The Fat Positive Lounge

[LeftWriteFemme]

http://www.themilitantbaker.com/2013...irls-so-i.html

[Licious]

I enjoy coming in here, it's been a while since I posted. I was struggling with gaining weight. It happened when I quit a thyroid med, I was happy I could quit, and I had been pudgy before but a lot of weight piled on. I was miserable with the new pounds. I was downright hateful to myself at first, barely looked in the mirror, was begrudging about the fact I needed some larger clothes. I have embraced it more, I am happy to say I am much kinder to myself and feel better. Whether I lose it or not, it will not stop me from doing my best to look pretty and smile at myself in the mirror. Thank you all for a good example.

[LeftWriteFemme]

I'm not sure why I think this belongs here, but it sure does make me smile......

[MsBluem]

Cruddy self image day that not even wearing my favorite dress can fix.


So I'm going to go home tonight, take a long bubble bath and remind myself that I'm a super babe that deserves everything she's got.

[LeftWriteFemme]

[Soft*Silver]

I am having a wonderful day today. While clothes dont make my magic, I find that the right clothes ARE magical! They just add to mine!

I had a woman and her husband come into my store to sell clothes. I dont normally buy outright, but this time I knew I had to. It was obvious they were struggling financially, and no, not for drugs. I looked over their clothes and WOW, what a treasure! What happened to them that they had to sell such pretty things? I gave them fair market, and a little more. People have helped me out too, when I was destitute. I asked them not to tell folks that I bought off them and they gratefully agreed. I bought one of the dresses they brought in for myself. It looks fantastic on me, and it feels good inside too, that I helped them out.

Its getting close to the holidays. Once the fall starts, I will do food drives for the community. Everyone who brings in a personal care items, gets so much off of their total. We have a large homeless population and there is a program that is helping the homeless with simple things like body lotions and chapstick (they get dried out in the elements)

Sometimes feeling good about yourself has nothing to do with our size...sometimes it has to do with our actions, toward others. I know I too can get lost in the body image struggle, but thats only when I am focusing on myself. I am not the only one on this planet with worries and woes. The people I help dont care if I am size 6, 16 or 26. As long as their lips dont crack and bleed, they are grateful...

so today I love my dress...and me.

[LeftWriteFemme]

I usually just post the link the title and a picture, but I felt this one really needed to be here fully, of course there is more at the link, but this is the bulk of it

YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST TO TELL A FAT PERSON…
PUBLISHED JUNE 25, 2013 BY SLEEPYDUMPLING
Look, I know I have a lot of new readers. I understand that many of you are totally new to the concept of fat activism and fat liberation. I know that when you turn on the telly or open a newspaper, you are told, over and over again, fat = unhealthy and unhealthy = bad therefore fat = bad. So what I’m saying here on this blog is a radical concept to a lot of you. The idea that someone might refuse to believe that dominant rhetoric of fat = bad and actually be happy in their fat body is possibly confronting and confusing for many of you. But it’s not a new concept. Go back to my first post… July 2009. I’ve been banging on about this for four years. In fact, I just noticed that this is my 400th post. So for four years, and with an average of 100 posts per year, I’ve been talking about this stuff for a long time now. And believe it or not, a lot of people have been talking about it for a lot longer than me. In fact, fat activism has its roots in the SIXTIES. Yes, this stuff has been around for 50 years. It’s not new.

So we need to talk about the sudden influx of you leaving comments on this blog that are never going to see the light of day. Because yes, I know for you these things are radical and new… but to we fatties in the fatosphere, we’ve heard the same old same old our whole lives. So not only do they not need to be published here to beat us over the head again and again with the same stuff that we’ve debunked time and time again, but you really don’t need to say them in the first place. WE’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE! SERIOUSLY, YOU ARE NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO TELL US THE THINGS BELOW!

Today I’m going to address a few of the most commonly deleted/spammed comments (other than the usual troll bullshit) that I just refuse to allow space on this blog any more, because I do know there are a lot of you newbies out there who have just started reading my blog recently and perhaps think you’re presenting some new idea to myself and other fatties in your comments. This is for you, so that you don’t make a dick of yourself any more in comment threads on fat activist blogs and other sites saying things that every fat person has heard a bajillion times already.

But fat is unhealthy!?

There is a plethora of evidence out there that debunks this myth, I’m not going to go into that here and now. It’s not my job to educate you – I’ve given you lists of resources, off you go to educate yourself. What I am going to say are the following things:

health is not a moral obligation.
Health is not a measure of human worth.
Health is arbitrary – what is “healthy” for one person, is not necessarily the same for the next.
Thin people suffer health issues too
People with illness/injury/disability are just as deserving of dignity and respect as anyone else, no matter what that illness/injury/disability may be or how it is “caused”.
But you’re driving up taxes/health insurance!!

So are people who drive cars, drink alcohol, play sport, have unprotected sex, get pregnant or get old. Among many other things. Fat people pay taxes and for health insurance too, and their taxes and health insurance dollars go into the same pool that yours do. Fat costs on public health are a false cost – if you medicalise something, then it is going to “cost” to “treat” it. If the medical profession focused on treating actual health issues and not trying to make fat people thin, those costs would all but disappear.

Well I’m all for loving your body, but within limits/not for super-obese people!

Firstly, I’m actually not interested in “body love”. Sure, it’s probably good for us to reach a place of love and acceptance of our bodies. But in the face of a world that sends us constant messages that our bodies should be something completely unattainable, I reckon if we can just get to a point where we respect our bodies as remarkable and complex systems that propel us through life, we’re doing well. If someone does love their body, then that’s a bonus and I believe that anyone is allowed to love their body, be they thin, fat or in between.

As for the “limits” to which people are included in fat activism/liberation, it has to be all of us. Not some, not to a certain point, not just the “healthy” ones, not just the ones who are cute/attractive, not just the young, white, straight, able-bodied ones. Every single one of us deserves to live our lives in dignity and peace, without fear of discrimination or vilification based on our weight and size. Every single fat person deserves positive representation. EVERY. SINGLE. FAT. PERSON.

But I’m just concerned about your health/ wellbeing!

No you’re not. If you were, you would be standing beside me fighting fat stigma and advocating for equitable health treatment for all. You don’t give a damn about the health and wellbeing of fat people. You don’t care that fat people can’t get treatment for everything from the common cold through to cancer because they are all blamed on their fatness and they’re just given a diet, not actual treatment. You don’t care that the public vilification of fat people causes depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. You don’t care that fat people are dying because they are so shamed by the medical profession that they can’t bring themselves to go back to the doctor when they are ill. Claiming you care about our wellbeing is a lie.

But you need help! Making “obesity” a disease will get you help and cheap treatment!

We do not need “help” that is against our will or counter-productive to our actual health. We don’t need “treatments” that fail and make us gain even more weight in the long term (diets and other weight loss methods), that butcher our bodies (gastric mutilation surgeries) or deplete our quality of life (weight loss medications that give us heart conditions, make us sick, give us “oily anal discharge” or a plethora of other side effects that are far worse than simply being fat). Many of us don’t need help or treatment at all. Many of us are happy just as we are and are doing fine. What we need is to be treated as human beings, and to have agency over our lives.

But don’t you want to live longer?

Since when has anyone been able to control when they die? We don’t know how long we’ll be here for. We only get one shot at it. So we best fill our lives as best we can, and not put them on hold because we don’t meet some kind of cultural measure of acceptable appearance.

You just want everyone to be fat like you!

Unlike the anti-fat camp, I believe that human bodies are naturally diverse and that some of us are meant to be fat, some are meant to be thin, and the rest are meant to range in between. I don’t want to make other people fat any more than I want to make myself thin. Unlike the anti-fat camp, I believe that all human beings are valid and equal regardless of their size or weight. I like diversity, it keeps things from getting boring.

But… everyone KNOWS [insert anti-fat trope here]

Everyone used to know the earth was flat. Everyone used to know that the sun revolved around the earth. Everyone used to know that smoking tobacco was good for you. We as human beings don’t know everything, and sometimes when we think we know things we’re wrong. Emergent science is showing us already that our pre-conceived notions of fatness have been wrong on many counts (again, off you go to do your own research, you’ve got access to all the same online tools I’ve got access to, I’m not here to do it for you), I’ve spent the past four years learning, reading expanding my world view with these facts, I’m not just making this shit up myself. Don’t make a fool of yourself by hanging on to ignorance.

You’re just making excuses to sit around on your fat ass all day and eat donuts!

If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t need an excuse to do so. I’d just do it. I’m a grown adult and my life is mine to choose how I spend it. That said, I actually wish I had a little more time to relax and wasn’t so busy all the time. If I COULD find a way to do that, I WOULD take more time to relax, you’d better believe it!

It’s just calories in, calories out, you just need to put down the fork and move your fat ass!

Humans are not bomb calorimeters. Nor are we lawnmowers. Incidentally, do you think that no fat person ever has thought to try diet and exercise to get thin? That at almost 41 years of age it never occurred to me to try “calories in/calories out”? Do you REALLY think you’re the first person to make that suggestion to a fat person? I can guarantee you, it’s highly unlikely you’re even the first person TODAY to make that suggestion to me.

You just lack willpower!

Oh really? I engaged in a full blown restriction and purging eating disorder for twenty years, don’t talk to me about willpower. If willpower actually amounted to anything, I would be thin, ridiculously wealthy and married to Hugh Jackman by now. And put it this way, if you think I don’t have willpower, consider the fact that I haven’t smacked one of the dozens of fat hating douchecanoes I deal with every day in the mouth yet. THAT takes willpower!

But I’ve lost weight and kept it off – you can too!

Define “kept it off”. Have you passed the 5 year mark yet? No? Well since SCIENCE says that 95% of people who lose weight through dieting will regain it and more within 5 years, you need to go away and come back once you’ve kept it off for 5 years. And that’s 5 years solid, not regained it after a year or so, lost it again, regained it again, lost it again, regained, lost (which most of us can do and have done). If you have kept it off for 5 years or more, congratulations for being one of the 5% statistical anomalies. Hopefully you can understand basic percentages and realise that most of us are likely to fall into the 95% bracket.

Not to mention that what you choose to do with your body has no bearing on what I choose to do with mine. You focus on your body and life, I’ll focus on mine.

So there you have it. I’ve taken the time to address the common tropes I find in comments about, and this should save us all a lot of time. Hopefully those of you who want to tell/ask me (or any other fat people) any of the above things can save your breath and not embarrass yourselves publicly, and I shouldn’t have to deal with the same old same old in my inbox every day.

http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/category/fat-stigma/

[Gemme]

Douchecanoes.

I'm totally stealing that.

[Mopsie]

LeftWriteFemme - Thank you so much for posting this!

Originally Posted by LeftWriteFemme

I usually just post the link the title and a picture, but I felt this one really needed to be here fully, of course there is more at the link, but this is the bulk of it

YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST TO TELL A FAT PERSON…
PUBLISHED JUNE 25, 2013 BY SLEEPYDUMPLING

*snip snip*

http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/category/fat-stigma/

[nycfem]

"Fabulous And Full-Figured Pin-Up Girl? Yes, Please!"

Take a quick, fun scroll-through of this playful art

http://www.bust.com/fabulous-and-ful...mpaign=popular

[nycfem]

This is a beautiful, body positive romantic video with a full-figured femme and a smaller butch. Loved it!

Mary Lambert - She Keeps Me Warm

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2013/08...s-me-warm.html

[Hollylane]

Originally Posted by nycfem

This is a beautiful, body positive romantic video with a full-figured femme and a smaller butch. Loved it!

Mary Lambert - She Keeps Me Warm

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2013/08...s-me-warm.html

This made me cry. It is beautiful. For whatever reason, it reminded me of all those not fat positive thoughts that I still have about my own size(both negative and positive thoughts about my body are a part of my thoughts every day), and made me remember, again today, that I am beautiful, and valuable exactly as I am.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Originally Posted by nycfem

This is a beautiful, body positive romantic video with a full-figured femme and a smaller butch. Loved it!

Mary Lambert - She Keeps Me Warm

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2013/08...s-me-warm.html

I cried while watching this beautiful video then cried while reading the comments of other people crying while watching. Since I am involved in a relationship that looks very much like the one depicted on the screen it holds a special meaning to me now. I hope Mary Lambert makes many, many more videos!

[LeftWriteFemme]

An Open Apology to All of My Weight Loss Clients


I worked at a popular weight loss company for three years. I loved my job there. I LOVED my clients. I loved making a connection and sharing my knowledge. And I learned a lot about nutrition, about dieting and weight loss and what works and what doesn't. My job was to be a weight loss consultant, and I learned that job very well. I can design a 1,200 calorie meal plan, tell you which activities are most likely to make the number on the scale go down, and how many carbs are in a cup of rice. I can talk the diet game like it's my business... because it was. Volumize with vegetables. Don't go too long in between meals. Start with a bowl of broth-based soup. Are you drinking enough water? Did you exercise enough? Did you exercise too much? Let's look at your food journal.

This is not an anti-weight loss company post (although I could write that too). It's a letter to each and every woman that I unknowingly wronged. My heart is beating a little bit faster as I write this, and so I know this needs to be said. The words have been playing in my head for months. Sometimes it just takes time for me to get up the courage to say the right thing.

So here goes:

Dear Former Weight Loss Clients (you know who you are):

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry because I put you on a 1,200 calorie diet and told you that was healthy. I'm sorry because when you were running 5x a week, I encouraged you to switch from a 1,200 calorie diet to a 1,500 calorie diet, instead of telling you that you should be eating a hell of a lot more than that. I'm sorry because you were breastfeeding and there's no way eating those 1,700 calories a day could have been enough for both you and your baby. I'm sorry because you were gluten intolerant and so desperate to lose weight that you didn't put that on your intake form. But you mentioned it to me later, and I had no idea the damage you were doing to your body. I'm sorry because I think I should have known. I think I should have been educated better before I began to tell all of you what was right or wrong for your body.

I'm sorry because I made you feel like a failure and so you deliberately left a message after the center had closed, telling me you were quitting. I thought you were awesome and gorgeous, and I'm sorry because I never told you that. I'm sorry because you came in telling me you liked to eat organic and weren't sure about all the chemicals in the food, and I made up some BS about how it was a "stepping stone." I'm sorry because many of you had thyroid issues and the LAST thing you should have been doing was eating a gluten-filled, chemically-laden starvation diet. I'm sorry because by the time I stopped working there, I wouldn't touch that food, yet I still sold it to you.

I'm sorry because it's only years later that I realize just how unhealthy a 1,200 calorie diet was. I stayed on a 1,200-1,500 calorie diet for years, so I have the proof in myself. Thyroid issues, mood swings, depression, headaches... oh and gluten intolerance that seemed to "kick in" after about a month of eating the pre-packaged food. Was it a coincidence? Maybe.

I'm sorry because you had body dysmorphic disorder, and it was so painful to hear the things you said about yourself. You looked like a model, and all of my other clients were intimidated by you, asked me why you were there because clearly you didn't need to lose weight. And yet you would sit in my office and cry, appalled that a man might see you naked and be disturbed by the fat that didn't actually exist. I'm sorry because you should have been seeing a therapist, not a weight loss consultant.

I'm sorry because you were young and so beautiful and only there because your mother thought you needed to lose weight. And because there were too many of you like that. Girls who knew you were fine, but whose mothers pushed that belief out of you until you thought like she did. Until you thought there was something wrong with you. And the one time I confronted your mother, you simply got switched to a different consultant. I think I should have made more of a stink, but I didn't. I'm sorry because you were in high school and an athlete, and I pray that you weren't screwed up by that 1,500 calorie diet. Seriously, world? Seriously? A teenage girl walks in with no visible body fat and lots of muscle tone, tells you she's a runner and is happy with her weight... but her mother says she's fat and has to lose weight and so we help her do just that. As an individual, as women, as a company, hell, as a nation, we don't stand up for that girl? What is wrong with us? There ain't nothing right about that. Nothing.

I'm sorry because every time you ate something you "shouldn't" or ate more than you "should," I talked about "getting back on the bandwagon." I cringe now every time someone uses that phrase. When did the way we eat become a bandwagon? When did everyone stop eating and become professional dieters? I'm sorry because I get it now. If you're trying to starve your body by eating fewer calories than it needs, of course it's going to fight back. I used to tell you that then, when you wanted to eat less than 1,200 calories a day. The problem was, I thought 1,200 was enough. I thought that was plenty to support a healthy body. Why did I believe that for so long? I'm sorry because I wasn't trying to trick you or play games to get your money. I believed the lies we were fed as much as you did.

And it wasn't just the company feeding them to me. It was the doctors and registered dietitians on the medical advisory board. It was the media and magazines confirming what I was telling my clients. A palm-sized portion of lean chicken with half a sweet potato and a salad was PLENTY. No matter that you had "cravings" afterward. Cravings are a sign of underlying emotional issues. Yeah, sure they are. I'm a hypnotherapist with a past history of binge eating disorder. I KNOW cravings are a sign of underlying emotional issues. Except when they're not. Except when they're a sign that your body needs more food and you're ignoring it. Then they're a sign that your 1,200 calorie diet is horseshit. Then they're a sign that you've been played.

And that's mostly why I'm sorry. Because I've been played for years, and so have you, and inadvertently, I fed into the lies you've been told your whole life. The lies that say that being healthy means nothing unless you are also thin. The lies that say that you are never enough, that your body is not a beautiful work of art, but rather a piece of clay to be molded by society's norms until it becomes a certain type of sculpture. And even then, it is still a work in progress.

I owe you an apology, my former client and now friend, who I helped to lose too much weight. Who I watched gain the weight back, plus some. Because that's what happens when you put someone on a 1,200 calorie diet. But I didn't know. If you're reading this, then I want you to know that you have always been beautiful. And that all these fad diets are crap meant to screw with your metabolism so that you have to keep buying into them. I think now that I was a really good weight loss consultant. Because I did exactly what the company wanted (but would never dare say). I helped you lose weight and then gain it back, so that you thought we were the solution and you were the failure. You became a repeat client and we kept you in the game. I guess I did my job really well.

And now I wonder, did I do more harm than good? When I left, you all wrote me cards and sent me flowers. I still have those cards, the ones that tell me how much I helped you, how much I cared. But I'm friends with some of you on Facebook now, and I look at your photos and you look happy. And beautiful. And not because you lost weight since I saw you last. But because I see YOU now. You. Not a client sitting in my chair, asking for my assistance in becoming what society wants. But you, a smart and lovely woman, who really doesn't need some random company telling her there's something wrong with her.

So I'm sorry because when you walked in to get your meal plan, I should have told you that you were beautiful. I should have asked you how you FELT. Were you happy? Did you feel physically fit? Were you able to play with your kids? There were so many of you who never needed to lose a pound, and some of you who could have gained some. And maybe sometimes I told you that. But not enough. Not emphatically. Because it was my job to let you believe that making the scale go down was your top priority. And I did my job well.

I am sorry because many of you walked in healthy and walked out with disordered eating, disordered body image, and the feeling that you were a "failure." None of you ever failed. Ever. I failed you. The weight loss company failed you. Our society is failing you.

Just eat food. Eat real food, be active, and live your life. Forget all the diet and weight loss nonsense. It's really just that. Nonsense.

And I can't stop it. But I can stop my part in it. I won't play the weight loss game anymore. I won't do it to my body, and I won't help you do it to yours. That's it. End game.

This post originally appeared on Your Fairy Angel.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iris-h...b_3762714.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

IMAGINE LIVING IN A WORLD WHERE SIZE DOES NOT MATTER

October 4, 2012 at 11:22am

Imagine for a moment that you lived in a world where body size did not matter. What would a day be like in this new and fab world? Let’s imagine in this new and fab world it is your lunch hour and you decided to have a scrumptious treat, you went to your favorite clothing shop to buy some new clothes. You stepped into a closet like structure and you used a computer screen to select the style of clothing you wanted, and then your body was scanned, a little bell, sounded off, and a hanger with the style clothing you wanted was lowered in front of you. You took your clothing selection off the hanger and it was a perfect fit for your body!!! There were no sizes, nothing that could label or identify you by a number. Each style fit just right because of the amazing technology of the body scan, and for once you did not have to deal with the fact that, even when you had accepted the size of your body in the past, every different brand of clothing actually sized their clothing differently, so there had never been consistency as to the size labels.
Feeling so satisfied with just how easy and fun buying a new outfit was, you went to buy yourself a cup of coffee at Starbucks and although you saw the menu listed calories for each food choice, you took this in as merely informative ,as opposed to some test of wills between you and the devil, whom was tempting you with high calorie goodies. Instead, as you glanced at the menu you asked yourself “Am I hungry or do I just want coffee?” The answer to your question was “I just want coffee and I am not hungry.” However, you realize that although you allow your true physical hunger to guide you as when to eat, it is 1:00pm and you were having so much fun clothing shopping that you forgot to eat anything. You realize that your body does need food to function, and you do not want to starve yourself, why would you? Starving is unheard of in this new and fab world! “You then ask yourself what should I eat to give my body energy?”, You opt for a banana, because you are not hungry , have no real craving, but need to give your body some nourishment. You are comfortable with your choice of having only a banana because when you do get hungry later you know you are going to satisfy a craving at Salvatore’s Kitchen Sink Pizza Palace, where Sal will put anything you want on your pizza except for the kitchen sink, and you are going to have a salad and a slice. As your latte is being prepared you notice a chocolate chip cookie that looks yummy, and you ask the server to pack it in a bag for you, because that just might be desert later, if you are hungry and feel for it.
As your latte is still being made, because even in our new and fab world where body size does not matter it still feels like forever when you are waiting for your Starbucks order, you see someone who looks familiar, it is someone that you think you went to high school with, and then you realize it is, her, you nemesis, the one who always got the guy that you liked, who always scored at least one point or more higher than you on the test, and you think maybe if I look away she will not notice me, noticing her. No such luck, she’s smiling and walking right up to you. You know, she is going to annoy the hell out of you, that is for sure, but in our new fab world where size does not matter, you are not worried you are going to look fat or fatter than the last time you saw her. You take in her general appearance but you are not sizing up her body, because really the size of her body has nothing to do with you. She needs to be comfortable in her own skin and you need to be comfortable in your own skin. Neither of you, talk about weight or size. She is Justas annoying as you remembered but it has to do with the size of her personality not the size of her body. After she leaves, you feel no different about your own body one way or the other, because in our new fab world you would not even consider comparing body sizes. Body size comparisons are considered ludicrous! After all, each of us has different genetics, life experiences, reactions to stress and different levels of stress eating (which is soooo much less in our new and fab world, because half of the emotional eating and starving we used to do had to do with trying to meet societal standards concerning body size, as well as our own unrealistic expectations as to what our body size should be), different cultural beliefs and traditions about food.
Your Starbuck’s latte is finally ready and you sip it as you carry your shopping bags to a table and you sit down to think about your after work plans. You and your guy are going swimming at the local YMCA tonight, because you love the way your body feels as you move through the water. You estimate you may be swimming for forty-five minutes but there are no hard and fast time requirements, because you let your body guide you as to how strong it feels today and how much you are going to push yourself. You laugh out loud, as you think to yourself how ironic it is, that now that you live in a world where body size does not matter , you just love exercise for the sake of moving your body releasing stress, and feeling physically strong, as well as the fact that your guy looks very sexy in his swim trunks.
During this day, you never overeat, because you know that food is always available to you, and you can eat according to your true physical hunger and stop when you are full. As a result of this there is none of the following: no “One Last Chance Eating”, because you are always afraid you are going to miss out on your one last opportunity to eat a food you love.; no “Guilt Eating” where you gorge yourself on more food than you are hungry for because you feel guilty about the yummy chocolate cookie you just ate, because you know that you can have just one or several and you have not blown any diet because there are no new diets!!! So you need not gorge yourself with a box of cookies because you feel guilty about the one or several you had; no “Out-Of –Control Cravings” driving you to binge, because now when you have a craving you satisfy it when reasonably possible, and it subsides, as opposed to when you used toeat “healthy” foods to hold off the craving, and end up gorging on fat free, lite, no sugar foods, until you gave in to your craving for a chocolate chip cookie, and ended up eating a box of them and in the end you realized that you ate ten times as much, as you would have eaten, if you would have just satisfied your craving with one or several chocolate chip cookies.
Doesn’t this world sound beautiful, to live in a zip code where matters of body size are not weighing us down? Dare we even dream of such a Nirvana? Yes, every one of us can choose this world for ourselves, every one of us can choose to make peace with the size of our bodies. We can choose to live our lives as I just described in the new fab world where size does not matter. Unfortunately, at first it is not as easy as described here, because although you, I and some others may be choosing to create a life where size does not matter, not everyone is, but if we so choose, to move towards living a life where size does not matter (which does not mean we are going to sit around eating bon-bons,in fact, it means we are going to make healthier choices for ourselves from a place of self-acceptance and self-love and through having a sane relationship with food) the rewards make the challenge s soooooo worth it!!! Karen Cigna

https://www.facebook.com/notes/size-...51227528789345

[Licious]

This post moved me.

Heck all the comments here affect me. I usually pop in and say so little, but I seem to have plenty to say now.

I studied nutrition on and off for 30 years, this includes, books, seminars and classes taught by "real" professionals.

One thing I learned was how different every body was biochemically and how that meant there was not a "one size fits all" (pun intended) for the natural treatment of health issues.

In fact, one instructor spent an entire class on "biochemical individuality" to knock it into our heads.

So, the same goes obviously, for weight loss and issues of overall body size/dynamics.

Well, obvious to me, but maybe not to others.

I appreciate this letter the weight loss company employee wrote. This person really became aware, and came forward about it. Bless them.

I thank you all who participate here, you have made a big difference in my life.

Take care everyone and love yourself, you deserve it.

Originally Posted by LeftWriteFemme

An Open Apology to All of My Weight Loss Clients


I worked at a popular weight loss company for three years. I loved my job there. I LOVED my clients. I loved making a connection and sharing my knowledge. And I learned a lot about nutrition, about dieting and weight loss and what works and what doesn't. My job was to be a weight loss consultant, and I learned that job very well. I can design a 1,200 calorie meal plan, tell you which activities are most likely to make the number on the scale go down, and how many carbs are in a cup of rice. I can talk the diet game like it's my business... because it was. Volumize with vegetables. Don't go too long in between meals. Start with a bowl of broth-based soup. Are you drinking enough water? Did you exercise enough? Did you exercise too much? Let's look at your food journal.

This is not an anti-weight loss company post (although I could write that too). It's a letter to each and every woman that I unknowingly wronged. My heart is beating a little bit faster as I write this, and so I know this needs to be said. The words have been playing in my head for months. Sometimes it just takes time for me to get up the courage to say the right thing.

So here goes:

Dear Former Weight Loss Clients (you know who you are):

I'm sorry.

Originally Posted by LeftWriteFemme

(post abbreviated, see previous comments for entire post)

[LeftWriteFemme]

It Gets Better, Unless You’re Fat


When you first come out, gay men are eager to let you know that you’re not alone, and that you have a seat at the table. Unless, of course, you’re also fat, in which case, no, you can’t sit with us.



http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzma...less-youre-fat

[LexiLove]

I have laughed, cried, and feel more educated after reading this thread. Too much too say, but I cannot put the words together. Instead, Ill say simply that my heart is happy.

Thank you.

[LeftWriteFemme]

POWERFUL BODY IMAGE COMIC REMINDS WOMEN THAT THEY ARE MORE THAN THEIR APPEARANCE




http://www.beautyexists.net/body-ima...ir-appearance/

[LeftWriteFemme]