You’re hitting a raw nerve here. Be careful.
My husband is about 60 pounds overweight, and I am about seventy pounds overweight.
We’ve tried. A few years ago, we joined a gym, went faithfully four-five days a week, did aerobic and weight training. We kept this up for almost two years (until my surgery March 19).
We cut out or down on junk food, sweets, pop.
I lost about 30 pounds and then stopped. Have lost NOTHING since.
My poor husband never lost ANY weight or inches. He went for hormone testing and discovered that he had a low testosterone due to a pituitary tumor. Got that fixed, has normal testosterone levels, continued the exercise and cut out all pop and other junks foods
He’s also a member of a synchronized skating team, and skates three times a week.
HE LOST NOTHING!! Not one pound. Not one inch. In fact, he gained inches, and finally had to give in and go to the “Big Men’s Store.” His blood pressure didn’t drop and his cholesterol stayed the same (around 200).
So please spare us the sanctimonius lecture about “eat less, exercise more.” It’s a lie. Just stop it, please.
There is no answer. Got it? NO ANSWER!
I believe that rather than emphasizing weight loss and thinness, we should emphasize good health. I am still about 70 pounds overweight, but my cholesterol is below 200 (179), my lipid ratio (HDL/LDL) is normal, my triglycerides are normal (50), my BP is normal, and I don’t have diabetes (yet). I am strong, I can do an aerobic workout for 20 minutes, I am active. I eat well, although I went back to drinking soda (two bottles a day)–why cut out something so tasty when it hasn’t made the slightest difference?
My biggest fear at this point is adult-onset diabetes, and I’m working toward eating foods that will delay the onset. I also try to stay active, although I have just had foot surgery for an injury that I incurred when I was about 50 pounds thinner. It has given me pain for several years, and the only reason I could only do a twenty-minute workout is that it would hurt my foot so bad that the next day, I wouldn’t be able to walk.
So hopefully, I will go back to working out and do it with less pain. I think this will help me delay onset of diabetes, in combination with a healthy diet.
But I don’t think a healthy diet and regular workouts will help me lose weight and get thin. I think I will go to my grave as a big woman. That’s OK with me, because I see myself as a beautiful, sexy woman, and my husband will agree.
BTW, the thinnest person in my workplace (5’3", 110 pounds), a woman who is religiously and vocally careful about what she eats and portion sizes–she is the one who misses the most work. Last year she had chest pains at work, was rushed to the ED, and diagnosed with congestive heart failure. She also has chronic back pain which causes her a to miss a lot of work, and she’s supposed to have surgery, but she can’t because of the risk to her bad heart.
So THIN PEOPLE are NOT IMMUNE from illness, injury, and DEATH.
I’m with you! I am so tired of seeing people (the pinnacle of God’s creation, right?) constantly reduced to dollars and cents terms. It’s the same logic that tries to convince a woman to abort a less-than-physically-perfect baby because it will cost too much money to raise/educate, etc., or tries to convince us that elderly people should be put to death because they’re a financial drain on society. Good question – when will the witch hunt stop?