Discussion Board

Congratulations on your arrival at normal!!!! I was so psyched for you when you passed out of the obese range (and I trailed you by a few weeks!), and now--normal! Woo Hoo!

I'm on vacation right now so I just saw this, and I have to tell you I have been trying to follow you right on down the scale! You have 3 inches on me though, so I have to plunge down the scale further than you will! I love your plan of continuing what you've been doing, which is the same as I have been doing, "stick w/ mostly MWL/unprocessed, with occasional regular plan days and very occasional feast days (still vegan))," and I'm planning on the same game plan to find my right weight, "I'm going to let my body tell me when I'm at the right weight. I'm eating plenty of food and feeling great, so when I'm at the right weight, I assume the weight loss will stop. We'll see where that turns out to be!", because I'm assuming that, like me, you are going to eat this way for the rest of your life! It is so sensible and it has become second nature. I have even managed to become much better at getting restaurants to get me food I can eat!

I liked your graph, too. I was only keeping track of my weight losses on a tiny notebook, in pencil, for months. I actually have years of ghastly loss-gain statistics from my South Beach and other lame efforts in the same tiny notebook. But once I realized and began to believe that I was really losing on McDougall, I made an Excel S/S to which I keep adding more metrics! I don't have BMI tracked, though--I didn't learn much about that until later in the process.

You are doing incredibly well! Congrats one more time!

I really think this is the only way to do it. The whole "Biggest Loser" thing isn't going to work for most people b/c (1) they really do nothing significant re: food, and (2) those people work out 4-8 hours a DAY to lose that kind of weight--when BL is no longer their whole JOB, how can they possibly keep that up??

The only way to be successful long term is to find what works for your body and then KEEP DOING THAT. My mistake last time was thinking I could slack off when I got to goal weight. I also listened to all the people who were telling me I was "too skinny" at 130. I was thin, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get there this time, but if I do, great! I certainly wasn't TOO thin. Either people are so used to seeing fat people that they don't know what normal looks like or they're envious, but IMO one of the keys is to listen to yourself, not other people. Unless you have an eating disorder, you WILL know when you're at the right place and your body will keep you there as long as you keep doing things just as you had been while losing weight.

I just read this last post but oh, boy - can I relate. I have been bewildered by this same thing lately. I'm 5'5" and recently lost 20 pounds to put me at 124. Keep in mind, I have a VERY small frame. I come from a mother and a grandmother who never weighed more than 100 pounds at the same height. My frame is a little larger than both of theirs but still, a neat party trick is to compare wrists and watch people's eyes pop out at how small mine is!

So 124 is hardly too thin for me. It's fine, it's ok... if I never lose the pesky flab that remains in my tummy area and thighs, well, I have bigger problems than that. But the point is, I have excess flab. Quite a bit, to tell the truth.

And still, people come up to me and ask if I've been ill because I've gotten "so thin!" And I'm admonished to not lose any more.

As a reality check, just to make sure that I haven't developed some kind of eating disorder or become dysmorphic, I run these conversations by my husband of 22 years, who has seen my body at many different weights and stages, and he is as perplexed as I am and agrees that I am HARDLY "too thin."

I don't know what is up with people sometimes, I really don't...

I think the first time I hear someone tell me I'm "too thin," I'll fall over and faint and know I've arrived!

People don't think! I actually had a friend lose about 30 pounds a few years back and people who barely knew her asked is she had CANCER!!!!!! How rude can you get??? She looked great and not at all too skinny. Ignore them...they're just jealous!

Well, keep in mind that our society has increased the amount of fabric in womens' (and to some degree, mens' as well) clothing over the years to a pretty drastic degree. Marilyn Monroe was a size 14, and I've heard people justify being a 14 b/c Marilyn was.

Fact is that Marilyn was 5'-5" tall and 115-120 lbs. with measurements 35-22-35. She would be a 4 in today's sizing! That's how much sizes have changed over the years to accomodate the GROWING American woman! I know this for a fact b/c my size 10s from college 25 years ago fit me when I was wearing 6s many years later, when 10s made in 2002 were WAY too big.

Eating disorders ARE real, of course. But I think that a far more insidious problem than anorexia is obesity, and our growing acceptance as "normal" of overweight.

That is horrible!!

I am particularly confused by one friend who has done this to me twice because she is not at all overweight so I don't think that in this case, it's jealousy. I wonder if people just get uncomfortable seeing people physically change in any way.

And I might understand the concern had I lost the weight rapidly but I did it over 10 months, 2 pounds per month. It would have to be a very slow, lazy illness to do that...

I agree it's puzzling when people worry that you might be losing too much weight. I really don't understand it either. My office manager, who is my employee but also a very good friend, is very proud of me and loves that I am losing weight. However, twice during my 65-pound loss she has said something like, "You have done great! But I think that is enough weight to lose." Once at about 30 pounds, and again a few weeks ago, when I was at about 60 total. (I was very clear with her both times that I had nearly 100 pounds to lose, and I was going to lose it, so get used to it!)

The last time I lost this much weight, in the late 80s, I noticed that folks did not generally notice my weight loss at all until I had lost about 30 pounds. I conclude that in general, I don't look much different during weight loss until about 30 pounds are gone. I wonder if that is true in increments, and true for most folks, that a certain percentage of body weight lost is necessary for people to notice. And when your appearance is altered in that drastic of a way, it triggers a worry in folks, and they see that you are different, and somehow they feel they have to say something--it seems as if they can't help it. I don't know...

My mom does the same thing. She's very thin, and what's really surprising is that when I was a little girl, I remember her telling us that she was "fat" as a kid, that she was the "fattest" kid in her class, etc. She said she weighed 140 lbs, which of course DID sound "fat" to us. That was in the 8th grade, when she had achieved her full height (she grew very fast to 5-6" and then stopped).

I remember looking at the pix of her in the photo albums and I never saw her looking "fat." She looked great, in fact. The whole thing was EXTREMELY confusing to me, and I think it had a lot to do with why, when I weighed 140, I thought *I* was "fat." All through college, I felt fat and was never happy about how I looked. Later, when I gained weight and really WAS fat, I realized how screwed up that was. Now 140 looks GREAT!

My mom DOES have an eating disorder, though. It's mostly under control, but she was anorexic and bulimic. I'm not, but I did internalize some of her freaking out about weight and food, I guess.

Anyway, I assume that when she tells me that I look great at my current weight and shouldn't lose more that she's trying to avoid messing me up as she didn't manage to avoid doing as a child. So I just ignore it, LOL.

Weight lost this week: 1.0 pound. I lost 3.0 last week, which was a HUGE loss so close to my goal, so I was due for a slower week.

I can't wait to be in the 140s!!!!!

A pound lost is still a pound lost. Well done; you continue to inspire and motivate me.

Hooray for you! I am so happy for you. I feel as if you and I have been linked somehow in the past several months, as we really apply this plan and the weight is coming off apace! I admire your level-headed approach, and it is working!

It's a race to the 140s, frozenveg!! Ready-set-GO!!!! See you there!

Hey, no fair! You have a horse--I'm doing hand-over-hand on a rope!!

150 lbs as of today! I hit that yesterday and hoped hoped hoped I'd manage to be JUST below it (and into the 140s) this a.m.., but alas, 'twas not to be. Given that I lost 2.4 pounds this week, which is pretty big considering how close to goal weight I'm getting, I should just be happy!

Surely NEXT week I'll be into the 140s!!

I'm going to a Diwali celebration w/ a new friend (who is also the teacher of the Indian history course I'm auditing this semester) and she offered to let me wear one of her saris b/c "we're about the same size, right?" I was like NO we're not! She's at least 3" shorter than I am, and much smaller (tiny bones, small bust), but the fact that she even thought that made me ! Saris are pretty forgiving, so I'm going to try some on and see if I can make it work.

Adding my graph b/c looking at it makes me really .