keep on keepin on

So at the gym tonight. I am back to where I was in early August, strength wise. I guess thats good considering how badly I let myself go last semester.

I've gained 35 pounds since college ended. Its been atrocious. I've never been thin but there was a time when I had cheek bones. I like having cheek bones and it is my mission to make them visible once again.

I came across a piece in the NYTimes today about the "fatosphere" and how overweight bloggers are blogging about how it is ok to be overweight. First of all, I went to some of these blogs. The bloggers are not "fat" they are just "healthy" and any reasonable person knows the difference. There is also a difference between a healthy, normal person being happy with their bodies and a fat, obese person pretending to be. These blogs, by well meaning health conscious individuals, give dangerously overweight people an outlet through which they can avoid resenting what they have let happen to their bodies. Fat, overweight, obese, big mofo, whatever you want to call it. It is UNHEALTHY and it should not be promoted.

Society would not approve a website by a cigar enthusiast that chain smokers visit and feel okay about what they are doing. The bloggers are healthy individuals on the high end of the BMI scale. The people who visit their sites are usually obese people on the wrong side of the bell curve. We should not have websites to allow "Fat" people to feel good about themselves we should instead promote websites that promote healthiness and feeling good about one's body. But feeling good about a grossly unhealthy body is the oppositte of what anyone wants. We dont want to let overweight people (and i am an overweight person) feel righteous in accepting their weight. Because heart disease, diabetes, bad knees, all these things are negative consequences of unhealthy living. The NYTimes article was dangerous because it gives people with vulnerable self images the wrong idea of what to work for. We don't want unhealthy people happy with their unhealthy bodies, we want people working to become healthy and living longer, better lives in the process.

Fatosphere NYTimes Article