have you ever had your blood sugar or thyroid checked?? both can cause stubborn weight gain, especially in the gut and love handle areas.

ah.

it is diet season, and i've become an advocate of "health at every size" particularly b/c i like the ideals, and partially as a defense mechanism.

so if someone truly thinks their body isn't right for them and would like to reduce size (and i say size b/c if you muscle up, you might lose size and gain weight), they should make sure that weight gain is not a symptom of some other underlying problem (it usually is). (as an aside, i also support people that believe tattoos, piercings, and plastic surgery can help people finesse their body into what they feel is right. anyway, back to the response). thyroid and type II diabetes are the strongest culprits behind weight gain, especially "crept up" weight. some medications and other conditions can cause weight gain/loss, too, but i haven't researched them as thoroughly. other reasons can be injury (body still thinks it will get as much energy out as before, plus bodies will store energy as fat to aid in the healing process. plump/overweight/slightly obese people actually have some of the best injury and surgery recovery rates and experiences). another culprit can be psychological, such as an addiction to food, poor food relationship (e.g. some foods are bad, you are naughty for eating them, you have to choke down good food you don't enjoy in order to have naughty food as a reward), depression, and dieting (one of the worst offenders is dieting-- it affects the physiological relationship w/ food, the psychological reasoning for food, and can fuck up your thyroid and natural body balance).

i think so too-- you have a sedentary job and a mildly active lifestyle otherwise (at least, from an outside observer). as long as you can do the activities you ask your body to do (from taking a walk to a biannual jaunt through rennfaire, you are healthy for you). and yeah, basic suburban spread is good for staving off osteoperosis and senility, as well as reducing recovery time.

stress is one of those physco-pysio things, it causes your brain to produce extra harmones of "OMG! something's going to happen! what if i need energy to run for a few weeks? fight something off??? where are those easily processes simple carbs?????"

but the 'official' measures, oi. they drive me insane.
you'd be surprised what you'd be according to BMI (which is a poor measure, especially when you consider the history of it established by people wearing shoes right after the G. Depression)-- even on the BMI what is considered normal, overweight, obese, etc. were redone in the 1990s, and again about 5 yrs ago (correcting for this change, americans aren't getting any fatter).
what i learned was within normal during my 1980s health classes was overweight in the '90s redo and well into obese in the most recent version. i actually fall on the mid to high level of obese (you know, one step under morbidly fat?). people haven't changed that much, and, in fact, are living longer and succumbing less and less to all the big baddies associated with being fat (although double blind studies shows no link/causation that fat causes them-- it will take a while to change the thinking, just like everyone used to *know* ulcers were caused by stress, but now we know they are caused by bacteria and just aggravated by stress).

(not to sound preachy, it's just that everyone and their dog is going on a diet right now!!)