Thanks for your comment, Maureen, which seems to be responding to a different post of mine, probably Eat as if you were the weight you want to be. By the way, Annie is not the author of the post, she’s just a commenter. I’m Mike.

There’s much in what you say, and in fact I realized that overeating was not what I should be doing. It’s also true that not all healthy people are in the “normal” or “average” range of weight. However, I was not only very underweight but also gradually losing weight, and as I enter my middle years I think it’s important to build up a bit of a reserve in case of illness. A friend of mine was hit by a bus last year and severely injured – he lost a lot of weight during his recovery period. Another friend had a stroke some years ago and was in a coma for a while, and also lost a lot of weight. If that had been me, I would have had no spare weight to lose and probably would have died. So although I’m healthy now, I want to build up a little reserve to give me more ability to deal with health challenges in the future.

As I’m in my early 40s, I’m also likely to start gaining weight naturally soon. As I’ve commented elsewhere, I want to take charge of that process and make it a positive. I certainly found my weight gain process a positive experience, and plan to do the same again this year – increase my calorie intake slightly and exercise to increase my muscle mass – to see if there’s more to be gained within my natural weight range.

If you are healthy, although officially “underweight,” than there is no problem with your weight, and no need to “double your meal size” and undergo “hypnosis” in an attempt to change your natural, healthy, bodyweight. Stats are just numbers, and the reality is, not everyone fits inside!

I have a friend who is very underweight and in her 30s, with no health problems, married with three happy little boys. It is ridicuous to eat to the point of feeling uncomfortable simply to force your body to be sthg you were not meant to be. If you were overweight, this same behaviour would be labeled as “gluttony”! Overeating is always unhealthy – no matter what one’s body weight.

Extra points in that it didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t. I’m OK with people being promotional if they do it in person (with their name and contact details), are upfront that that’s what they’re doing, and it genuinely seems relevant to my readership. But I marked a comment as spam the other day because it added nothing of substance, was in poor English and seemed only designed to create a link from my site to another hypnotherapy website. I noticed afterwards that the origin was in Hyderabad, even though the website was in the UK. Someone’s outsourcing their spam commenting to India.

I thought you might be interested to hear about an organic & healthy RECIPE CONTEST that is going on at http://www.mambosprouts.com. They are giving away great prizes like a year’s supply of product or gift certificates to your favorite natural food store.

If you could post or promote this on your blog, we’d appreciate it! If you need more information or details on the contest, please contact me at adouglass@mambosprouts.com

Thanks so much!

Thanks,
Annie Douglass
Web Relations
Mambo Sprouts Marketing
http://www.mambosprouts.com