Health At Every Size- NOT a weight loss group!!

[worm761]

Anything that focuses on health is good!!!!
And, no, health isn't all about weight.
One can be thin and still have dangerously and critically high cholesterol levels or blood pressure. Or any other type of health issue.

But, I think it is pretty clear that when it comes to being a certain level over-weight, yes, health is about weight.

I will say that far, far, too many people use this line of thinking to give them selves some kind of positive spin, and false sense of how great they and their health is, when they are over-weight. A nice way to dismiss the whole obesity issue.
It is just human nature...

IMHO, my personal opinion... there is just nothing healthy about obesity.

You can be obese and still be super healthy. My husband is packed full of muscle but due to his height and muscle mass he is obese. Personally, I will always stay in the overweight category. According to BMI charts I should weigh between 95 and 105 pounds. I can tell you that I am unhealthy at those weights. My blood sugar is out of control and I am sick a lot. But if I stick to being 15 lbs overweight I am healthy as a horse.

I do need to lose some weight for health reasons. But it isn't much. And really, weight is just a number. I dropped 2 pant sizes and didn't lose a single pound.

 

[berryinDC]

Sleep can be an issue for me too but there are ways I can guarantee I'll get a good night's sleep.

1. Get TIRED. Do something active during the day to make you fall over later. Even walking the dog helps me.

2. Caffeine has a half-life of roughly six hours. So if you're aiming for, say, a 10pm bedtime, that means your last caffeinated drink should be consumed no later than 4pm.

3. Manage your light sources in the latter half of the day. This is the biggest factor for me. Light is a huge trigger for wakefulness. I use a program on my desktop computer called f.lux that gradually reduces the amount of blue in my screen according to the time of day. When I'm trying to sleep, I put away all backlit screens at least an hour before bed. That means no tv, and definitely no lying in bed and messing with my phone or iPad. A paper or e-ink display is usually okay for me, as long as the light shining on it is not in the blue spectrum.

4. Pretend to be tired. You can sometimes trick yourself into feeling sleepy.

This is really good advice, thanks. I'm going to check out that f.lux program because late night internet time (especially Disboards) is a bad habit of mine. My health goal for the next month is to go to bed early. When I'm tired it's much harder to motivate myself to exercise and I'm much more likely to eat out of stress...so I think this will really be key to my other health goals.

 

[berryinDC]

Anything that focuses on health is good!!!!
And, no, health isn't all about weight.
One can be thin and still have dangerously and critically high cholesterol levels or blood pressure. Or any other type of health issue.

Yep, I totally agree.

I will say that far, far, too many people use this line of thinking to give them selves some kind of positive spin, and false sense of how great they and their health is, when they are over-weight. A nice way to dismiss the whole obesity issue.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being positively focused on being as healthy as possible and focusing on the behaviors you can actually change. One of my favorite quotes from fat athlete Ragen Chastain about HAES is:

"Health at Every Size is a choice to focus on healthy habits as a path to health rather than focusing on changing body size as a path to health. Studies on long term dieting show that the vast majority of people regain their weight after 5 years, many regaining more weight than they lost – dieting does not meet the criteria for evidence based healthcare. To me Health at Every Size is about opting out of a social construct, perpetuated by a 60 Billion dollar a year diet industry, that takes our money to solve a problem that nobody has proven is valid with a solution that nobody has proven is effective or even possible for most people. Health at Every Size does involve giving up on some things, including the hope of getting the societal approval that comes with being thin. But the cure for social stigma isn’t weight loss, the cure for social stigma is ending social stigma. Health is a very personal thing – each person gets to choose how highly they want to prioritize their health and the path that they take to get there, and there are no guarantees. For me it’s about the best I can do with the amazing and unique body I have which just happens to be a fat body."

More stuff here: http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/faqs/

 

[-Hope-]

My step counter app looks like a heartbeat monitors when I look at the week or month chart. One day up, next day down. I would love to get it more consistent. But for now I'll take the every other day success.

For the past month I have been trying to hit 10k steps. I finally did it one day last week when I watched my 2yo and 3yo nephews. It was 8 hours of non stop moving. And I had to do laps in the house at 11pm to get the last 1000 steps. If that's what it takes to hit 10k, I don't think that will be happening very much! I did some reading about it and I'm ok with a smaller goal now.

Of course tomorrow I will be at Magic Kingdom and I'm curious to see my number! This should be a good week for steps!

Wowza! That's a lot of work to get to the elusive 10k steps!

I'm trying really hard not to get too hung up on a specific number (because I tend to just give up if I think I can't reach an arbitrary goal I've set for myself) and instead just focus on using the app as a reminder to move more. So far it's working for me.

Congratulations Hope on doubling your number!

Thanks!

ETA: I forgot to mention that I think it's healthy and normal for the step count to fluctuate like that. My responsibilities and activities aren't the same every day so I had to give up the idea that my steps would be the same. I have an exercycle in my living room and when my step count is low for the day I'm trying to develop the habit of hopping on for a bit while I'm watching TV with the family in the evening.

 

[-Hope-]

Anything that focuses on health is good!!!!
And, no, health isn't all about weight.
One can be thin and still have dangerously and critically high cholesterol levels or blood pressure. Or any other type of health issue.

But, I think it is pretty clear that when it comes to being a certain level over-weight, yes, health is about weight.

I will say that far, far, too many people use this line of thinking to give them selves some kind of positive spin, and false sense of how great they and their health is, when they are over-weight. A nice way to dismiss the whole obesity issue.
It is just human nature...

IMHO, my personal opinion... there is just nothing healthy about obesity.

Well, thanks for sharing but it is just that. Your personal opinion. There is a lot of research that indicates this is simply not true. I'm not on my home computer where I have links saved but I tend to look at the peer reviewed findings, not what the media says. I mentioned in a previous post a meta study that found that people, even those considered obese, had the same risk of early death when adopting four essential healthy habits.

But you know what, even if none of that were true it wouldn't change why I started this group. I'm concerned with being healthier, both physically and emotionally, RIGHT NOW. Not in some idealized future where I'm finally thin. This isn't about achieving perfect health, it's about making healthier choices.

And, once again, I don't think diets are healthy- they only work 5% of the time in the long term so that's not a prescription for health that should be passed around so readily. Yet I don't feel the need to go into every diet thread and tell people they're giving themselves a "false sense of how great they and their health" are. Because just because I don't agree with something doesn't mean I feel the need to belittle it.

 

[-Hope-]

Hi, great thread!

I am a 53 y.o. mom of teen twins adopted from Russia when they were three. Leaving work to raise them and focusing on their nutrition resulted in going from a size 6 to a size 12, and really unhealthy habits like no exercise ever. I was and am now an ethical vegetarian.

I developed PCOS, breast cysts, breast micro calcifications, chronic sleep issues, joint pain…I was a disaster.

One day I realized that being 35 years older than they, I had a responsibility to them to get fit and healthy. I put down the fork, started walking on the treadmill…then running a tenth of a mile a week then two….

Now I run 30 miles a week, surf whenever I can, still do some step aerobics (ha, yes, that dates me) and cycle..mostly to cool down. On a rare occasion I go to the gym, but loathe it. I returned to what I loved doing as a teenager.

So I am just here to say that you CAN get fit. I am more healthy than I have ever been in my life and every one of you can do what I did. I don't have one of the symptoms I listed above. I am not special, I didn't go on some miserable diet (that in my opinion gets you thinking MORE about food than less) and I did all of this within a hectic schedule.

It was also the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

Luck to everyone!

Thanks for sharing your story and for the well wishes!

I love this concept/idea. Health isn't about weight. Though I am actively trying to lose some. A few years ago I developed high blood pressure over night. I had no symptoms and had just gotten a clean bill of health 3 weeks earlier. And now I also have a pre-diabetic diagnosis with a strong family history of diabetes. So, I have generally gone low carb and started exercising. That has brought my blood pressure down some but not enough to get me off all of my meds. But it has kept A1C in check.

My one thing I am currently working on is going back to the gym. My husband and I have found that working out at home just tends to make us not do it. So, we joined a Planet Fitness. I would have never thought it but I love lifting weights! My goal for the gym is to do the circuit training 2-3 times a week and to do cardio the other 2-3 days. We don't go to the gym on weekends but we are fairly active on weekends. We get up at 3:30 in the morning to go to the gym before DH has to go to work. If we wait until later in the day, we just don't go.

How awesome that you and DH are in this together! And I love that you've found things you really love to keep active. I really believe that's the key, long term, to sustaining the habits. If we love doing something we don't feel the need to make excuses to stop.

 

[-Hope-]

Yep, I totally agree.



I don't think there's anything wrong with being positively focused on being as healthy as possible and focusing on the behaviors you can actually change. One of my favorite quotes from fat athlete Ragen Chastain about HAES is:

"Health at Every Size is a choice to focus on healthy habits as a path to health rather than focusing on changing body size as a path to health. Studies on long term dieting show that the vast majority of people regain their weight after 5 years, many regaining more weight than they lost – dieting does not meet the criteria for evidence based healthcare. To me Health at Every Size is about opting out of a social construct, perpetuated by a 60 Billion dollar a year diet industry, that takes our money to solve a problem that nobody has proven is valid with a solution that nobody has proven is effective or even possible for most people. Health at Every Size does involve giving up on some things, including the hope of getting the societal approval that comes with being thin. But the cure for social stigma isn’t weight loss, the cure for social stigma is ending social stigma. Health is a very personal thing – each person gets to choose how highly they want to prioritize their health and the path that they take to get there, and there are no guarantees. For me it’s about the best I can do with the amazing and unique body I have which just happens to be a fat body."

More stuff here: http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/faqs/

Awesome response. I love Ragen.

 

[dawnball]

I will say that far, far, too many people use this line of thinking to give them selves some kind of positive spin, and false sense of how great they and their health is, when they are over-weight. A nice way to dismiss the whole obesity issue.
It is just human nature...

Everyone deserves a little positive spin from time to time. No one who's overweight or obese thinks that society approves of them. Society tells us to cover up. That we they just "worked hard" we'd be thin, but there isn't really a "thin enough" category. I don't see it as dismissing the "obesity issue". I see it as recognizing that people of all weights have value and merit. More importantly - everyone's path toward health isn't the same.

 

[berryinDC]

Awesome response. I love Ragen.

Me too!

 

[-Hope-]

Everyone deserves a little positive spin from time to time. No one who's overweight or obese thinks that society approves of them. Society tells us to cover up. That we they just "worked hard" we'd be thin, but there isn't really a "thin enough" category. I don't see it as dismissing the "obesity issue". I see it as recognizing that people of all weights have value and merit. More importantly - everyone's path toward health isn't the same.

So very true. I'm not sure why others (especially strangers on an online forum) think MY path to health is something they get to critique.

 

[wvjules]

So very true. I'm not sure why others (especially strangers on an online forum) think MY path to health is something they get to critique.

Because you put it on a discussion forum on the internet?

 

[-Hope-]

Because you put it on a discussion forum on the internet?

Umm... no. I opened a thread for like minded individuals on a discussion forum on the internet. It states plainly in the first post of this thread that it's not a place to debate the issue. Just because someone is discussing something you don't like doesn't mean you HAVE to comment. I don't comment on lots of things on here and IRL. The need to tell other people why you believe they are wrong is the thing I don't understand.

People should be able to have a discussion and share ideas without others feeling the need to comment. I honestly don't get it- if I don't like or agree with something I just don't read it.

 

[wvjules]

Umm... no. I opened a thread for like minded individuals on a discussion forum on the internet. It states plainly in the first post of this thread that it's not a place to debate the issue. Just because someone is discussing something you don't like doesn't mean you HAVE to comment. I don't comment on lots of things on here and IRL. The need to tell other people why you believe they are wrong is the thing I don't understand.

People should be able to have a discussion and share ideas without others feeling the need to comment. I honestly don't get it- if I don't like or agree with something I just don't read it.

Sorry, but even though you started this thread, you do not get to dictate who posts and what they post. This is the CB. NOTHING stays on topic and is immune to debate, change of subject, course of discussion....especially health/weight discussions.

ETA: If you had put this on the WISH board, chances are there would have been no debaters. It would have been supportive and all pixie dustie.

 

[dawnball]

ETA: If you had put this on the WISH board, chances are there would have been no debaters. It would have been supportive and all pixie dustie.

This part is totally true. Although, the CB has been nicer than I thought they'd be.

 

[-Hope-]

Sorry, but even though you started this thread, you do not get to dictate who posts and what they post. This is the CB. NOTHING stays on topic and is immune to debate, change of subject, course of discussion....especially health/weight discussions.

ETA: If you had put this on the WISH board, chances are there would have been no debaters. It would have been supportive and all pixie dustie.

I don't think I get to dictate who posts. My point was that I don't get why others feel the need. Just like I don't get why people feel the need to go into group discussions about TV shows and say they don't like that show. It seems petty and childish to me.

This part is totally true. Although, the CB has been nicer than I thought they'd be.

Honestly, I asked about moving it and some people didn't want it there. I thought I'd get a lot more debate there because it is SO focused on weight loss. Not everyone on the CB cares that much, lol.

I still have no issue moving it but I think there will still be debate.

 

[dawnball]

I thought it might be helpful if we each choose one healthy habit we'd like to adopt. We can then encourage and offer advice much more easily.

I'm not really convinced that this thread isn't going to turn into an endless stream of "just work hard and lose weight" but might as well give it a try...

The healthy habit I need to work on is eating at least 3 meals a day, ideally at normal meal times.

I did ok today. I'm back to taking ibuprofen for my knee, and that means I remembered breakfast (muffin to buffer the pills.) Then I remembered to eat lunch an hour and a half late, and forgot about half of it (I'd packed it in two different parts of the insulated bag). Dinner was fine, and I'll have a snack before bed (more ibuprofen.)

By Wednesday or Thursday I (hopefully) won't be on so much ibuprofen, so I need to be good about setting myself up to succeed with meals.

 

[worm761]

I'm not really convinced that this thread isn't going to turn into an endless stream of "just work hard and lose weight" but might as well give it a try...

The healthy habit I need to work on is eating at least 3 meals a day, ideally at normal meal times.

I did ok today. I'm back to taking ibuprofen for my knee, and that means I remembered breakfast (muffin to buffer the pills.) Then I remembered to eat lunch an hour and a half late, and forgot about half of it (I'd packed it in two different parts of the insulated bag). Dinner was fine, and I'll have a snack before bed (more ibuprofen.)

By Wednesday or Thursday I (hopefully) won't be on so much ibuprofen, so I need to be good about setting myself up to succeed with meals.

I have arthritis in my knees. I find Aleve works better than ibuprofen for the pain. I was taking so much ibuprofen to just be able to walk it wasn't funny. Switched to Aleve and it helped with less meds. Though I got a cortisone shot and that helped tremendously and now I only need the Aleve occasionally.

 

[Kimberlyann11]

I don't think I get to dictate who posts. My point was that I don't get why others feel the need. Just like I don't get why people feel the need to go into group discussions about TV shows and say they don't like that show. It seems petty and childish to me. Honestly, I asked about moving it and some people didn't want it there. I thought I'd get a lot more debate there because it is SO focused on weight loss. Not everyone on the CB cares that much, lol. I still have no issue moving it but I think there will still be debate.

People feel the need to criticize because they don't have a life. As for moving it to a diet board, I find that no one is more hateful towards fat people than dieters.

 

[dawnball]

I have arthritis in my knees. I find Aleve works better than ibuprofen for the pain. I was taking so much ibuprofen to just be able to walk it wasn't funny. Switched to Aleve and it helped with less meds. Though I got a cortisone shot and that helped tremendously and now I only need the Aleve occasionally.

I find that Aleve and Ibuprofen are about equally effective at controlling my pain. Aleve lasts longer, but has twice the risk of GI bleed, and I have significant risk factors for a lower GI bleed, so I don't like to take it regularly.

Sometimes it's worth the risk though - I'll try switching at the bedtime dose to avoid waking up in pain - probably with a tylenol chaser. Ibuprofen every 6 hours during the day and Aleve at night might be a reasonable compromise.

The Orthopedist (ok, really, his very nice fellow) gave me a synvisc injection this morning, and they said to expect it to be worse for a couple of days and then it should get better.

 

[pigletgirl]

Well, thanks for sharing but it is just that. Your personal opinion. There is a lot of research that indicates this is simply not true. I'm not on my home computer where I have links saved but I tend to look at the peer reviewed findings, not what the media says. I mentioned in a previous post a meta study that found that people, even those considered obese, had the same risk of early death when adopting four essential healthy habits.

But you know what, even if none of that were true it wouldn't change why I started this group. I'm concerned with being healthier, both physically and emotionally, RIGHT NOW. Not in some idealized future where I'm finally thin. This isn't about achieving perfect health, it's about making healthier choices.

And, once again, I don't think diets are healthy- they only work 5% of the time in the long term so that's not a prescription for health that should be passed around so readily. Yet I don't feel the need to go into every diet thread and tell people they're giving themselves a "false sense of how great they and their health" are. Because just because I don't agree with something doesn't mean I feel the need to belittle it.

No but being overweight and/or obese does elevate your risk for cardiovascular illness and metabolic syndromes. You can't argue that. If you loose just 10% of your total weight, it cuts your risk almost in half. That is significant. No one is saying you need to be stick thin, but having a healthy weight, does matter.