I think the reasons why I never minded being big (and actually, even liked it), was threefold:
1. As a kid I was viciously teased in school because I was underweight...I was called bag of bones, beanpole, skinny minnie, etc. Boys sometimes threw food at me during recess, saying, "EAT something!" So whereas most fat women who were fat as kids have trauma from being teased for being fat, I have the reverse. My father also screwed me up as a kid when he showed me pics of the emaciated people liberated from Nazi death camps. I asked why they were so skinny and he said because they were starving and almost dead.
Likewise, it seems that EVERYONE I loved as a child died not long after losing a lot of weight (they had cancer, and sudden weight loss is a sign of cancer.) So I came to associate losing weight (esp. a lot of it) with being sick. PLus, I always had relatives urging me to eat, saying, "You look so THIN! Doesnt your mother feed you? Here, eat this...and this."
I didnt start gaining weight till I hit 21 however...and it went on very slowly. It came off very fast, once I started doing the IBS lifestyle however.
2. It seemed that the best things to happen to me in my life happened after I got fat...met my husband, had my kids, got a happier life, etc.
3. I grew up witnessing my mother drive herself insane on Weight Watchers. She joined sometime in 1967 when I was 6, and she gained and lost the same 50 lbs over and over again. She used to cry if she "cheated" or ate anything "illegal". Although I have never dieted to lose weight, I am well aware of the lingo of "exchanges", "illegal food", "legal food" (I think WW still uses some of those terms)...the self hate dieters often feel, the things lecturers say at meetings to make people feel bad about being fat. I swore I'd never fall into that. I truly do believe its a racket to make money for the people who start these organizations.
Ironically, my doctor credits the fact that I never yo yo dieted to the fact that I lost weight so quickly, so easily. He said ppl who diet repeatedly over a lifetime often mess up their metabolisms do that when they try to lose weight, they cant.
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"A waist is a terrible thing to mind".
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Re: My IBS Story (sent to Nutrition Action Newsletter)
