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Old 07-23-2010, 10:38 PM   #1  
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Recently, I've received a lot of commentary on the slowness of my weight loss, especially from family. From family and friends and even in online communities, I've gotten alot of "tips and suggestions" for losing weight faster. I feel so much pushing from behind, that I'm wondering if I'm starting to dig in my heels.

I've been giving it thought recently, and it suddently dawned on me, that I'm not trying to lose weight.

I don't know why this is a revelation to me, since it's really what I've planned all along. When I started this journey, I vowed that weight loss was not going to be my goal, just a likely side effect of my goal.

My goal was to make health improvements -

eat healthier in both quantity and quality
get more and better sleep
get stronger
improve endurance
reduce symptoms of my health issues
improve or resolve some of those health issues
reduce my need for medication
reduce my stress level
improve my response to stress
to stop avoiding situations solely based on my weight. For example, if my health prevents me from bicycle riding that's fine, but if it's because of how I look on a bike that had to change (and it did)

In a nutshell, my goal was to fet as much out of life as possible (and all the previous things were concrete means to that end). My goal was to stop putting aspects of my life on hold until I "lose more weight." To start doing it all of it now.

That was over 4 years ago, and I've succeeded tremendously. I purposely didn't put weight loss on the list, because I knew that working on all those other things were going to result in weight loss (and it eventually did).

I lost the first 20 lbs without trying to do anything. I lost the next 65 lbs without trying to lose weight. I really like this weight loss without trying. I like it so much, that I don't ever fear "giving up" as I once did. There's nothing to give up. Why on earth would I stop trying to get as much from life as possible.

No wonder, I get so snippy when people give me suggestions on ways to improve/hasten my weight loss, or when they comment upon or question the rate of my weight loss.

I've been arguing that the speed of weight loss isn't the issue, but I've forgotten to argue that weight loss isn't the issue. Weight loss isn't important. Weight loss can even be unhealthy. It matters HOW a person loses weight, because the weight loss isn't the important part - the eating, thinking, and moving healthier is.

Sometimes you can make progress in eating, thinking and moving, and not lose any weight. Sometimes progress in one area can even result in temporary weight gain (many people avoid or postpone, adding in exercise for that very reason, because it can interfere with weight loss - at least temporarily). The short-term can become more important than the long-term.

If you keep striving to eat, think, and move healthier, ou will eventually end up at a healthy weight (or pretty close to it). Weight IS an indicator of health, but not the only one - but sometimes it seems that all we're taught to care aobut is the weight loss.

No one cares or asks about my blood pressure, my cholesterol, my medication reductions, and all of the other indicators of health. It's so culturally ingrained- that while I initially knew weight loss wouldn't be my only sign of progress, I've gradually lost sight of that. Just like everyone else, I started forgetting, ignoring or discounting the other signs of progress, focusing only on the scale (Bad, Colleen).

Years ago, I vowed never to diet again (because diets have only ever ultimately resulted in weight gain for me), and I only began trying again after losing 20 lbs without trying (long story). I wanted to capture and duplicate that experience of unintentional weight loss. I vowed that I would commit to healthy changes in my life, regardless of whether or not they resulted in weight loss. I would make sure that weight loss wasn't the goal at all costs. I vowed that I would focus on health and let the weight take care of itself.

It cannot become about losing faster, because it's can't be about losing weight at all (for me. I do very stupid things when it's only about the weight, or even mostly about the weight).

I've gotten alot of feedback, some of it constructive and some of it, not-so-much on the rate of my weight loss (mostly advice on how I could speed up the weight loss). It's all irritated me, but I only just realized why. I don't need this advice, because I already know how to lose weight faster, and I've determined that is not the route for me. Losing weight faster gets me into trouble. I get stupid and compulsive. I start taking health risks and short cuts to get to the goal faster (forgetting thaqt the goal is health).

I can't allow myself to eat, think, or move in unhealthy ways, in the name of faster weight loss. Since my goal isn't weight loss (at least not weight loss by any means), it's important for me to work towards my true goal - Health, strength, and stamina. I've been forgetting that sometimes my signs of progress for the month - aren't weight related at all.

So if weight loss isn't my goal, why am I writing a weight loss blog, and visiting a weight loss site?

Good question (that I asked myself)....... and the answer is that maybe I shouldn't be. The weight loss isn't my goal, it's not even really the reward, it's just a side effect (a happy side effect, but still only a side effect). And yet, whenever I've tried to discuss my "real goals" it always comes back to weight loss (because I think it's all we're taught to care about).

When I started this journey about four to four and a half years ago, I vowed not to "diet," not to focus on my weight at all. I was going to make healthy changes that I could commit to whether or not they resulted in weight loss. Weight loss would eventually come, but it would be one of the rewards at best, and a minor one at that. More a happy side-effect, than a reward (the reward was health gains). I vowed to make changes that would improve my health, with or without weight loss. For the first two years, there was no weight loss (and I was ok with that, because the health strides I was making were so impressive on their own).

But sometimes, even I tend to see those years as wasted years, even though they were far but wasted. But sometimes I see them as years that prepared me for success, not years I acheived it. I forget all the health improvements that I gained during those two weight-loss free years (but I maintained my weight loss, I'd never done that before. I've maintained my highest weight before, but I had never maintained a weight loss for two years before. Sometimes I forget what a big accomplisment that was).

Those years lay the groundwork, they were very effective in their own right. I didn't lose weight during those two years, but I was very successful in making other healthy changes. They were just changes that didn't result in weight loss.

Even though my plan was not to focus on weight loss, I couldn't help but do so when the weight started coming off. I had too much practice in thinking that only the weight mattered. I FORGOT that weight loss wasn't supposed to be the goal. It was a forgetting that was gradual. At first I said "weight loss isn't my goal," then "weight loss isn't my primary goal..." until I was talking less and less about anything but the weight loss. It became about the weight loss (and I started to "fail" at weight loss as a result. I never let it become failing at maintenance, but it didn become failure at losing - because I made it about losing, and fell into old habits.

My life is so different than when I've started, and some of my most dramatic health improvements have come at the expense, or at least with the absence of weight loss.

Losing weight to get health benefits, rarely worked very well for me in the short-term, and never worked for me in the long-term. Focusing only on the health benefits, was the first true success I've ever experienced. Gaining health benefits was working so well, that it inevitably resulted in the weight loss that had been eluding me for 40 years. I was so excited that I was losing weight "without really trying to" that I forgot that the aim was the health benefits, not the weight loss.

For most people, weight loss is the main point, some times the whole point. At the very least, the weight loss is seen as the main indicator of the health improvements (whether or not any actually are occuring).

The fact is, most of us couldn't care less about the health aspects of weight loss. Or we want to believe it's about health, but don't pay attention to our health - only to our weight loss.

I've fallen into that trap, a trap I was consciously trying to avoid.

I feel like someone who builds a career upon what they love. Initially it's "not about the money," but when the money starts rolling in, it becomes "about the money" and the person's love for their career is lost. Sometimes to the point that the abandon the money AND the career.

I don't want to fall out of love with my new "career." The career of taking care of myself.

I know I can lose faster, but I'd have to sacrifice some of my other goals to do it. And all of those other goals were carefully chosen. Deciding to lose faster, would require giving up, or devoting less effort ot other healthy goals. I'd be moving away from my goal of balanced health - to shift it toward onl one aspect of it.

I've got to refocus, but I'm not sure how I can defocus on weight loss here and on other weight loss boards. I'm thinking maybe the time on this and other weight loss sites is actually contributing to, rather than helping with that problem.

It's so ironic that I can't lose weight when I focus on the weight. It only ever seems to work, when I turn my focus on the eating, thinking, and moving.
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Old 07-23-2010, 11:04 PM   #2  
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This was a very interesting post ( yours always are!). Some of what you wrote reminds me of glory's story, that she read a book about healthy eating, focused on that, and the weight came off. I wish I had the strength of character to do that! I need to do both. The times I've tried to focus on health, I find it's easy to "slip". I know that my current weight is not healthy, and while I want to lose weight in a healthful way, I need to watch the numbers. But that's me. Of course, we all have to find our way. It sounds as if you have found yours, but I hope you don't go away!

I'll bet if you started a thread called Focus on Healthy Eating there'd be a lot of takers.

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Old 07-23-2010, 11:42 PM   #3  
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You misunderstand, if you think I'm not watching the numbers. It isn't that weight loss can't be part of the equation, but I have to make sure that it isn't the main goal and that it isn't a goal made independent of the greater goal of health. I don't want weight loss, I want healthy weight loss, and to get healthy weight loss, I've found that I have to focus on the health part. It's about the focus, not the behavior.

And I especiallyh cannot allow myself to associate the goal of weight loss with a timetable. The fastest way to failure for me is to try to lose a specific amount of weight, within a specific time frame. That sends me into a tailspin of unhealthy thoughts and behaviors.

I'm not talking about "healthy eating" without counting and controlling calories. I don't consider that healthy eating. I've eaten "healthy" using that definition for many years, and found it just as easy to maintain my very high weight on a "healthy diet," as on an unhealthy one. There is no such thing as a healthy diet if it's at an inappropriate caloric level.

I use an exchange plan, so I am focusing on portion control, and limiting calories, but if I eat off-plan, it isn't "total failure," because I look at all of the healthy behaviors I'm working on, not just the one. For example, on Wednesday I went overbudget with my food by about 150 to 200 calories, but I also exercised very strenuously in the pool that afternoon. I didn't stress out about the small overindulgence, because I did so well at the pool. It wasn't that I thought the exercise "cancelled out" the extra food, it was that I didn't seem myself as having failed. I was happy with my exercise progress, even if I wasn't perfectly happy with my food for the day.


I watch the numbers too, but whenever I make it ABOUT the numbers, I am tempted to "cheat" to win. I mean cheat in the sense of doing things I know are not healthy in order to see the bigger loss.

I don't change my ticker when I yoyo. As long as I'm within 5 lbs of my listed weight, I don't change it (because I can gain 10 lbs with just my normal TOM. I don't even change that unless the 10 lbs are still there when my period is over).

Lately, I've been yoyoing much more than usual, because I've been focusing too much on the numbers. Trying to come in "under budget" with my calories every day, in order to lose FASTER. Instead, cravings and real hunger was causing mini-binges (I haven't even had mini-binges in a long time, until I started messing around with trying to lose FASTER).

I don't only need both healthy eating and weight loss. That's far too simple. There are many actions that I need to take to improve my health and I'm trying to do all of them at once to some degree, because I find that actually works best for me.

I'm not talking about changeing the goal behaviors, only the reasons for them. Either way, my goal is to adhere to an 1800 calorie food plan, so it's not as though weight loss isn't part of the equation - it just can't be the most important part or I tend to go a little crazy.

For example in regard to the 1800 calorie exchange plan, when my focus is on health, I try to choose the healthiest/tastiest foods for my 1800 calories worth of exchanges. I'm happy with my choices and I usually consistently stick fairly close to budget.

However, when my focus is on the wegiht, I try to short-change myself, by using fewer of my exchanges. I don't want to just come in under budget, I want to eat as little as possible, so I can lose as fast as possible. But, if I go drastically underbudget, I get very hungry and it becomes so hard not to feel deprived and to keep from overeating. Even if I do stick to the plan, and eat all my allotted exchanges so that I shouldn't be hungry, the focus on the weight loss, tendsd to also focus my attention on the deprivation, and I start thinking not eating = good, eating = bad, which sets me up for feelings of failure when the weight loss isn't as fast as it "should" be.

Yes, the focus effects the behavior, but really that's what I'm talking about. Making it about only the weight, doesn't work for me - I need to remember that.

But what I was doing, which still doesn't work - is pretending it wasn't about the weight, so it could "really" be about the weight.

I've found that it's not so easy to "outsmart" myself. I have to really make it not about the weight if I want it to work - I can't "secretly" believe it is about the weight, but pretend it's not.

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Old 07-24-2010, 01:10 AM   #4  
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I think what you're talking about is what we often read -- that whatever plan we're on is a lifestyle and not a diet. That's the bumper sticker version of much of what you're saying. All of the points you make are very interesting, and I'm sure there are a lot of people here who can relate to them.

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I watch the numbers too, but whenever I make it ABOUT the numbers, I am tempted to "cheat" to win. I mean cheat in the sense of doing things I know are not healthy in order to see the bigger loss.
At my very first WW meeting (long ago, when they had an exchange program, which I loved) the leader said "Don't worship the scale god. Throw the scale away. Just weigh in at meetings." I don't always obey that, but I've never forgotten it. I threw away my scale then, and I remember one week where I was a bit over allowances. I panicked and stuck to the plan like glue -- and lost quite a bit that week. Yes, that's still using the numbers as a reward rather than the health issues (and I understand you're talking about a range of behaviors, not just food-related), but it taught me a lesson.

I think a lot of us play games with scales. Lose two pounds by Wednesday, then let up and relax a bit the rest of the week. Or gain two pounds by Wednesday and switch to the lettuce diet, as though the number is the only thing that matters.

Quote:
Yes, the focus effects the behavior, but really that's what I'm talking about. Making it about only the weight, doesn't work for me - I need to remember that.

But what I was doing, which still doesn't work - is pretending it wasn't about the weight, so it could "really" be about the weight.
Yes. We know when we're tricking ourselves, don't we? Maybe the trick is to internalize all of the things that we have to be so conscious of at the beginning. I remember another great day in my former weight loss efforts (I lost quite a bit of weight on WW years ago and kept it off for about 6 years until a job and schedule chjange threw me off). One day at the grocery store I realized at checkout, with a start, that everything I had bought was what I should be eating. I was walking to and from work then, too, and a lot of things were working well.

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Old 07-24-2010, 04:07 AM   #5  
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So, you are receiving unwanted "tips" and advice on how to speed up your weight loss? Receiving unwanted advice is THE worst. And now you are posting a justification for losing weight in a slower fashion, confessing that your goal is no longer losing weight, and questioning whether or not visiting online sites is putting you in the right position to reach your ultimate goal of health - or if it keeps pushing you back to focusing entirely on weight loss.

A response: You may be okay with losing weight slowly (over the past 4 years) - and focusing on improving your health, but there is still something to be said about suffering from a disconnect everyday between your mind and body. In your mind, you know you are living as a healthy person, but it is not reflecting to the extent that you'd like it to on your body. And your body is the first impression of you that the world receives. All of your hard work is not yet showing in your body (to others) and that is really frustrating you, understandably (it could be, or I could imagine)

Secondly, when I visit online weight loss sites it does effect my everyday like - posts flash through my head about the girl who wrote a worried comment on having eaten too much for breakfast, she had 1 chicken breast, 8 baby carrots, and a banana before 11am! And she was worried about this..... I would never worry about that.... That consciously and unconsciously effects me throughout the day - I have started severely restricting my time surfing posts. While I think this site is wonderful, and an excellent way to hear women's voices.... it still can sometimes lead to a mad, food-controlling woman in my head.

I always appreciate reading your posts because they do put the often "superficial" topics into a multi-dimensional perspective.

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Old 07-24-2010, 05:12 AM   #6  
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bonnie, you're getting closer to what I'm trying to communicate, but I'm still not really getting it across very well.

It is not that my "goal is no longer losing weight," because it wasn't losing weight in the first place.

I've been trying to lose weight since I was 5 years old, with no lasting success. I'm 44 years old, and have only had success in any lastincd sense in the last 5 years - and I attribute it to the fact that I have not been focusing on losing weight. I've been focusing on mind/body/social balance - making healthy changes in the areas of eating/thinking/moving without hanging any of my hopes on the amount or speed of weight loss it would achieve.

In some ways the two years of no weight loss were the easiest. I wasn't looking for weight loss, so I wasn't upset when I didn't see it. I had vowed not to regain the 20 I had lost incidentally as a result of sleep apnea treatment (my doctors had predicted that I'd lose some weight without trying, but I didn't believe it until I saw it).

I wasn't sure I could lose, but I was pretty sure I could maintain, so I focused on that. And decided to only make changes that I could see doing even if no weight loss resulted. Things I knew would improve my health independent of weight loss. In those two years, of no weight loss (but no weight gain), I made some pretty amazing health improvements, but they were only of interest to me and my immediate circle of friends and family. Weight loss was an off-limits topic.

It's a dichotomy, because I have been working on weight loss - but because the goal was health improvement I didn't even concern my self with speed of loss. I trusted that the weight loss and other health improvements would just unfold before me - and they did.

It was only when my weight loss became quite noticeable to friends and family, that the speed of my weight loss became an issue. It's as if those close to me can see the light at the end of my tunnel, and they're impatient regarding my getting there at my own pace.

The problem isn't that though, the problem is that the weight loss fueled my own impatience. I was fine with doing whatever I can, and just letting the results unfold.... until I wasn't.

I didn't realize I was losing the focus that I was finding so effective (focusing on healthy behaviors that would lead to weight loss and other health improvements, not focusing on the weight loss itself as an end independent of health).

When I started, I knew that weight loss sites didn't fit my approach very well. It's a "backwards" approach to acheiving a healthy weight Instead of starting with a goal weight in mind (although I wrote one down), my goal was to increasingly improve my behaviors, and let my weight take care of itself, knowing that if I achieved enough health improvements, weight loss would inevitably happen.

When I try to focus on speed - I start thinking whonky. I've got more than 35 years of failed experiments under my belt, to know that focusing on the weight, the number on the scale, pulls me into ineffective habits.

This isn't about not paying attention to weight, because I find weighing myself daily actually keeps me from focusing on the weight. This is just another paradox that I seem to be working with. Weighing daily helps me defocus on the weight. When I weighed weekly, I spent all week wondering, anticipating, hoping, fearing what my weight would be. I made the weigh-in too important. By making it a daily "non-important" event, it actually took all the pressure off of it.

I guess I can give the analogy of brushing teeth. I don't brush my teeth, because I am focusing on keeping my teeth in optimal condition. I just do it, because it's part of the routine. I need weight maintenance to be like that. Something I do without thinking about it. I seem to be able to do really well when I think about weight loss like that.

When speed of weight loss becomes important to me, I have 35 years of conditioning to try to undo. There are so many bad habits associated with focusing on speed of weight loss, that when speed is an issue, all those bad habits come back.

I was convinced that I had put binge-eating entirely behind me. I haven't had a true binge in a very long time (much longer than I've been losing weight. Much longer than five years).

In the last month or two, I started worrying about the speed of weight loss, and I found myself on the binge and starve cycle that I thought I had abandoned.

Now it wasn't anything extreme enough to cause more than a ripple in terms of weight loss. I wasn't backsliding so much as hovering. Only losing and gaining the same 2-4 lbs, not tens of pounds or more as I would have in previous weight loss attempts.

There's just so much focus on speed of weight loss - everywhere you look. Even here. Push, push, push. There's something wrong with you, if your speed isn't up to par (and no one really knows what par is anyway - just what they've read or gleaned from other dieters and women's magazine articles).

I know it's the normal response - but I'm not discouraged that my healthy behaviors aren't reflected in my body. I'm amazed at the transformation and it's speed - it's everyone else telling me my progress isn't fast enough that has started to put my head in a bad place.

Oddly, I'm more frustrated that my work IS finally showing on my body, because it ws less of an issue when only I (and my husband) were aware of it. Oh, it's fun to buy clothes that fit in more stores, but it's frustrating to feel like I have a brand new body, and I'm super thrilled with it - and all my friends and family seem to see is how far I have left to go.

I'm on long-term disability, and although I was told my conditions could go into partial or full remission, I wasn't sure it would happen, and I definitely didn't think I'd get this far in only 5 years.... I'm doing things I thought would never be a part of my life again (like riding a bike) is absolutely thrilling me.

I'm usually not all that bothered by people disagreeing with my opinions, so I think this is more a self issue than an issue of other people's opinions.

I'm letting other people's impatience, become my own.

I do feel like I'm nearing a breakthrough. I've been able to exercise so much more than ever before, that I really do believe my weight loss is going to accelerate "snowballing" if you will - but when I try to push it, I fall into old, destructive habits.

Balancing perseverence and patience, a skill I'm having to re-examine.


Or maybe it's just the uncertaintly of entering uncharted waters. "This time" has been very different than all previous attempts. I have never lost more than 70 lbs before - never more than 60 without prescription diet pills. It's been nearly 20 years since I've weighed less than 300 lbs.

And maybe some of it's plain old superstition. Because I lost the first 85 lbs without focusing on the weight loss directly (and definitely none of it focused on the weight or the speed), maybe I can't handle the transition to dealing with the weight more directly. And on the other hand, why change what's been working.

I'm very proud of my success, and I'm amazed at the progress I've made. Even though I'm still extremely large, my current level of functioning is amazing compared ot my starting point. I've only lost about 1/4 of the weight I want to, but I've regained so much in the way of ability, strength, stamina, some days I still can't believe it when I think about it.

And other times I fall into the sterotypical habit of thinking "what's the use." Those thoughts are brief, because I have a lot of reasons not to let myself go backwards. I've acheived too much, and have too much to lose.

I think I've just reached a point I need to re-evaluate my goals and my plans for reaching them.

Last edited by kaplods; 07-24-2010 at 05:14 AM.
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Old 07-24-2010, 06:54 AM   #7  
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I started out only trying to change my diet in order to sort my IBS out. I really was focused on eating to be extremely healthy and not to lose weight, but I did lose weight and liked what I saw.

Gradually over the last two years it had become about weight loss and I'd forgotten my original mind set. At the beginning I wouldn't have eaten a chocolate bar because I would pay for it later with stomach pains, but later on I would eat it because I could fit it in to my daily calories (although I'm not a strict calorie counter, I just roughly add them up).

Just recently I have been trying to remind myself of all the reasons I wanted to change my diet in the first place. I don't need to lose any more weight, but I was feeling really down on myself some times just because I'd eaten some junk. That's ridiculous!

The time I was happiest with my lifestye was when I did not have weight loss as my main goal, but as a pleasant side effect. That's what I have gone back to these last couple of weeks
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Old 07-24-2010, 07:38 AM   #8  
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Dr. Kurt Harris in his paleo blog said something awhile back that has really stuck with me. Perhaps this speaks to where you are coming from:
"Being at a particular weight is simply evidence of having a healthy metabolism, and should obviously not be a health goal in itself."
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Old 07-24-2010, 11:44 AM   #9  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CJZee View Post
Dr. Kurt Harris in his paleo blog said something awhile back that has really stuck with me. Perhaps this speaks to where you are coming from:
"Being at a particular weight is simply evidence of having a healthy metabolism, and should obviously not be a health goal in itself."

This is exactly what I mean. It's the philosophy I had when I started - a healthy weight isn't my goal, it's a result of my goal.


Another good analogy is body temperature. My normal body temp is low, and as I eat healthier my body temp is rising, but if I decided today that my goal was to raise my body temperature - how the heck would I go about that, except by increasing my healthy behaviors and hoping it results in a more appropriate body temperature. If I focused only on the body temperature, I might decide that trying to get a contagious disease (with a symptom of high fever) would be the way to go.


I believe that an appropriate weight is a result of healthy behaviors, but the reverse is not true. An appropriate weight is not a guarantee of health.

The way weight loss "is done" in our culture, it's easy to forget that - and decide that virtually anything that results in obesity reduction is by definition healthy (only a short time ago, I was channel surfing and found people choosing to infest themeselves with a tapeworm in order to lose weight - and they were interviewing the guy who charges people thousands of dollars to give them a tapeworm).

And on one hand, most people say "that's crazy," there are so many well-accepted "crazy" ways to lose weight, and especially when a person has a history of trying a lot of them, it can be so hard to distinguish crazy from reasonable (and doctors aren't always much help, because they often have the same warped view of weight loss that the rest of society does. Some of the worst things I ever did to myself were with a doctor's suggestion or supervision).
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Old 07-26-2010, 03:18 AM   #10  
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If it means anything, I support your slow, steady focus on health. No advice here.

I was 230lbs by 13 years old (that was 15 years ago and less acceptable than it is now) - you said you started battling with your weight at the age of 5. I bet if you scan the people 'attempting' to speed up your weight loss, you will find they do not share this experience. I am convinced weight loss is a WHOLE new can of worms when someone begins to deal with it at such a tender age. It shapes us, sets up patterns in our head entirely different from the person who gains later in life, obviously equipped with more reason than a child.

I have, only through terrorizing my body and image in the past, somehow maintained a 50-70lb weight loss for over 10 years. But, for me, this could not go on forever - the smoking, the not eating, the self-punishment, the calorie counting. It all contributed to a constant depression.

A year ago I met my partner, someone who inspired me to be really happy. I had to give up this obsessive fight. I cannot count calories anymore, I cannot weigh myself anymore. Within the last 6 months, I made a 'slow and steady' conversion to a vegan whole foods diet (for ethical and health reasons) and started jogging 5 miles daily as a means to counter my depression. Well, it worked. It frees up my mind to fully devote myself to my work... I know I have firmed up and lost some weight, and that my ticker is not correct, but I won't get on a scale to see how much.

I did have to leave behind reading a lot of the dieting, calorie counting, low carb, etc. posts on 3FC. Instead, I look for threads, such as yours, that depict some small sort of the human condition - commonalities among women who experience a disconnect between their inner and outer selves.... or the experience of deprivation... or the experience of finally losing and subsequently experiencing a new body.
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Old 07-28-2010, 07:07 PM   #11  
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Just a post that your insights have greatly helped my weight loss journey, my rosacea flares and the health of two family members- a son with Crohns & a SIL with gout/ high blood pressure. The reduced/low/healthy carb eating has made a noticeable impact on us all. Whatever you need to do for you, do it.
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Old 07-28-2010, 07:21 PM   #12  
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I am glad I found this thread. I am very interested in the health aspect of weight loss. I had not thought about how rosacea could be affected by weight. Interesting.
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Old 07-28-2010, 07:38 PM   #13  
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I would doubt that it's body weight that affects rosacea, as much as diet. I'm guessing that when I'm thin, the foods that aggravate my rosacea now, will still aggravate it then.

I think weight loss is sometimes attributed to "cures" that have more to do with diet changes and exercise than the weight loss itself.

It's important to know what's really going on. For example, knowing that exercise was associated more strongly health improvements for fibro than weight loss, I knew that I couldn't postpone exercise until I lost more weight. Whether or not I lost weight, I neded to focus on exercise. It didn't make me think "weight loss isn't important, exercise is," but it did make me realize that I couldn't wait until I was slim to start exercising.

Last edited by kaplods; 07-28-2010 at 07:39 PM.
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Old 07-28-2010, 08:09 PM   #14  
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Colleen--
If for no other reason, we need you to stay just because of your focus on health.

I appreciate that you need to re-focus and reconsider where to spend your time. But it would be an awful, terrible thing if you felt you had no place here.

There's more I want to say, some of related to my decision to leave 3FC last year (and my decision to return) but I may or may not. I don't want to hijack your thread.

But, you create your place here--and it is a place that is valuable to me--and to others as you can see by the replies.
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