Yearofhealth2023's Journal, 13 May 2023

I think you look great at this weight already! 

Thanks super!!! I think i look fine i just want the cushion pounds you know? So if i go on vacation and gain five pounds i dont freak out. 140 + 5 is not nearly as scary as 145+5. And if i lose 5 pounds still look lean. Thanks so much for your support. This community is so amazing🏆 

Nice experiment with the diet. Just in time, too, for all the gorgeous fruit and vegetables harvested in summer. Would be a shame to not have the macro or caloric budget for asparagus, strawberries and cherries! 

Jb i went back quite a ways and read your posts. Super interesting read. You have really got this w.o.e./maintenance/inner and outer body health nailed. Im in awe. You must feel as beautiful on the inside as you look on the outside. Im hoping i follow your lead with the lab numbers on the 26th. This community has given me so many different ways to approach regaining my health. Wish i had found this way back when i gave up and thought meds and pain won the battle. Never too late tho right?!  

mthfr gene mutation as well on top of all that? How awful things must have been for you. :( I am so glad you have found answers and can live well from here on in. :)  

The weight gain was all predicated by pulmonary disease diagnosis ten years ago. Was on prednisone for better part of the first year and then for. Past 8 years off and on multiple times every so many months when having a flare up. First month on prednisone i went from 145 to 165 and stopped taking. Told my doc i would rather be coughing and limited oxygen than fat. She told me after a very dangerous episode shortly thereafter that it was a choice between meds and death. And meant it. It’s been a struggle but it’s been about 14 months without prednisone now. Ive retired so my exposure t respiratory issues has gone down dramatically along with my stress. That was the worst thing. Hopeful i can keep my health under control from here on out. Im not naive i know i will have go on meds from time to time but am hopeful. Thanks so much for your care bubbles. 

🥰Thank you, YoH. I spent a year experimenting with diet and exercise before finding my groove. However, most of my success is due to my environment. My friends are thin, my co-workers are thin, my neighbors are thin. It is simply not socially acceptable to overeat or to be heavy. You calibrate back to healthy habits when you acknowledge your environment. 

Jb that’s an interesting observation. My gorgeous daughter has been struggling with her weight for years now. She sees a trainer a few times a week but her job is sedentary for 10+ hours a day and the weight has kept climbing. It’s a very sore subject between the two of us as im scared for her health, her joints, her heart etc. we have cardio issues going back 3 generations and thats only what I know of. My mom, grandma and great grandma all passed from cardio problems. That being said my precious gorgeous girl surrounds herself with friends who are even heavier. I think so she feels like the smallest and prettiest. Hate to say it. She’s super photogenic and very curvy and knows her angles so in photos she doesn’t look as unhealthy as reality is. What you said may offend some people but i dont think thats your intention at all as I’ve thought similar thoughts about this situation with my baby. I was hoping my success would spark something but she just gets mad at me if i talk about what’s been working for me…..always hope one day something will spark. Thank you for your comments. Tough to see in print but some merit there for sure. Stoners hang around stoners (do people use that term anymore?), athletes around athletes, philosophers and artists around same and so on. 

YoH it’s a tough line to walk with a loved one who’s very overweight or obese. You don’t want to come off as judgemental when you are really just concerned about their health. Unfortunately it’s based in addiction and just like with a drug addict, they have to be ready to change. There’s not much you can do other than love them and lead by example. Any comments will just be perceived as judgement and push them away. Society has normalized obesity and people are labeled “fatphobic” for even bringing up the fact that it’s unhealthy to be obese. We should absolutely be caring and supportive of anyone who is struggling with their weight, but this societal push to label acceptance of an unhealthy lifestyle as “body positivity” is just furthering the epidemic. It is now more acceptable to enable unhealthiness than it is to speak against it. I consider everyone on this app to be the real body positive people. You all have made a choice to take care of yourselves and make the tough choices and changes. I salute you all and I see your efforts every day. 

Environment is super important. If I were to lunch with your daughter and order a salad, would she order the fettuccini alfredo? My BFF goes hiking with me as meet-ups, and my GF takes Pilates class with me after work. My co-workers go for walks on our lunch breaks. I've gone surfing with girlfriends and kayaking with guys on dates. The emphasis is on healthy fun activities rather than sitting down to binge eat as entertainment. The more time your daughter spends with thin people doing thin people acitivites, the less time she'll have to sit around eating with her overweight friends. I do not envy you your position on this. ☹️ 

I put her in physical activities since before she could walk. She’s played sports all the way till she graduated h.s. When she was 15 i hired a personal trainer for her for about a year to teach her good form to work out with. We worked out together for a while but she would get mad at me if i thought she wasn’t pushing herself. I hired the trainer so when she went to college she would continue the gym. All backfired. She went away from home for college and weight started piling on. I was really rough on her. Refused to buy her bigger clothes. Told her she was getting obese. Horrible i was. Wish i could take it back. Paid for Jenny Craig for her many many times over the next 7 years. She would lose and gain more. I know she hates her weight but she doesn’t want to talk about it with me. EVER. Her girlfriends get together with her and yes unhealthy food is the star. Im terrified for her. Im guessing she’s 80-100 lbs over. I never had issues like that till last 8 years but i have body image issues always so was always trying to get smaller during her childhood. Even when i was already too thin. I have caused her damage. All my good intentions backfired. I try and keep my mouth shut about it now but its tough. For both of us. Omg. The vent. Im sorry. 

😢Your frustration is so thick and heavy and I feel it like quicksand, YoH. It's one thing to see FS members blasé about being obese, but quite another to have your child free-falling into diabetes and heart disease. She will come back to health when she hits rock bottom. Some people see it when viewing a picture of themselves. Some from lab results and a doctor's warning. The only thing I can advise is that when you do see her, that you spend time going for walks or shopping or doing anything besides eating. 

Jb—i have taken to inviting her over once a week for dinner and giving her a healthy low cal dinner with proper portion sizes and water to drink which she doesn’t like to drink but humors me and does. We are really close in many ways it’s just this issue. I put out pretty platewear, light candles and we talk. My hope was that making her healthy food she may get motivated but so far…nope. Thing is she’s super successful in her career, she was a super successful student it’s just this. So yes im frustrated but more than that im scared. Ive said to my husband that i hope im dead before the consequences of her nutrition rear their ugly heads. If i could do it for her i would. Yet im a hypocrite as the last 8 years i gave up on myself. So frustrated, scared, worried that sums it up. 

darling ladies, I hope you don't mind me wading in on this. I have a PCOS daughter, autistic, probably 120kg (260lb). She was born chubby but relatively small, well, born 9lb 13oz... small for me. Her father was obese, with eating issues, and would from the age of toddler give her secret lollies and cakes. I had to give up trying to make her diet as a child because I'd be controlling her diet massively, and he'd be secretly refeeding her. So I had to let this go. In some ways, that is something we have to accept. For instance, I was kept thin as a chjld, every bit of food went past mum's frown her 'concern for my health'. except she followed the diet guidelines of her day, low to zero fat, sugar was fine. Starvation and bingeing ensued with me for the next forty years where I yoyoed up to over 200lb. I started at 54kg. Starvation, bingeing, starvation, bingeing. bulimia, anorexia... bingeing. giving up. trying again. We as mothers have to step back from our children's diets. We need to step the hell back and stop the manipulation. I have to say it straight, and I say it from experience... no more manipulation. Don't invite them to dinner and starve them. No. Mummy has to let go of her childeren's diets, and let them take over and find their own way. All we can do as mother is screw them up, upset them, make them angry, and make them fight back. We can only interfere in their motivation, we can never become their motivation. Every time we 'worry' about their health etc, we give them something to resent and be reactive of. So let it go. They're over 21. Let them be the boss of their lives. We literally can do nothing but interfere and undermine. We mean the best in the world. But the history means that one comment will undo five years of trust building. Autonomy and ownership are now the order of the day. We control what we do and what we eat... and leave our children to find their own way. One thing we do NOT want is to teach them the wrong way to live for 40 yrs... I was trying to feed my children high carb, low fat. I have definitely damaged their health by teaching what I believed was right. Sorry for long-ish rant. I do nothing to pressure my daughter about weight any more. I just help her buy clothes to fit her, accept her as she is, woman to woman. her journey is her own journey. It's not my responsibility - nor my right - to keep parenting her in this way past the age of 21. jmho. sorry for stepping in but I can feel the pain everyone is expressing, but also the escalation and the false moral value in it. Autonomy is the higher moral value. And so is love. She could be hit by a car tomorrow; us worrying about her health problems in 30 yrs is hubris on our part. :)  

Yoh for people to change they have to want to change. You can not diet for her, nor lift for her. Even if you could she’ll have to sustain that way of life. Just keep up your part, hopefully it will inspire her. I’ve been called a show off many times once I got fit and wearing tanks or shirtless. I don’t mind cuz in order to think someone is showing off you have to want what that other person got. So it stems from jealousy. I told them to stop being jealous and instead look at what’s possible. Be inspired instead cuz if I can do it so can they. Eventually it did inspire them. They are all going to the gym now and been more n more consistent. I encourage it. And that’s due to me being able to maintain my health n look. I just continue to do what I do and eventually it rubs off. So just continue to do what you do, she already realize youre looking great, and if you continue it’ll eventually plant a seed of health n beauty inside her. Will it ever blossom? Who knows..... but theres a chance it might.  

YoH, Bubbles is exactly right. Any thing you do or say that involves your daughter’s weight will only add to the resentment and reinforce her pain and feelings about herself. I’m not trying to be harsh, but you need to hear it. You played a large part in creating this issue and anything you say or do about it going forward will only make it worse. She feels judged by you. Not just when you say something, but every time she is in your presence. At this point all you can do is mend your relationship. She has to know that you love her unconditionally and that you are truly sorry for the way you have treated her. There is so much pain and insecurity wrapped up in this issue and it has infected your whole relationship. I know it’s hard to watch someone you love hurt themselves, but it is her life and her journey to take. There is nothing you can say or do about it that will help. It will only make it worse. Healing your relationship by truly expressing how sorry you are for mistreating her and letting her know that you love her no matter what is the only part you have to play in helping your daughter at this point in her journey.  

YoH, I apologize for speaking on this unsolicited. I have a niece whom I love very much who is morbidly obese. My entire family, including myself, played a part in causing her obesity. We handled it in a way that undermined her trust and made her feel constantly judged. My goal is to heal our relationship over time and love her no matter what. If she dies young because she stays obese, at least she knew I truly loved her unconditionally. Maybe one day my unconditional love and support will give her a little strength to make the change. Who knows? 

you got this! its hard to watch our children struggle! we can guide them in the right direction but its up to them to keep going. i have a story that might help you YOH- i have a friend back in my homestate, she had been living with her abuser for 10 yr. I kept pushing her to leave, before she was ready. she knew she needed to do this, but with two kids she was unsure if she can make it happen. I would push and push and push. I wanted her to be healthy and happy, but ultimately I realized she needed to be ready. one day when we were talking on the phone, I apologize to her for all the pushing that I was doing. I let her know " I'm sorry for how much I was pushing you before you were ready. when you are ready I am here for you" she started crying and saying "thank you" to me multiple times. 3 months later she was ready to move out, now her 2 kids under age 5 and her are living happily away from him. From 2012-2017 i was in her shoes. i had no one to push me to leave, since she was going through something similar at the same time (the abusers were friends) so i thought i was helping her. i let her know i am here for her in this difficulty when she is ready. it was an uncomfortable subject for her to talk about. maybe in some way, thats whats happening with your daughter-its uncomfortable to talk about/acknowledge. hope this helps!!  

Great advice Dazey! We can’t push someone to change, only away from us. All we can do is let them know that we are truly sorry, love them unconditionally and always be there for them 

Your pup is adorable. Good luck reaching your goals