Good for you for getting some peace of mind! You are beautiful. Forget about it.

I track my weight daily, it works for me - right now my BMI is hovering around 24. I am more comfortable in my skin when it is around 23. My waist to hip ratio is in the very good category. So as a bigger but normal sized woman, it helps me keep perspective, and get things in check if I notice scale creep on average over time.

I went to the gym the other day and the personal trainers are understandably struggling to drum up business in this economy. I got a sales pitch for a new program, and the peppy guy kept asking me what are my weight loss goals. I shrugged. Then he asked if I had weight loss goals. I said not really - maybe five pounds. He said "that's all? you don't think you can loose more than that? wouldn't you like to?" I just said I didn't have the cash and walked on. I wonder if he would have been unethical enough to sign me up if I said I wanted to loose 25 pounds - that'd still be a technically normal weight, but I've never weighed that in my adult life, and I'm over 40, when it's harder to loose.

I was ok at the time, but now it makes me a little mad.

Heh. My mother had a magic number as well, for her it was 9 stone, which as a 5'9" woman put her right around the same BMI as your mum, gomi. My mother has a very unhealthy body image though and I reacted against that by getting fat as a teenager. Now, I'm still a bit overweight - I think my BMI is around 26 - and I do want to lose some weight, but only 10-15 lb, because I know I feel good when I am around that weight.

I feel like baking cookies

I'll take either.

I got my BMI down to, like, 24.9, which was good, then I had the cancer scare, in which weight loss was equated, in my mind, to a tumor growing inside me and I was terrified every time I got on the scale and I'd lost ANYTHING, and reassured when I gained.

So now I am heavier, and really need to get rational about it all and get my BMI down again.

Women do not have a corner on the body image neurosis market. . .

Women do not have a corner on the body image neurosis market. . .

No but it often goes in the other direction. I spent the first 35 years of my life feeling self-conscious that I was too skinny even though I was in a healthy BMI range. Now in my middle age, I'm quite a bit overweight but feel far more comfortable even though I'm certainly less healthy now.

Actually my Mum was a lot shorter than me so for her 8st was still in healthy range.

I didn't rebel but I do remember being upset and crying over being "fat" as a teenager - although I was just normal.

Actually my Mum was a lot shorter than me so for her 8st was still in healthy range.

Ah. My mother was one of the "I'm so fat" super-skinny people. She gave up smoking about 10 years ago, and is no longer super-skinny, although still a lot more slender than me. Which I hear about. A lot.

Reverse issue: I used to have a BMI of 18.3 and looked like a skeleton. Which is not good when you're 6'6".
Now at middle age I have a BMI of 22.5 after doing some weightlifting. And I feel a bit more normal.

Did you know btw that Kurt Cobain used to wear multiple layers of clothes because he felt so skinny?

*hugs gaspode*

Us Mums gotta be careful about the body image perception we pass onto our kids.

What?! Don't I get any hugs?!!
It's because I'm so bony, isn't it?!

I shouldn't post dronken

*puts on thick sweater, gives jouke hug*

Aww.
The Friendly Skeleton hugs you back.

I was skinny, now I'm a bit tubby. I'm actually kind of enjoying it.