I have gotten quite a big surprise today. I got a DEXA scan, due to me being a part of an unrelated experiment. When I got the results, it showed that my body fat percentage is at 28.5%! Me not knowing anything about body composition didn't think much of it, until I looked at what my body fat percentage should be. Even though I am 180cm and 70kg, I am very obese. My body is 19,5kg FAT!
I have realized that this is very serious and I need to do something about it now. I am trying to come up with a plan about how to deal with this. I can't figure out if I need to cut or bulk. If I cut, I am going to be extremely skinny. If I bulk I risk putting on even more fat. What should I do in this situation? I really want to get down to a normal body fat percentage, but ideally be at the same weight.

As a skinny child to fat parents and fat siblings, I felt so left alone.
Their unhealthiness affected my mind in an extremely negative way.
It limited their emotional availability.
It lowered my sense of connection with them.
Heck, my fatter siblings found every way to get at me for being skinnier.
Why are we letting this go on?!

Hello fellas, been seriously training for about a year now, made some okay newbie gains, cut a long way from a skinny fat kid (20m) to having some abs and am on my first bulk now (rip abs). However training, proper nutrition sleep recovery etc. has really thrown a wrench into all other aspects of my life. I literally am unable to have fun anymore, all i think about is how what i am doing at the moment is hurting my gains. Don't drink anymore at all, don't stay out very late, don't drink anything that doesn't have 0 calories. If i do anything that even remotely has a chance of endagering my gains i feel anxiety and guilt. Also ironically i am the most insecure about my looks since like ever, but also look the best i ever did. Any of you guys experience anything similar, how can i fight this?

I'm 16M and 6"0 and recently I lost alot of weight as I was obese. I lost 57 kg roughly 125 pounds. I weigh 62kg (136 pounds) I posted on a subreddit that I need to lose more weight because I can clearly see I need to lose weight. However someone replied saying I possibly have body dysmorphia. And everyone around be is saying I'm too skinny but when I look at my self I can see I'm still kind of fat. I think its because maybe my body is different or something because I don't think I have BD.

I have to help myself, because no one is going to care until I commit suicide and it won’t matter then to me. My boyfriend will go have fun on the weekdays because “two people don’t need to be miserable”. No one seems to truly understand what I am going through and they never have. Everyone is living their own little lives and they don’t care about me.
I’m going to try Lexapro. I am scared. I feel like it’ll make me fat. I am afraid I won’t take it every day on time like I should. I am afraid I’ll like the person on the medicine more than who I am off of it. I am afraid this is a temporary solution to a problem that I am running from, but will eventually catch up. I am afraid my boyfriend will love me more on meds. I am afraid I will be happier on an antidepressant.
I don’t want to spend all day laying in bed in my room while it’s warm and sunny outside. I don’t want the FOMO. I want to be normal and 21 and happy and young.
Walgreens has been harassing me. It’s 20 bucks. I can always stop is want my doctor says. It’ll suck at first- all of these medicines usually do. Maybe I’ll be able to function. Maybe I’ll be happy. I am scared.

- I saw a scene on tv that had a mother tickling/playing with her son in the morning, in his bedroom, to wake him up. The boy is laughing and gets out of bed.
- It was on the Lifetime Channel or possibly Hallmark. I saw it maybe 10 years ago, or a little less.
- It looked like a recent movie, from 2000s or early-mid 2010s. Not from very late-2010s and definitely not from 2020s.
- Appears to take place in modern day, not in 1800s or anything like that. The woman and boy are both White.

Hi guys,
I just want to tell you my story. I struggled with my weight since I was a child. For some reasons, I was never satisfied with a "normal" meal and I always needed to eat more. Of course, no girls shown interest in me. By the way, I wasn't so desperate for this and I thought that one day I would find someone who is really interested in me despite my weight. As It never happened, I decided that after finishing school It was the right time to lose weight. Yes, I lost 45kg very easy and I never felt the pressure the achieve the goal.
Unfortunately, after reaching goal weight I realized that I still had no girls interested in me and I was a total idiot at dating. All my friends have a GF and I'm the only one who can't even talk to girls. I've never been able to forgive myself for this. I went in a state of depression and re-gained almost all the weight I lost. Food is a VERY powerful coping mechanism for me and I have to say that even if I'm fat, I'm less depressed. But I have zero motivation to lose weight now, and I hate my body.
But the fact that in 27 years (Yes, 27 fucking years) I've never been able to date makes me terribly sad. I thought that weight loss would help me. I was wrong. I know It's wrong, but now I don't see a reason why I should follow a diet and lose weight. Food is the only source of instant gratification I can have, if I deprive myself from It, I'll get back in a very depressed state. I developed an aggresive form of Binge Eating Disoders, which even doctors and therapists couldn't solve for now. And It's a vicious cycle because now, considering how unattractive I feel, I don't even dare to try dating. I'm just tired.
Anyone else can relate?
P.S: It took me a lot of time to realize the reason of my BED. If you read my post It might look obvious, but I spent years asking myself why I can't control food urges.

I've been transitioning for nearly 9 years, been in trans spaces for about 10.5. Through that time, I've encountered so much vitrol and hate for being obese. I am NOT someone who believes in "healthy at every size" or that being fat is healthy. I'm realistic about my obesity and would seek resources out to be told I'm not serious about being trans because of it. I've heard similar from other large trans men and hell, even trans men who are slightly overweight.
On the flip side, I've seen so much sympathy for people with anorexia or other eating disorders when struggling with dysphoria or surgeons who worry about their weight. People who say that it's understandable because being underweight poses a risk, they're usually downvoted or told that "at least I'm not fat" despite the accurate information given to them.
It took forever to find a surgeon that did good work and did talks on patients with obesity getting top surgery. Thankfully I found a surgeon I hope to go to. I don't want obesity normalized, but damn, can the trans community respect someone that's not skinny, white and passable or is that asking too much.
This was brought to you by stumbling on an account from a trans man who basically just comments on a sub that makes fun of fat people

Hi all, long time lurker here but I wanted to get some unbiased opinions on this. This story is long. Sorry in advance.
Six months ago, I (27M) ended a friendship with a my long-time best friend (28M) and of 7 years after a fairly explosive fight about the woman he is dating (33/34F). The whole thing took me by surprise. We currently have a large tight knit friend group of people across a variety of major cities and we all try to hang out when we can. However, some of my friends in this group have been unhappy with me for cutting of ties with this person.
For context, This friend was my college roommate, fraternity brother, and the most consistent source of emotional support and guidance throughout my early-twenties. Throughout college, I felt that we had a unique and supportive friendship. He taught me how to be believe in myself, stand-up for myself, take care of myself better, and brought a lot of light into my life as a friend. We were both full-scholarship students at a fancy-pants highly ranked college that is know for being elitist and stuck-up. Looking back, I think one of the things that made us such tight friends is that we didn't fit in all too well at that school. Both of us had pretty difficult lives before college and neither of us had any money. He was essentially an orphan and I was/am from a low-income single parent household. However, despite these circumstances, I felt like we both inspired each other to become more well-rounded and well-adjusted people. A central theme of our friendship was trying to figure out how to live a good life, solve interesting problems, make the world a better place, and to go on adventures with good friends.
During our early twenties/in college I feel like I did everything I could to be the best friend possible. Since he didn't have a stable father figure, I tried my best to be a loving brother. I was there to support him for every major test or every time a girl broke his heart in college. I knew that finding a group of friends and a community was important for him, so I advocated for him to join my fraternity. While my fraternity was voting on final round of rush, I was working on a major project with some classmates and someone texted me that my friend didn't get enough votes to be offered a bid to join. Immediately, I told my partners that I had to go for an emergency and ran to where the voting was taking place. I basically made a 2-3 minute long speech about how my friend was one of the best people I've ever known and convinced everyone to revote him into the group. Additionally, when he had to take a year off from college because a close member of his family passed a way, I spent almost every weekend with him for emotional support, helped him navigate the dark and uncomfortable family drama around the situation, and was the only friend who went to this family member's funeral with him for support. I even helped him with the little things, like teaching him how to tie a tie and find his own sense of style.
However, towards the end of college and after graduating, my life got difficult and dark. At the end of my senior year, two close relatives of mine passed away within two weeks of each other and I became extremely depressed. After graduation, I left my home state for a job that offered me a significant amount of money. Though my plan was to go to grad school, I wanted to take some time to make money and help my younger sister afford college - she didn't get any significant scholarships. However, the job I worked at was terrible. I was being abused almost every since day by my boss and the company I worked for was extremely unethical. After starting this job, I learned that the average hire only lasts about 6-8 months and that having a breakdown from working there was extremely common. Working here took a huge toll on my mental health and after 9 months, I quit to return home before I broke down like many of my co-workers. I thought things would be better when I went back home but some of my family members were going through it at the time and became abusive as well. Though my family was never abusive towards me growing up, for some reason they chose to be abusive when I came back. Chairs were thrown at me and I never had a moment of rest. I also had a grandmother who was living off food stamps and nobody was taking good care of her. So I had to continuously try and get her groceries while working 60-70 hrs/wk on a construction job. It was a bad time.
During all of this, I felt that my friend was being extremely immature and selfish. He kept yelling at me and criticizing me for not hanging out enough with him and not partying with him enough. Even after explaining my situation, he didn't offer too much support and expressed frustration that I wouldn't help him meet girls at clubs or get laid. He's always had a deep desire to find love but has traditionally had issues with female rejection. One night, I agreed to go out clubbing with him, but I remember explicitly stating that I was not in the mental space to hit on girls, wingman, or to hook-up. I was just down to drink, dance, and have a good time. Despite this, at the club he got extremely frustrated with me when I wouldn't start any conversations with groups of girls. When we got home he literally starting screaming in his bed about how he wished someone "would show him the steps" on how to meet women. Though this was clearly not a high point in our relationship together, I felt that he was probably just going through something and let it go. After a few months, even more negative things happened in my life and eventually had a mental breakdown. I definitely was not acting normally or myself for 3-4 months afterwards either. Despite this, my friend insisted that I party with him and a group of other people one night. However, when we were ready to go out, I overheard him loudly making laughing at me and making fun of my behind my back about how "I had serious mental problems, totally lost it. etc." I was shocked because he definitely knew about all that I was going through. After this, I stopped reaching out to him and to distance myself. Part of me didn't trust him anymore but also I wanted to see if he'd put in effort to keep our relationship strong.
Fast forward a few years, and we were still friends but not as close as before. I partially attributed this to me moving around different states for work and also for finally getting into a grad school far away from everyone. During this time we both ended up dating women which we both considered to be long-term partners. Initially he starting dating this girl for a couple of months, and then something terrible happened in his life - his last surviving family member died. After telling her he needed to put their relationship on pause and leave town to wrap up family affairs. She blew up at him while he was out of town, about how he "led her on" and wasted her time. For context, she made it clear that she wanted to get married and have kids after 2-3 years of dating.For some reason, he got back together with her and stayed with her for a few years, but he expressed some concerns about her to me. He told me that she didn't really seem interested in engaging with him on an intellectual level (e.g., reading books with each other, talking about work) and also expected him to pay for all of their dates and meals (which were pretty expensive) because he has a well-paying job. He also expressed worry that she'd wouldn't be interested in respecting or having a relationship with any of our other friends because of her age. Because she was 31 at the start of their relationship she felt that a lot people in our friend group of mid-twenty somethings "wouldn't be mature enough" for her.
Despite telling him that these were all big red flags, he continued dating her. Because I was busy working and trying to make money for my family I never got a chance to hang out with her. But as predicted, as all of our close friends eventually met her over the years - she was pretty disrespectful. Though she never fought or argued with anyone, she'd either ignore people or be passive aggressive.
She also started to negatively influence his perception of the world and his level of maturity. After a member of our friend group (who previously has always been kind and caring) had a public freakout and yelled at his girlfriend because he was in a bad mental state, I called him to talk about how we could support our friend and expressed concerns that a marijuana addiction might be contributing to his issues. Instead of talking about the issue he said that our friend was "spoiled", "immature", and said that his girlfriend "weak woman" - which was out of character.
Eventually, my partner and I met this girl during my college reunion and we felt that she was pretty awful. He begged me to go to this reunion multiple times and even though I told him that I couldn't go because of the COVID risk (I work with patients who are immunocompromised), and the fact that I really couldn't afford travel costs. After the second or third time he asked me to go, I relented and said that it'd be fun to go and see all of our friends again. Instead of agreeing with me, he interjected that he wanted to go because he felt our classmates would look fat and out of shape because of their jobs and he wanted to go because he was in "good-shape" and had a hot girlfriend.
My friend allowed my girlfriend and I to stay at his appartment to save money for the trip. Before the actual reunion we all agreed to hang out. My girlfriend arrived in town a day before me and spent time with both of them before I did. Though I wasn't there, my girlfriend told me that this woman threw a napkin at a waiter during dinner. Apparently, she also got sleepy at around 9pm while my friend was showing my partner around the apt. Instead of waiting respectfully or finding a place to rest, she passive aggressively pretended to fall asleep in the common room of the apt and pretended to snore. Then after a few minutes she started yelling that she called an Uber for herself to go back to her place, slammed a door in my friend's face, and left the building - leaving him to chase after her.
I met her the next day during a double date, and I didn't get the best impression. I tried to be nonjudgemental but it was pretty hard to hold a conversation with her. When I asked about her interests, she could only really talk about how she like to drink/party a lot, spend a lot of money, and travel. Though this really wasn't that bad (who doesn't love these things), I initially thought she was just shallow because thats really all she could talk about. However, as we spent more time together bragged to me about her older brother threw a glass ashtray at an elderly neighbor. Additionally, at a one point in the double date, she made fun of a man going for a run outside. He was actually in pretty decent shape and even had visible abs, but she kept saying how he was "too overweight" to be running without a shirt, and bragged about how she was in great shape and runs marathons. Despite this, she has a pretty significant muffin top and if my understanding is correct she hasn't run a marathon in many years. When we actually went to our reunion, she kept complaining to me that all of my college classmates kept staring at her and that they were all clearly "obsessed with her" because of how attractive she is - even at times when there would be almost nobody around. At the end of our time together, he told me he want to elevate their relationship and was thinking about moving in with her. He also suggested to other people he was interested in getting married and having kids soon.
I called my friend few weeks after all of this and expressed concerns about his relationship. Trying to be as respectful as possible while being truthful, I told him that I was concerned about him furthering his relationship with this woman. First expressed that she was hard to talk to and that she displayed some concerning behaviors. Then I highlighted that he should consider that she might not be the best long term partner. I felt that since she made the death of his family member "all about her", she probably wont be good teammate or a supportive partner when they both go through difficult times together. In all, I probably spoke for about a minute and a half before he started getting defensive and hung up on me to "take a brake from the conversation".Afterwards he stopped talking to consistently me for about six months. He mentioned to other friends that he and I would have a formal discussion about how I crossed a line soon, but he kept putting it off and never reached out. Even after I sent an apology text, he kept ignoring me.
Finally, six months ago visited the city that I'm currently living in to visit some people in our friend group and didn't tell me. I was invited by people in our group to spend time with them, but I immediately noticed that something was off. When I would speak about my interests or things that were going on in my life, my former friend would roll his eyes or look at me with disgust. Later in the night, I asked him if he wanted to finally have the discussion her wanted to have and he explosively blew up at me. Immediately, he started intensely screaming at me asking me about why I didn't like his partner. This took me by surprise, so I started getting heated and I pointed out that she seemed pretty superficial, hard to talk to, and that she was really disrespectful to all of our friends. Quickly, he got even more angry and said that all of our friends were "career obsessed people" and that I was the worst one of them all because I'm obsessed with grad school. He said that I was "an egotistical person", with "poor social skills", and that I only care about making friends with people "who kiss my ass and and feed my enormous ego". Additionally, he stated that I was an extremely "selfish person" and he purposely grew apart from me because I was such a broken person with so many problems. He also said that if I couldn't see or agree with him I "needed to look deep within myself". After this, I went home, slept off the fight, and texted him to cut off the friendship the next day.
Not only did I found all of this hurtful, but I found this to be extremely hypocritical. Despite all that I did for him, he wasn't really there for me during the worst years of my life. Also, I recognize that I do work abnormally hard and dont spend time as much time with my friends as I used to. However, I feel that I mainly do this to so I can be successful in support my family and because grad school is a deep passion of mine.
I get the sense that now, some of my other friends are a bit upset with me because I ended this friendship. Is this my fault? I did press him. He initially said that he wanted to wait on our discussion, but I pointed out that we live in different states and don't see each other that much anymore. Did I pressure him too much? Maybe I'm being too sentimental, but I used to think that this was the person in my life who knew me the best. I used to always think of myself as the kind of person who will stand up for what is right. So hearing this from him, made me question my own self-perception a bit.
Sorry for the long, great-american-novel, of a post.

Hi All,
We are in the middle of doing some work on our new co-op. It should be done in about 8-12 weeks so I wanted to get a jumpstart on ordering a new chaise sectional as I know many take at least 6-8 weeks to come in.
It needs to be 100" (or smaller) total length-wise. My partner is tall and I am fat, so I want it to be a minimum of 90"+ as our place is small and it will be the only seating in our living room.
We are budgeting to spend between 2k-3k give or take for it. I don't mind paying for something of decent quality as we are going to be in this place for a while...
The aesthetic we are going for is simple and modern. Torn between two different color schemes of a deep olive green or navy... Not totally necessary though.
The Crate and Barrell Barrett II is at the top of my list. It's a plus that there is storage in the chaise since our place is small. Do you experts think that it will hold up nicely for at least 5 years? We are two grown adults with a very tiny doggy and no kids... Any other suggestions for sofas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks! :)

i’m not skinny in the slightest. i’ve always struggled with that for my whole entire life, and recently i just got a hold of it and started to love myself. then i met a girl, and we dated for ten months, but she absolutely wrecked my self esteem all over again :( i’m now back where i started and it is so upsetting. i try to be positive but there is always a part of my brain telling me that no woman will ever truly think i’m beautiful because i’m not skinny, and i don’t look like all the pretty girls on social media who have loving girlfriends, even though that’s a little ridiculous to think. my brain is just absolutely convinced that other women won’t find me pretty because i’m fat, and the men on the internet that go on about how “ugly fat women are” and that “fat women are never pretty” don’t help either. i hate that i have to be in a place where i rely on other peoples opinions of me again, but that’s just where i am. i’m scared i’ll never find someone who thinks i’m beautiful, even though i think i’m beautiful.
tldr: to all the wlw people out there, do you think fat women are beautiful? are there people in my dating pool who will think i am attractive? :( even though i think i’m beautiful, people always say that no one finds fat women attractive and it’s starting to get to me. i personally find fat women attractive, so i don’t see what everyone is on about, but it still gets to me :(

i’m not skinny in the slightest. i’ve always struggled with that for my whole entire life, and recently i just got a hold of it and started to love myself. then i met a girl, and we dated for ten months, but she absolutely wrecked my self esteem all over again :( i’m now back where i started and it is so upsetting. i try to be positive but there is always a part of my brain telling me that no woman will ever truly think i’m beautiful because i’m not skinny, and i don’t look like all the pretty girls on social media who have loving girlfriends, even though that’s a little ridiculous to think. my brain is just absolutely convinced that other women won’t find me pretty because i’m fat, and the men on the internet that go on about how “ugly fat women are” and that “fat women are never pretty” don’t help either. i hate that i have to be in a place where i rely on other peoples opinions of me again, but that’s just where i am. i’m scared i’ll never find someone who thinks i’m beautiful, even though i think i’m beautiful.
tldr: to all the wlw people out there, do you think fat women are beautiful? are there people in my dating pool who will think i am attractive? :( even though i think i’m beautiful, people always say that no one finds fat women attractive and it’s starting to get to me. i personally find fat women attractive, so i don’t see what everyone is on about, but it still gets to me :(

So, this post is opposite my previous ones, but I walk up tonight with a different view of relationships.
I am 25 years old, living in Central Europe. I I am not fat, actually I hit the gym regularly, I am now pursuing a PhD in Stem and work for a big financial firm, renting a biggish place in a good neighbourhood.
Truly I believe all I want to add to the list is IN A Relationship and I mostly want it To FEEL complete. Now there is the need for company at night, someone to talk to etc, but mostly I want it in my bucket list. But probably I shouldn't, because this is the only goal not dependent on me only. It's like I believe that if I get the bucket list full I will get validated and envied by other (the same way I envy happy couples like my many young neighbours, that spend weekends laughing on the balconies and stopping me from sleeping ). I probably won't receive the validation and despite being in a relationship is important few would care.
So I need to accept I am on the right path and even if I am single I should be proud of my accomplishments. This probably leads to red pill incel bull.. that I might have tendency to go to unfortunately, but I don't hate women and this is the only viable solution I see for my mental health.
I still want a relationship and share a bed with someone, but I won't let it define me.I am not going to put it on my bucket list.

i’m (F 17) 5’3 and currently 98 pounds. i’ve been eating much healthier than i used to when i was 105 pounds. 80% of what i used to eat was pure sugar. now that i’ve replaced that with vegetables and fruits, i’ve been losing weight over the past few weeks.
my body type is similar to “skinny fat” my limbs are skinny but my stomach is a rectangle and im not slim enough to have abs which is my goal. my goal weight was 94 pounds before i’d start eating protein and trying to put on muscle. i just want the fat gone first. however, i brought it up with my friends and they said the goal was extremely unhealthy and i should stop. i don’t have an ED, i just didn’t think it was unhealthy. i haven’t been starving either, my body is happy with this amount of food.
is it okay to eat like this? i can’t tell if my friends are being overly cautious or if i’m not being cautious enough. i don’t want to jeopardize my health but really i still have a lot of fat on my stomach and i want that gone before i start gaining weight and muscle.

So, I’m on ozempic for diabetes and weight loss. 41F probably 355, down 10 lb since starting, second week on the 2 mg. I’m not calorie counting, and probably should be because maybe I could answer my own question.
For the most part it has also helped my BED, by shutting up the food chatter. Breakfast is like 2 eggs and toast sandwich, dinner is hello fresh meals, and lunch is leftover hello fresh. I try to drink water but sometimes I forget. Working on that. I have a fussy gall bladder, so I try to stay away from fats, but every few weeks I get a nearly un-shut-up-able craving for a fatty steak or some sort of heavy protein. I do have some diarrhea after fatty meals on the first few days after taking my dose.
I try lean protein snacks or cheese, but nothing is satisfying. Should I just satisfy the beast because I’m under eating protein? Just wondering if anyone else has the same experience?

Fucking, struggling so hard lately I gained weight well past my compromise recovery weight (feeling skinny fat but with decent QOL in case you were wondering).
Trying desperately to eat as little as possible but just binging instead (great :) ) I cannot seem to stop :)
Went back through my food logs from the height of it all, guys, I was eating on average 1400-1500 kcal a day. Ranging from 600-3000in any given day. The monthly stat's don't lie. I'd conned myself into thinking it was 'worse' now but dude it's been binge restrict this entire damn time!! I just didn't effing realise because I was LOSING weight and many of my days individually were <1200
Guess my therapist was right.
Gonna go curl into a defeated ball now ttyl.

Evidence #1: all the old ladies with the same shape. They got old somehow, didn't they.
As my general composition changes, here, it's becoming clear that this is a feature and not a bug. A bit of extra fat keeps estrogen levels up but also sees you through illness and keeps your bones stronger than they'd otherwise be. Why fat, why so much in the middle, well, where else are you going to store energy efficiently? Your wrists? Left toe? Easier to carry in the middle than anywhere else.
It's really obvious that the energetics have changed here -- I can ride ten miles, run four, garden, do housework, I'm not overeating and the scale doesn't budge. In fact, very slowly, it creeps up. This says to me that this is how my body is supposed to be now. I had the same epiphany when I was 20ish and aerobics instructor -- if my pants were too tight and I was teaching, riding my bike or running to/from the club, and eating sensibly, the answer was to buy bigger pants and quit trying to suck it in, because I wasn't a skinny 14-year-old track girl anymore, and I was grown, and a different shape, and weighed a good 20-25% more than I had back then.
I think probably the main symptoms of good health in menopause are:

• you feel pretty good
• like any healthy animal with hair, you have a glossy mane
• you sleep as well as can be expected given hot flashes etc.
• your appetite is good and you enjoy your meals
• your bloodwork doesn't show anything crazy

I think the thing that hits us is that the changes happen so fast. Like all of a sudden, beach ball in the middle. Neck fell down. Carrying a portable fan everywhere. Etc. But they aren't really happening fast -- they just crossed a meridian, and then all the related changes came.
ope, gotta hang the laundry

My throat started hurting about two months ago, and a few days ago, I was diagnosed with LPR. I have decided to go all in on lifestyle changes as I currently can’t go for two minutes without thinking about my throat hurting. Most of the changes are quite easy for me to implement (low fat and low acid meals, note if I individually respond to anything, high pillow, more small meals, workout regularly, meditation 2 times a day, etc…). However, one thing I am struggling with is the water. As far as I can read I should not drink water 45 min before or after meals (I assume neither during meals), I should not drink water 2 hours before I lay down for sleep or during the night, but I should drink a lot of water. I am used to drinking about 3 – 3.5 liter of water a day, and I usually take a sip every 5 minutes from a water bottle that I always have with me. I even usually have a bottle on my bedside at night which is almost empty in the morning. How do you handle the water drinking? I find it very hard to time my water drinking to the exact middle between two meals and drink a lot at a time, and especially the no water from 2 hours before bed until the morning makes my mouth dry.

James Hutton

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History
Today is the 297th anniversary of the birth of James Hutton (03 June 1726 - 26 March 1797), who was born in Edinburgh on this date in 1726.
Happy Birthday James!
Hutton is known as the Father of Modern Geology. Hutton was not the greatest writer so his Theory of the Earth is not as well known as, for example, Lyell’s Principles of Geology or Darwin’s Origin of Species, but all of the essential elements were present that began the revolution of thinking about deep time. This is a revolution that is still unfolding as we challenge ourselves to think in terms of cosmological time.
There is a striking passage in The Geology of the Bass, by Hugh Miller, which is included in the book The Bass Rock: Its Civil and Ecclesiastic History, by Thomas M’Crie, which describes James Hutton describing the geology of the Bass Rock, an island off the coast of Scotland:

“Dr Hutton,” continues the Professor, “was highly pleased with appearances that set in so clear a light the different formations of the parts which compose the exterior crust of the earth, and where all the circumstances were combined that could render the observation satisfactory and precise. On us, who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression made will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable, had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses. We often said to ourselves, what clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated these formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? We felt ourselves necessarily carried back to the time when the schistus on which we stood was yet at the bottom of the sea, and when the sandstone before us was only beginning to be deposited, in the shape of sand or mud, from the waters of a superincumbent ocean. An epocha still more remote presented itself, when even the most ancient of these rocks, instead of standing upright in vertical beds, lay in horizontal planes at the bottom of the sea, and were not yet disturbed by that immeasurable force which has burst asunder the solid pavement of the globe. Revolutions still more remote appeared in the distance of this extraordinary perspective. The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go, than imagination can venture to follow. As for the rest, we were truly fortunate in the course we had pursued in this excursion; a great number of other curious and important facts presented themselves; and we returned, having collected in one day more ample materials for future speculation than have sometimes resulted from years of diligent and laborious research.”

Hutton’s writings may not have been compelling, but from this description we gather that his personal presence must have been a different matter. This geological description of the Bass Rock goes on for pages, all of it presented as an embedded quote from another writer, Professor Playfair.

Further Resources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James\_Hutton
https://www.james-hutton.org/
https://archive.org/details/theoryearthwith00huttgoog
https://archive.org/details/bassrockitscivi00balfgoog