Absolutely!!

Back in the 1950s (and probably before) fat was associated with happy. "He's fat and jolly."

But that was before "fat" was a bad word. The general public didn't know how unhealthy that was.

Bob

Happy isn't size, weight, money, things. Happy is happy. It is noticing the good stuff and giving less importance to annoying crap that doesn't really even matter.

All that, plus not being depressed. My crappy diet had me so depressed there was no way I could have been happy - even if I had been thin. But now - thanks to lchf & all the doctors, researchers, & more-than-ordinary people who figured it out & passed on the information - I can be happy even tho I am still fat. Not as fat as I was, but who is going to know that but me? I'm sure most people just see me as a fat old lady. When I look in the mirror, I see a fat old lady who's getting healthy!

And that's enough to make anyone happy, Bonnie!

That. Right. There.

I have read memoirs of people paralyzed in accidents, in an iron lung from polio, born with a serious difficulty. And they make a life for themselves and they are happy. So HAPPY is what matters.

I now see the SAD as a recipe for misery. Not just the physical kind, but also the mental variety. So many people have found their moods lifting, their anti-depressants phased out, their therapy making faster progress, and their energy to do things surging back; when they drop the wheat and sugar and starches.

I wonder if it really is that simple. That if we do change the diet, we will have a lot more happy people. Not because of their weight. But because their mental weight was lifted.

This is a copyrighted poem from 1988 that appeared on one of the feeds I get every day. It's probably rude to repost it without permission, but I think it needs to be shared in the context of a discussion on being happy. Or at least making the most of the situation you're in.

Poem of the Day: Breathing
BY MARK O'BRIEN

Grasping for straws is easier;
You can see the straws.
“This most excellent canopy, the air, look you,”
Presses down upon me
At fifteen pounds per square inch,
A dense, heavy, blue-glowing ocean,
Supporting the weight of condors
That swim its churning currents.
All I get is a thin stream of it,
A finger’s width of the rope that ties me to life
As I labor like a stevedore to keep the connection.
Water wouldn’t be so circumspect;
Water would crash in like a drunken sailor,
But air is prissy and genteel,
Teasing me with its nearness and pervading immensity.
The vast, circumambient atmosphere
Allows me but ninety cubic centimeters
Of its billions of gallons and miles of sky.
I inhale it anyway,
Knowing that it will hurt
In the weary ends of my crumpled paper bag lungs.


Poet Mark O'Brien lives in an iron lung.

But the other quotes are there too - many terminally ill or very handicapped people are happy. It depends on your attitude.

Extremes:

I am definitely happy when I see having lost 2 lb. My husband, a thin Buddhist, smiles as he has seen my happiness or unhappiness change with a few lbs - when overall, there is fluctuation within 10 lbs for years. I know it is not healthy to make my happiness or unhappiness depend on the scale. Stupid really

My daughter recently gained a lot of weight and seems fine with it and happy. She criticizes my attitude, saying: how much energy and time have you wasted on diets and on fretting over your weight? She also criticizes my not taking dessert because of my diet. She is right and wrong - right in that my mood shouldn't depend on a few pounds lost or gained, and spending too much time on diet and weight thoughts is unhealthy. Wrong in that I overall am happier with my size and my mood does improve when I eat healthily, which for me is low carb. I think overall, I am happier now than when I was overweight - I never was obese.

It is healthy to be happy with every progress one has made. There are many obese people on this forum who have lost a lot - lets say from 400 to 300 lbs, and they are very happy with where there are. I think it is healthy to be happy on the way, with the progress, even if one is still obese.

I think it is also healthy for a person, maybe that was your boy friend, to decide: this is not my time to deal with my obesity. I had a relative like that - everyone was criticizing her for being super obese, but she seemed happy and was participating in things and active. This was during adolescence, and although it is a tough time to be obese, it may be good to say: I am in this phase of life, I want to finish school or college or... THEN deal with my obesity. It may not be physically good, but psychologically, it may be a healthy attitude to wait until one is ready.

But long term, I doubt a morbidly obese person is happy with his/her life. To hear from everyone, doctors, relatives, TV, newspaper, friends, every day how bad it is to be overweight, and I can't imagine its easily happily accepted.

One reason to be overweight is drugs given to people with Bipolar disorder that often lead to 50-100 lb weight gain. These drugs help with excessively elevated mood (mania) and (less) low mood/depression. I wonder how this balance is really evaluated? I would love to find out if the bottom line is really of benefit - but the psychiatrists claims that the net balance is positive...

Lots of inspiration here.
I just read The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. A great read. I recommend it.
Human beings get more out of striving than arriving. It's part of our genetic programming. That's why we love losing weight so much, if we are overweight, of course, and in some cases, unfortunately, even if we're not. And why we get so miserable when we stall, or gain, even if we've lost a lot. But to really lose weight we need to retrain ourselves so eating the way we need to eat becomes a habit. That's not exciting and we are rather programmed to want excitement.
Another part of the human psyche is to compare ourselves with others. If we think someone else is better off than we are it makes us unhappy, all other things being equal. If we look at ourselves through the eyes of society and find ourselves wanting, we are unhappy.
Haidt says that our expectations adjust, so if we become disabled or sick, we adjust our expectations downwards and any small win or satisfaction makes us happy. In a way, the better off we are, the more it takes to make us happy.
He also says that if we have good, caring relationships with a few people, we are more likely to be happy than if we don't. Being fat doesn't stop that, far from it.
How we feel physically does make a difference to quality of life, though, in my experience. I feel better now I can more more easily, digest better, etc. I am less sensitive to heat and able to stand up without feeling faint. All that may not make me happy but it makes me enjoy life more.
Just my two penn'orth.

I've been fat just about my entire life. And I've been happy for most of that time as well. My parents allowed me a real sense of my own identity and self, and made it very clear to me as a child that what other people said and did was irrelevant to me -- I took that to heart and have never really worried about what other people thought of me -- it was a great gift that I wish all young people had.

The topic of this thread, all by itself, makes me sad to think of the mindset that would believe that you cannot be happy if you are fat.

But so many of the answers are incredibly inspiring. You guys rock.

Another take on fat:

https://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/...-how-you-do-it/

Jean

Awesome. Thank you for that link, Jean.

I've been thin, fat, average, chubby, you name it.

I've always been ME. But the way I have been treated has been incredibly different, based on my size. This is wrong.

One answer to the question of this thread: YES. But it must come from within. You must be strong to be happy and fat, because way too many people will try to make you believe you should not be happy.

Yes. About 15 years ago I sat next to a woman at a new job who had just lost a lot of weight. I was still very fat, and I'd just moved in with boyfriend, we'd had a whirlwind romance and had only known each other about six months. I was deliriously happy, and this woman was seriously offended by my happiness, so much so she started bullying me. She'd lost the weight and thought her life would be wonderful, I think. Instead, she was with a guy who didn't treat her well, in a job she hated.

Weight loss didn't equal happiness, and being very fat didn't mean misery.

Fat is one issue in a life and does not and should not define happiness for that person. Sadly, it is true that others may try and define the person by their fat, in which case it is not the fat that is interfering with happiness, but small minded and judgemental people.

If the world was no longer judgemental about fat, and those who are fat, then living in the world at any size would be much easier, and happiness would be easier to attain.

Unfortunately we wear our fat for all to see, so it is easy for people to judge us. I suspect that if everyone had to have their perceived sins tatooed on their forehead, then suddenly, being fat would be far less of an issue.

Both DH and I recently had health issues. When I'm sick nothing else matters. When I feel better I'm grateful and hope I remember what's really, truly important to me.
When I get complacent, I start to worry about things that, if I get sick again, seem trivial.
I think that, too, is human nature.
Today I'm fluffy (according to some) but happy.
As far as I'm concerned, the world can "Kiss my grits!"