Also, how did we not catch slimness when, apparently everyone was slim? Or was it our evil fatty voodoo?

I was chubby at school and I tended to talk to the other chubbies. Not exclusively, of course, but you tend to gravitate towards people like you.

Sometimes I still feel like that. If I hear someone on the tube speaking in a kiwi accent, I feel closer to them. If I see another redhead, I feel some affinity.

Now – we’ve developed a vast network of bloggers who are losing weight or have lost weight or are still thinking about losing weight. We give each other tips and ideas.

Brilliant eh!

Great post, definitely got me thinking!

I’ve made it a regular part of my Maintenance program…So far 18 months at goal weight within my Maintenance Range of 105 – 115…Total of 160 lbs down from my Highest weight. 1992 Bypass surgery—2004 net 80 lb loss; Beginning 2004, plain hard work, daily low-impact exercise, and low-calorie eating down to 110 lbs..another 80 lb loss. Now working Daily at Maintenance.

I’m looking forward to your Book.

I’ve written a great deal as an Attorney, and I once had plans to become an Author. I even wrote two fiction books which were unpublished. What made me stop heading toward that Goal was simple.

I realized I didn’t have anything that I really needed to say….other than basic conversation in the normal course of my daily life.

However, I think you do have things to say, and I like hearing them. Your comments today are a good example.

Yes, I’ve joined the read-through-the-blog club, and I want to thank you. If your book is half as readable, and it probably will be, then I foresee a great success!

Reading your blog helped me get some perspective on my own situation. I liked it when you wrote about having to lose 200 pounds and comparing your situation to people who bemoaned having to lose 80 pounds (like moi). That helped me see my loss as quite doable.

This is a bit mean of me, but I also rather liked that you found it harder to shift the weight the less of it you had to lose. (Yes, I know it’s mean. It’s just that I could sooo relate to that experience.) Good for you for keeping going when the loss rate slowed down.

It’s not just friends and family that influence your perception of weight. At my last job they thought I was a complete exercise fanatic because I walked to work instead of driving my car. (I lived less than a mile from work. So did my boss, who drove her car and complained that she could never lose weight.) My current job is at a company where everyone is lean (but not mean) and they all work out and eat healthy. Even though I’m so overweight they accept my bicycling to work and walking at lunch as perfectly normal. No one comments if I eat carrots instead of carrot cake.

If I’d stayed at my old job, I could see myself eventually accepting the status quo and staying obese. Even though I don’t fit in, physically, with my current co-workers, it is much, much easier to lose weight when exercise and healthy food are seen as perfectly normal. It’s hard to be the One Who Always Is Different.

Geez, do you think I could have made this comment any longer? A couple years’ worth of comments in one. Yikes.

Hmm..

;)