I Gotta Pick This Bone...


Well no shit sherlock

I'm probably going to get a lot of grief for writing this blog. I know it's not very empowering and probably not very nice, but every time I see one of these...

     I can't help but notice that, often, it's posted by a woman who is probably at least 4 sized bigger than the girl in the picture... Okay, I get it, we want respect for looking the way we do: we also don’t want to be compared to stick figure runway models. I'm right there with you. I'm no one’s idea of thin, I have absolutely no illusions that I'm even plus size model material... for starters I'm about a foot too short. My biggest peeve, though, ladies, is that you can't, you just can't look at a woman who looks like this...   
 And say "Yeah! This is what used to be beautiful! Jeez what's wrong with you people?" Well, what's wrong is that you don’t look like that, sweetie, you look like this...
     And the fact of the matter is, no matter how beautiful she may be, she's fat. Your goal in life shouldn't be convincing people that size 18 isn't fat, because it is. You shouldn't be asking people to just get over and accept it because you're poisoning your body with trash or you're just not moving enough to lose the weight. I get it, it's hard, it hurts, and it sucks. I'm not telling you to look like this...
VS                       VS




Look at her arms and legs, they aren't overly fatty
they are actually quite thin!!
      I'm telling you your goal should be to get to this --> ! If this is what you're telling the world to like, that's great! These women are beautiful; they're also like a size 8-10.
And look at Betty, I'm sorry, this chick is FIT
Not fat, not curvy, FIT





I don’t want you to be thin, I want to know that you, my lovely girl friends, are healthy and going to live long happy lives without heart attacks and type two diabetes. You can't eat and drink whatever you want and not MOVE and be healthy. You can't say, "I indulge myself" if you're doing it a little bit every day, or even every other day! Being fit and healthy is a lifelong commitment. It takes work and sacrifices, and it's a big red bitch, but it's so worth it!!

    

     Do you feel tired all the time? Do you have aches and pains when you do minor activities like shopping or moving or cleaning? Is it hard to get up and get moving in the mornings? Is it hard to find cute clothes in your size (and no I don’t mean, like, at Guess or Express where they don’t even really sell over the size ten and a size ten is really like a size eight)? Guess what, you're probably over weight.
 

      I'm not going to say it's okay, because it's only okay if you truly don't care about your health... It's really about what you see when you look, honestly, at yourself in the mirror. Do you like what you see? Could you run to catch your bus? Run up two flights of stairs? Or even chase your kid around the play ground for more than five minutes at a time? Don’t you want to say yes? Not so you look like a twig figure but just so that you know you're healthy!  

The chart below tells you if you're over weight or not. Take this with a grain of salt, though, because everyone knows muscle weighs more than fat


These women
    


are beautiful

    




because of their confidence... but, they are still fat



Look, I am fat.. you dont see me freaking out over it
I'm DOING something about it!
     My BMI is about a 27.5 but you know, I'm really working on it. I used to be a 34 and I promise you it was ALL fat. My 27.5 has quite a bit of muscle to account for. I keep trying to find one of those machines that can calculate body fat: that would be the best weight loss tool ever... if I could just get my hands on one. Look... I'll even post a picture of myself in a bikini...   Not a pretty picture, okay? And I've lost a bit more since then, so can you imagine what I would have looked like four months ago, before I started working out? You don’t wanna, I promise.


I would classify most of these women as healthy to moderately over weight
if you're bigger than this I would start with this as your goal for a body type..
So here's the break down, ladies, if you truly want to lose weight it's not going to be on some fad diet and it's not going to be from starving yourself either. Oh no, see, you can still have too much body fat and have a low BMI: it's still not healthy!! The only way to lose weight, and keep it off for life, is to fully commit to it. Sucks right? Because it means eating responsibly and getting your ass up and burning calories! If you want to eat, AWESOME, eat!! But choose healthier alternatives. 

Yes, she's a plus sized model, she's also not fat...maybe just compared to
her counter part in the photo.
Another plus sized model.
and more

No, they aren't greasy or even delicious, but they will someday save your life... that's worth it, right? You can make a million excused, God knows I did (and if I'm being totally honest, still do) about why you're the weight you are. It's simply because you take in too many calories and don’t burn them off. Period. Okay? There may be extenuating circumstances that make it harder, for instance, you've let yourself go for too long and now you're going to have to go Biggest Loser on your own ass... well, sorry, Love. Find something you like to do and someone to do it with and get out and do it! If it means paying someone to come stand over your bed every morning with an alarm clock and a horn and yell "Move your ass bitch!" then do it. I had to. Well... sometimes I still don’t make it to my work out, but when I do I know I would have failed a million times over if it weren't for the support of my Stroller Strides girls and Natalie Plant. She's my drill sergeant and she doesn't say quit! You know what she does say? She says "Move that ass bitches!!" And we do, because we want to look like her. Not skinny. Healthy. There are options out there, and billions of reasons why not get healthy, but the only one that will truly stop you is a little three letter word. YOU. So, how bad do you want it?



Take a look at these women closely. Would you still call these models stick thin when compared to your "curvy body" ideals? They look VERY similar to me!

Look at Marilyn, sorry ladies
she is curvy and skinny!
It's not the same thing as over weight
Modern day model


Same thing with Bettie Page, you can see her hip bones
 and the curve of her ribs.






Modern model




Now, compared to these runway models, yes! They are curvy and these women are gross! But this isn't a model standard! The average women is a size 14, that doesn't make a size 14 not fat! I'm sorry! That doesn't mean you need to look like them... but dont kid yourself, you're not healthy if you're that big. That doesn't mean you need to look like them... but dont kid yourself, you're not healthy if you're that big.
    
      
 























     The part that's going to be the hardest to deal with is that once you  lose the weight you'll never be able to consume the amount of calories you did before you got fat. Say, when you were 16 you could eat and eat and eat and never gain weight, no matter how much weight you lose now you'll never be able to eat and eat and eat. Someone who has always weighed 120 will always be able to out eat you and not gain weight no matter how much you work out. I dont remember the exact science behind this, but it's true. That is why fad diets dont work for the long term and it's why we gain the weight back when we stop the diet. Here is a great blog that talkes, a little more seriously, about weight loss and the affects it can have to your health:   http://gfrendz.com/main/?p=2546

Just remember...

No one expects you to look like this...
but dont kid yourself into thinking you look like this














or even this...
when you actually look like this.





     Oh, and just for the record… This poster is reserved for women who have carried a baby, we earned every line with every kick, every sleepless night, every nausious morning, every mad dash to the bathroom to pee... this is not for women who pound fast food or dont work out or just gained too much weight too fast or even just grew too fast.. Just saying. Let the mama's have their own damn photo of encouragement. Jeez!

     I say all of these things in love, but I'm a firm believer that sometimes you have to be slapped upside the head before truly getting it. I'm sure I'll still get heat for this though.



Category: 7 comments

7 comments:

Kristen Peacock said...

I really respect you for saying all you've said. I'm a firm believer in embracing your body, for the way it SHOULD be. Not skinny, not fat. Healthy. You can be curvy, and you can be fit.

I do have to say, though, to your last picture. I agree that mothers deserve to wear their stretch marks with pride. However, girls who are like me, who gained weight through weight training rapidly, should also be proud of their stretch marks.

I'm not a mother, but I do have stretch marks everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. But I've always seen them as my badge of honor, considering I'd always been a weaker individual. When I started gaining muscle and saw that my skin wasn't catching up quite as quickly, I got a little upset, but at the same time, I could care less how other people see my body. Through that, I became stronger and more proud of myself.

Again, I agree with every word you've said. You are really smart, and I've seen your progress. Considering you gave birth a year ago, you look freaking amazing! I haven't seen anyone bounce back from a pregnancy that fast before. You should be really proud of yourself, sweetie :)

Read Drink and Be Bloggy said...

Oh I ABSOLUTELY agree women should be proud of their stretch marks! I just think this perticular photo poster was meant for mothers. :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Its about healthy and in proportion.. not about weight...your healthy weight is individual and not something we can set a standard for.

I get annoyed with this posters because I am small, and I dislike being told I am ugly or fake because of it. I work my ass of in the gym and eat healthy, the idea that every skinny person is sick is very annoying.

Angie said...

Thank you for this post. I have been following your progress on your profile page as you know. I'm proud of you, you have inspired me my friend. Now to get off my ass! I love you! We need another Mommy Date Night. PS...why the hell isn't google reader updating when this updates?! I've missed so many of your posts this way. Grrr!

Ellie said...

I love this! It really irritates me when people do the whole "curvy girls are better" when they are quit clearly not curvy and just plain fat.
We should be encouraging people to be healthy, not skinny or curvy - just healthy.

Anonymous said...

I guess if writing a noxious blog on your views of body weight helps you shed excess pounds then power to you. Just keep in mind, that the fat will most likely come back, especially if you have kids. Recent studies have shown that more than 80% of people who have lost weight, regain all of it after two years. Researchers at the University of California analyzed 31 long-term diet studies and found that about two-thirds regained more weight within four or five years than they initially lost. But, hey, maybe you'll be one of the 20% that doesn't put it back on which would be astonishing considering you now have kids. I would think a person with this much of a "get off your ass" attitude would be out exercising instead of sitting (on her ass) in front of a computer, writing a blog about weight loss. Trust me, you will find yourself over-weight again one day and may not appreciate being told that your size 18 isn't curvy, it's fat!

By the way, I am not over-weight, just speaking for those who are....

Anonymous said...

is saying op is self righteous nazi wrong?

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