Aw, yay, Callaluna; glad to hear the mom news.

Last year I did a 10 day elimination/purge thing, and the only thing I hung onto from it (it involved giving up caffeine--like that's gonna happen for good) is eating sugar mindfully. I still have chocolate, pie, or ice cream on occasion, especially on holidays. Sweet things taste delicious! But since I'm cooking at home for nearly all my meals, I'm almost inadvertently cutting out the random HFC and sugar that gets dumped into a lot of premade food. My sensitivity to sweet seems to have changed. I've stopped putting honey in my kefir smoothies because frozen blueberries make it sweet enough for me. I haven't noticed any major weight changes, but I figure it's unlikely to be bad for me. I've also been walking a lot: 1.5-3 miles a day, 5 days a week, which, again, hasn't made my jeans particularly loose, but is probably better for me than not walking.

I was youngish and slender for about 35 minutes in 2003. It didn't get me laid and I still sprained my ankles, so screw it.

I'm in the middle of The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts. So far it's been pretty good.

ETA: Yay, Callaluna!

Hanne?

Hanne?

Yep, that's the one.

I used to run into her at the Y, back when she was based in Baltimore. Also, cookieswap. She's a fascinating person.

Neat! Small world and all that. Also, her Amazon bio says she's a fierce defender of the Oxford comma, so go her!

It almost felt like a political statement to not worry about my weight in my twenties, and it feels kind of weird to be actively trying to lose weight now, but, to be frank, I still have cute clothes that are too small for me that I would like to fit into. That's really my motivation. I get oddly angry at people who say things like they notice I am trying to eat healthy - I am not trying to eat healthy! I will accept any health benefit that may show up, of course, but that is not something I am working towards and I resent the assumption that it is.

Yeah, I mostly want to lose so I can fit in more cute clothes I have and so I can run better. Because it's easier to run when I'm not lugging around quite so much weight. It's hard though, because I dont WANT to have to think about it. I want to just eat whatever I'm in the mood for and not think about it! But im really bad at stopping when I'm full.

It's Friday afternoon and I don't have to work tomorrow or Sunday and I'm practically GIDDY. I have GOT to find a job that doesn't make me work every other Saturday (and 1 Sunday in 6). Two days off in a row is everything.

Changing your diet will result in more weight loss than adding exercise,

I feel like a weird outlier (and I actually don't know if it would be true for me today), but back in the day when I did Weight Watchers (and therefore tracked my weight every week), I lost more weight in the weeks that I exercised than in the weeks I didn't. Assuming I followed the food plan the same in the exercise and non-exercise weeks, that's...a weird outlier.

but being sedentary is worse for your lifespan than being fat:

Being active and fat is something I can TOTALLY do.

I'm in the middle of The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts. So far it's been pretty good.

I got that out of the library and didn't have time to read it. I'm glad to hear it's good -- I'll have to get it back out.