Is it good or bad that I qualify for assistance for the YMCA....

[ejpoeta]

I just received a letter from YMCA after applying for scholarship assistance stating that I have received a substantial discount on membership due to my finances. I wasn't quite sure I would, but there you are... I have wanted so much to get a membership, but the $700 is way too much for a family membership. I am happy that we qualify for help, but then in some ways I am sad that we even need help. I mean, I want to be able to pay for things... and one could say I don't really need to go to a gym.... but, I am at 220 lbs right now. And as I am pregnant, that kind of limits what I can do... and I can't really lose weight right now. But I do want to get myself to a healthy place where I can go for a walk and ride a bike and be friggin active like I was before I had kids.

Everyone is always talking about obese people and how it's our fault we are the way we are. But I wasn't always this way. I used to ride my bike all over the place... I rode my bike to work. I walked... .A LOT. And I didn't eat much at all. I was 138, which was the lowest I could ever get without starving myself.

And when I was pregnant with my 10 year old I made myself eat... I tried to eat healthy food and I didn't gain much weight until the end. Then after she was born and I went to try on clothes, I cried in the fitting room because i was a size 16. I didn't really gain after I became a Stay at home mom with her, but after I had Ashley, I had gained even more... and it seemed even harder to do much about it. You try exercising and you have kids crawling around and over you... you have to clean up all the toys that you just cleaned up before you can even get close to that far...

It may sound like I am making excuses here, but it's hard to keep motivated when you don't see any improvements when you exercise. When you are just so tired all the time... after cleaning the house and taking care of the kids. I mean, I don't even have any decent sneakers. And I hate shopping or looking for clothes or shoes for myself. It just makes it pretty hard.

It just makes me mad when people are talking about a single payer plan or public option and talk about all us fat people out here who they think are just gluttons and just aren't trying hard enough. Yes, just like with my depression when the psychoshrink told me if i acted happy i'd be happy. And then I went off a cliff because I thought it must be all my fault. I am just not trying hard enough. There are so many more things involved than food. It is so many things that have nothing to do with food at this point. You feel like you are trying to hold the ocean back.

Ok.. i am done now.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Good that you got the membership -

and screw the people who don't have a clue about how people come to weigh what they weigh. Look at our mothers and grandmother, and see what all women end up looking like, unless they go all Courtney Love and Lindsay Lohan into anorexia or bulimia,and a total collapse of good health.

We, men and woman, weigh what we weigh, and that's that. Screw all those Mothers Superior who profess to know so well how or why people gain weight.

They know nothing.

Be happy, be healthy, have a wonderful, healthy, bouncing baby, and enjoy that Y membership. Yeah, it sucks that you qualify for assistance, but it's great that you got it, and I can only wish you and your family every happiness and good thing................

[imdjh]

2. I have never understood why the YMCA was so expensive.

But you do what you can do.

One technique that any doctor worth his pay will tell you is that it is essential that you keep a food diary. It's so frustrating when you feel you have been doing a really good job and nothing happens. I myself find that keeping the diary, faithfully, in and of itself causes weight loss. If you have to write it down, then you might think twice. I look at my weight problem as a health condition, like diabetes which thankfully I don't have. It isn't fair, but it is what I have to deal with.

I also disagree with the idea that one should only weigh in once a week. What if that is your fat day? That leads to playing Weight Watchers games like not eating any salt the day before, or not eating at all the day before. if you weigh yourself daily, and accept that you are going to see some fluctuation from day to day, then you get comfortable with how your body works. You also stop caring about whether you are wearing denim or light cotton, and stop taking your glasses off to weigh yourself.

BTW- Weight Watchers can be effective, but only if you recognize and refuse to buy into their self hating anti-woman bulldoodie. The only thing it's good for is accountability, and it's very good for that but an expensive way to achieve it.

Good luck.

Oh, and screw those "Well if you weren't so damned fat...." people. I swear, if you got hit by a bus, someone would say that it was because you were too fat. Screw them.