Thinky thoughts about bodies

[mamagotcha]

So I finally got my mitts on a copy of Linda Bacon's Health at Every Size (thank you, 1firefly!) and devoured it the day it arrived.

Comments

[mamagotcha]

Very much so, despite my own vast personal experiential history.

What is truly infuriating is that there will be people who will read this book, or even this post, and shake their heads sadly, and say, "Poor misguided thing. She's just taking the easy way out. If she REALLY wanted to change, she could." Because that's what I still hear in my own head, the result of all those years of conditioning.

How are you doing at silencing those little voices? Any words of wisdom?

[mamagotcha]

Thank you. It's so hard to disentangle all the strands of shame, guilt, facts, wishful thinking, and such...

I'm so grateful there's a new wave of health practitioners like you who are learning and sharing the truth!

[kcatalyst]

It sounds like such a great book! I'm hoping to read it at some point, but not soon (the only non-work reading I do these days is mysteries I've read a zillion times, seems to be all my poor brain can handle).

I've absorbed a lot of the basics from Kate Harding and crew, but one thing I've wondered about: how can you tell the difference between a new setpoint and a temporary gain? Is it about how long you've been at the higher point? I mean, I assume that you can tell by whether the weight goes away when the situation changes, but that seems dangerously circular to me as an argument (although practical as a life practice!). Did you happen to pick up the answer in your reading?

[mamagotcha]

As you may surmise, that is the subject of all kinds of speculation. From the little I've read, it seems that when you remove the stress/hardship and feed freely, the organism will return to their setpoint on their own. In fact, it seems that it's really hard to PREVENT them from returning to it, whether they are over or under it.

However, since it can't control the results, industry is a little gun-shy of pouring cash into research, and since there is so much pressure on the feds to keep harping about BMI and the obesity epidemic to keep the weight regulation industry healthy, there's probably not gonna be a whole lot of government funding, either. Still, I'm sure it's being studied and I'm hoping to hear more about it.

[genderfur]

this: "weight regulation industry"

yes. (fuckers)

[xakana]

It would be interesting to see what my setpoint is. When I eat healthier (not just what we can afford, which isn't even really what I want, but it's what I can eat of what we can afford), my weight goes down. I'm pretty sure it's around 185, which would suck because I would like to get down to 160.

Eh, I was happier and felt healthier when I was down below 200, so I know some of my weight is definitely more than I should have. I also know I don't get enough exercise (just normal moving around, not like hitting the gym), particularly during the winter, being agoraphobic and stuck inside. And whenever I DO try to move around, the kids yell at me to carry them with me, making me just sit back down so I don't have to listen to them or wreck my back or lose my pace.

[mamagotcha]

One thing she did mention in the book was that the setpoint (like a due date) was more a range, not a specific point, and that some people had wider ranges than others... but the general range seemed to be 20-40 lbs, IIRC.

[xakana]

I need to get that book. I really like the premise and I'm sure my best friend would benefit from it as well. She told me a few years ago about a similar book that talked about the origin of fat-phobia and how "doctors" used it to sell diet pills (that killed more often than not), etc. and then started looking for more ways to profit from it once it was started.