taken when I was really young, but got out of that after I started hearing how fat I was about the time I hit the age of 9 or 10 (I matured early and was wearing a training bra in 3rd grade, oh fun fun fun).
I know this isn't a lot of pictures for 54 years of life, but when you hate the way you look because it's been pounded into your head that you're fat and unlovable, you tend to shy away from the camera any time it's pointed your way. I'm trying to get over that, but I can tell you, it sure as hell ain't easy. This block of photos is helping though. I can look at them and tell myself that I was a cute kid, a good-looking teen, and good-looking as a fat adult, no matter what anyone else thinks. So now, if pictures are going to be taken, I'm not going to run and hide anymore. I want a record of my awesomeness to leave for my grandkids (and so they can see how much like me they look......LOL).

Scary Stats Employers Should Know...Yeah, Right.

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Well, we know who's paying this asshat to spout nonsense about fat and health, don't we? Dr James Rippe thinks obesity is a disease, and doctors aren't trained to tell people that their fat is a disease (but they sure as hell can tell us that every problem we have is caused by our fat).

In fact, obesity is listed only on 0.3% of claims submitted by physicians, but it causes 40% to 70% of hypertension cases, over 50% of blood lipid problems, over 80% of Type 2 diabetes and almost 100% of metabolic syndrome cases. Over the past decade, the prevalence of obesity has grown by more than 40%, according to Rippe.

He really doesn't understand the difference between co-relation and causation, does he?

Rippe, who partnered with Weight Watchers to write the book "Weight Loss that Lasts," suggests that implementing a weight management program in the workplace, whether outsourced or done internally, can have a significant and nearly immediate impact on productivity, health care costs and absenteeism.

Now why did I know that a diet company was involved with this? And it stands to reason that they would want employers to get in on forcing employees to follow their diet plan, even though permanent weight loss probably won't happen for the majority. But that's a really good way to get more people buying your product once your former customers get pissed and quit when they realize you're selling them a dream that won't come true.
For this to be recommended by an insurance company is even scarier, because what happens when they pay for this weight loss, and then learn it can't be sustained by the majority, and may have caused more problems than if the people hadn't lost weight to begin with? How many people are going to lose their insurance for non-compliance, when that isn't the problem at all? The problem is that diets don't work for naturally fat people, and making them diet is just setting them up for failure and further discrimination.

I've been tagged

Well, Deniselle at Fatly Yours has tagged me for a "Seven things about me" meme (link). So here goes:

1: I'm an avid bookworm (I have been known to read the back of the cereal box at breakfast, just to have something to read). I have collected books for the last 38 years and ended up giving 10 large boxes of them to my son (he had been after me for years to get them, he's been reading them ever since he learned to read 25 years ago). So he now has 4 bookshelves full of hardback and paperback books, some printed in the 40's.

2: I like all kinds of music, everything from Aerosmith to Rob Zombie, old country to heavy metal to Native American and Celtic.

3: When I was a kid and we went to see my mother's parents, I always knew when we were close because of the way it smelled (hard to describe, but it was my grandmother's cooking, the swamp cooler in the kitchen window, the apple orchards and river across the road, and the sagebrush on the hill behind their house).

4: My aunt (my dad's brother's wife) taught me how to do the twist when I was 7 years old (she was 27 at the time). She's still the coolest person I know (how many women, at the age of 75, would be willing to take 5 eighteen-year-old girls shopping at the mall?).

5: I've been told I'm anal, mostly because I like to keep things in order. All of my cds are in alphabetical order by artist, my books are the same way on the shelf, and even my old vinyl records are filed alphabetically by artist (and all are sub-divided by genre, alphabetical within the genre). What can I say, I like to be able to find something right away without having to look through everything I own.

6: I didn't get married until I was 53. My brother told me 30 years ago that I was going to die a lonely old maid because I was such a bitch that no man would ever have me.....LOL I think it was just because I wasn't willing to settle for the first man who proposed to me. I wanted a man who was going to be my friend, my lover, my confidante, and who would love me in spite of/because of all my faults. I found him, and he was well worth the wait.

7: I spent the summer I was pregnant with my son traveling with a carnival. Didn't make a lot of money, but had a lot of fun. Got to see Vancouver, and went to Victoria Island, BC. Was quite an experience, sleeping in the possum bellies of the rides, or on the merry-go-round, eating carnival food, and pooling money for a motel room so we could bathe and sleep in a bed once in a while. Not something I would want to repeat, but at the age of 21, it was fun.

OK, so here are the rules of the game:
1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

The blogs I'm tagging are: Good With Cheese, Fat-O-Matic, Ottermatic, All About Beauty, She Dances On The Sand, Mshell Lives Here, Fat Lot of Good

And a fun time was had by all, I hope :)

What kind of cookie are you?

I have to admit it, I got this idea from Photophobic (and an excellent idea it is). I'm not sure I agree with the outside, but I do like the inside description. :)

You Are a Jam Cookie

On the outside, you project a straight-laced, innocent vibe. But on the inside, you're complex, exotic, and full of flavor.

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

Want to see what kind of cookie you are?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofcookieareyouquiz/

Old Sesame Street not appropriate for today's toddlers

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I have to admit, I'm an old fart who didn't watch Sesame Street when I was a toddler (since I was almost 16 in 1969 when this show first aired). But my son watched it when he was a toddler in the late 70's. It certainly didn't do him any harm (Cookie Monster did not turn my son into a fat cookie addict, who'd a thunk it?). In fact, I would certainly credit SS with having given my son a jump on his letters and numbers before he started school, and doing it in an entertaining way. Granted, we lived in a small town, and he saw farm animals anytime we drove from our town to another one for shopping, etc. But SS also showed him that there were people of colors other than white in the world (the town we lived in was pretty much white, nothing else) and that they were just like him. He didn't need to see Oscar the Grouch to know about grouchy people, he knew about them from real life, but Oscar did teach him how to deal with them.
I will admit that by the time my son was watching SS, he already knew the dangers of being approached by strangers and that going off with them could be dangerous (talk about innocence lost *sigh*). He was a happy, healthy, active, inquisitive child, and watching the old SS certainly didn't do him any harm.
My grandchildren, on the other hand, watched Barney (never could understand why they liked him) and Bananas in Pajamas (now that one was cool, even I could see why they liked it). They also watched Teletubbies, which was sorta kinda maybe kewl, from an adult viewpoint, anyway. The point is, they watched those programs, and while they have out-grown them now (the youngest of my son's kids is 9), they don't seem to have done any harm, despite what the oh-so-politically-correct know-it-alls would have me believe.
Yes, what your children see on tv can affect them, but only to the extent that parents let it affect their children. Trying to make children's television "healthy" by making it about "good" food over "bad" food and exercise over reading, all that is accomplished is creating generations of neurotic people who don't know how to trust their own bodies to tell them what is good for them. This does not let parents take responsibility for teaching their children, it dumps the responsibility for so-called "good" habits on the child. If the child doesn't eat this "healthy" food or do this amount of exercise, s/he is not a good kid. That message does much more harm than good, IMHO.

Heart disease kills more women under 45

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Good grief! First they're saying obesity is the biggest killer, now it's heart disease (and of course, that is caused by obesity and diabetes). They don't quote actual numbers from the study so we can see if the results they're trumpeting are in fact significant (and you notice, it's only women that have an increased risk of dying from it, not men).

It can take many years for arteries to get dangerously blocked. About 93 percent of deaths occur in people 55 and older.
But a combination of factors — including genetics, obesity and high cholesterol — are sometimes fatal for younger adults. In 2002, about 25,000 men and 8,000 women ages 35 to 54 died of coronary heart disease.

Now, they are saying that nearly 500,000 people died of coronary heart disease every year. 93% are people older than 55. So 7%, or 35,000 people, are under 55. How many of those are under 45? They don't say, just that 33,000 (25,000 men + 8,000 women) are aged 35 to 54, no idea how many of the 8,000 women are 34 to 45. The percentage of women aged 34 to 55 who die of CHD is almost 23%, according to their figures, but:

When they compared age groups, they detected the worrisome difference. The study found the death rate for women ages 35 to 44 rose from 1997 to 2002, when the rate was 8.2 per 100,000 women, the highest it's been since 1987.

I want to know how 8.2 deaths per 100,000 equals 23% (even if you say half of the 8,000 women are 35 -44, that's still 11.5%). Am I missing something here, or are their statistics being manipulated to scare the hell out of women, again?

The rates for men age 35 to 44 were relatively stable in the last few years of the study period. The rate was 26 deaths per 100,000 men in that age group in 2002.
The fact the male rate didn't worsen may indicate doctors are more likely to suspect heart disease in men that age than in women, said the CDC's Dr. Earl Ford, a study co-author.

Could it be that they suspect heart disease in men and not women because the signs of heart disease in women are chalked up to the fact that we're fat and if we would just lose some fucking weight, all our ills would magically be cured?
And this is the kicker for me:

For all ages, the female death rate fell to 261 from 514 per 100,000; the male rate fell to 430 from 898 per 100,000.

For all ages of women, the rate was almost cut in half, but more women are dying at younger ages. All ages of women dying from CHD is 261 in 100,000; women 34 - 45 is 8.2 in 100,000. So 3% of all women who die from CHD are in the younger age group. 3% doesn't seem like a large number, especially when they aren't giving us the number of women who died of CHD in earlier years for a comparison.
I really, really hate when they do shit like this. Give us part of the information, the part that will scare us into compliance with their lose weight/get thin/get healthy or die mantra, even though they know it's not an attainable, sustainable goal for the majority of us. Is it any wonder that people don't know what to believe anymore? I don't take articles like this with a grain of salt, it's the whole damned salt shaker I need here.