I guess that I feel that looking good is my reward for eating right and working out. (besides feeling much better) So, I guess I think I don’t “deserve” to look good if I’m not willing to work at it. I tend to follow the thinking that anything worth having is worth working for. I don’t want a free pass.

But I also want to look in the mirror and like what I see, and I want to feel better.

Actually, I wonder if exceptionally beautiful women might like to look ordinary sometimes, too, just to get rid of the unwanted attention that they must get from creepy guys all the time.

I love “Heroes” and can’t wait to see what happens next. :)

I wouldn’t want the thinness and the beauty without the self-worth that came along with earning/maintaining it. I spend so much time wondering, as a fat woman, whether people who are being nice to me are doing it out of pity or as a form of entertainment; as a thin woman who was “fat on the inside” I’m sure I would chalk up kindness to superficial motives again.

Frances has an interesting post on Angry Fat Girlz about finding your inner self and whether that automatically has to include thinness, too. This is another interesting take on that same issue.

Would I put up an illusion, yes! For the most part, I’m fine with who I am. It is the rest of the world that seems to have a problem with me. It is my mom saying, “if you just lost 5 pounds…” or my boyfriend, “I love you but…” or the working world want a “put-together appearance” which apparently doesn’t include the overweight.

I’m not a big fan of working out or eating right because they are both a lot of hard work, but I’d also try to stay on this journey, but for the time being, hell yeah I’d put up an illusion! Besides, can you imagine how much money you’d save on makeup, hair product, etc. hehe

This question is interesting because at the moment I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how other people see me. I’m a little overweight still (about 15 pounds from the glorious “normal/healthy” BMI) but I think I carry it pretty evenly, and have a fair bit of muscle, so I don’t feel “fat” anymore, but I don’t feel “thin” either. (My husband argues with me that this is a dichotomy and if I’m not fat, I therefore must be thin… but I digress…)

So, I have been wondering how people who meet me for the first time perceive my weight. I have moved cities and started a new job since reaching this weight, so no one here (except my family) knew me when I was obese. It came up in conversation with a colleague the other day that I used to shop in plus size stores and she said “oh-did you used to be overweight?” which made me wonder if that meant she did not perceive me as overweight right now. What I would love is to believe that no one is judging my weight now, because I used to feel like no matter what I did, people saw my fat first.

So, in a longwinded, tangential answer to your question, I think I would like to take the oppportunity to create an illusion of myself a bit thinner (i.e. 20 pounds) just on an experimental basis, to see if people treated me any differently. (This is the scientist in me, I can’t help it!) I think in the end though, I would want to go back to being me, because I don’t think I could go through life “faking” it. Especially after the hard work I’ve gone through to get the body I have today.

Thanks for making me think as always!! Also, big props on your wicked arm/shoulder muscles. You’ve inspired me to get back to weights!!

When I was at my heaviest, I would have loved to have other people see me as thin. The thing is, though, deep down inside I would have known that I was still heavy. After almost a year of exercising and right healthy, I really don’t care how others see me, as I’ve learned to like what I see when I look in the mirror.

:-)

Brian

As for the button: eek, no, I wouldn’t press it. I absolutely dislike the idea of people being stuck where they are. I wouldn’t want this imposed on me (like the excuses my family gives me–”we’re genetically fat”, “we’re not made to exercise in our family”, blah-de-blah…), so I also wouldn’t want to impose that on anyone. I prefer to struggle to lose my weight and know that it was all my choice and my committment. It takes time and it sucks, but at least it’ll be ‘my’ accomplishment.