As I’ve said before, I don’t know everything. My family history didn’t involve obesity so your info about it is much better than mine.

And my reason for roaming around asking all these questions is to get other info to educate myself. Your info was very helpful because it is so different from what I have heard from others. This rounds it out a bit, which is important to me!!

Can I clarify one thing though?

‘According to you, nearly every one of us has suffered from a metabolic disorder.’

Many people struggling with weight problems & finding they are unable to lose weight with ‘reasonable eating & exercise’ MAY have a metabolic problem that has gone undetected, because many doctors do not know enough about metabolicc issues.

@vesta44 outlines it much better than I here: http://fathealth.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/hypothyroid-nah-just-eat-better-move-more/

And please don’t forget, if you are overweight and happy with that, then my comments do not apply to you. (I don’t believe that everyone that is overweight is unhappy or needs to be fixed.)

Thanks for your reply…

I don’t agree with either premise.

I have five generations of family photos on my wall. They date back to shortly after the Civil war up to the present day. Over ninety per cent of the people in those photographs are fat. They’ve been everything from coal miners to accountants, farmers to free lance writers, and they are nearly all the same shape.

According to you, nearly every one of us has suffered from a metabolic disorder.

All but a handful lived to be at least ninety. Those who didn’t, well, they were like my father who drowned at 74. Nearly all of them lived long lives and remained vital, active people to the end.

So if they were all suffering from a metabolic disorder (which seems a bit unlikely to me, if only because there were so many of them), it doesn’t appear to have done them much harm.

I have not ‘given up’ on anything. I have chosen to love and embrace the body I have. Giving up suggests dissatisfaction and depression. What I am doing gives me contentment and frees me from self-loathing. It allows me to look in the mirror and see all the strong, funny, determined, talented, quirky fat people I come from and love them, too. It allows me to celebrate me. It allows me to take good care of me without negativity and carping at myself.

And if I’m lucky, I’ll be just like all the other fat people in my family, and live a long, productive, healthy life.

Why mess with what’s worked for so many generations of people I love?

I do not see anything that needs fixing.

I will continue to reread your reply & see if I get it.

Feel free to ask me any questions, you can get in touch via my blog if you prefer.

Weight loss isn’t about calories. It’s about our metabolism.

If a persons metabolism is off, it doesn’t matter how few calories they consume or how much exercise they do – they are not going to lose weight.

This is my point. Now giving up would be accepting what your doctor tells you (your fine, you just need to diet & exercise more).

The ‘fight’ needs to be with the healthcare system. These doctors that don’t properly diagnose the problems, because they either don’t have the right knowledge or don’t take enough time. They have no accountability.

And overweight women leave the doctor’s office, go home and feel bad about themselves because they can’t ‘lose the weight’.

About your comment, I respect intellegent people sharing their differing views with me. I read your comment & I just don’t understand what you are saying. Not because you didn’t explain it well, it just didn’t get through. I will continue to reread your reply & see if I get it.

Thanks!!

You & I are in different places.

More than that, we understand the same facts differently and have different interpretations of those facts. So it’s difficult for you to pick up what I’m getting at, as it is for me to explain it to you.

For instance when you refer to; … weight loss or calorie consumption or exercise… ,
as I said before, this is one thing, reducing calories, either by manipulating what you eat or expending calories i.e. from exercise.

Please remember, the opinion of ‘giving up’ was from the many, many FA sites I went to.

Obviously, I cannot speak for others, but I think it’s important for those who’s views are more mainstream than FA to remember that if the object is to reverse fatness-or ‘obesity’ as they insist on calling it.

Then that is the priority, not how it’s done .

It is clear that their calorie manipulation has failed to turn fat people into thin, therefore it is they who’ve given up on moving on to something that does work-which is what you do when something doesn’t work.

It is they who insist not just that it is this way, but that it must be this way and should be the way and no other way is possible or should be. The question is why?

None of them will answer this.

If you say to them, diets don’t work, but who cares, let’s find something else for those who want it, they say not an option.

I appreciate you being an all to rare example that it is possible to disagree honourably , that is all I can really ask of anyone.

You & I are in different places. I cannot assume to know what weight loss or calorie consumption or exercise you have done that has succeeded or failed, only you know that.

I caused my weight gain. The increase of ice cream consumption immediately after quitting smoking, immediately after hysterectomy surgery, during an emotional change in my life was more than my body could handle. I gained 40 lbs in 1 yr.

But other people are different. I have always been (relatively) thin all my life. Geez, I used to body-build. I don’t know what it is like to be overweight for an extended period of time.

That means I don’t have an understanding of what it is like for you, or April, or Patsy. But I like hearing about you all. It educates me…. It’s good.

Why do you ask???

What I’m getting at is that your reading of fat acceptance as ‘giving up’ is reducing it to far less than it is (oh the irony!).

It is not that we’re tired of trying different things that don’t work, it’s that we’ve tried one thing-in many guises- over and over again, and have finally recognised the truth of that definition of madness- doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

We interpret metabolism too narrowly.

If we see weight gain or fatness as a metabolic adjustment, then cutting calories is a metabolic adjustment, out body adjusts to that adjustment, we then consciously adjust to our body’s adjustment to our adjustment of the initial adjustment- which was weight gain/fatness, and so it goes on ad infinitum.

That’s part of the tiredness you mentioned. The burden of stigma could itself cause adjustment, as you mentioned in your case in the form of stress, it can also repress the desire to move and increase appetite, a bit like your own experience.

In my case, I discovered- after I stopped trying to lifestyle change, that when I even think of reducing calories, my mood plummets, like when you get into a lift (elevator) at the top floor and go down to the basement.

It is utterly useless, the best thing I can do is what I’m in the process of doing, and that is to stop.

Not everyone reacts exactly the same, but the fact is we are all still fat.

Why do you ask???

I mean, how do you explain gaining it at all?