Frustrated with comments
 

Hello All,

Okay so I have lost like 65lbs since January, and I have been busting my butt doing so. I eat around 1200 calories a daya nd I work out in the gym on a treadmill for an hour everyday. I think that I am doing really well, and I am so proud that I have done it on my own without anyones diet or agenda. SO..I had to go to this specialist appointment for something completly unrelated and he asked me how I lost the weight, so I told him and he asked me what I was eating, I said an example of a daily menu would be fruit and yogurt for breakfast, lean cuisine for lunch and grilled chicken breast and rice for dinner. So he turns to me with a straight face and says..."Id cut out the rice if I were you" I could have rammed that scope right up his nose. Like geez louise..Im no rabbit and I love to eat, so I am pretty proud of myself and my new found love of vegetable and healthy lifestyle. I dont know maybe I am just frustrated with everyone having something to say or havinga comment on how and what I should do with my weight, I guess I just expected more encouragment...on the brighter side everyone at my GP's office comes into the room when I weigh myself and cheers at my loss! they are great. Anyone else run into this problem too? Or am I being overly sensitive?

Specialists/MDs can be SO RUDE - it's like some of them get their common human interaction gene surgically removed on graduation. Sorry you had to hear that comment -- use it to your advantage and stick with what is working for you, and when you are down to your happiness-weight, go back and yell IN YOUR FACE! :carrot: Clearly you are committed to success and are doing quite well. As for the specialist, well, he's probably an unhappy person all around and the easiest way for him to feel good is to bring someone else down.
Keep it up!

One thing to realize: doctors do not (generally) get any specific nutritional education. More people eat rice as a daily staple of their diet than not on this planet, and the vast majority of them show no deficit in health because of it. If I visited a doctor who said similar to me, I'd probably have started looking for the red "A" somewhere in his office.:joker:

The main thing: are you healthy? Do you have enough energy? Enough nutrients? If he really has a specific concern about your diet, then he should give you a referral to a nutritionist or consult with your gp. But just stating "cut out the rice" without any specific reason is unhelpful at best and dismissive at worst. And possibly dangerous if you had followed him to his word and reduced you caloric intake to under 1200 cals/day while exercising.

I wouldn't let it ruin your day, and I'm glad your regular gp is supportive. You're doing a great job, and as long as you know it, that is all that matters!:)

You know, he's an idiot. If anything, I'd think you could eat more! congrats on the fabulous success so far!

Jaime, I can so relate. I saw my dietitian last week. I told her that despite a major bout of depression, I'd had a very good week eating-wise, and was feeling very good about myself.
She looked at my food journal and said, "Oh. You're putting brown sugar on your oatmeal. You could gain up to 5 pounds a year doing that you know." :rolleyes:
I explained that I don't normally use brown sugar, but that I just NEEDED it that week.
Then I hop on the scale, and I've lost 2 1/2 pounds. She says, "Oh, you've lost too much this week!" Like you, I felt like shoving something up one of her orifices.
You're NOT being over-sensitive, hon. You're doing so well, and you deserve encouragement!! Big hugs... :hug: ... keep up the great work!!

You should be extremely proud of yourself!!! Don't listen to the words of those who are not in your shoes. I know my doctor says I shouldn't eat anything "white" meaning bread, rice, etc., but as long as you do it SENSIBLY, who cares. You are obviously doing the RIGHT thing!
Allison

You are doing a great job and keep doing what is working for you. My specialist has been great but my GP is stupid as far as I'm concerned. I saw him after 3 months of starting my weight loss and had lost 31 lbs. He accused me and my 13 yr. old of taking diet pills. Which I haven't touched. I thought he'd be happy I had lost weight, not act like a jerk. Oh well, I only see him if I need a refill on my meds and it's inbetween times to see my specialist. I'm gonna just do what works for me and not listen to him at all. Sometimes, I wish I could just say "if I wanted your advice , I would have asked for it". I have had other people try to act like the food police with me and noticed they aren't the ones losing weight, I am. So, obviously we know what we're doing.Good luck.

I totally know how you're feeling!! Doctors can have NO tact, and sometimes really don't know what they're talking about when it comes to nutrition! My doctor actually told me I should *NEVER* snack if I wanted to continue losing weight... UH hello... eating 3 huge meals a day never helped anyone either. OY. I'm so sorry he said that to you!!! you'll never reach your goal by completely depriving yourself, you'll just fall apart! Hang in there!

Yea I had someone slam me over a bake potato. The twang in the voice sent chills down my spine as if someone was running their fingers along a chalk board. I got a whole ear full about bake potato + starch + sugar + fat all together with that twang in the voice that echo Na uh uh uh! Shame on you! You shouldn't be having that.

You think getting the oily french fries out of your diet and not drinking soda's and not having very many sweets that people would let you eat in peace with a louzy bake potato but I am talked to like I just got through pouring a 1/2 cup of maple syrup on top of it.

No I did not pile the bake potato with much of anything and I don't think it would hurt to have the very little butter in that tiney tub which I do add a little bit of pepper on the bake potato for some flavor. At least for the day I felt it fit my diet.

:mad:

Ya know the (Dr's) should sent out a memo! My MD is barking for just the reverse. "Are you getting 1200 calories a day?" Whatever. Like we are all universally identical! Just keep doing what works for you.

I got a mountain bike to ride when I lost 74 pounds before I had my 1st child...with WW and riding my bike every morning. My mother complained the entire time about me riding my bike alone and getting abducted. I was 25at the time ...

I got a treadmill when Matt turned 2 lost the baby weight walking, but got pregnant again. Had my 2nd miracle (fertility dr. told me I couldnt have kids). My mother complained that I wasn't going to hear the baby if I was walking with music on.

Divorced sold the bike and the treadmill...my mother started complaining that I was gaining weight again. DUH!!

Bought another treadmill...started walking losing weight and my mother tells me every time I get a piece of exercise equipment I get pregnant to be careful this time. If I am losing weight.....I am going to get pregnant or abducted or not hear one of my kids dying for the music or treadmill noise...and if I am gaining weight she is concerned for my health...and I will never get married again if I don't lose this weight.

After 2 years of counseling...I finally heard something that I used. The therapist ask me if he could move into my house and live for free. Pay No rent...no groceries...no laundry....no help at all?? I said of course not...he said then why are you letting you mother live in your head for FREE??

Back when I lost my weight my Dr. was asking me how he can follow my example...he did well,,,he lost a total of 35 lbs also. Not all Dr. know whats going on when it comes to nutrition and diet. Before I was either sent to a nurtitionist or given a diagram of what Canadian Food Guide. Same kinda as the one I was given when I was in grade school.
The Dr. I have now is a rake thin guy, who had at one point a weight problem. The perfect kind of Dr. cause hes been where I am and knows the struggle. He scares me though in some of the things hes told me. A lil too much info. He won't eat his last meal of the day (dinner) if he hasn't had his run.
The Runners in the 3fc,,,would you do that?

I don't think that you are overreacting!! I think I would have been speechless if my doctor told me that - for about 5 seconds. What a PRICK!!!
You should be proud of your weight loss!! :hug:

Think about this! How many overweight Asians do we see? They eat rice 3 meals a day. Eat RICE! He doesnt know what he's talking about. Whatever you are doing is working for you and you shouldnt have to cut out everything in your diet. You are working out enough to be able to eat some rice if you want too.

You know what? I think with doctors, etc. it is a POWER trip. You are doing so well on your own, you know what works for you, but they have to put their 2 cents in so they can get the credit. If you keep on doing exactly what you have been doing and go back to that doctor and have lost 15 more lbs, they will say, "See? I told you to cut out that rice, and look--you lost more weight! Aren't I a great doctor for recommending that?" dorks.

Let it go in one ear and out the other. Don't fix what ain't broke.

I have had bosses like that. I take on a project, it turns out exceedingly well and then the control-freak boss comes along and says "Oh, here is my recommendation to make this work".....but I just keep plugging along with the way I have been doing things and it turns out great, but the boss takes the credit because they made some little assinine suggestion. Some people just have to be in control of every little situation. and that makes me sick.

Can ya tell you touched a nerve with me? :mad: :mad:

Thanks everyone for your great comments. I guess I just couldnt believe how a medical doctor could be so discouraging to my progress. But from the sounds of your posts, alot of them are like this. I was also shocked I guess that he would even suggest that I should go below 1200 calories...I am doing and forming my diet on my own steam and I am feeding my body what it needs to fuel itself givin the workouts I do daily, so I guess I didnt want to hear anything unsupportive especially froma doctor. Also I just wanted to say while we are on this topic, that I also have a very good friend of mine who was a bigger girl at one time and in the past 2-3 years she has lost the weight and is down to 150 lbs which is a nice size for her. Anyway I have been totally supportive in her journey even when I wasnt losing weight...but now that I have begun to really shed the pounds and watch what I eat this is what she says to me "I think you are developing an unhealthy relationship with food..you count calories in everything..I think your obsessed with food and you are going to head towards having an EATING DISORDER" So help me lord I thought I was going to lose my mind. Its like you cant win for losing, if I would have stayed the same weight she'd give me flack for being heavy, now that I am dieting and working out I have an eating disorder. Which by the way I specialized in Womens Studeis in University and focused on women and health, so I did a lot of work with eatiing disorders...and I cant believe that she would say that to me. I dont obsess about my food..Im just much more concious of what I feed my body. I am SO FED UP TALKING ABOUT IT. why does everyone feel like they are entitled to have an opinion about what I do with my body and how I should take care of it, most of the time I just want to say SHUT UP! THanks for letting me vent...Anyone else have this problem?

Originally Posted by Glasgowgirl:
Also I just wanted to say while we are on this topic, that I also have a very good friend of mine who was a bigger girl at one time and in the past 2-3 years she has lost the weight and is down to 150 lbs which is a nice size for her. Anyway I have been totally supportive in her journey even when I wasnt losing weight...but now that I have begun to really shed the pounds and watch what I eat this is what she says to me "I think you are developing an unhealthy relationship with food..you count calories in everything..I think your obsessed with food and you are going to head towards having an EATING DISORDER" So help me lord I thought I was going to lose my mind. Its like you cant win for losing, if I would have stayed the same weight she'd give me flack for being heavy, now that I am dieting and working out I have an eating disorder. Which by the way I specialized in Womens Studeis in University and focused on women and health, so I did a lot of work with eatiing disorders...and I cant believe that she would say that to me. I dont obsess about my food..Im just much more concious of what I feed my body. I am SO FED UP TALKING ABOUT IT. why does everyone feel like they are entitled to have an opinion about what I do with my body and how I should take care of it, most of the time I just want to say SHUT UP! THanks for letting me vent...Anyone else have this problem?

Insane isn't it. How about this. I got folks who knows that I am dieting. I watch everything I eat, I weigh some of my foods if I don't have the idea what the portion of that food looks like, and I exercise. I am doing well on what I am doing and lost 20+ pounds since Jan 2006. Now my folks are jumping in to help and you know what they are doing? When they find a diet pill commercial they buy it and give it to me, they tell me what vitamin, mineral, herbs I should be taking, which I take that advice as I can take it or leave it, and they will come back two weeks later and ask me if I am taking such and such vitamin, mineral, or herb? which I will say no and they say well I think if you take it , it would work, it works for me. All I say is okay and try to leave it at that, I had folks try to switch me off my diet I have been on, on to something they heard on tv or a radio.

It seems to me that when we are not dieting and not want to be healthy ,, not a word is said by those who "care" however, as soon as we begin to change and want to see a healthier us and lose weight, then all who "care" seem to be so concerned,,, Where were they when I was eating Pizza and a Fatty cheeseburger.... but now that I eat Salad and Chicken breast.. I am killing myself... ugh............

Remember, just because someone has a license to practice medicine, it doesn't mean they know everything ;)

I still eat rice and I've managed to lose 80 pounds doing it, so...

I’ve been lucky to not really get much of anything other than support and encouraging comments. But then again I haven’t seen a Dr. outside of my annual gyno exam in I don’t know how long. My bf’s dad is very critical of his weight and always sending him things he thinks will “help”. Magazine articles, “total body makeover” kits, etc. - bunch of garbage basically. All it does is make him feel bad and angry at his father. Funny thing, bf started following my example a bit when I started losing and he’s lost over 20 lbs. Just goes to show you that leading by example is more valuable than any amount of nagging and baseless “advice” any day.

I think that is part of the reason why I CRINGE when anybody mentions weight loss to me. I absolutely HATE when people notice I am eating healthy, or when they say "Oh you have lost weight!".

Because you know the next thing they are gonna do is tell you what you should be doing to lose weight. Like I don't know what is working for me already???? If I wasn't doing something right, they wouldn't have noticed, so don't start lecturing me about it now and telling me what I should be eating. grr.

I just don't tell people I'm losing weight. If someone notices, or thinks they do, I'll say I'm not really trying and that I'm pretty sure I'm the same weight. That usually shuts them up. Also Jaime you made me think of something with the "obsession" thing. I think there was a whole thread on it in the maintainer's forum. I think in some ways you HAVE to be obsessed. I think being complacent and ignorant is what makes us gain weight and get out of shape.

Another very smart woman on here also compared watching your weight to watching your finances. It takes a lot of thinking, planning, and monitoring to budget your life and stay out of debt. But no one accuses those who work hard on their finances as having a money disorder! :lol: I know it's different for each person, but I think many of us will be "obsessing" about what we eat and our weight for the rest of our lives, I know I will if I want to keep the weight off.

This is why i go to female doctors for the most part (except for my chiropracter, but he is very nice) They are just more sensitive. Hey, you've lost that much weight so far, you're a role model for all of us! Congratulations! Obviously you must be doing something right if you've made it this far. Keep going and dont pay any attention. Just because he's a doctor doesnt mean he knows everything (quite the contrary in some cases)

Alicia:)

Originally Posted by blues4miles:
I just don't tell people I'm losing weight. If someone notices, or thinks they do, I'll say I'm not really trying and that I'm pretty sure I'm the same weight. That usually shuts them up. Also Jaime you made me think of something with the "obsession" thing. I think there was a whole thread on it in the maintainer's forum. I think in some ways you HAVE to be obsessed. I think being complacent and ignorant is what makes us gain weight and get out of shape.

Another very smart woman on here also compared watching your weight to watching your finances. It takes a lot of thinking, planning, and monitoring to budget your life and stay out of debt. But no one accuses those who work hard on their finances as having a money disorder! :lol: I know it's different for each person, but I think many of us will be "obsessing" about what we eat and our weight for the rest of our lives, I know I will if I want to keep the weight off.

Wow! do I agree with that! When I'm really TRYING to lose weight, I do tend to get obsessive about it. I journal my efforts, record my weight, weigh every day (and when I'm really losing and it is encouraging me, sometimes multiple times a day). I also do a lot of reading, I try and learn other people's way of looking at it, I share in boards like this and learn from other people tricks, attitudes, various things that I think help me.

When I'm NOT trying to lose weight, when I've just given up, I stop doing those things. I stop being concerned about what I'm putting in my mouth, I stop exercising, I stop weighing etc.

When do I get the most criticism? When I'm working at it! When I'm "obsessing". Just the other day I had a "friend" who has an "eating disorder" jump all over my case because I was writing in my journal things I valued out of the "French Women Don't Get Fat" book. She told me things like "you should see a therapist" and she told another online friend something about "putting up with me". I was so angry with her, that if she had been here I might have been tempted to pull her hair out. This is a girl that I've been corresponding with about weight loss since about 2000, a girl who herself isn't very healthy emotionally.

She tells me it is "painful" to watch me, but doesn't offer any constructive advice about what she thinks I could do better.

I told her off. Totally told her how hurtful her words were, and that they weren't helping. She then came back and said something about how I spend "100%" of my time obsessing about food and dieting and weighing etc.

It was all I could do to not call her the B word. Essentially I think she was trying to make herself feel superiour at my expense and I did tell her that.

The last time someone leveled this kind of criticism at me I got so discouraged that I gave up for about 3 years and managed to go from maintaining my low end weight to gaining back most of it. I'm not going there again. This time I just let her have it.

I value too the statement here about letting someone live in your head for free. How valuable is THAT?!!! Yeah. I get obsessive. I fall on my butt and eat the wrong foods a lot of time, I screw up on a regular basis. This trying to drop the pounds isn't easy for me. The more perfectionistic I get, the more I want to give up if I can't be as good at it as I want to be. That kind of "obsessiveness" isn't healthy. I know that. But weighing and learning and trying to keep my enthusiasm about the process ISN'T what is messing up my efforts.

I've lost over 20 pounds this year, (lost more than that, but gained some of it back), and who NEEDS someone trying to make you feel rotten about that? We do what we know to do, we do what works for us. Do we need someone else saying "you really shouldn't do that"? Don't we know what we can handle and what we can't? Don't we know what helps US?

I don't think constructive suggestions are bad, but ripping into someone and trying to make them feel foolish because of their STYLE of doing something isn't helping.

Originally Posted by Jtjoray:
Think about this! How many overweight Asians do we see? They eat rice 3 meals a day. Eat RICE! He doesnt know what he's talking about. Whatever you are doing is working for you and you shouldnt have to cut out everything in your diet. You are working out enough to be able to eat some rice if you want too.

yup yup yup. A traditional asian (not asian-american!) diet consists of rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner alongside veggies. It's not a BAD food.

Ah, I had to respond to this because it reallly got under my skin. Eliminate rice when you are already only eating 1200 calories? What a friggin' idiot, and we expect doctors should know what's best for us. Clearly not. Jaime, give yourself a pat on the back for the tremendous job you've done so far, and definitely don't listen to that doctor! Eating less would increase your chances of gaining it back. In my humble opinion, you should be eating more. I know everyone is different and you know your body best.

You are doing a very good job, keep doing what you are doing because oviously it works for you. I dont think most doctors know much about nutrition unless they specialize in it, he should be applauding you for all the hard work you have done and adopting a more healthier lifestyle as long as you are feeling good and the weight is coming off slowly and steady HOORAY for you, it seems to me he is just upset he didn't have anything to do with your success.

I have found that people will open their mouth whether I've lost, gained, or maintained my weight. That includes DOCTORS. And policemen, and lifeguards, and joe-blow at the gym on the treadmill next to me, and my mother & my friends & my co-workers... the list is endless. If I really wanna shut'm up, I just say: "Well, aren't YOU just full of opinion today?"

I know MOST PEOPLE mean well. But sometimes I am simply not in the mood for their criticisms.

You are doing fine. You're doing what is best for you, what is helping you, eating what YOU like, and it's working. Anybody, including a doctor! - that doesn't agree with your methods can go suck on a lollipop!

I'm surprised that any doctor isn't savvy enough to understand the food pyramid. I'd be finding a new doctor. That one seems to have proven he lacks education.

Hi, I just wanted to say that I think you are doing a great job. I work with doctors and I know that they are not trained in Nutrition, that they always will refer you to a dietitian because they don't know. Even with dietitians, you have to work with them and develop a program that works for you. Diets are highly individualized and for it to work, it has to be something that you are willing to stick with, which you have!!
It's easy to get caught up trying to tell others what you think! I find that I often have to remind myself when I think of someone else doing or not doing something that I would or wouldn't do, "Whose program am I working!" I have even told my sister when she has said to me "You should be eating brown rice or wheat bread." I ask her "Whose program are you working?" She gets the hint and we laugh about it.
Anyway keep up the good work.

I agree with what everyone else here has said... You're doing a great job on your own. You know what works for you and you would be able to feel it if your body was deficient in one thing or another. You're doing a great job. Don't let one jerk pull you down. :)

Thanks so much for your wonderful comments, he was an endocrynologist so I am sure he knows little about diet. I appreciate all your encouragement and kind words. I guess I just get frustrated and fed up having to listen to everyone else feel like they have a right or an invitation to have something to say. I know many of us are in the same boat so I appreciate your understanding.