Home › #Health › SIZE MATTERS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE GODZILLA – Marilyn Armstrong

SIZE MATTERS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE GODZILLA – Marilyn Armstrong

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Fandango’s Provocative Question #13
“Do you believe that size matters? Please explain your response.”
Yes, it does.
No, it doesn’t.

It matters from a health perspective because not being heavy is healthier than carrying too much weight. You also look better in fashionable clothing. If you have arthritis, bad hips, or a damaged back, less is more.

That’s all the difference it makes. Being fat doesn’t make you a slob, disgusting or any of the words people use to describe fat people. No one is fat from simply overeating. You also need the right genetic structure. I have been so thin it was frightening and I have also been very heavy.

I look better in-between. My brain didn’t change when I gained weight or lost it. The last gain was because of all the medication they gave me when I had cancer that knocked my metabolism through the floor. Now I’m losing a little weight again, so maybe it’s “coming up” again. I don’t worry about it anymore.

When this was taken, I weighed 93 pounds. An XXS was too big for me. I wore a size zero and it was loose. It was not an attractive look.

I wear a lot of loose clothing that will fit me whether I’m fat or thin or whatever. Garry proposed to me when I was at my heaviest after which I lost a lot of weight and then gradually gained more, then lost a lot and then a lot more … and then so much that I was hospitalized. At which point, they removed most of my innards because of the ulcers that were eating my stomach and my small intestines.

So I can’t eat much at all because I don’t have a stomach, despite which I’ve put on 25 pounds and it certainly isn’t from overeating. It’s because I have no metabolism.

Big? Little? The difference? My back feels better when I weigh less. Everything else is the same.

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Categories: #Health, #HealthInsurance, #Photography, Daily Prompt

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28 replies

  1. kirizar
    02/09/2019 • 09:38

    Oh Marilyn, it really sounds like you’ve had the rough times. I read what you replied to Fandango and I’m just astonished that you’ve managed to survive all you’ve been through. That may sound cliche, but honestly, I’m truly astounded you survived the terrible accident only to have so many medical challenges since. Typically I’d say ‘Be well’ in response to a health situation but honestly, that sounds trite in the face of your struggles. So keep up what strength you have. Find what beauty you can. And live for the loves of your life.

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  2. evilsquirrel13
    02/07/2019 • 03:44

    Tell me about it. I’ve gained about 20 pounds over the last few years, and I can absolutely feel it everywhere. And I realize that I’m lucky enough to have a metabolism that burns off most of the ungodly amount of calories I put into myself everyday, because I could just as easily be 100 pounds heavier…

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      02/07/2019 • 11:38

      Men burn calories twice as fast as women. We are muscled differently. The long muscles that men have are fat burners. It was always frustrating to me that I would go on a diet and Garry would lose more weight … and he wasn’t ON a diet, just eating less because I was. Takes all the fun out of dieting. If dieting can be fun, that is.

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  3. Kiki
    02/07/2019 • 03:24

    ouch, that‘s a toughie. I‘m nowadays most definitely too heavy. I‘m small and rather a ball nowadays. I took 20kg in just a relatively short time when I menopaused. Couldn‘t shed it ever. When looking at my family (mother‘s side), we only have one sister who def is thin(ish) and same as you it‘s not a good thing. She is so ill AND has a mind of hardened steel so she is pushing herself to absurd limits to stay slim although she shouldn‘t. My other sis, brother and myself, we are rather in the category of ‚happy pigs‘. We don‘t eat too much, none of us, we just don‘t beat ourselves up to be fashionably svelte. Of course, we all know fully well that we should do more excercise, do sports etc but we also know that being or trying to be, as happy as can be, doesn‘t include said stuff. We now tend to point out our ‚inner beauty‘ 🙂 I had a friend who said a phrase I adopted since I heard her saying it, some 30yrs ago (we were both slim but already on a ‚womanly‘ curve): If I had o choose, I‘d always vote for a curvy body than a too slim one – I‘m a woman, after all….
    Her then husband adored her on the slightly heavier side and in our couple, we have both gained a lot since our marriage. It‘s true, we would be more beautiful if a lot lighter, but for now we haven‘t got the stamina, time and energy to do something about it. Maybe once we‘re settled down in Switzerland (hopefully still this year), I can get a dog again, which would oblige me to do the walks a few times a day. THAT was one thing to keep me going, in earlier years. With my travels all the time, it would be unfair and even impossible to have a pet. AND we love sitting together, share a meal, drink some wine, discuss and let the time pass. It‘s one of the more pleasant things in life and when I cook myself I know it‘s healthy, seasonal, free of E-numbers and ‚stuff‘, and it‘s really in our genes (see family conditions back to ancestors on both sides) that we only have to look at food to see it already piled up on our hips.

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      02/07/2019 • 11:36

      Aside from making you look better in fashionable clothing and making your joints happier, there really isn’t any difference in weight unless you are hugely overweight — which is a different category of medical problems. But women are supposed to be round and as we mature, we do settle into whatever spot we were intended to occupy.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Sue Vincent
    02/07/2019 • 02:16

    Short and curvy… even though the ‘ideal weight’ charts say I am over the limit for plump 😉 Thin was never a good look on me either and was always down to health issues. I think we all have a natural normal weight where the body stabilises that tends to creep up over the years as we and the metabolism start to slow down. I’d rather be lighter for my joints, but I still have a waist.

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  5. Sadje
    02/07/2019 • 01:48

    You are so right.

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  6. angloswiss
    02/07/2019 • 01:45

    I was always the tallest at school. They would arrange the class photo around me. I always s tuck out in the crowd.

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  7. Fandango
    02/07/2019 • 00:45

    Wow, your weight/size has had its ups and downs, so to speak. I’m lucky. Once I stopped being a stick figure (6’1” tall and 105 pounds) in high school, my weight throughout my adult age hasn’t varied by more than 10 pounds either way from 175. And it’s not because of diet or exercise. Just a good metabolism, I suppose.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      02/07/2019 • 00:55

      Garry too, though he is an exercise addict. He NEEDS to exercise or he doesn’t feel right so he’s not only a good weight, he’s pretty strong. Since the heart surgery, I pretty much gave up. I’ve had a hard run of health issues and it’s a miracle I’m alive. My weight is the least of my problems.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Fandango
        02/07/2019 • 01:12

        My daily exercise consists mostly of walking our dog 3-4 times a day, which nets me between 9,000 to 12,000 steps a day. It used to be closer to 13,000 to 20,000 steps, but the dog is getting old and can’t (or won’t) walk for as long or as far as she used to.

        Yes, it seems that you’ve had more than your fair share of health issues, but you’re still alive and that’s a good thing.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Marilyn Armstrong
          02/07/2019 • 14:57

          Dog walking IS really good exercise and I was advised that getting a dog or two (when we lived in Boston, that was a major commitment because it was a condo with no yard) would do me a world of good as long as they weren’t huge enough to pull me over. It turned out that they could pull me over anyway by tangling the leashes around me legs and pulling in two directions. No one had mentioned that particular scenario.

          I used to get a lot of exercise walking, especially in Boston because reparking the car if it wasn’t an alternative side of the street day was masochism. So Garry and I walked EVERYWHERE. I had thighs like steel. We were also serious about horseback riding too.

          Then there was that woman who couldn’t wait for the light to change and tee-boned me about two blocks from home. That was the end of everything. I was 50 and my spine disintegrated. I could still walk. I was still pretty thin and muscular, but as the back got worse, I really couldn’t do it anymore. Spinal arthritis doesn’t get better. I hoped it would sort of just “stay the same,” but that didn’t happen either. I walked the dogs and then we moved out here and now the dogs walk themselves and I don’t do much except housework and cooking.

          Also, probably I’d feel better if we could solve the anemia issue. I need an infusion, but no one wants to deal with my veins and I don’t blame them. The pills make me sick — really sick — but that leaves diet and even though I’ve been trying to eat a higher Vitamine D diet, the D is still falling. It’s likely I’m simply not digesting it — probably why the pills make me so ill. It’s hard to be energetic when you don’t have enough oxygen in your system and the lower the iron gets, the less energy I’ve got.

          I asked Garry yesterday if he knew anyone who’d like to swap bodies. He raised an eyebrow and I realized, “Why would ANYONE want this carcass?” I don’t want it either.

          Liked by 1 person

      • swo8
        02/07/2019 • 11:02

        I think the guys have an easier time of it.
        Leslie

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