Jen, I read it the way you intended...Just for clarity.

I can't think of obesity as a disease, at least for myself. If I did, I'd allow myself to sit back and pack on the pounds. After all, it's an illness. No use punishing myself/fighting the inevitable.

I suffered with depression for a good part of my life, and I completely gave in when I was final told that it was a disease. I was waiting for someone else to give me the cure. I stopped taking any personal responsibility. I felt like I had a right to be unhappy. I didn't get better until I started thinking of it as a matter of choice. "Helena, choose to be happy." I still struggle sometimes, but control is back in my hands.

While I'm sure it's beneficial for many of you to think of obesity as a disease, it is critical for me to think of it as a matter of choice. For reasons that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, I allowed myself to become obese. There were many points along the way where I could have turned things around. I didn't. A few weeks ago, I made a stand. I know that if I spend one more day packing on the pounds that I made that choice. This works for me.

Just to clarify, I am not saying that obesity is not an illness. It might well be. It probably is. It's simply not the way I choose to think about it.

I hear you. What DO we get out of being fat? Maybe something as simple as identity. SherryA

I REALLY agree with that for myself. I think part of me says I've been fat all my life, it's part of who I am. It makes it harder for me to imagine a thinner, healthier me.

I think for me? I don't want to "lose" a part of who I am. That sounds very extreme and drastic, even knowing that it is a part of me that is only excess and unneeded stored fuel. My fat is a part of me. Maybe I don't LIKE being fat, but when I'm thinking about how I must "lose" it, it is demotivating. Gaining more health, gaining more ability to move pain free, gaining strength? Those things sound really good.

A lot of times it is just a matter of how we think about it. To me "losing" weight equates to "losing" the ability to eat all the things I love. That is an unbalanced and stupid thought process that we should be able to overcome. Maybe just a mind set change would make the difference. SherryA

yep yep and yep. I know logically that I don't have to give up all the things I love to eat, that I can and have learned to replace more harmful food choices with better food choices. That I can survive and be happy with LESS food. To keep lose the weight consistently, I have to accept those things and work on them even more. It really is a mindset, imho.


I'm not going to candy coat it and say that it isn't dumb to eat stuff I know I shouldn't. I can't blame everything on some kind of emotional problem. Jen

I don't think it's stupid or dumb to try and figure out why we keep certain habits when we want to change them. They can be emotional, psychological, just a continuation of an easy pattern, or all of the above, or something different. By figuring out the cause it can be easier to figure out a solution.

It can be different at different times for me. If the goodie is there and I want to eat it, no emotional stuff going on, then the solution is to not have that goodie around. If I'm upset, and I go to the corner and get chocolate, then I have to figure out a different way to handle being upset.

Also, I do think when I continue a pattern of behavior that I KNOW is bad for me, keep eating those taquitos at night when my goal is to LOSE WEIGHT, I'm letting myself zone out and giving in to the treat (that momentary it will be good and I want it). I think for me part of that is maintaining my consciousness of the goal and feeling like I'm worth it and can do it.

I don't know if anyone else deals with this, but I have a tough time getting some of those goodies out of the house because I feel like I'm letting go of the comfort of having it around. The kid in me wants to have my cake and eat it too (and lose weight after I eat it). Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way!!

When I first started to think about seriously getting the weight off, I approached obesity the same way I approach a behavioural difficulty with a client at work. I didn't see my obesity as an illness as such, but a condition - and one that I had contributed to.

I analysed the behaviours that made me fat. And basically it boiled down to this.
1. I am obese because I am frightened of myself - being fat is my identity, my protection - if I lose the fat, what do I become? How do I protect myself?

2. I am obese because food effectively medicates my emotions that I am running away from. When I am lonely, depressed, happy, frightened - I turn to food. If I remove that behaviour, what goes in its place?

3. I am obese because I have learnt that movement frightens me. If I run, I wheeze, if I swim, I might have an asthma attack and no one will see me. I am uncoordinated and might hurt myself (I have mild cerebral palsy). What can I do to combat this and to do what I need to do?

I came up with strategies for each of those things. That's why exercise is such a huge part of what I do now. I got as much help as I could. I posted here and on the exercise forum, I found as many trainers as I could and asked lots of questions. And I tried one new thing every week. Now I do so much exercise and I love it.

For me, the answer to the emotional stuff has been, to some extent, weight training. I feel safer fatter, but soon worked out that muscle will make me feel just as strong, it's metabolically active, and it looks nice

For me, I have had to make myself accountable. I spent years blaming others for my obesity - the man who abused me as a kid, the teachers who told me not to exercise or I would have an asthma attack, my parents, the kids who bullied me.

I am responsible for my obesity. I am responsible for my weight loss. No one can do this for me.

Obesity can be classified as a disease, but that does not obviate our responsibilty to cure that disease ourselves.

I don't want anyone to think that I am saying that anyone else is stupid. I can't or wouldn't put a label on anyone else. I say MY behaviours are stupid.

I didn't take offense to your post. In fact, I do believe the medical community refers to this as a "non-compliant patient". Am I close?

People with kidney disease cannot have the extra potassium. I get leg cramps all the time. I just deal with them. Sandi are you on birth control pills? I know the warning labels on mine say that leg cramps are a normal side effect, but if they get bad, to seek medical treatment.

I remember the first time I read my medical chart & saw the words "morbidly obese". (2004 or so) What an eye opener. I'm not sure if it should be categorized as a disease. I know I need to move more & not 'treat' myself so often. I really do think dieting is as simple as calories in versus calories expended. I've done it before. I can do it again.

Kykaree, my daughter has had asthma and I hate it. It used to scare me so badly to watch her suffer from attacks. It really is a limiting thing. I made up my mind to find a "cure" for her if I could. I looked into a thing called Buteyko (which if you do a search you can find online). She doesn't have attacks any more. She doesn't use medication either. Extreme exercise (such as running) does still cause some problems, but most other things she can do. I honestly think this method helped her. You can PM me if you'd like to know more. I'm not selling anything, what we did was free.

Regarding the rest of your post, I can understand and agree with your method of analyzing it. I honestly think I'm obese for about 3 reasons.

The first is that I've been addicted to chocolate my whole life. Giving up chocolate would be the very best thing I could do for myself, but I probably never will because I seriously love it. (There that's honest, if not very productive). I did give it up for a large part of the first of this year and it did help.

The second reason is that I stopped being as active as I was as a child and teenager. When I grew up I told myself I didn't have as much time to "play" as I used to (and the reality is that a lot of that is true).

The third reason is that sometimes I just don't eat early enough or often enough, or eat on the run, or eat too fast, which all translates to slowing my metabolism, and making myself too hungry later in the day so I wind up eating too much, or the wrong foods (usually chocolate).

I think in the back of my mind I know that if I stopped with the chocolate and even if the only other change I made was to become more active, the weight would probably come off. But the idea of a life without chocolate? Ugh. That's hard to face. The activity I can do. The chocolate I think I could do for awhile, but how does someone give up something they love so much forever?

I've used the disease/illness analogy in my head before, but in a slightly different way. I don't believe that obesity is a disease as such, and I blame no-one and nothing other than me for the weight I let myself get to. But if I'm ever unmotivated or complaining about having to work out or eat sensibly, I remind myself that if I was (for example) blind I wouldn't necessary like not being able to see, but I wouldn't have a choice about it. There wouldn't necessarily be any treatment or any lifestyle changes that I could make that would give me back what I'd lost. I'd have to live that way every day, whether I liked it or not.

I know that with obesity I have choices, and that the state that my body is in is entirely under my control. I can choose to be obese by not working out, or I can choose to be a normal weight by sticking to a healthy lifestyle.

Great post, Helen!! I agree 100% it's all about choices.

I think you don't have to give it up forever, I think it's more about how to enjoy your favorites in moderation. If they are too troublesome, well then yes, it's maybe time to live without them until you feel you can have them in moderation. You've already proved to yourself that you can do it, so to do it again would not be a huge deal.

And yes, you may have lost the weight quicker w/o the chocolate, but would it have been as enjoyable? You still have to live your life.

Ditto SAPF (nice to see you posting ) I have eaten chocolate throughout this journey. I have changed how I approach it, and changed the sort of chocolate that I eat. I eat low sugar chocolate, with at least 70% cocoa solids, and in small amounts.

Because I saw this as a lifestyle overhaul, I knew I couldn't do anything like "ban" my favourites. I'm sure I could have lost weight much quicker without some of my "compromises", but this is a lifelong commitment I'm making, not a "weightloss diet".