A serious discussion about BDSM and weight

[YourCaptor]

Something I have noticed in a few people, but dont know if it applies to the population.

It's not so much the food as it is the work.

Prime example: I got a friend who was pretty big in an unhealthy way. After working 3 months on the factory floor he was trim, you couldn't even guess at how he use to look. After 2 years of that they made cuts, now he has an office job, and is back to his unhealthy size.

 

[BeachGurl2]

You keep saying this but I'm not seeing the nasty posts you keep referring to. Could you point out these flamey, abusive posts where people are attacking you and calling you names, refusing to continue speaking to you or refusing to acknowledge your clarifications when they misunderstand your posts? Honestly, things here have been pretty damn civil compared to how many threads go.

You're absolutely right, the nasty posts I'm referring to have not come right out and directly called me names, so I'm getting my back up by reading something into them that isn't there.

As to your last statement, I fully agree.

 

[Netzach]

This is something I'm very curious about. Obviously never having been on the giving end, only on the receiving end, I have no experience with that. I've had partners who were almost afraid to go beyond a certain point, even when I've expressed to them that I'm good to go. I've never had someone come out and say outright they didn't think I could take it or handle it, but I've wondered if size may have something to do with that hesitation. Is there a real danger with someone who does have less body mass?

You're playing with boys who are bigger than you. Sado whatever, they're still socialized to worry about it in the back of their mind more.

 

[BeachGurl2]

Something I have noticed in a few people, but dont know if it applies to the population.

It's not so much the food as it is the work.

Prime example: I got a friend who was pretty big in an unhealthy way. After working 3 months on the factory floor he was trim, you couldn't even guess at how he use to look. After 2 years of that they made cuts, now he has an office job, and is back to his unhealthy size.

I think that's a very valid point, YC, but it goes back to the more sedentary culture we've become. Because we don't get any kind of exercise from our jobs unless it's a physical job, we have to find that exercise elsewhere. Combined with our eating habits, it becomes a problem. In the past, people ate what they grew. My mom didn't begin gaining weight until I graduated high school and my family moved from the farm in Alabama to the city in Arizona. She was still a full-time mom, but no longer working the farm or eating her own produce. And she began gaining weight. I think the correlation is certainly there for some.

 

[BeachGurl2]

You're playing with boys who are bigger than you. Sado whatever, they're still socialized to worry about it in the back of their mind more.

I do get that. I guess I just didn't think about it in terms of body mass. And I guess coming at it from that angle, for someone who is large and strong to be playing with someone who is a lot smaller, the concern would be there. I just wonder if there is actual danger in that. And I'm guessing there probably is to a degree.

 

[Netzach]

I do get that. I guess I just didn't think about it in terms of body mass. And I guess coming at it from that angle, for someone who is large and strong to be playing with someone who is a lot smaller, the concern would be there. I just wonder if there is actual danger in that. And I'm guessing there probably is to a degree.

Yes, there is. I have found this danger to be greatly overemphasized in M/f interactions though, compared to F/f, M/m or F/m. And the socialization is the reason, I think. Unless you have horrible bodily control it's safe to be mean in the *right* ways to a smaller person - you CAN judge correctly. I have to keep telling T I'm not made of glass, I'm not made of glass. So he stopped hitting me and started biting me and that's quite unpleasant.

 

[Caitlynne]

You know, I've been posting on these boards a long time. Longer than some, not as long as others, but long enough to get a feel for the vibes and the attitudes of most of the regular posters. This discussion went much better than I anticipated for about the first 4 pages, then began degenerating into a sort of free for all about my obvious bigotted nature toward anyone overweight. With a few people still trying to stay on with the original discussion. I expected some of that because there are always going to be people in a group setting who have to attack the messenger, no matter the message being sent. That's okay, I get that. I expected it.

I believe I said you had a problem with your comfort level regarding fat-ness. That's not exactly calling you a bigot. I suppose you could read that into my words, but then you'd be guilty of 'twisting my words' now wouldn't you.

Look, I mean no offense. You don't know me, so you don't know to believe that, but I do in fact mean it. BUT, this thread went well for a long time because no one really challenged you. [BTW, Those challenges don't mean you are wrong, or bad, or anything negative. It only means that some see this whole thread and your remarks differently.]

I think the reason you are still challenged by people is that "you doth protest too much". And that isn't a crime either, so I'm not saying there is anything wrong with protesting a misunderstanding or protesting someone who disagrees with your take on things.

It becomes a livelier conversation with differing POV's, but that doesn't mean it has devolved into something nasty and negative. It only means some people disagree with one or more of your POV's.

It's much more fun for some to just wander through a thread and spew venom because it makes them feel good about themselves. Especially when the topic is a very touchy one for so many people.

*sigh* You saw my post as venom?

No one can stop you from taking offense or seeing a post as 'spewing venom', but I can tell you that they weren't intended to be snide remarks on my part. I truly do not see, and did not see the point of the thread. What point were you trying to make with this discussion?

It isn't that this is such a sensitive topic in my book [although it can be, that's for sure]. That's not why I answered you. It appeared to me to be a lot of "concern trolling" on your part. I can be wrong about that. I've been wrong at least once a day, every day of my life, so I'm not at all vested in my own rightness.

Had you read what you said you read, you would have seen that my thoughts come from being on both sides of the coin. I've been extremely overweight (beginning with medicine for my lupus) and I've been extremely underweight (from an eating disorder). Throughout my life, I've gained and lost hundreds of pounds. My most recent weightloss was 40 pounds. Prior to that, I had a weightloss of almost 60, after getting off the prednisone. But because of the content of my post, I'm seen by some here as having a problem with overweight people. I'm not going to hang around for a lynching, but I'll happily hang around for a discussion.

*again a sigh* Then don't lynch the people who are here to participate in the discussion. You know that road goes both ways.

And I did not miss your explanations regarding your experiences, but those experiences seemed to reflect that weight is a distraction in your life. Whether up or down, it has caused you some concern, and for what ever reasons. Again, that doesn't make you wrong or bigoted or anything. It makes you prone to being uncomfortable with weight issues, and it seemed to show in your posts. But again, I can be wrong.

As to the other things I obviously missed regarding your explanations. I think I already admitted that I did miss them. I did read the thread, but apparently I'm not going to pass the pop quiz to be able to prove it. You should warn people if there's a test at the end. We'll study harder. [oh and that was sarcasm in case you didn't see it.]

Look. You began the thread. I read it. It looked interesting. I commented. I actually commented on a lot of different aspects of the thread. I don't think they were spewing venom at all, but if you say they were, well you're the boss.

Now quit whining and playing the victim and enjoy what everyone else has to say. I'll be going now, and I won't come back to spoil your topic again.

 

[SierraMoon]

My best friends are thin women. They never make me feel like I'm an less attractive than they are, but they do yell at me about the way I dress. I wear baggy clothes like most bigger women do. They once took me on a shopping spree to buy me some clothes that fit my body. I have to agree I look really nice in these outfits. It makes me feel good to wear them. The reason I don't wear them often? Because I fear that people will make the kind of statements about me that you made here. She's a fatass anyway, why bother to try to look nice. I suppose I should dress like a fattie with my sweatpants and big tee's.

This is exactly what I do. I don't want people looking at me and pointing their fingers, saying that I shouldn't be wearing something. So, I do wear the baggy shirts, sweats and such. I don't dress feminine, because I'm trying to hide my curves.

I do have some large framed friends that dress feminine, and I applaud them for it! One wears bustiers, corsets and such and she looks great in them. She is very confident in her body, but I've had too many people make rude comments to me in the past, for me to feel comfortable doing that.

And, to somewhat respond to the original question here....... My boyfriend (who started out being my Dom) used to be a fitness trainer, and I've been large all of my adult life. He has told me recently that he can't imagine his life without me, but also wants the "trophy sub" the one that he can do suspension and rope work with. It definitely hit a nerve with me, and hurt pretty badly.

I accept myself for who I am. As I said, I've been this way for all of my adult life, so either you accept me, or not. If they don't, I figure it's their loss.......

 

[graceanne]

Counter-intuitive - but it led me to look into this fact a bit more deeply. It appears that for some, taking in fewer calories causes hormones to be released which preserve body fat - I would imagine by making one sluggish and not willing to expend physical energy.

Having had no medical experience and being a physicist by training, this is probably overly simplistic: During normal activity, the adult human body uses energy at the rate of 100 Watts which amounts to 9 calories/hour or about 200 calories/day. With vigorous, continous, daily excercise, this can be increased to over 500 calories/day. It would follow that if one could muster enough will power to overcome the lethargy induced by those evil weighth-preserving hormones, while limiting one's intake to less than 1,000 calories/day, one should be able to over-come this unfortunate "feast or famine" syndrome and loose weighth. But I guess it is undoubtedly not that simple.

May I also share a personal observation, referred to as "anecdotal" in the medical profession: sometimes, as a result of not getting enough excercise and eating too much during business travel I may gain 10 to 15 lbs. I then return home being hungrier than usual and my quick cure for that is to get up early in the morning and hike for hours every day through the woods on my Kentucky property while having only an apple for breakfast. I find that vigorous activity causes me to have almost no apetite - one would expect the opposite because one has just burned away a lot of fuel - but that is the way it is for me. It may be the reverse of the "feast or famine" syndrome that you mentioned. But within several days, I would be back at my "nornmal" level of 160 lbs.

I am temperamentally against ingesting any kind of poison, aka medicine, and have been lucky enough to be able to enjoy a healthy life without requiring any drugs whatsoever, not even aspirin. Reading some of the horror stories in this thread as a result of taking drugs, I can only thank my lucky stars for my healthy genes endowed to me by my parents.

I'm not a physicist, so theres a lot of at the entire above post. Nonetheless, I don't care what makes sense, what I know is how this works. I've read a good deal on it. It's an evolution thing - the bodies way of staying alive when their's little or no food. Another odd thing our body does if you suddenly starve yourself you will lose MUSCLE not FAT, but when you regain that weight, you gain back FAT and not MUSCLE. Another way of the body ensuring survival.

Every time this argument comes up, I correct it. Monroe wore a vintage 12, which would have had a waist measurement of about 22" - 23". I wear a modern size 8 (sometimes 10), and in vintage? Size 16, at best - which is a 27" waist.

Actually she was a vintage size 16, which is a today's size of 12. As etoile put below, this was MM's measurements. I'm sorry, a woman who weighs up to 140 lbs is NOT going to fit in a modern size 8. Ever. (I know - I've been 140 lbs and I was in a size 12. Not to mention that with a bra size of a 36 D (been there done that too) she's going to have to wear AT LEAST a medium to large shirt or it won't fit right.
T
Beyond that, I (at one time) had the exact same measurements as MM, except I'm shorter. I weighed about 140 lbs-ish, and I wore a size 12. I had to starve myself, once, for TWO WEEKS to fit into a size 10 and even then I only got down to about 130 lbs. (Then my mom realized I wasn't eating and told me to eat or she'd sit on me and shove toast down my throat.)

It's explained quite simply on Snopes. Here's MM's measurements:

Height: 5'5.5"
Weight: 118-140 lbs
Bust: 35-37 in
Waist: 22-23 in
Hips: 35-36 in
Bra size: 36D

If you have a 22-23 inch waist, you are skinny. Period. Now, we all know she was curvy, hence the boobs and hips being a larger measurement. But fat? No. Dress size is completely irrelevant here; as CM says, sizes have changed. The important thing is her measurements. And those, my friends, speak of a skinny person, not a chunky one.

The difference between MM and today's models is that MM had curves. She wasn't heavy by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that she was curvy and today's models are straight up and down. Except for Iman. I love Iman.

I wasn't saying MM was fat - I think she was gorgeous. I was saying that what was considered beautiful has changed. Today she wouldn't have made it as a model. She's too short, and not skinny enough.

And Gracie, just to note one thing, in AZ people DO make loud comments to smokers. And the homeless. And the panhandlers. Maybe that's one difference between the city and smaller towns, or maybe it's just my city, but it does happen all the time. And the same basic principles apply there as well - we don't know what caused that person to be doing that thing they are doing, and so passing judgment is the same as it is for the overweight.

I live in the city. And I'm sure that when they make those comments to the homeless and smokers they get the same response I give to strangers who make comments about my weight. A one fingered salute.

Add to that, people in glass houses. Someone recently zoomed up to my sister in law, in their HUGE SUV to lecture her on flicking her cigarette butt. Her response "oh, yeah. I can tell you're really concerned for the environment in that SUV."

I guarantee, for ANYONE who has a problem with other peoples weight. Give me a couple of days to REALLY get to know you, and I'll find something that you don't want brought to the light of day. My weight is out there to see - you know my problem. It's like chickens picking on the diseased. But there isn't a DAMN person on this planet who doesn't have something that they do wrong, or are ashamed of. As far as I'm concerned, when you (general you - not directed at anyone specifically) become Jesus Christ I might be willing to listen to your critique, but until then shut up and mind your own business.

 

[graceanne]

I hate to harp on this but I REALLY see a class component to this equation, a huge glaring one - the same people who can afford bypass surgeries, plastic surgeries and two hours per day at the gym because someone else watches the spawn are going to vilify the ones who can't even afford a half hour to cook and run the companies to *keep them that way*

someone else's lesiure time is because someone else is overworked.

Sorry, happy labor day everyone.

That reminds me.

First, try to eat healthily on a budget. I have about 150 dollars a week to spend on food (and other assorted stuff like laundry soap and toilet paper) for a family of five. Go ahead. Good luck. When you get tired of it, I'll let you know how I do it.

Between me and my kids we eat NO msg or overly processed foods. My daughter is gluten and lactose intolerant (so we buy very little bread or noodles, and lactose free milk). I can't have corn, chocolate, anything with seeds in it, fruit that can't be peeled (the peels make me sick), red meat, uncooked veggies, and fried foods. My son is adhd so sugar is out of the equation, except for special occasions.

People bitch and they moan, but know what? It's cheaper to eat crappily. My sister buys her kids top ramen and crap like that and her grocery bill is half mine. If given a choice between top ramen, though, and starvation I'll take the top ramen, and have had to several times. Know why? Cause one top ramen package is $.10. I can feed my whole family for less than a dollar and since fucking 9/11 and the economy dip it's been necessary a few time to pay from the pennies in my jar.

 

[graceanne]

Exactly.

And people who do not have the addiction I have will never understand my relationship to sugar.

As a small child, believe me, I was NOT picking veggies out over cookies. My mother tells me the face I pulled at my first taste of ice cream ever, like I suddenly saw in color.

There is a genetic, brain chemical component to this. But, like madness, the stigma is in full swing.

Neither was my grandmother one to ever turn down cake. She still screws up her stomach on chocolate in the thick of a Crohn's flare which I never did, actually.

She weighs 120 and I weigh 180 because she did something for years I've never once done in my life. Smokes. That fills a hole, doesn't it?

This reminds me of something else. I love sugar. It's been suggested (by a doctor type person) that's part of my diabetes, my blood sugar drops and I crave sugar to get it back up. Whatever the reason, I LOVE sugar.

That said, I can count on like one hand the number of times I was allowed sugar when I was a child (not counting birthdays). We were bottom of the barrell poor. What we ate was what my mom was able to can that summer before. We once went a week and the only thing we ate was stewed tomatoes on toast, cause Mom could afford bread makings (yes we ate homemade bread, it's cheaper) and there were TONS of canned tomatoes in the pantry. Add to that that my mom was raised by a woman who's allergic to EVERYTHING - mom would NOT have allowed us to eat processed foods anyway. my littlest sister is 14, and there's money for food, but I guarantee there isn't any processed foods or sweets in my moms house. (And yes, my mom is overweight - my sister isn't though.)

I didn't allow any of my kids to have any sweets before the age of one, and then almost none. My oldest isn't big on sweets, my middle girl can't get enough sweets, and my son loves anything sweet - in other words a juicy apple makes him as happy as a candy bar. Same diet plan, different children.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong (heavy wise) with any of my kids weight. The middle one, the one with the sweet tooth, is actually underweight. (She's 7 years old and weight 45 lbs.)

So sorry to blow your 'you're a bad parent' theories out of the pond.

 

[VelvetDarkness]

Do you think that an alcoholic who can't function for a minute without a drink has NO IDEA they're harming their longevity?

Of course I don't.

At what point do you think someone is sufficiently "informed" by the polite people on the street? Do you habitually suggest AA to the barfly next to you or is that the job of loved ones doctors and people in the *personal* circle of the person with the problem.

I'm not talking about walking up to strangers and preaching but often it's the people closest to a person who shy away from saying the things that should be said. Nobody wants to be the bad cop these days.

 

[VelvetDarkness]

Know what else is obscene?

If you take a stroll around the 'hood of the US, if you and rida take a drive through some places that are neither subrub nor downtown business district you will notice that there's NOPLACE to enjoy fine vegan dining, nor even some produce that isn't completely wilted and 4x what I pay for it in my neighborhood.

No. There's fast food, and what you would consider a cornershop in the UK. Newspapers, tobacco, cheap alcohol, and hostess cakes.

Then of course, there are the public schools. I did afterschool teaching in one which had 99 percent breakfast participation. IE: everyone who went there was poor. There was a snack break. The snack break was basically quarter water (sugar water) and fat-loaded crackers masquerading as "not chips, really" or cookies. These guys get the contracts to "feed" the children of the poor.

So not only are we deliberately killing the poor, we're then vilifying them while we do it. The urban (insult ephitet, white trash counts here too) can now be the JOKE of the western world while they suffer and then we decide their health care is a drain on the system.

My overweightness is at least the outcome of a series of complex decisions and emotions that fall one way or another, for which I refuse to feel like I'm a "weaker" person than anyone.

Theirs is simply not having any other options which are workable in their reality.

On this I completely agree with you. That's the reason why I'm now co-owner of a vegan cafe on a double decker bus that can be taken to the masses so they can get a different impression of vegan food. Vegan food does not have to be dull and uninspiring.

Organic produce is more expensive and prices poorer families out. Vegetarian/vegan substitute foods are expensive and if you have a wheat/dairy allergy, don't even bother unless you're wealthy. It is a total elitism and that's completely unfair.

These things are driven by market forces. The only way to instigate sustainable change in the availability of products and the amount of money it currently costs to produce them for what is still a niche market is for more and more people to turn their noses up at processed crap and say 'fuck cake, give me the good stuff.'

It's up the the individual to make healthy eating/living their personal priority and take the time to seek out better products that don't break the bank. It doesn't take an enormous amount of self awareness and discernment as a consumer to improve a person's diet dramatically.

 

[Bandit58]

I hate the BMI. Any doctor that so much as even mentions it to me I get up and walk out the door. It's pure and utter bullshit. If I weighed what that idiotic chart says I should, I would be sickly thin. My entire family runs 'heavy' in their weight, I'm assuming to dense bones. My mom weighs over 240 and she looks INCREDIBLE. She wears a size 14/16 and looks wonderful. I've seen others at the same height that are 240ish and look twice as big as mom.

I don't even bother to track my weight when trying to get healthier. I track clothes sizes. My weight means nothing. When I lose, 1 pound to me equals 5 to most people. I can lose 5 pounds and people swear I've lost 20. However, it's that much harder for me, for some reason, to lose those 5 pounds. Luckily, they show when I do.

I get really pissy when people tell me they are trying to get down to their "proper BMI". There is no proper BMI, you should weigh what YOU look and feel good at, period.

I have a friend that weighs 155, but her BMI says she's supposed to weigh 135. She is obsessive about reaching this weight, never mind the fact that she looks perfect right now and every pound she loses she looks sickly and feels sickly. Obviously her body wants her to weigh more than the BMI says she should. She prefers to listen to charts instead of logic and what her body tells her. Drives me insane.

/rant

I hate the BMI as well. According to that, my daughter is considered to be overweight. She is strong and muscular and has been since the age of about 5. She went through a stage at around age 10 of comparing herself to her friends who were built like delicate little flower fairies. I told her that there wasn't much she could do about her build, but she could focus on her strengths - she could press a bale of wool, handle animals, ride an ATV. She's 20 now and has wonderful self esteem.

My BMI is 23.6. If I weighed what I am "supposed to" for my height and body build, I would look like a scarecrow

 

[VelvetDarkness]

My BMI is 23.6. If I weighed what I am "supposed to" for my height and body build, I would look like a scarecrow

I agree with others that the BMI is a blunt tool at best. People vary far too much for it to be any kind of 'ideal.' I think that being happy, healthy and active is more important and that when it comes to wanting to lose a little weight, being aware of your shape, how your clothes fit and how much physical energy/endurance you have is a much more sensible approach than leaping on the scales every morning.

 

[Noira]

My BMI is 23.6. If I weighed what I am "supposed to" for my height and body build, I would look like a scarecrow

I have no idea what my BMI is and I refuse to figure it out. I KNOW it'll be crazy high.

I also know that charts say that I should be 110 pounds beccause I'm 5'2. Yeah. I'm short. I couldn't make it in any looks career if I wanted because you have to be tall for that...

Oh. Where was I? Oh yeah, BMI.

BMI.

Something that doesn't take into mind build, bones, muscle, structure, anything that's not the 'perfect person'. Right now, I'm overweight. I'm not happy at my current weight. I will be happy once I'm 140 pounds again. According to the charts, that's obese for my height. According to myself, I feel happy and confident at that weight (I'm around 170 right now and don't look it) and I fit small/medium clothing--medium because I prefer loose fitting clothes, right now it's large because I prefer loose clothes.

If I was 110 pounds, my ribs would be showing and I would look like a scarecrow. I probably wouldn't break, because my bone structure is huge, but I would be unhealthily underweight. You can't feed me BS about my mass, because I know I'm massive. My entire FAMILY is. We're built thick, my shoulders are men's shoulders, I couldn't wear a women's small shirt at a small weight because my shoulders are WIDE. My wrists are wide. I fall and I don't break bones. I've got muscle build. I'm not cute and fluffy. I'm never going to be skinny like some friends of mine. On the flip side, I can work up muscle and flatten those skinny girls. I'm never going to be fast. I'm thick. I look skinnier than I actually am. My mom, at the same weight, looks comparatively huge. I still get away with 'looking good' and I don't wear good clothing. I don't want to. I think they're disgusting and uncomfortable and chose to dress this way.

I'd rather be all muscle than skinny. I don't even find skinny all that attractive. Curvy women and muscular men all the way. Farmboys and farmgirls. XD

This doesn't mean I don't want to lose weight. I'm not being encouraged to by anyone except for me. Me doesn't want to gain any more weight. So what am I going to do? I want to be 140 pounds again.

I can get myself to a better build by running and working out--oh, but I couldn't afford a gym membership if I wanted to. So I'm limited to what I can do on my patch of floor in my room.

I can eat healthier... oh. But it costs so much.

But what can I do? It's 25 cents for a pack of ramen noodles and way more for a salad. I'm a college student. I can't eat healthy when I want to because it costs more and spoils more.

Skinny's become a way to weed out the poor people. Either you're lucky and can't gain weight, metabolism just works that way, or you're not lucky... and it doesn't matter how little you eat, you can't lose weight. I've switched to a practically all-vegetarian diet, as much as I love meat, and it's still not helping. I can't help it. We can AFFORD ramen. We can't afford all the vegetables to make a good salad. They get eaten and spoil so fast. We can afford bread and cheese. We can afford crackers. You'd think being on the poor end of the bracket, you'd lose weight...

Targetting the original question:

So, is it BDSM in general?

Nah.

I think it's America in general. My self esteem doesn't suffer because of my weight, just my back and my asthma, screw it. I haven't fallen into the clutches of BDSM due to some insecurity--I just find it interesting.

Face it. Go to the mall. Most people aren't in lovely shape anyway.

I'd rather not attend munches at food places, though. It is hard to avoid eating when it's right in front of you like that. Watching people eat doesn't turn me off, but it does annoy me when every event I'd want to go to is at a food place... meh...

So meh. Fat's genetic for me. I want to lose some of it but it's hard when you can't afford to. I lost weight once, I'll do it again. Just have to stop eating one meal a day. Killing me here.

But it has nothing to do with my interest in BDSM. That's... some other part of my brain.

And BMI sucks. I don't even want to know what I'd look like at 105 pounds. Sickly at best...

/ramble

 

[the captians wench]

I hate the BMI. Any doctor that so much as even mentions it to me I get up and walk out the door. It's pure and utter bullshit. If I weighed what that idiotic chart says I should, I would be sickly thin. My entire family runs 'heavy' in their weight, I'm assuming to dense bones. My mom weighs over 240 and she looks INCREDIBLE. She wears a size 14/16 and looks wonderful. I've seen others at the same height that are 240ish and look twice as big as mom.

I don't even bother to track my weight when trying to get healthier. I track clothes sizes. My weight means nothing. When I lose, 1 pound to me equals 5 to most people. I can lose 5 pounds and people swear I've lost 20. However, it's that much harder for me, for some reason, to lose those 5 pounds. Luckily, they show when I do.

I get really pissy when people tell me they are trying to get down to their "proper BMI". There is no proper BMI, you should weigh what YOU look and feel good at, period.

I have a friend that weighs 155, but her BMI says she's supposed to weigh 135. She is obsessive about reaching this weight, never mind the fact that she looks perfect right now and every pound she loses she looks sickly and feels sickly. Obviously her body wants her to weigh more than the BMI says she should. She prefers to listen to charts instead of logic and what her body tells her. Drives me insane.

/rant

I can so relate. I go by inches insted of pounds. Like you said, if I loose a pound, it's noticed. My mom got frusterated because when I was up to 375 I wore the same size clothes she did, and she was 100 pounds lighter. Then I droped down to 200 and into a size 16 and she decided to get a bit more serious. Now I'm 230-240 and a 15, so I really don't understand the whole weight size ratio. Of course, when I gain weight I gain it in my boobs first and loose it there last so gaining weight for me doesn't go unnoticed but usually it's not noticed in a bad way by anyone except myself. At a full dd cup, I'm already starting to have back troubles.

My "ideal" weight accourding to hight is 135 (if I go by the 'large build'). I haven't weighed 135 since I was in grade school. When I was a size 10 (and actually that was a small 10 but my boobs were too big to fit smaller dresses), I weighed 165. Now I've also been a 16 at 165. You see, this is why I don't go by weight. My goals are sizes and inches. I don't even own a scale because scales are depressing and get me focased in the wrong direction. Not everyone is built that way, but there are some of us out there.

 

[the captians wench]

This reminds me of something else. I love sugar. It's been suggested (by a doctor type person) that's part of my diabetes, my blood sugar drops and I crave sugar to get it back up. Whatever the reason, I LOVE sugar.

.

I know I do this. When my sugar gets to a certain point i crave sweets. I'll get something little, a hand full of M&M's or something, to give me a jult then eat mass protien asap.

When my PCOS has me bleeding real heavily, I crave red meat (could be a light animia problem, but that hasn't been diagnosed).

I've learned to listen to what my body tells me. Some times I crave veggies, but usually it's certain veggies. Some times meat, or fish. The only time I don't give it exactly what it asks for is sugar, and that's because I know that I really need something else and sugar is just the quick fix.

I live alone, so it's hard for me to get motivated to cook for myself most of the time. I love to cook, but cooking for one seems almost pointless to me. It's so much easier to have pre-made foods in the freezer to heat up when I've worked 9, 10 some times 12 hour days. And easier is usually what I'll go for.

Fresh fruits and veggies are not only expencive, they don't last long. I can't eat them quick enough to see the point in spending the money, so I buy canned and frozen. I have to watch the fruits tho, they have to be in unsweetened juice and I still have to watch how offten I have them.

Cooking and shopping for special diet needs is hard and expencive. (I only have one special need, gracie I can not imagine how you shop for all the specail needs of your family!) When my sugar is really out of joint, I have to cut down on the cheap stuff like the pasta that I love so much. Then the sugar free stuff is always more expencive. It can be very frusterating when I want to bring a sugar free peach cobbler to a party for me and my grandmother to enjoy but I look and it's so much easier and cheaper to buy stuff for a regular one.

When I made the switch from pop to water that added to my grocery bill. I can't drink tap, and even filtered water from my tap makes me sick (litterally I get stomach cramps). To buy enough bottled water to last me a week costs 3 times as much as when I was drinking pop. The thing with water, the more I drink, the more I want.

It's hard to eat healthy on a budget, I see it, I get it. And even tho I can aford it, years of watching my mother struggle to feed a family of 4 on what I make now, has me in the mind frame that I think I can't. I have to force myself to buy what I need to. It's something Jounar has actually encouraged me for 3 years. But it's also the reason why I have the money to go visit him, so I can't really complain.

 

[BeachGurl2]

So sorry to blow your 'you're a bad parent' theories out of the pond.

Did I miss something? Bad parent theories?

 

[incubus'_sub]

beachgurl2, i agree with what you've said on just about every point. i don't want to offend anyone either hence my reluctance to join the discussion earlier.

here, in australia, obese people far outnumber the slenders at any kink gathering i've been to or heard about firsthand. some of them are really great people, others not, so i guess being fat doesn't automatically give you a personality. these people are there to play and it has been our observation that mostly it's desperation rather than true interest in kink that brings them there. although the people here do share a true interest i'm guessing that the majority of members are overweight. yet every time that this question is asked, most posters say oh, no.

my view on a few other points. obese people are beginning to see themselves as normal, due of course to the huge increase in obese people. it is not normal to be obese.

apart from a minority who suffer real illnesses, and we do have some here, a very large percentage of the obese eat too much, usually stating loudly and often how little they consume. brain chemicals, rampant hormones, big bones, genetics, depression, the list of excuses goes on and on and as we've seen are strongly defended and accepted as genuine by other obese people as being reasonable causes of obesity. mostly it's caused by eating too much for your level of activity. that's why stomach banding surgery is so successful. it stops the constant ingestion of too much food. it doesn't change genetics, big bones or depression but hey, the weight falls off. amazing.

these days people ARE fat AT you, spilling themselves over you on planes, busses, trains, theatres, shops, footpaths, everywhere that was built for normal sized people before supersized people became the new "norm".

i do believe that it's time that obese people were called on it without pulling the punches, same as with smokers, alcoholics, junkies. your obesity IS impacting on my life in just the same way. it costs a fortune to keep you alive with all the preventative diseases you give yourselves.

fat is not attractive to most people, even other fatties. how often do we hear and read "i love him/her anyway". that's tolerance and acceptance not oh i'm thrilled that my partner is too fat. ok, i know that there are some who are feeders but it too is a minority.

and to top it all off, i can't stand to watch obese people shovel it in in restaurants either. it's revolting, particularly when they're teaching their fat kids to do the same.

if your kids are fat, do something about it. feed them less, make them move. less stress about their delicate little minds and more action about their pudgy bodies will be better for them for their entire lives.

ok, harsh i know and doesn't take into account socio economic factors, the price of oil or global bloody warming. too much means too fat. stop excusing it, bleating about it, pretending you don't even care and do something about it.

 

[Netzach]

.

these days people ARE fat AT you, spilling themselves over you on planes, busses, trains, theatres, shops, footpaths, everywhere that was built for normal sized people before supersized people became the new "norm"..

Oh my God. My heart bleeds for you, being crowded on a subway by two fat people almost KILLED me. You poor poor trampled upon thing having to share a world with people different from you.

it costs a fortune to keep you alive with all the preventative diseases you give yourselves

There are a lot of people I'd rather not keep alive. People who think eugenics is cool, for example. Let's start there.

No shit sherlock, it's because you eat more calories than you burn. How many smokers do you know can just cut down to three smokes a day, rather than quitting? Easy peasy, yeah?

Let's see you suggest that to your favorite smoker and then tell them how lame they are if they can't do it, no whining now.

and to top it all off, i can't stand to watch obese people shovel it in in restaurants either. it's revolting, particularly when they're teaching their fat kids to do the same.

And every time I have to look at some freak with a jutting clavicle I want to hurl, but everyone else seems to think it's "healthy." I'm supposed to look at the Fiona Apple video for "Criminal" and think that's hot. That's not hot, that's diseased.

Know what's really awesome? Skanky clammy ugly chicks who think that simply because they have jutting clavicles *we need to see your whole body* Uh, no. You are not hot just because you have jutting bones.

Give me 100 plus sized Dominican booties on the 1 train any day. I couldn't go a half a block in NYC without being confronted with another brittle freak in an undershirt and no bra.

Oh, wait, is that "body hate" I have leaking out? Those are just my sexual preferences. No offense to anyone ever.

 

[Harmony_1985]

and to top it all off, i can't stand to watch obese people shovel it in in restaurants either. it's revolting, particularly when they're teaching their fat kids to do the same.

This is what I hate. People who sit and stare at you when you're overweight and sitting in McDonalds having a meal or going out to a restaurant to eat.

The only thing I have to say is this.

What right do you have to judge me based on seeing me eat once in a fast food restaurant?

 

[VelvetDarkness]

and to top it all off, i can't stand to watch obese people shovel it in in restaurants either. it's revolting, particularly when they're teaching their fat kids to do the same.

if your kids are fat, do something about it. feed them less, make them move. less stress about their delicate little minds and more action about their pudgy bodies will be better for them for their entire lives.

I have to say, that does really upset me. I hate to see obese children who find it hard to join in with things and get ridiculed by other kids. Obese children don't always have obese parents but the fact is that the majority do. I know school meals are awful and that healthy lunches brought from home can be expensive but obesity in kids really does upset me and I don't think there's ever an excuse.

To my mind, over feeding a child like that and then letting them sit on their ass all day because exercise is difficult for them is a form of child abuse. It is a dereliction of duty as a parent.

Sorry BeachGurl2, I realise that this has nothing to do with over-weightness and BDSM but it's something I do feel strongly about.

 

[Harmony_1985]

apart from a minority who suffer real illnesses, and we do have some here, a very large percentage of the obese eat too much, usually stating loudly and often how little they consume. brain chemicals, rampant hormones, big bones, genetics, depression, the list of excuses goes on and on and as we've seen are strongly defended and accepted as genuine by other obese people as being reasonable causes of obesity. mostly it's caused by eating too much for your level of activity. that's why stomach banding surgery is so successful. it stops the constant ingestion of too much food. it doesn't change genetics, big bones or depression but hey, the weight falls off. amazing.

This comes across as a very ignorant comment.

There are alot of medical conditions that do not help when you're trying to lose weight. I know because I've been there.

Am I fat because I have PCOS? No. Do I struggle to lose weight because I have PCOS? Yes.

 

[Netzach]

I have to say, that does really upset me. I hate to see obese children who find it hard to join in with things and get ridiculed by other kids. Obese children don't always have obese parents but the fact is that the majority do. I know school meals are awful and that healthy lunches brought from home can be expensive but obesity in kids really does upset me and I don't think there's ever an excuse.

To my mind, over feeding a child like that and then letting them sit on their ass all day because exercise is difficult for them is a form of child abuse. It is a dereliction of duty as a parent.

Sorry BeachGurl2, I realise that this has nothing to do with over-weightness and BDSM but it's something I do feel strongly about.

We used to have this interesting form of social torment in school called Phys ed. But you see, cuts and all. They may get it once a week in some places or not at all. I know it's probably hard to fathom schools sucking that badly - I can't imagine it's that bad in the UK yet. It IS the job of basic public education to include mind/body/service or ethics IMO.

I had it 5 days a week as a small child, danced modern 3 times a week for 2 hours each time in HS as soon as I could do that in lieu of phys ed - fancy private scholarship has its perks. I was a hot if slightly padded 130 on a fat day.

What time do you suggest someone like nh "make her kids move around" with a 6:30 - 8 pm schedule? Maybe 5 am?

Again, I really can't convey what the average lower middle class workweek is here. If people were subjected to it in other countries they would riot. You have bank holidays. We have labor day. DAY. When the Japanese were working like lunatics and on top of the economic universe, they even had "let's all do calisthenics!" starts to the day, every day, altogether now, I'm sure rida will correct me if this wasn't normal and my shitty "how to nagivate the business climate of Japan for businesspeople" book is wrong on this...we MIGHT put in a gym and only the top level has time to use it.

The whole icon of the fat kid picked last for the team may be going the way of the dinosaur - the reindeer games are in jeopardy of ever being played, even. Safety, suburbanization, and isolation are as much the problem as parental neglect. We are living in ways that are killing us when it comes to housing, transportation, and social isolation.