Roxy - thanks for your thoughtful post on the subject. Really. It's nice to see all perspectives.

rant/

I'm one of those who moans about my weight and my inability to lose it. In fact, in the past 4 years (since I added cycling to my list of favorite sports), I've done nothing but gain weight. Quite a bit of it (for a short person). But I've also posted pictures of myself and I know there are those that think they would be happy to have my body. First of all, those pictures are OLD and I don't look that way now. Secondly, like Roxy posted, we all have our issues. The blessing about TE is that we can come here and commiserate. I don't mention to all the guys I work with how it annoys me that the hills I use to love climbing now make my stomach turn because I'm so much heavier (and not that much stronger). I don't mention how I'm ravenous after a long ride and have a hard time controlling my intake to my mom. My girlfriends have no idea how many saddles or bike shorts or whatever I had to go through to find ones that fit that now no longer work quite right because I've gained weight... The only people who hear this are the women on TE.

While it's true that we don't want to beat ourselves up or waste our lives whining about the extra fat on our legs or our guts, it is important to recognize that when most of us complain about our desire to lose weight, we are doing it in the right context. We are doing it to other women with similar issues on a forum where weight and performance often go hand in hand. We aren't b1tching about not being able to wear a size 0 skinny jean or see our ribs in the mirror. We are all (almost exclusively) talking about dropping weight to improve performance.

Honestly, it's more than a bit off putting when women who likely have never really had a weight problem try to tell us that we all should just love ourselves for who we are. Honestly, I'm sure most of us do (in our own individual ways), but that doesn't mean that we can't want to make improvements and share those challenges and successes with others who will understand. Please don't take our need to discuss this stuff (small little pooches or hundreds of lbs) as a sign that we need to be told to get over ourselves or our hang ups. Please.

Thanks.
/end rant