It's *really* stupid but… I had no idea I wasn't the only person going through this stuff until I stumbled onto this website and your blog. My weight has yo-yoed with my disordered eating (bulimia and all kinds of fun) and I find myself free from the disordered eating but bigger than I have been.

It is really hard to accept yourself and most days I feel like I am failing at it… but then most days I do push myself to eat properly and it has been months since my last binge/purge.

Keep up the good work, it might not feel like you are winning but look, you are choosing to look for acceptance in yourself and others, accept that for the positive it is.

I know it's possible to gain weight. I know that it is possible to gain 20kg over a year. I am not shocked. But your sentence came across as some bizarre scare tactic: “10 kilos in six months is 20 kilos in a year” (Shit! Better REIGN IT IN!) It's not physically possible for most people to continue gaining at a rate like that over an extended period of time, so Zoe shouldn't worry – that was the point of my extreme sarcasm.

And anyway, so what if Zoe has gained 10kg? So what if Zoe has gained 20kg? I've gained about 15kg since the start of the year and I'm not worried because nothing feels wrong. I've had to buy new clothes – which was annoying – but I feel fine. I don't get sick more often. I'm not more tired than usual. My asthma hasn't given me any grief. I haven't had more mood swings than usual. I haven't had unusual food cravings. If my body was feeling the strain from an 'excessive' gain, it would tell me. I would notice more changes in my body than just the number on the scale.

Finally, yes you are still allowed to have an opinion. It's just that in this instance, your opinion was wrong and we told you so.

I totally agree that we should try to love ourselves at any size, but my point was that warning signals would be going off in my head if I gained 10 kilos in a half year-just as they would if I lost 10 kg in a half year. (Which, by the way, I have, and moreoever, as much as this may come as a shock to Frances, I continued to gain another 10 kilos in the other half of the year. So yes, you can continue to pack on the pounds. All you have to do is eat more than your body expends, thus resulting in gaining weight. Simple arithmetic, exactly.)

Personally,I do say screw the numbers, and when I say “steady weight” I mean fitting in the clothes that you own-this can go both ways-if my clothes are suddenly falling off me, there's also something wrong! Why is it taboo to suggest that if the clothes are suddenly too tight to wear, that there is also something wrong?

I don't subscribe to the idea of dieting. So, no, I was not suggesting that you diet. Weight doesn't just magically appear on our bodies unless we have consumed more than we expend. There's no rocket science there. My suggestion was better awareness, that's all. And if one's weight just keeps going up even though they are not consuming extra calories, this would obviously be the sign of a problem, and again, just as it would be if someone was eating normally and lost weight.

Most of all, I think its important to recognize my comment above was a reflection of my opinion. We're still allowed to have those, aren't we?

There's a whole myriad of factors tied up in my weight gain. One of them would be a significantly altered diet (by which I mean intake of food), having returned from two years in a foreign country.

But what should I do? Diet? That's not what we're here for.

and while we can't fight our bodies putting on weight, I think its important to maintain a steady weight

Spectacular! A cognitive dissonance in one sentence. I can't fight my body putting on weight, but I have to maintain a steady weight? Please show me your magical solution!

In conclusion, I'll think I'll just sit here and be fat at you.

EXCELLENT USE OF SIMPLE ARITHMETIC.

By Ishmael's logic, you're just going to keep gaining 10kg every 6 months until you're like Jabba. Because, you know, that's physically possible for most people.
</sarcasm>

Face, meet palm.

I don't see how keeping a watchful eye on a set of scales and going “tusk tusk, you've put on a bit of weight this month” really fits into this mantra.

Health at EVERY Size is just that – health no matter how heavy you are. If you are eating what your body needs (check out intuitive eating) and you are doing some movement with your body that makes you happy, then that's all that really matters.

Quick and excessive gains are hard on a person if they weight themselves to find out. If you are happy to accept yourself at whatever size, then a number on a scale doesn't matter. Checking that number regularly is more likely to screw with your sense of love and acceptance for yourself than anything else.