Blah blah blah Ginger blah

[kyburg]

Yay. Female. Hooray.

Just a couple of drive-by snarks for the day:

1) You lost your job? You'll get another one. Trust me on this one. In the meantime, you are not without work - your job right now is to find another job. It'll keep you busy - the pay scale sucks - so, work hard and work yourself out of the job. You'll find another job. You just don't know what it is yet, and that bites.

2) Fat. Huh. Sure. Hmm. Hey - a couple of penises in search of a bar might make cracks about 130 lb "fat chicks," but when a trained professional talks to you abour morbid obesity, diabetes and shall I go on? - you might want to listen without taking it personally. My doctor wants 30 lbs off me this year - and after showing me the chart history for the last five years, he's getting it. I'm lucky. I only have 30 lbs to lose. Yeah, I'm Taking Steps (lots of them, actually), because I promised myself I would if I ever saw myself going down the same road as all the other females in my family. Don't pay a whole lot of attention to the window dressing - there are a LOT of insensitive boors practicing medicine - but if someone waves the red flag, pay attention, okay? And then drop it. If "staying fat" sounds like a good idea, WHOO SMOKE FROM ANOTHER FIRE HERE.

I'm the widow of a diabetic, and married to a radiologic technician who daily has to figure out if the tables are weight-tested for the patients he has to deal with. (And the tables are rated to 350-400 lbs.) We have stories. Scary ones. Really - it's not something I'd wish on my worst enemy.

(I've also been waaaaay underweight in my time. I know too skinny like nobody's business. Like, less than half my current size skinny.)

3) If suicide only made the same kind of impact a divorce did (problems don't go away, you only trade in the ones you know for the ones you don't know), would it be as appealing? Think about it. And put the fucking gun away.

Honestly. There was an old saw that ran around the Stapfer house that I'm sorely reminded of today - "If you've got time to complain, you're not working hard enough."

If people would just figure out that they're not being called lazy, but being given direction instead, and taking it....

SNARK MODE=OFF.

Comments

yay.

[tomlemos.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to lose 20 lbs.

Re: yay.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It's not 200, and not impossible. I lost my first 20 by not riding in the car six hours a day and eating two meals a day in fast food. Not impossible.

Re: yay.

[(Anonymous)]

oh yes, I know it isn't impossible.

I'm working on it by drinking the right amount of water and cutting out the fast food. so far, so good.

Re: yay.

[dracowayfarer.livejournal.com]

Not because a doctor told me, but because I have put on weight, I'm doing the same. Lots of water and no fast food.

[misskris.livejournal.com]

my mum is an Xray tech, and (having lived/worked in Hawai'i for years) Konishiki (the sumo wrestler) broke her Xray table. they had to get a crane to fly a new table into the 7th story office.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

THAT is a great story. Jim runs into similar issues with the Samoan population in Bellflower....

[rosminah.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I like the Far Side reference.

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[monkeyfruit.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

I take an occasional sadistic delight...

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

...in giving the Hairy Eyeball to the fembots around the office when they start sniping within earshot about how fat they are and OMG they can't fit into a size 4 anymore. When they start bouncing sizes off eachother, I will give a verbal, "Oh, please." and that usually shuts them right up.

I'm a size 22/24. My cholesterol numbers, while I don't remember what they are, except that they're "low," my blood pressure is totally midrange textbook normal, and heartrate is apparently "ideal." My body is just "big," and my system, apparently, is designed for it to be Just This Size. The only thing medically "wrong" with me is my weight. And let me tell you how relieved I am about that. Hell, I do a happy hootchicootchi dance after every checkup when the bloodwork results come back.

Re: I take an occasional sadistic delight...

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I grew up tiny. I walked into high school at 5'3" and 70 lbs. I've been 5'6" and 95, and stayed pretty close to that until I hit my thirties. Now - it's taken me over thirty years to get up to where I am (and I'm almost twenty down from my high point of 183), but it's coming off faster than it went on - thank ghad - but it shows that I was really teeny growing up, and I'm not going to be able to cheat at this point. BP and cholesterols are both up (not dangerous, up) and I don't see a good reason to argue with someone I pay a whole lotta money to for his opinion.

What I can't get my head around is the "appearance = affluence" thang that keeps running around the popular culture. I've quit trying. I was rail-thin most of my adolescence and twenties - IT SUCKED. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't popular, I got sick at the drop of a hat and bruised myself sitting on roller-coasters - I got tossed around that much. I had all the sex appeal of a stick of chewing gum.

I'm doing this because my doctor wants it and it makes sense. Clothes aren't going to magically start fitting better and I'm not going to get gorgeous all of a sudden. I'm going to be smaller. Period.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

Good luck. (My grandmother died of complications due to obesity...)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I have a great-grandmother in my genetic history who did the same, weighing over 500 lbs. *nodsnods*

[moropus.livejournal.com]

Good luck. My dad and his mom both had diabetes. I'm sure I'm next in line. For many various reasons, Some doctor decided I must go from 200 to 100 lbs. I'm 5'4 and I think that's a little extreme, but I must agree, most of this blubber has to go. As you know I'm quite nuts, but even I finally came to the conclusion that my fat is not me, is not an issue, is not a cause, and is threatening my health on a few fronts.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Go the cheap route and try Weight Watchers. (Any other "group based" diet plan costs more, and is only variation on the theme....)

Mom did it - so did a whole buncha folks on my FL. It isn't fast - but it does work.

Thanks for snarking...

[n6vfp.livejournal.com]

I love it when you make me think. Yes, weight needs to come down, then maybe I can drop a few pills off my daily dose. Have been trying to be more active, really working at it. Keep on snarking, you keep me on my toes. (I like being a Santa Claus at Christmas, but I can use padding if necessary.)

Re: Thanks for snarking...

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Being fat is a billion dollar industry - one side puts it on, the other side gyps a bunch of people annually to take it off, and how much weight is actually lost? Not so much.

See the above responses - I recommend Weight Watchers. Their plans are diabetic-friendly, generationally tested (Mom did it when I was a kid) and there are a bunch of folks I point to on my own FL who done spectacularly on it.

And they have centers/meetings everywhere.