Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Weight Gain... and a lot of it!

Hi my dear Steph you sound like you need a hug, so ((hug))

I know exactly how you are feeling about your weight now, hon, because all of my life I've been dealing with it as well as this crappy IBS on top if it. I was always the heavier one of all of my friends and relatives and doing things with them made me feel so self-conscious about myself that I never felt comfortable inside of my skin. To tell you the truth, to this day, I STILL don't feel 100% happy with my weight, but as corny as it sounds, as I got older (I'm in my 30's) I began to realize that only "I" could do something about this weight thing for myself.

Like I said, it is only recently that I got to this point in my life where I was so sick to death of this whole overweight feeling so one day I sat down and began thinking of positive role model-type people who I respected for their approach to dealing with their weight. I came up with Queen Latifah and now with her in mind, I have copied and pasted some interesting things that she has said in this Glamour magazine interview which I hope will be a positive self-esteem boost for you, hon. Now I realize that not everyone can afford a personal trainer

but I think she also loses weight by working out other ways. The important thing to look for here is her enormous self-confidence, which I've come to believe is the key to it all:

GLAMOUR: What do you do to keep your energy up and stay in shape?

QL: Well, I like different things. I like fun workouts. Today I hiked before I came here and that was fun, because I like to be outdoors. I get kind of bored sometimes if I'm just on a treadmill. I've worked with Jeanette for about three years and she tries to get me to work out every day. I average, you know, a couple of times a week. Unless I have to train hard for something. And then I train four or five times a week. I could be way more fit. I'm hard-headed. I like working out I'm just not consistent.

GLAMOUR: What is your favorite thing to do?

QL: Hiking. Anything outside, I'm happy.

GLAMOUR: Do you find that the music industry is more forgiving about looks and body than Hollywood is? Is Hollywood tougher for you or is it all the same?

QL: It's all the same to me. If anything, girls are showing much more flesh on these videos and the guys are showing more body, these six-packs and little abs, their little chests and stuff. You still can be who you are and succeed in both genres, but the pressure is there and there are plenty of people that will keep feeding that little never-full giant called vanity, and that will keep perpetuating some of these image issues.

GLAMOUR: Does it ever get to you? Because you seem like it rolls right off you.

QL: No, not anymore. I mean, as a kid starting out, I definitely thought about it. I thought, I should probably get in shape and train. But that's not what I'm about. Like I'm not rapping about sexing somebody out, do you know what I mean? And I don't have a problem in the love department, I never did, so it wasn't like I felt some need to become this sexpot in order to feed that ego or something. I was always cool myself, and so I never really fed into that. The only time I really got that kind of pressure was when I was doing Living Single. They said, 'The girls need to lose weight." I would laugh at it really, and I would refuse to do it anyway. I mean, if I wanted to lose weight, I would lose it for myself. I never lost weight because somebody told me I needed to lose weight. There's too many people in their dressing rooms and in their offices, people with gorgeous bodies and no freaking self-confidence. They shoot everybody down. They talk about themselves way too much. They are way too self-absorbed, and "Do I look fat?" That's annoying. When will they get it, finally get it that, that stuff is annoying, that a guy to me prefers a woman with confidence, that confidence is sexy? I don't care what size you are. I know who looks good and who doesn't, you know, but if they look good, hey, they look good. And if they don't have a banging body and their confidence is just so up, they seem much more attractive and more sexy, because of the confidence. Confidence is sexiness to me. I realized a long time ago that something that I definitely did not want to be measured by was my waistline. It's the same in relationships. You know what? If there's a dude sitting around telling you that you're too fat, leave his ass. We've got to change their opinions too, and we keep feeding guys all of this stuff, that everything is about our bodies, and that's what it's really about. I'm not saying that, in a couple, in a relationship that you shouldn't be loving and sexy to that individual. I'm not saying let yourself go or don't be healthy. Be healthy, but don't be hung up on somebody else's words, like you shouldn't live and die by what a guy thinks of you. You know, we've got to be the [censored] to ourselves, excuse my language, but we have got to be the bomb to ourselves first.

From all the things that you have said here, guess what? you are basically like her, so please keep this in mind during what you are going through now. At least you are moving your body when you can, which is wonderful.

It's just so darn hard to deal with weight loss and IBS at the same time that it gets so frustrating that a person could (and SHOULD have a god cry once in a while). I'm sorry that it hit you at a time when you really the need to look your best, such as when you're going to an important occasion. Listen...don't give up, Steph!! you say that the wedding is next weekend, right? well you need to use these few days to get yourself up for it. How about this? of course you need to eat healthy for your IBS condition, maybe cutting back a little bit on the feel-good-for-you foods. Try drinking a ton of water and herbal teas to flush your system out and what do you think of renting an exercise video or dvd to exercise to? Have you ever done this yet as a new way to work out? if not, perhaps you would find it an interesting change.

And then...when you feel stronger...get out there in those stores again and go to as many stores as you possibly can handle until your feet hurt.

There's got to be SOMETHING that will make you look gorgeous in the skin that you're in! if not a dress, perhaps a long skirt with a blouse that will flatter you?

I hope you are feeling better by the time you read these words.

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