A thought or two about fitness and weight loss (for a change!)

Do you read this web site? http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/  If you don't, I would highly recommend it.  The lady who has the site is a free lance wrtier and personal trainer who has maintained a loss of around 170 pounds.  Her articles are always well researched and well written.

Anyway, yesterday she had an article about the mental aspects of what its like to lose a lot of weight and what that does to your sense of identity.
http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/blog/losing-weight-and-losing-identity/

It's a very common theme and I've read a lot of posts & articles on the topic.  Hers was very well written and I enjoyed it a lot, but it got me thinking about something I've noticed: these articles are mainly written by women (occasionally men, but generally women) who have been overweight for their entire lives.

Once I thought about it, I realized that most of the blogs I read are written by women who have been overweight for all (or most) of their lives.

Which begs the question: Is it just that I've chosen those particular blogs or are most "weight loss" blogs written by women who have always been overweight?  If so, why?  And what about women who were a healthy weight for most of their life but gained weight later in life and are working to lose it?

Does that second group not feel the need to blog as much?  Do they struggle less with the mental aspects and therefore don't feel like they need the "therapy" of writing about it or the emotional support a blog can provide?

If you've been overweight for less time, does it affect you less?  And how can we really even answer that question?  The two groups are mutually exclusive, so its not like you can have first hand knowledge of how people in both groups feel.

If you've never read my back story: I was a thin child.  Honestly, I was probably one of those who are thin but "overfat" because while my weight was perfectly fine, I rarely exercised until I joined the military.  I didn't have any muscle definition, but not many girls do in their teens do (at least not back then).  Anyway, after that I was in the Army for 8 years and while I wasn't "skinny" (I was generally a size 8), I was a healthy weight and very fit.

Even after I left the Army and had a child I maintained a healthy weight until my mid 30s.  Then I gained weight (30 pounds), lost it, gained it back.  Obviously I felt the need to reach out to others and connect via writing about it, and have continued to write in this blog for several years, both during the loss and as I dieted my way back up the scale!

I've never needed to lose 100 pounds.  I was never teased about my weight as a child (although I was an introverted geeky girl, so I was teased from time to time, just not about my weight).

Does that make my issues with my weight less? Or mean that I don't struggle with identity as I lose weight?  I don't think so, although I will say I think my issues may be somewhat different. 

I'm not trying to say anyone's struggle is more or less than anyone's elses.  I just think it is interesting that I haven't found a lot out there written from the perspective of someone who has been overweight a relatively small percentage of their life.  And that is too bad because I would like to hear from that point of view as well.

Well, enough deep thoughts. On with the day!