The Power Of Love and Friendship - Part 1 - Don’t Be Deceived
Astrology in Real Life… From January, 2007
Occasionally I get talking to someone in the gym and they’ll say something about my body. Something nice. And I am always very grateful, not just for the compliment but for the chance to reflect. Because it surely hasn’t always been this way.
“Thanks,” I’ll say. “Thanks very much. It’s taken awhile. When I first walked in here, I was really overweight. I got on one those treadmills over there and I was so out of shape, when I got off the whole room was spinning!”
No one can believe it. This is the thing about losing weight. Once you do it, no one can believe you were ever fat. Same with smoking. “You used to smoke?” they’ll say.
And I think this is a strange phenomenon. It’s a Saturn Neptune thing, really. People look at you… at me, that is and they imagine (Neptune) reality (Saturn).
What does she know about being fat? That bitch has never been fat a day in her life they think hatefully. WRONG.
I want to write about love and friendship and the magical healing that occurs when you give it, or when you receive it. I want to write about how a series of small gestures from one individual can impact another person and then a dozen people, and then hundreds, thousands, and eventually tens of thousands of people and more.
Ultimately the kind gesture of one person can and does impact generations and with the Internet in the equation, the good feelings can and do spread across the globe.
So I’m going to tell a story about this and we’ll see where it goes.
When you see someone who is in shape, do you assume they’ve always been that way?
23 Responses to “The Power Of Love and Friendship - Part 1 - Don’t Be Deceived”
Yeah. I see what you mean, Elsa. I think sometimes people who lose weight (me included) have trouble seeing that they have lost weight, or that someone could see the change in them. I guess that’s self-delusion or self-deprecation on my part.
I have to do a confession-like thing here and admit that when I see people that are very obese nowadays I feel more disgust and sadness than compassion, because I still hate that part of me that let myself get fat. It’s really a terrible thing and I am trying to work on letting those judgements go. I mean, it’s not that I think I’m better than them, but part of me wants to distance myself like crazy from the concept of being fat, so that I can lose the rest of the weight I need to.
Ahh well. Tricks of the mind.
Yes!! I always think that people have always been thin, or that if they weren’t it was temporary..and people think the same about me, but I was a cow after I had my son!! I got in the best shape of my life a few years ago and I get a lot of compliments, but like Elsa said it has taken a lot of dedication, and let’s face it, it will only stay that way if I stay on top of it. I have to work at it to stay in this shape, it is no way easy and genetic!! I love nutrition-type stuff, always have, so was never a bad eater, and that is a help. I also agree about being somewhat critical of overweight people because I got heavy and overcame it, and it is just so OBVIOUS that it is the source of health problems, so I am somewhat impatient with people’s complaints. Like, instead of worrying about your hip replacement or foot surgery, don’t you think that dropping 100 lbs will improve the wear and tear on your body? There are a few people in my family who are like this, and I don’t say that, but it’s like, are you for real??? People think if you are in shape you have some special “thing” that gives you willpower that the average person doesn’t have. It’s not true! It’s just wanting to be thin more than wanting other things.
I am not and never have been seriously overweight. I do, however, have a large number of family members that are seriously overweight either with the health complications or because of health problems. I’ve come to see overweightness as a health issue. I see people like that and I literally see sickness like diabetes or thyroid problems. I wish all who are overweight enough self-love to take care of their health. Nothing more, nothing less.
Never, ever have I assumed someone was *always* any way at all.
considering my history of weight loss (I had gastric bypass a year ago) I look at people and try to see if i can tell they have been overweight before, in hopes it doesn’t show, and in hopes I wouldn’t show it once i lost the weight.
I guess i’m talking about morbid obesity here, and it’s a whole different thing. people with this amount of weight get alot of excess skin once they loose the weight. and it’s not pretty. Some people get more depressed over the excess skin than the weight.
No, I don’t, because I didn’t work out at all until I turned 29 1/2 and it was a similar story as yours.
I believe people have always been the way I see them now. Which is weird as I’ve been chubby, very slim and am now fat, eek!
I work alongside a lady who has assured me she used to be fat with black hair (she is slim with blonde hair now). I can’t picture it. I should know better, but I don’t!
I used to be pretty thin and many people would ask me if I had an eating disorder. What a strange world. You can be slim and hot, and people still think there’s somthing wrong with you.
I think all that negativity definately effected me and my health on some level as I have had recent health issues. Funny thing is when your really sick nobody believes you! Your right, Its the small gestures that make all the difference in the world. I think there are alot of people walking around with problems . If you see somone overweight there is probably some underlying cause. Just like if someone has an eating disorder or is on the verg of one, the last thing they want to hear is oh now there is somthing else wrong with you. They probably have enough problems underneith as it is. If you really want to help, just say somthing nice. “Hi I really like that color green your wearing in your hair”… (In some sever cases, the person is crying out for help, this is different and should not be addressed properly.)
I generally do, because it’s so very hard to make that change and some people’s bodies are genuinely resistant to losing weight, while some people’s just don’t have that problem. My body pretty much stays the same (with about 5 pound fluctuation) no matter if I’m exercising or not. I suspect flat-out anorexia wouldn’t change it. My fat relatives, on the other hand, have pretty much been fat since age 6, from what I’ve seen of the photos. But we’re a bunch of rampant diabetics, so I guess it’s not a surprise.
I used to work with a skinny runner guy who used to bemoan about how he was a fat kid, but in his case it was hard to believe because I never saw the “fat kid” days and he looked like a lot of the naturally-born thin guys.
This reminds me of the author Meg Cabot, who if you look at her pictures appears to be quite a tiny girl, yet she wrote a series of books about a now-fatter former teen singer with titles like Size 12 Is Not Fat. Apparently she’s been there and done that too.
When I was younger I was really skinny & I found out everyone thought I was doing coke. That’s when I had neptune on my asc. I wasn’t doing drugs - I was macrobiotic (and it didn’t make me look good).
I don’t assume someone’s body always looked a certain way - esp. now with Pluto on my asc I realize the changeability of bodies haha.
I do assume that, which makes me hypocritical because I experience the exact same issue. I used to be a fat kid (until I was 18), and no one understands that part of me now, of course. Fat kid issues stay with you forever, and I still don’t know what i look like sometimes, and I’m still surprised when certain things fit or when people call me thin, a word I would never use to describe myself. It’s especially bizarre with dating because you always think oh, I’m too big for him, and then sometimes it turns out that you are physically smaller than the guy, and you just didn’t know it. Or he just doesn’t care. It’s so weird.
And people assume that you don’t understand weight issues, or that life is easier after losing weight like some makeover in a movie. And then men think you’re completely secure, and they make these ridiculous assumptions about how you would respond to certain situations, or that you don’t need them at all.
I can’t wait to read what you have to say on this subject. It really hits home for me!
You know, I never consciously thought about it til you asked. In all honesty, I probably do. But I am rarely completely married to any presuppositions anyway, so I hope it hasn’t been harmful. I’m sure I’ll think about this more, though, courtesy of the story and the discussion.
Yeah I do, especially if they’re in their twenties.
Even if someone shows me pictures, I still don’t keep that information for some reason. There’s a lady at work who brought in pictures to prove she was once over weight. I remember that, but when I see her, I don’t think of it. It does seem as if she’s always been thin.
One thing I’ve figured out recently - if you see someone in a wheelchair/scooter and they’re fat, they are probably fat because they are in a wheelchair/scooter not in a wheelchair because they are fat.
I tend to believe it if someone tells me. I knew a girl in collge who was about as thin as me who once was obese. Said her grandmother used to give her midnight snacks of lobster and butter (she lived on the east coast).
I also tend to think thin people have always been thin and vice versa. Would think it odd to think otherwise. We’d walk around trying to guess who used to be fat or not lol.
Some people do express surprise as disbelief.
I tend to get burned on my gullability lol.
“You were?! Wow.” Rather than “You were?! Come on you were not!!”
Absolutely not. I have had to work at being fit all my life.
I’ve gone up and down in terms of fitness levels, but one thing that has remained consistent is that I’ve never been thin. Even when I was at my top fitness level and only had a measured 18% body fat count, I still had gigantic tits, and gigantic hips and a gigantic ass and gigantic thighs. Not to mention that I’ve always been seriously body dysmorphic, so even when I was at my thinnest (for me), I still thought I looked like a whale. Recently I’ve started reading about fat acceptance and Health At Every Size, which is basically the principle that being fat does not necessarily mean you’re out of shape or unhealthy, and that your goals in fitness shouldn’t be solely LOSING WEIGHT. Some peoples’ bodies just don’t change, even when they have the healthiest of habits, and it’s unrealistic to expect that every fat person who eats well and exercises is going to turn into Twiggy. So at this juncture, no. I don’t judge peoples’ bodies in determining their fitness levels. For all I know the fat woman could actually be a champion power-lifter, and in much better “shape” than the thin woman next to her.
not since pregnancy. before that, yes…
I see nothing wrong with being fat. Lots of fat people live full lives just fine. They are deserving of love and respect from themselves and everyone else. So why would I question? They’re the same person in any case.
I’ve always had an ‘iffy’ relationship to food - I seriously love the stuff and I’m a very good cook, but I do overeat and get ‘obsessed’ with food when I’m not happy - and esp when I’m not getting enough (or any) sex (which means I’m not happy ha ha).
I was a fat child - not hugely so, I’ve never been obese - but ‘fat’ in my terms, ie about 25/30 lbs overweight. I lost it when I left home and went hitch-hiking round Europe before going to university. I never again put it on til I was past the menopause, though I never lost my consciousness of being ‘overweight’ or prone to it, partly since I always had a good bosom. After the menopause I put on weight, partly because I no longer had a dog and don’t exercise, and though after ten years I stopped gaining, I now can’t seem to get it off, not that I try very hard. I found the best way to lose weight is to work with food! - If I’m growing, processing, and cooking food all day I lose my appetite - it’s also very physically demanding.
My attitude to overweight people is quite complex, and very like my attitude to alcoholics. Whilst I can and do sympathise in the sense I’m aware of my own near-addictions, and what a struggle it can be to conquer them, I also know that both obesity and alcoholism are a response of the body to various mental and chemical impulses and CAN BE CONTROLLED if the sufferer really chooses to do it. I’m therefore not very sympathetic to obesity, any more than to alcoholism.
Being severely overweight is not only a severe health hazard, it also make people very ugly (sorry, but that’s the darn truth - I can hardly bear to look at some fat people, esp as it so often goes with a general slobbiness in appearance). Being fat makes you unattractive, and that is going to narrow your life options and may even ruin your life before it kills you. You can’t do sport, wear really nice clothes, dance well, pull the attractive men/women… You can’t even make love properly in that it limits the options there too. Why do that to yourself? When I see very fat young people especially, it makes me really sad and quite angry… I just want to shake them! And do any of us like sitting next to a real fattie on a plane or a train? or walk really really slowly down the street while our obese friend pants and wheezes alongside - it does impact on other people.
We all know the cause of it - eating and drinking too much of the wrong things. Just cut it out!
But to the question, no: I never look at ‘normal sized’ people and wonder whether they were fat, though from my own experience I know one person can be very different weights over their lifetime.
A local woman here was huge when I first met her about five years ago, and in the last two years she has slimmed down to a third of her previous weight. I now find it hard to remember what she looked like before, it’s been such an amazing transformation. She told me she did it when her eldest kid started pre-school, as she saw the other kids looking at her and she didn’t want him to be embarrassed when he went to primary school the following year - as good a reason as any, and she was pregnant at the time so found it easy to lay off. Her husband has lost a lot as well, though he still has a little pot belly ha ha! They just changed their whole diet.
I think obese friends deserve the same ‘tough love’ as alcoholic or druggy friends: you give them unqualified love - and your *full* support only if they take their problems in hand and try to do something about them.
Right…. I’m off to the kitchen in search of chocolate cake! But I’m almost ‘old’ so I’m permitted ;^)
I think that about some women. Certain women just have a very slight bone structure and are all angular and you just know getting fat is not ever going to be one of their problems.
Most women, I don’t though. I think we all go through expansion and contraction cycles and I assume most women my age have been pregnant. In fact in that regard I think looks have their own way of evening up over time. We all get a chance to look the best we’ll ever look and flounce around and stick our hips out, and we all get a chance to lay around on a couch for six months eating ramen noodles and convenience store cupcakes and refusing to buy a bigger size. I never feel disgusted by overweight people because I know all they have to do is get thin, and they probably eventually will.
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My (slim and fit) hairdresser (who I’ve been with for a decade or so) has mentioned she used to be quite overweight and although my ~head~ understands ’sure, why not’, there is I must admit a part of me that has a hard time ‘picturing it’. I’ve only ever known her ‘as she is now’ (looks, eating habits, lifestyle, etc.), so I have no sense of ‘before’.