I just finished watching the country singer Wynonna do her pitch commercial for the diet pill "Alli" on tv.

Honestly, I get irritated with people like her and Oprah (even though I like them very much!) when they say, "it's not about the pounds, it's about getting healthier."

I'm like smackin' my forehead and thinking to myself, "Oh really? Then the pounds shouldn't matter at ANY SIZE... you can be 40 lbs or more over your desired size and still achieve a pretty good level of fitness here!!"

Yes, being healthier is one of the goals of losing weight. But I have hard time with celebrities saying on tv that it's health first, and then the number of pounds they weigh on the scale.

~ tea

For me, I wasn't able to be successful until I stopped focusing on pounds first, because the only way I can make the scale say a specific number, is with a chain saw (and I wouldn't recommend that as a weight loss strategy), but I ALWAYS have direct control over the food I eat, and the exercise I do - so if I focus on my eating and exercising, the pounds take care of themselves.

For 36 years, I did crazy, stupid, very unhealthy things to lose weight, and all they did was make me fatter and fatter, because they weren't sustainable. I do think that when health is the first concern, the weight does follow, but if weight is the only concern, health can be lost in the shuffle.

Getting "healthier" is a lot more tangible for me as a reward than a number on the scale. Looking at the weight I've lost, I've accomplished practically nothing, but looking at the things I can do now that I couldn't do 60 lbs ago, WOW that helps me sustain my motivation.

It also gives me better reason not to allow myself to backslide. The difference between 334 lbs and 394 lbs is pretty slim, so if I look at my difficulty making progress in terms of my weight, it's very tempting to give up, after all I wouldn't be backsliding all that very far. However, if I look at all the things I couldn't do 60 lbs ago, but can do now there's no way in H E double hockey sticks I'm going to give that up.

If pounds are more motivating to you than health strides, then focus on the pounds (but don't do so sacrificing your health to do so, that will come back to bite you in the butt), but if focusing on health strides is more motivating to some folks, more power to them (us).

I don't have a problem with this at all. I'm on my journey to get healthy first and then lose weight (goes together). I also have learned its not about being skinny to be healthy, its about being healthy to be skinny. And, food no longer is much more than fuel for my body. Yes of course I have things I like, but I feel like I've been much more success by changing the way I think about stuff like this.

It's not about the pounds for me either. It IS about getting to a healthy weight so I can LIVE and not die from this one thing that I CAN CONTROL!!!

Little known fact: I have a blood clotting disorder (antiphospholipid antibody syndrome PLUS protein c and s deficiencies... very rare. About 1 in 300,000 people have it) that WILL kill me someday. Through a stroke, deep vein thrombosis, anyurism etc. But by getting healthy and to a healthy weight I can lessen the risk of these happening early to me.

So it's all about the health for me.

I guess it is BOTH. At my current weight, geting healthy will evenutally lead to a reduction in weight.

People get obsessed with the scale, and so it's sometimes helpful to hear that it's not about pounds but about health.

When we are losing weight, we are not just losing fat, sad to say. We are also losing muscle, bone, and other tissues. This is why eating disorders are so dangerous. In an extreme state, the body consumes itself trying to stay alive. Eventually this fails.

So the idea is to lose more fat than the other tissues, and that's healthy weight loss.

Here's an example. I went from 198 to 148. My body fat % went from 44% to 33%. So of the 50 pounds I lost, 38 pounds were fat (87 pounds fat to start, minus 49 pounds of fat at end). The rest that I lost was lean body mass.

If someone lost that same amount, but their body fat % didn't change, they would have lost 22 pounds of fat. That means that less than half of what they lost was fat, and the rest was lean body mass.

So pounds doesn't tell the whole story.

Yes, one can be reasonably fit at 40 pounds overweight--if one is an NFL lineman, is relatively young, and is working out all the time and eating the right foods. Much of that 40 pounds may be muscle.

I'd say that no one on 3FC is an active NFL lineman...

Jay

If one is morbidly obese, obese or overweight - these things will most likely lead one to be unhealthy. Not that you can't be UNhealthy at a so called "healthy weight, of course. So I truly, truly believe that getting healthy and losing weight are one and the same. I see no distinction between the two. Provided of course that one is losing weight in a healthy manner. I think it's basically a matter of semantics. You need to think of it in a way that will best suit you.

ETA: I find all of those ads for products and aids to be quite - irking. I can't stand the thought of someone thinking for even a teeny, tiny second that some pill or potion is the key to losing weight. I think the sooner people realize that the ONLY way to lose weight permanentlytakes good old fashioned eating right and exercising - forever - the sooner they can come to terms with that and STOP searching for "answers" elsewhere.

I actually find some of those commercials to be a little refreshing. Sometimes weight loss is looked at like an all or none phenomenon. I am either fat, on a diet, off a diet, have my goal body, etc. But medical professionals consider a loss of 10% a success and to maintain that----an even greater success. There is a significant weight spectrum between "morbidly obese" and a "normal" BMI. Success (defined as a healthier heart & cardiovascular system, improved ability for activities of daily living, changes in lipid profiles, etc.) begins far earlier on that spectrum than "normal BMI." To only define "success" as pounds lost is to have a rather narrow view of the process, IMO, and considering how often weight loss companies miss the mark in general, Queen Latifah walking on a treadmill, looking to get healthier but not seeking a stick thin figure, well, that makes me happy. Cause that is more realistic.

I believe that the "all or nothing" view of weight loss that is the cultural norm, may actually be part of the problem. Our expectations influence our choices, and I know when I was younger, I saw only two options - eating whatever I wanted and being fat (usually my fattest) or being at a "perfect" weight. I think the best illustration of that was my experience in high school. I weighed 225 lbs in 8th grade, and my doctor put me on prescription diet pills. By junior year, I had lost 70 lbs, and weighed 155. My goal weight was 150, and I was just not having any luck getting to 155. I guess my doctor thought that lowering my goal weight to 140 would renew my motivation, but instead I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me (heck not just the rug, but my very world). I thought "geez, if I can't make it to 150, I'm NEVER going to get to 140). I was so discouraged, I gave up entirely and gained back every one of the 70 lbs and a few more for good measure.

In hindsight, I know now that I was a complete moron! Even though I was only 17, I can't believe I was such an idiot that I didn't see a third option - telling the doctor to jump and keeping my 150 goal or even a fourth option (gasp of horror) decide to be content with 155 and work on maintaining that.

All or nothing is still the norm in our society. I'm thankful I have a doctor who doesn't think like that. When I needed a weight goal for my TOPS group, the doctor asked me what I wanted him to write as my goal and I said, tentatively 200? And he asked me if I wanted to maybe rething that. I told him I knew it was a bit high, but that I'd try to maintain 200 for a while before deciding whether to go lower, and the doctor laughed and said he meant that maybe I should choose a higher weight. Yikes, that shocked the bejeebees out of me (whatever bejeebees are), a doctor suggesting a goal of a weight that would still be considered morbidly obese?! We settled on 250, and it got me thinking.

In a sense I have three goal weights. 250, as the doctor suggested. 200 as I did. And the "in a perfect world" weight of 150. Will I reach any of them? I think so, but even if I'm in a funk and think "never in a million years will I get that far," it doesn't change how far I've come. I will never again let there be only 2 choices (400 lbs or 150). There are many degrees of success between 150 and 400. Though I still have to fight my cultural conditioning that anything over 150 lbs is absolute failure.

I find it amazingly wonderful that the cultural expectations regarding weight loss are finally changing somewhat to take the focus off some single mythical magical number and realize that there is no such magic number for any of us.

It is SO much about more than the pounds for me, AND it's about the pounds too

But I get what you're saying, because someone trying to sell you something - well, you just have to assume they're giving lip service to whatever they think you want to hear.