Where do healthy, fit, non-disorded women hang out?

[Anonymous]

This is me, OP! Never been on a diet, eat plenty of healthy food, but also love baked goods and chocolate bars and pasta and steak. I get most of my exercise from just having fun with my family on the weekends, plus going for runs that I mostly do to have time to myself without staring at my phone.

Half the time I feel like people look down on me for not being militant about my diet and exercise, and the rest of the time I feel like people thinking I'm showing off or must be a secret bulimic because I drink soda and eat carbs even though I'm not obese.

Growing up, my mom always hated her body and dieted constantly and just seemed miserable. I promised myself I'd never be like that.

[Anonymous]

Not DCUM, that's for sure. And it's his site, he can do what he wants, but Jeff's description of "Diet and Exercise" is that it's a forum about weight loss.

I have no idea why there can't be a "Weight Loss" forum and an "Exercise and Fitness" forum, but that's not the way he or a lot of the posters think.

(I hate running, but I start most days with a good sweat of some sort. I don't own a scale. I have a doctor to tell me whether I'm healthy, to the extent I can't tell by how I feel.)

[Anonymous]

I'm like you, though I'm not a healthy eater at all. I find that I don't want community for exercise at all. I'll go for a run or walk with one friend or once in a while take a class to learn something new like paddleboarding, but I don't enjoy gym culture or people who talk about things like numbers of steps or grams of fat or interval training. I just want to go outdoors when I can and get moving and listen to some music and move at my own pace, and I don't want to think much about food at all. Maybe this is because I wasn't healthy about any of it when I was an insecure teen and twenty something. But I don't judge people who like all that stuff, it just takes something enjoyable and makes it stressful for me. I refuse for example to go running with people who use an app and check their mile times and try to beat their last mile. Totally stresses me out.

[Anonymous]

I’ve gone from being a semi-fit foodie to really needing hard workouts and strict diet to lose those extra few pounds in my forties. If these online communities isolate you, avoid them. I personally find them helpful as I am surrounded by people of a different ilk in real life. I’ve learned that I have to really fight the everyday abundance (no matter how delicious and tempting) that confronts me. And I think Jeff might agree, based on some of his posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm like you, though I'm not a healthy eater at all. I find that I don't want community for exercise at all. I'll go for a run or walk with one friend or once in a while take a class to learn something new like paddleboarding, but I don't enjoy gym culture or people who talk about things like numbers of steps or grams of fat or interval training. I just want to go outdoors when I can and get moving and listen to some music and move at my own pace, and I don't want to think much about food at all. Maybe this is because I wasn't healthy about any of it when I was an insecure teen and twenty something. But I don't judge people who like all that stuff, it just takes something enjoyable and makes it stressful for me. I refuse for example to go running with people who use an app and check their mile times and try to beat their last mile. Totally stresses me out.

Same to all of this! I have not enjoyed the era of the step-count, or FitBits, or whatever people are using to track themselves. My mom was a Weight Watchers obsessive when I was a kid. I'm not criticizing either, I get why people use these methods to motivate themselves. But I don't like feeling competitive, even with myself.

I do think part of the issue is that DC has an excess of competitive, Type A folks, especially in the UMC circles that tend to post here. I'm from Colorado and while people there eat well and are very fit, I don't remember it ever being quite as obsessive as people are here. Just a different culture, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Go to any public place and look around. There are plenty of people like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take classes through Fit4Mom and am part of their online community. They all seem pretty healthy, fit, and non-disordered (I am an exception in that I am not as fit, and more disordered). Really great women with kids of all ages and some without kids. There are classes for all ages - many who take their HIIT classes are in their 40s.

I'm also part of this community and second all of the above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m exactly like you, OP, but I went through decades of disordered eating in my teens and 20s to get there.

OP here. Same. I've been obese, starved myself on 300 calories a day, joined a gym for 2 weeks then quit. Tried all the diets. Rinse, repeat.

Finally when I quit all the stupid diets, yo-yos, discovered exercise for reasons WAY beyond just calories... I've found and settled on a great happy place, naturally. No weighing myself ever. No calorie counting ever. No restrictions. No starvation. I feel so grateful to have given up all the schemes up and just want to find other happy, moderate, fit, healthy, food-loving women who aren't constantly caught up in some numbers game. I'm so happy that you all exist somewhere because on DCUM sometimes it feels like everyone is clinging to some strained and stressful formula.

[Anonymous]

Don't hang out in the diet and exercise forum. They are all over in the cooking forum.

[Anonymous]

If by "likes to feel strong" you mean overweight, then no, most are not here.

[Anonymous]

I am sitting pretty here at 117lbs, 5'4", eating a large bowl of potatoe chips. I don't feel guilty at all. I am enjoying it. Will I walk my dog? Yes, yes I will. Did I move in my dd to off campus housing today and walked a lot? Yes, I did. I wish I had ice cream now, but I am out of non dairy ice cream and can't have the diary one that is in my fridge. If I really want it, I will go buy it. Is that disordered? To go to the grocery store just for non dairy ice cream if you had decent meals already? I don't know, not imo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd seriously like to know. Am I the only person who doesn't weigh myself, goes for runs, also eats ice cream and cake, doesn't count carbs, is 40+, likes to feel strong, doesn't mind sweating, eats kale and lentils but also enjoys just eating brioche straight from the bag sometimes without starving myself the next 2 days as punishment?

I feel so alone in this on DCUM. Anyone?

Bueller?

Just curious...how strong are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd seriously like to know. Am I the only person who doesn't weigh myself, goes for runs, also eats ice cream and cake, doesn't count carbs, is 40+, likes to feel strong, doesn't mind sweating, eats kale and lentils but also enjoys just eating brioche straight from the bag sometimes without starving myself the next 2 days as punishment?

I feel so alone in this on DCUM. Anyone?

Bueller?

Just curious...how strong are you?

Obviously, it's all relative. I think it means continually physically challenging and pushing yourself to do more.

But I felt strong today doing 30 minutes on the stairmaster, no hands or elbows - in fact I had dumbbells and used them for intervals for some extra work. The guy next to me was eliminating like 2/3 of his body weight by totally leaning (looked more like weird hugging) the machine like it's mostly some upper body thing exercise that's just super bad for your back.

[Anonymous]

Reddit xxfitness

[Anonymous]

OP, I think the entire premise of your post is just another way for women to bash other women. I wish we could do a better job of accepting one another, even those who approach life differently than ourselves.