There is no single cause of obesity, and no single effective treatment. For everyone who can identify "why I am/was fat," there are thousands who have no clue. "Everyone knows what they need to do," simply is not true. Not only do many people not know, many people think they know and are wrong.
"Wanting it badly enough," tends to be a circuitous argument, as the only proof of not wanting it badly enough, is having not succeeded. Personally, I have found this untrue in many cases, including my own. No matter how badly you want it, you still may fail if you don't understand some of the pieces to your particular fat puzzle.
In many ways, I wanted to lose weight much more when I was younger, than I do now. My motivation and ability to stick to VERY restrictive or even unpleasant food plans for MONTHS, was a lot stronger in my twenties than it is today. In fact, I was in such a panic to lose weight, that I attempted very risky and unwise (I even knew it at the time) ways to lose weight. But I liken it to being covered in smelly, sticky, itching, burning substance. When you are so disgusted and repelled that you want to get clean (or thin) quickly, the "quickest" way often holds alot more allure than the "best way," especially if the "best way," requires much thought and a large time commitment.
Wanting it badly enough was never my problem. Wanting it too badly was. Again my problem, not necessarily everybody or even anybody else's.
As for knowing what to do: While I thought I knew that eating a varied diet, moderate in calories, low in fat, and high in fiber was the "right" way to lose weight. It turned out that I was actually wrong. I had a very difficult time sticking to what I thought was right, because I was hungry all of the time (and not just a little hungry - on even a moderate calorie plan, headaches, stomache rumbling, light headedness, resulted in an almost pathological obsession with food every moment). Even after I had eaten to the point my stomache hurt, I still had symptoms of genuine hunger. I still felt driven, mentally and physically, to eat. Low calorie diets even as much as 1800 calories a day, were pure torture. (Of course one could say that I didn't "want" to lose weight badly enough to put up with this tortue. And I guess that's true. During my dieting lifetime, since age 5, I have had periods of time in which I had sufficient motivation - for months, and with the help of amphetemine diet pills even for a couple years, but no longer than that.)
PMS and TOM were especially difficult for me. If dieting the rest of the month was torture, those 7 to 10 days were the pits of **** itself. If 24/7 hungry wasn't bad enough during the rest of the month, that hunger to the power of ten with waves of extreme sadness and anger mixed in, sometimes I wonder how I survived it.
A multitude of events and situations initiated a cascade of changes in my life, and none of them had to do with motivation. Ultimately, I learned things about my body that made change finally possible. A woman doctor advised me to try stacking my bc (eliminating my period, by starting a new pack of bc week 4 rather than taking the placebo pills), and she advised South Beach or a "modified Atkins" low carb diet (she and her husband had lost about 200 lbs together. She a little less, and he a little more than 100 lbs each).
And here I am today, 50 lbs lighter, having much less interest and desire to lose weight than almost ever in my life (except for a period of about 2.5 years when I embraced "fat acceptance" and decided never to diet again - and those years were great, my weight neither increasing or decreasing - too bad I didn't try this at age 12). It isn't about the weight anymore, not really. Sure, I love seeing the weight come off, but it's the changes in my life, regaining my health, strength, and adventurous spirit. Eating whole foods in controlled portions, and exercising. Even the exercise, isn't about losing weight, it's about regaining flexibility and strength, and having fun.
I think all too often, overweight people are considered lazy, crazy, or stupid; and rarely is it the case. Some of the causes of a person's obesity may be relatively simple, other's may be very complicated, but nearly everyone is doing the best they can with their entire life (and experiencing the same mixture of success and failure) as they can. Ignorance, impatience, priorities, physiology, psychology, resources (financial, intellectual, social, emotional, psychological, physiological, and even spiritual) ALL play a role in where we are, where we want to be, and if and how we are able to get there.
Instead of excahnging exercise and diet tips, should we be searching for help, methods and techniques for coping with this weakness of pandering to our "want it now" desires?
I believe that if we could defeat this aspect of our behaviour, weight loss would be a facile process limited only by the measure of time it takes to burn off the required excess body fat.
Thanks for starting this fascinating thread. In the spirit of feedback, I'd like to tell you that I'm new to weight loss and until I found this forum, I had no idea how many calories a day I need to eat. I didn't have a clue how much I weighed. I didn't know how to eat defensively in a restaurant . Every blooming day I'm truly shocked by the calorie count in something. I wasn't born yesterday, but unless one needs to pay attention, one can be obliviously ignorant of successful weight management. I didn't have a weight problem earlier in life, but things changed in my body and I'm paying attention now.
I personally have kicked some heavy duty addictions in my past (everything from alcohol to bad boyfriends and caffeine recently) and am always interested in discussions of behavior modification or mind control, but I'd just like to say I appreciate the wonderful information provided here on the hard core mechanics of diet and nutrition. It is heavenly to receive answers to basic questions and receive kind support.
As with addictions, often "peer pressure," social norms and cues, all of the things we consciously AND subconscously learn about our cultures norms, expectations, and beliefs - they often play a huge role in obesity. Obesity is not just an individual's problem, it is a societal problem. Social factors often (if not always) play a role in the development and in the treatment/recovery of obesity.
It is difficult to be different. When you are overweight, particularly severely overweight or obese, you are often condemned to being considered a freak. When you're trying to lose weight, well, you're still often considered a freak.
Being a freak (for good or bad) isn't the easy path.
I am often told that I am wrong. When I was fat, people told me what I should be eating (ironically, often what I was, at the time, eating). Losing weight, I am often told I am losing it too slowly (when I was younger, I was either told I was losing it too slowly, or too quickly). I get a lot of flack from family and friends about restricting carbs (it's "unhealthy") despite the fact that my health is improving doing so (and at a faster rate than the weight loss alone could account for).
Looking back, I wonder, why I didn't attempt the carb-restriction if not the bc changes (I'd asked about it, but male doctors had warned me not to mess with my cycle. When a female doctor recommended the change, I figured SHE would know more). As for the carb-restriction, the answer is easy. The "common wisdom" said they were bad, and I believed it. Learning to swim upstream is very difficult.
Robsia, no post in this thread has been deleted. If you lost something, it wasn't because of any mod or admin action.
Just want to add that I've been considered a bit of a "freak" all my life for one reason or another--so to have my good nutrition be considered strange hardly puts me in a new situation.
I just wanted to throw the name of another great book out to you. "Fat is a Family Affair" is by Judi Hollis and it has really helped me with the mental battle I have had with food and temptation for many years. I can see hope again.
Aj, you asked for strategies...here are the ones that are working for me right now...
1) acknowledging when I am upset and trying to deal with the feelings rather than eat my way through it. Alternatively, going for a walk to calm down...again rather than soothing myself with chocolate or bread
2) Following an eating plan that is "inclusive" rather than restrictive. (I call it mindful eating) so that I don't get into the "I'll never have this again I need to eat a lot of it to say goodbye I feel so deprived.) Letting myself enjoy treats in smaller quantities reduces my compulsive overeating of them.
3) Minimizing triggers to eat. Not only the foods that are triggers, but also behaviors that are triggers. Another book that I found fascinating is "Slim Chance in a Fat World" which studied the difference between thin people and fat people as far as behavioral triggers. Their research indicated that people who were externally triggered were more likely to be overweight. (So if you thought that it was dinnertime you ate dinner, where a slim person ate when their body said it was dinnertime.) I don't eat in front of the tv, in my car, or anywhere but at the kitchen or dining room table.
4) Keeping myself busy and out of the kitchen when it isn't mealtime. Eating to address boredom was a big one for me. I'm doing more reading, jigsaw puzzles, handwork...anything to keep the hands from bringing food to mouth.
5) Making sure I eat breakfast...and I hate breakfast foods. I've learned painfully that no breakfast means that I am ravenous at lunch...and ravenous at dinner. I also try to eat something, either lunch or a healthy snack, midday, again it prevents that evening "I can eat everything in sight" experience.
6) Eating slowly and letting my mind catch up with my body.
I'm not sure if this is what you were looking for (although maybe the first is) but this is working for me now, and I'm committed to always.
Robsia, no post in this thread has been deleted. If you lost something, it wasn't because of any mod or admin action.
Just want to add that I've been considered a bit of a "freak" all my life for one reason or another--so to have my good nutrition be considered strange hardly puts me in a new situation.
Jay
Sorry - I wasn't clear. It wasn't a post in this thread - it was a thread in this forum - the "overwhealming (sic) urge" one.
I had just received an email about a response, I went to respond to it - and it had vanished. So I was a touch irritated.
But that was last night -I don't tend to stay irritated about these things for long. I'm Ok now - sorry to have brought it up.
Some really thought-provoking posts here. The general push of the latest posts seems to be focussing on pressure from society. If we try to eat healthy, others around us regard us as abnormal. But a rather more sinister side of this point is that not only do our peers regard us as abnormal, they feel threatened by this abnormality and actively try to get us to eat the same foods as them. How many times have you been at a restaurant or social gathering and a friend or relative who is scoffing a cream cake cake has said "go on, have some, a little won't hurt you....." or similar?
Pandora has posted some excellent suggestions, all of which I am in agreement with, and have been for some time. Emotional eating is a tough habit to break, but the first step is recognizing that you're doing it in the first place. The way I defeated this habit was; after learning to recognize that I was about to eat purely on emotional grounds, I would tell myself that I could have the item of food without beating myself up about it, as long as I was prepared to wait half an hour before eating it.
During that half hour I have the opportunity to deal with the emotion in other ways, as Pandora says, walking it off really does work, or simply doing nothing else other than acknowledging the emotion, experiencing it and then moving on. Whatever happens during that half hour, by the time it is up I no longer want the food, in fact most times I have forgotton that I was going to eat it in the first place.
This technique worked for me, not only because it deals with the precise moment of crisis, but also because long term it broke the old habit, and developed a new one.
For those of you that are wondering, yes there have been occasions when I still stuffed myself after the half hour, after all, I had to keep the promise to myself, otherwise the technique had no chance of success, but in reality those occasions were few and far between.
Robsia, I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but thread starters have the power to delete their own threads. So if you see a thread go *poof*, it's not always because mods or admins have deleted it. Sometimes members just change their minds about threads and posts.
.....the only proof of not wanting it badly enough, is having not succeeded.
I don't see how that makes it circuitous. In my view lack of success merely proves the point that the desire was never great enough in the first place.
Quote:
No matter how badly you want it, you still may fail if you don't understand some of the pieces to your particular fat puzzle
You're perhaps missing the point to a degree. If you want it bad enough you will be driven to do whatever is needed to achieve the end result, including learning about what to eat and what not eat. To illustrate my point, from your own post:
Quote:
Ultimately, I learned things about my body that made change finally possible
Quote:
And here I am today, 50 lbs lighter
Would you have lost 50 pounds if you weren't motivated enough to take the steps that allowed you to get there?
I tend to agree that there is a danger of taking a negative result to be the proof of the converse action, which is a logical error.
"If you want it, you will get it" does not necessarily mean "If you didn't get it, then you didn't want it." That is overly simplistic. There are plenty of things beyond our immediate control that influence outcomes.
All things being equal, though, a person does have to put forth some real-world effort to reach any goal.
"If you want it, you will get it" does not necessarily mean "If you didn't get it, then you didn't want it." That is overly simplistic. There are plenty of things beyond our immediate control that influence outcomes.
There is PLENTY of which we don't have control over. PLENTY. And that statement "If you didn't get it, then you didn't want it" can not pertain to all things. And IMO, weight loss just ain't one of them. I don't think we have control down to the last itty bitty pound or 5lbs or even 10 or 15. There certainly are factors that people must contend with that would make that impossilbe. But for the most part, when you are morbidly obese, as I was, I did have control over that. I didn't have to be THAT overweight.
Would I like to be a few pounds lighter myself? You betcha. And I know if I tried harder, I could get there. If I put forth some of that "real-world effort" you are speaking about, I could get there. But apparently, I don't want it badly enough.
Last edited by rockinrobin; 07-05-2008 at 10:45 AM.
I've had a strong desire to lose weight since I was a child, and when I was younger I often went to extreme measures to lose the weight. Even though I wanted it, I couldn't do it. Now that I'm older and wiser and have the knowledge, tools, and context to make it happen, I'm losing the weight. I don't think I necessarily want it more today than ten years ago, because I wanted it just as badly then as I do now. But I'm in a different place in my life now where I can make it happen.
I've had a strong desire to lose weight since I was a child, and when I was younger I often went to extreme measures to lose the weight. Even though I wanted it, I couldn't do it. Now that I'm older and wiser and have the knowledge, tools, and context to make it happen, I'm losing the weight. I don't think I necessarily want it more today than ten years ago, because I wanted it just as badly then as I do now. But I'm in a different place in my life now where I can make it happen.
That's a GOOD point. I've said this many times to many people. I never could have done this when I was younger. I DO have more knowledge today and I do have more control over my circumstances.
But then it goes back to - if I really wanted it badly enough, even back then, I probably would have found a way.
