Thoughts of yesterday

First of all, brief update: down .4 today, 2 protein shakes so far today, planning an apple for a snack and tomato/basil/mozzarella salad for dinner.

Yesterday, we went for a bike ride; about 8-10 miles alone the Lake Michigan shoreline. It was beautiful!

During our ride, I saw at least a dozen overweight, obese and morbidly obese people on bikes, walking and on roller blades. I thought, "That was me." I wanted to go up to everyone of them and tell them they don't have to keep struggling, because I was so acutely aware of what it took for them to be out there.

They may very well enjoy walking, biking and skating. I know I did. But every outing carried the risk of ridicule...people mooing or yelling 'get your fat ass off the road'.

Every outing was laborious...no matter how much you enjoy being active and outside, it's just HARDER when you carry that much extra weight.

I've said it before, fat people, especially fat people who are active and healthy and who do all the 'right' things, are very aware that they are being judged as lazy and gluttonous by at least one person who does no know them, and likely several, every time they go out. They know that even people they know think they are lazy, and liars to boot, because if they 'really' ate as little as they say and 'really' were as active as they claim, they wouldn't be fat. It's a lie, of course, and the fat people know it. They know they are doing everything they are 'supposed' to be doing, and yet they are fat. It's crazy-making.

Again, I'm not saying that there aren't fat people out there who do just eat too much and move too little. I'm saying that some of us are fat despite all of our best efforts. Those are the big people you see out there walking and biking. And I just wanted to tell them that what they are doing is never going to work if it hasn't already. Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results is the definition of insanity. I wanted to tell them there is a way to make your outside match your inside, and a way to fix your body so it works right again.

But I didn't, obviously. They'd think I'm a nut. They wouldn't believe me because it seems to good to be true. They wouldn't believe me because it is contrary to everything they think they know is true about being overweight, even though their very experience is prove that what they think they know isn't so.

Sigh.