Getting Big

That's what you would think. That's what I would think. My problem is I KNOW my portion control was out of control most of my life. That's the way we ate. The bigger the better and seconds were common place. That is a HUGE part of weight so I don't blame it all on IR.  I know that my children are overweight and that I have raised them the way I was raised: Eat til your full and Eat what you want. Man did I ever do them and myself an injustice. Now tho that I think back on the meals I cooked, the very meals I learned to cook from my mother, OMG how much pasta have I eaten in 38 years?! How much bread? How much sugar? No wonder I am IR now. My body has been screaming for me to put the brakes on and I couldn't or just didn't want to hear it.  I somehow think IR is like muscle aches. Too much of something and your body is going to retaliate. It may start and simple over eating but it eventually leads to other things. Had my parents controlled my food intake in my childhood, had I controlled my food intake as an adult, would I be IR now?  I hope this makes sense. Sometimes I not so good as getting my thoughts out. I just think one thing leads to another until somethings gotta give. 

You pose a very thought provoking question. Quite frankly,  I felt morbidly obese in a size 7....  and didn't feel much differently as the weight came on.  Yea.. I was a size SEVEN listening to my mother and sisters say what a "big girl" I was so more weight just looked the same to me.  I expected it.  I am the tallest of all of my sisters and was always told I was the "chubby" one.. the "ugly" one.  I was wearing a size 9 in college and I can remember my mother saying "you're just a big girl".  To me, that never changed..... what changed was my health.. the bigger I got.. the crappier I felt until I got to the point where I was seriously ready to die... hoping for it.... going to sleep asking God to show me mercy and take me in my sleep.  It was like.. one day I could jog up and down stairs, and the next day I was struggling just to get up from a seated position.  I know it took years, but it felt like it happened overnight.  Then I was just so big that I figured there was never any way I could go back.  Yanno...  I wish I could go back to my teenage self and slap myself in the head for thinking I was so fat.. lol

My hubby and I were recently  looking at some old pics at my moms and I was chubby, but not obese.  It was only recently that I realized this and I think the reason I thought I was so big was because they were less overweight people back then.  I definitely get ya on everything you said.   Just like they said about you being chubby, your not ugly either.   Yeah, if we could just turn back time.  At least we can change the future. Brenda

Lori, body image is extremely impacted by what others say about you. Words are sometimes the most hurtful weapon we possess yet we fail to notice we are even hurting others when we say the things we say.  I still have deep wounds from things my father said in a rage of anger not meaning 99% of what he said yet those very words sunk deeply and still hurt to think about.  Your mother never thought the words "big girl" could be a hurtful as "my but aren't you fat?" Truth is, it's the latter that you heard and it hit hard and deep in your psyche. I know and understand the pain.  Thing is, these are the things we have to let go of if we ever expect to move forward and do what we need to do to be happy and healthy. We have to accept the here and now without any strings attached to past. We have to work with what we have until WE are happy with ourselves. Holding on to baggage others have handed us to hold is just going to slow us down. 

Wow...everything everyone has said is so true.  I think the part about what we heard growing up really pertains to me.  I was overweight from the time I was about 2 and heard all my life from my mother...."If only you would lose weight".  That has stuck (even now when I know I am a worthwhile human being and worthy of being loved...always wondered if she would love me more or be prouder of me if I was thin).  I was never morbidly obese though until adulthood.  Size 14-16 in high school, size 18 when I married the first time and then piled on the weight with pregnancies and never managed to get it off. What amazes me is the "addiction" aspect.  Yesterday morning I got on the scale and saw that I had lost 10lb.  I have had no carbs this past week except in veggies basically with no cheats.  Yesterday I had more cheese than I should have (not limited, but felt like I was over indulging).  It's the psychological self talk that gets me into trouble.  Even though I hadn't gone off program, I felt like I had "cheated" and today I'm just craving sweets like I had actually had sugar in my system.  It's crazy!  Went a little overboard with my nuts (glad I'm female) this afternoon and feel like it was a binge...even though not really off program.  For me there are years and years of ingrained thought processes where I beat up on myself and see myself as a failure if I put something "forbidden" in my mouth....and this time it wasn't even forbidden.  Now that's sick thinking!! Where does all this guilt and shame related to food come from?  And why when we recognize what we're doing and thinking, doesn't it stop us from doing and thinking that way?   I was raised to clean my plate...there were starving children somewhere....and then had dessert.  I can remember when I told one of my granddaughter's to clean there plate before they could have dessert and my daughter said....No, Mom...why does she have to stuff herself to have more?  If she is full, she can stop eating and still enjoy a little dessert.  Never thought of it that way before.

Your daughter is so right. How many times have I said, "If you are hungry enough for desert then you are hungry enough to finish what's on your plate"? That's a line I know I picked up from my own mother. The other is "No drinks until you finish your food." Now I know kids can go overboard on the drinking and then not eat like they should but how do we know they aren't satisfied with what they ate?  It's twisted how our thoughts and words can be our biggest vices.

actually had sugar in my system. It's crazy! Went a little overboard with my nuts (glad I'm female) this afternoon and feel like it was a binge

OMG.. there I was.. all serious.. reading intently... and just BUSTED out laughing.....

Depends what you define morbidly obese as.  If it's 50lbs overweight, I earned that label by age 13 when I weighed 180 and wore a 14/16.

jerz, I was that weight and age exactly. My 8th grade grad dress was size 18. I worry about kids these days to be classified as MO and Obese. I wonder if the data is fair. I really do. I was told that the "weght charts"  were an invention of insurance companies - to get higher premiums because, seriously, folks, WHO is those weights at those heights? Sparrow boned folks who live where? WW charts say I should be 116#.  I weighed 104 in 4th grade; i wore a righteous bra in 5th grade - not fatty boobies, either - real live breasts. What were my realistic chances of ever being 116# as an adult woman?

But then theres the fact that some parents just ignore it. I can go both ways. You either have them tell you your fat, or they don't say anything at all. I'm the opposite one. My parents ignored it. They never called me names, or said anything to me that would hurt my feelings. I remember in sixth grade going to the doctors and they told my mother I could have a heart attack at any time. Did she say anything to me? No. Did she do anything about it? No. She thought I would "grow out of it". Well guess what, I'm the biggest of all of us girls. When growing up the only thing they didn't do was push the fast food on us. It was a big treat just to go to McDonald's until I was in highschool and able to do it on my own. Even then she ordered us a small meal. BUT, she never taught us what was healthy, what the consequences were, portions..what's that? Get my drift? Sure she was caring and loving, but they didn't teach me diddly crap about nutrition. So when I grew up...WOW..theres fast food I can eat. Will it hurt me? NO! It just might have some extra calories, but it's all good because well....I never learned it. Sure I knew not to eat cookies, etc. But it didn't come until way later in life that it literally caught my attention of what I was doing wrong.

So now as a parent with over weight children which way do you go? Don't tell them anything and just hope for the best? Feed them healthy and just pray when they are not with you they eat right? Lecture them about foods, and nutrition because it's a learning tool that they will have the rest of their life?

Here you guys seem your blaming your parents for saying you needed to lose weight, while I wish I could have been told to stop eating those cookies, their bad for you.

I've asked one of my doctors and they said not to put my son on a diet. Let him grow into his weight that he is now. Do you know how hard that is to do without letting them know? Do they have the right to know? I think yes. To what degree...I'm honestly not sure. My son is a BIG time binge eater, hides it, wrappers hidden all over under his bed, etc. He has also been caught stealing food numerous times.  We can't keep anything "good" that he likes any where in the house.  At 140-150 at age ten I really want to make sure I'm doing the right thing! Know what I mean? It's like a vicious circle and there really is no right or wrong ways...or is there?? argghh

lol sorry, this is just something that has upset me for a while now. no one really seems to know what they are doing, or if it is the correct way!