On 3FC, there’ve been a couple threads recently about doctors recommending more modest weight loss goals, and whether that was a positive or negative thing. My opinion is that it doesn’t ultimately matter nearly as much as what our goals are for ourselves.
In 8th grade, I was put on amphetemine diet pills. By junior year, I’d lost 70 lbs (from 225 to 155). My goal was 150. The pills were no longer working, so I was off those (diet pills typically are effective only for several months) and I was struggling like mad to lose the last 5 lbs. In hindsight, I suppose the doctor assumed that I thought I’d gotten complacent thinking I was “close enough”, and thought a lower goal might remotivatea me (it had the opposite effect and I gave up entirely, feeling I was doomed to failure so why bother).
I don’t blame the doctor, he really was a very caring and empathetic physician. About a decade later, when I was in a car accident with a semi (mild because I was uninjured, for my car it was fatal), and had no one to take me home, this same doctor gave me a ride home (I didn’t even realize until later that I didn’t have to tell him the address, and he’d only been to the house once for a housecall for my mother five years before - even in the 80’s and early 90’s most doctors didn’t do housecalls - or charged outrageously for them).
I go out of my way to illustrate that the doctor wasn’t careless or callous, because it was MY misinterpretation of reality that caused the trauma of his recommendation to lower my goal. Doctors are not infallible and their recommendations are only recommendations not God-gifts written on stone tablets. I wish I’d been older and wiser, and wouldn’t have let his goal for me affect my goal for me.
The second goal reset by a doctor occurred a couple years ago when I joined TOPS and needed a goal slip (TOPS is usually pretty flexible about when you provide your goal slip, but I wanted to get it done so I had the goal in mind).
My doctor asked what I wanted my goal to be, and I suggested 200 lbs (still obese). The doctor raised his eyebrow, and asked “are you sure about that.” I explained that I thought I’d try to get to 200 lbs and maybe try to maintain it for a while before deciding whether I thought I could lose more.
He smiled and said he meant “the other direction,” and suggested 250 (still morbidly obese), and we agreed on that for my TOPS goal slip. I was actually relieved to have a doctor who didn’t have much more stringent goals for me than I had for myself. It didn’t make me feel like I had to stop or should at 250 lbs.
Older and wiser, I was able to see that the doctor’s goal for me wasn’t as important as my goal for me. Although I’m not yet wise enough to have patience with doctors who do have more stringent goals for me than I do. I had no patience at all for the rheumatologist who insisted that I have wls - and refused to treat me until I’d had a consult with a wls, even though I explained why my gp and I felt I wasn’t a good candidate for the surgery. The rheumy insisted that I could find a surgeon willing to do the procedure, and he wouldn’t treat me unless I tried to find that surgeon. Yeah, I didn’t go back to that doctor.
Yes doctors have knowledge, skills and sometimes wisdom that we lack - or we wouldn’t need them at all. But a roofer has knowledge and skills I lack also. When I hire either, I don’t surrender my wisdom and common sense when either make reccomendations.
I respect my doctor’s opinion, but ultimately I’m in charge. I found it refreshing to have a doctor suggest that I was being overly ambitious, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. He could have suggested any weight from 90 lbs to 900 - and it wouldn’t have changed my goals for me (it might have changed my opinion of his sanity if he’d chosen “you’re fine as you are,” or if he’d said “you need to weigh 115 lbs.”)
I do trust and respect my current doctor, and when I do get to 250 lbs, I’m sure he will support my decision if I want to keep losing (I don’t imagine he’d say “oh no, you’re now much too thin to lose any more.”)
My neurologist only asks for 10 lbs a year. That doesn’t mean that he expects me to stop if I lose those 10 lbs in the first three months.
My ENT (struggling with weight himself) has always said “if you can lose weight, do it,” but never stresses a number and just says “do what you can.”
None of these doctors (even the first) were “wrong” they just expressed different recommendations. Ultimately YOURS is the most important opinion.
I know I took a lot of words to give a relatively simple opinion, but this is a bit of a hot button topic for me, because I’d like to prevent anyone from repeating my first mistake - which so often still happens - people giving up because their goal seems impossible. If your goal seems impossible make a smaller goal, get there and then decide if you want to take on more - and as for other’s goals for you - always remember your goals matter most.
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