Levi's question is one I do not like to hear asked of me, but it is a question that I've been asking myself lately. I'm losing a lot of mobility and that makes the obesity even more difficult to deal with. Until recently I was able to carry it off, sort of, with some sort of bravado. Now I'm fighting to get strength back in my legs so I can walk and do the daily things that I need to do.

Levi has apologized for his manner of presenting this question. I am not grumpy at Levi and anyone who reads the earlier posts can see that several of us accept Levi's question as an honest one. After all, it's a question that I am now asking of myself at nearly 63 and facing some joint problems that are certainly part of toting all this weight wherever I go - which is not far.

Levi, if you are still reading this thread, thanks for the question!

Edit: My mistake, about Levi and all. By the time I came aboard, this thread was being discussed with Skelington, a 15yr-old trying to bulk up; his questions made sense for a guy his age and size. That's who I remember from back when I was first trying to find my way around this forum in June 2006: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost...2&postcount=378 This thread was in Triple Digits back then, I think, and I was interested to read the replies from a lot of people who ask themselves the same question Levi posted and Skelington was probing to discover some answers to his own weight issues. Anyway I disremembered who the teenager was; Skelington, not Levi.

Was Levi just a troll? I don't know. I never could figure out how anyone knows who is a troll and who is simple earnestly asking a difficult question.

But I am a guest at this forum and glad to have found my way here. Grateful.

Levi has not been here for over 4 years.

And I, for one, would really, really like to see this thread die a natural death. Levi was a troll who started this thread only to stir up our members. JMHO

Rosebud

I know I'm late, but I just found this thread when someone bounced it to the top.




That's excellently written. Better than I did recently, but the same "don't gimme that crap about gluttony" end-result as a blogpost I had the other day (The Bon Bon Theory) -- it was good to see this here. Thanks Lisa.

I gained 200 lbs in less than 2 years in my mid 20's, during two hectic years. Before that, I'd spent my days in management and my nights playing guitar and singing, often in local clubs and coffeehouses. I was used to getting respect as intelligent and competent, and admiration as creatively talented and dynamic.

Since I was working / commuting / schooling myself to death during the weight gain, I really didn't even NOTICE the degree of it until I left my job and school and moved out of the big city. I swear I think I had serious brain-fog or something. (Actually I believe this was true.)

Once I gained weight, how people reacted to me changed drastically. I was pretty damn offended about it for a long time. It turns out I myself was judgemental about people in many ways that I had never been that aware of. I became aware of it when they would clearly be judgemental about ME and I was doubly offended that "they" (despite something I considered a flaw or failing) would have the gall to judge me... I really had a helluva oversized ego, I came to realize.

But most of the positive responses to me were pretty much wiped out. Once I got to know someone and they 'adapted' to me, that began returning for those individuals, but in general the response to my size was so overwhelming for people that it was like their entire picture of me as a human being was demoted to something only slightly subhuman.

On the bright side, coworkers then treated me like their mother instead of a piece -- I did get a little more respect indirectly in the work aren. I suppose that's a bright side, anyway. Unfortunately it meant I was no longer presentable for marketing conventions, investor presentations, and even rather a shame at the board of directors meetings.

Ironically, people who make the most attempt to pay attention to what they read and hear about health and weight management, and take their doctors seriously, are the ones who, despite this self-education, are the most likely to be fat-and-getting-fatter, since our entire educational system is geared toward low-fat/high-carb as 'healthy'. Heck, the majority of doctors and nurses even of today, when there's been more research than ever on the topic, who are very well educated, believe that low-fat/high-carb is the way to lose weight and improve blood readings.

I do believe that 'ignorance' is one of the primary answers here, but it's due to deliberate disinformation and miseducation, because both marketing and medical education are totally run by the 'sponsors' -- which are all the grain and sugar related industries. You know, I look back on my life and I think, if I had known about lowcarb when I first realized how much weight I'd suddenly gained; if I had not done stringent dieting, very proper and motivated, and only gained weight from it, and realized half my family had been dieting for decades with the same result so it was just hopeless; how different my whole life would have been with lowcarb. And so a great deal of the answer comes down to the hopeless why-try attitude, based on people who did perfect and stringent 'dieting' and saw it only made things worse, based on people who made an attempt to get educated about what would trim weight -- and got essentially the opposite info of what's real.

Maybe they are fattening our world up for the Reptilians.

My friend has the option between food stamps vs. the native american 'commodities' (food). If she takes the native option, she gets 3x as much food for her family of four. However, the foods consist of huge amounts of white flour, white rice, white bread, potatoes, pasta, 'processed american cheese food product', breakfast cereals, etc. and they don't get to choose what they get or from healthier options. So she takes the food stamps instead, despite that it limits her a great deal, because then she can buy more meat and whole-grain products etc. for the family.

We were just discussing the other day how ironic this is, research already having indicated the genetic predisposition to real problems with carbs and alcohol in the native population. I joked, "they don't need to shoot the indians anymore, they just need to feed them!"

(I am part native, but off the rolls, so it ain't 'official'. ;-))

While working to a very high personal standard in publishing field - typesetting and editing and bookmaking - I found myself dealt out of meetings and long lunches and other venues where social standards favor long legs and vapid smiles. By the time I hit a publishing company where looks mattered more than production, I weighed 400# and was pleased to be hired by anyone at all. I worked under mindless folks who anticipated climbing the ladder that I worked underneath as they breezed by me with their talk of what cereals they mixed for breakfast and other nonsense. It was different when I was working and weighed under 200#, but I thought then that I was recognized for high production and for singular competence. Not so, apparently, for all that went away as the weight crept on and I got pushed from job to job, moving along with the certainty that I'd get hired for just showing up.

I did get hired. As time went by, I was hired by folks who had no idea how to accomplish the work that I do easily and then watch someone mess up as they put their initials on it and make some adjustment that throws the entire thing out of whack. Do they notice? Naw. Once had a math author call me in a fit of rage, as he saw that my "superior" (long legs, long lunches with a visiting author, empty head, officed right next to the big boss) had converted a lot of his math equation parentheses according to the rules of English grammar that convert some parens to the square brackets. That's not a math thing. By the time the author had finished fuming at me on the phone, I'd convinced him that I was not in charge of Ms.LongLegs and that I could not fix anything she had doodled on, messing up a manuscript he and I had worked on for months. I gave him the ph# of the Big Boss, the one who could fix what Ms.LongLegs had done. Boy, did I get fried! The BigBoss wanted to know what in the world the author was upset about. I told him. Never heard a word. Far as I could tell, the book went on sale with nonsense for equations. See, the BigBoss believed that only a book that hit the market could affect sales. A book being fixed was not for sale and could not make money. MsLongLegs? She survived and was eventually in charge of sorting me out, letting me go. Since she never knew what she did wrong, how could she know what I did right? Oh, I could go on...oh, I already did?

Well, as I find my way in this LC life, I wonder what sort of a person I'd be if my legs had not turned into stumps that no one wants to gaze at. I'd probably be promoted and still think that it was in appreciation for my hard work. ha ha ha

Being obese has allowed me to see the seamy side of life. I hope I remember always what it feels like to be treated like a cow just because I have a bovine body. My mind is not bovine, but who cares? Even people who take time to know me, to read what I write, consider that I'm dull-witted enough to fail to keep myself in shape to control a gofer who hands me a paycheck and drives me around and otherwise serves me. Well, maybe I am a nitwit.

But I know what I know. And someday I may have firm thighs and washboard abs - and my own pride in how I've managed life. May have? Well, I will have all that, if I can keep myself aware of WHY I GOT OBESE IN THE FIRST PLACE. I think this is a good question for anyone to ask of themself. This is the 397th post in a thread that seems to have value for those who have read it and given some thought to the question. I rest my case. Whew!

I know this thread is old, but that's why archives exist LOL.


This poster's eating plan referred to 'whole foods'. Probably lots of good healthy grain-based products! The very thing which is more likely to make someone already seriously obese even fatter. It's being "helped" by that very kind of "education" that has helped ruin the bodies and lives of countless people.

Hahahaha...This thread has been around for as long as I can remember.

Zer,

I think we can all empathize with the situation regarding your tale. There’s an old saying that “pretty” people tend to get better results, which is a reflection of our society’s present values.

Naturally, I’m not suggesting it’s right. As an individual, we don’t create the rules in which society is governed (especially subjective opinions that can never be governed or legislated upon, nor should they be) but have to live within them. Irrespective of my or your personal disdain or philosophical views on how “my” present society judges the worth of a person upon first impressions, we must choose to either live within or outside of societal acceptances.

There is nothing wrong with being overweight (as it relates to personal choice, I’m not commenting on whatever health issues that may or may not exist allegedly associated with being overweight). In my view, so long as it doesn’t infringe on another, a person ought to have every right to live his life as he deems fitting. Ideally, one would think our society has evolved to the point where it should be perfectly acceptable to make personal choices against societal norms while suffering no repercussions, especially professional ones, from those respective choices. Sadly, having been a part of corporate America all of my adult working life, I can unequivocally declare this is not the case, especially as it relates to some of the more senior positions.

Just as in the case of every minority having to adjust to the majority’s whims, a person should be cognizant of societal views and adjust accordingly based on the preferences of his goals in life.

Being obese or thin is not wrong, and both are perfectly valid personal choices. If a person opts to be “larger,” it’s a perfectly good choice, so long as he realizes, accepts, and is prepared to deal with some of society’s negative connotations attached to being overweight.

With kindest regards,

Frederick

In a couple of days, I'll see the HMO MD who will advise me to avoid salt (even though my bloodwork shows a fine sodium level) and to avoid fat (even though I've told him I'm aiming at Atkins) and to be concerned about my bp (even though it's the HMO's cuffs on my batwings that gives a false reading and causes me massive bruising and ungodly pain - probably a sign of Dercum's) as he thinks maybe I need some bp meds. Me with home bp scores mostly under 120/80 taken in a calm atmosphere on a device that reads my bp from a digit. No bruising. Sigh.

And he's one of the better MDs I've seen at this HMO - and in life. Where can I find a metabolic medicine practitioner? Are all of an HMO's MDs likely to be focused on medicating a symptom as if the symptom (obesity, pain in my hip/leg) is the problem? Allopathic medicine offers drugs to stifle symptoms. I want more. Or does a wise person become adept at righting what's wrong in one's own metabolism, by educating one's self and seeking to become more than a patient to a befuddled MD whose training has gaps and holes and whose interest simply cannot be as strong as that of a patient who is determined to avoid being drugged into toxic dependence on allopathic doctors? Can I become a healthy person on my own? Dare I defy my HMO's MD's medical knowledge and nutritional ignorance? Dare I ignore the blatant signals that are sent by mystified MD's who see my labwork is puzzlingly good in spite of my obvious obesity? How can this be? Well, just hand out the advice about eating low-fat and tell a fat patient to watch the salt - nevermind that the labwork says sodium is in safe range. Sigh... what can a person do?

As a last note (I read this ENTIRE THREAD, good heavens!), I think the whole value of message boards over email lists IS their archives. It's the ability of people in 2006 to join a conversation with their thoughts, that began in 2002, regardless of whether half the people in the early part of the thread are now gone.

Message boards don't assume everybody is talking to the initial poster, they exist so that people can share their thoughts "with others" in general, and often on the topic "in general".

Any thread that stimulates conversation is a good thread for an active forum. Forums where everyone has to be polite, and avoid threads that are contentious, tend to have a lot less discussion on them... and much of that discussion lost is good discussion.

I've always said, since I began on the internet in the early 90's, that the best thing someone could provide me on a forum was a flame of some sort; the opportunity to explain and educate then avails itself. (Aside from which, then, the more reasonable you are, the more they look like a jerk. haha)

The thread is so long in size and time because it's a question most of us have asked ourselves at some point, and because many of the responses on the thread have been reasonable, insightful, and sometimes heartbreaking sharing from locals. I don't think folks should try to kill it. I just think it would be nice if people read the end of a real long thread rather than only the beginning, since it is rare that any thread over a few pages, is still on the precise subject at the end as it was in the beginning. (This may be one of the few threads that kind-of is!)
.

Wow I remember when this thread first appeared! !!

Apart from the binge following the breakup with my ex,that means I have been educated about and living low carb for 4 years!

No wonder my health is so much better and now that I'm back to eating healthy (i.e. low carb) I'm losing the weight again.

There are so many factors with weight loss and weight control yes, but if we had all been educated about low carb and healthy and nutritious eating we probably wouldn't have gained that weight at all. Because when one's insulin control and metabolism is not damaged by low fat even small changes like wholegrain instead of white flour products and protein with every meal will enable many, many people to stay at a healthy weight with a healthy body.

Jarmin-you said it so well. That's exactly my problem and Im sure I have plenty of company. All of the other reasons.....bad american diet, lack of fruits, veges, etc....are all just excuses. The word is DENIAL. I have been living in it for the past twenty years and Im glad Im finally out.

Society keeps trying to convince us that there is a quick fix, a magic pill, or some way to lose weight without doing the obvious....And we have all bought it at one time or another.

We all know that you have to your change your diet and get off your butt and exercise. Give up the chips for good and don't look back. The typical American diet is horrendous and if you want to be healthy, you have to live out of the mainstream. Its not easy, but necessary to be in good health.

There are a select few that can handle the typical american diet, but from the looks of it, not many. I work in a hospital. 25 years ago, most of the patients were easy to lift, wore regular sized gowns, and anything over 160 pounds was considered big. Now its the norm. The extra large gowns and pants are the most used sizes, the people who invent the mechanical patient lifts are making a fortune and the nurses and techs all have bad backs from lifting obese people. Things have changed. You can choose to be a part of it or not. I look at obese people every day and the health nightmares they have become and that still didn't cure me of the very same lifestyle. I had to be diagnosed diabetic and lose part of my eyesight for the message to hit home.

The sad thing is.....once you realize you need to change and actually do, you find that its not so tough and you wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

Is it time for this thread to return to Triple Digits, where it was when I first saw it? I think the discussion shows that this is not a War Zone, for it's a question many obese people ask themself. The discussion has value to someone grappling with DENIAL and preparing to unwrap that cloak (that I've used so well for so many years just to get up and OUT the door) and venture forth!

For me the problem was emotional eating...eating when bored or depressed. Luckily I'm not a carb addict, as I can easily take them or leave them. But because food was used as a crutch, I had to try retrain myself not to think in that way. Its a constant battle (but one that I'm winning slowly).