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Castello
Guest
One more thing, every literate person in the free world KNOWS how to “lose weight” - eat less and excercise more.
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Havard
Guest
Thank you for sharing your inspiring story. And what a great example to your children! No matter what weight you may or may not lose, your lifestyle and marriage sound very healthy!
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happymommy
Guest
Thank you!:bighanky:
You are right, however, if there is a trigger that cause one to eat more it’s not that easy to just turn that off. Food can become like a drug for some people. You can’t get a kid off of drugs by saying, hey, you know better than that! And you can’t make them quit until they are ready! Same thing with food for some people. It was my drug. That extra cookie or chocolate will make it all better…for a little while then I’d need a little more…well I wouldn’t want anyone to know I’ve been munching all day so I have to still eat dinner with the family…now I feel guilt…what will make me feel better…food. Very hard to break!
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faithfully
Guest
I think every literate person knows how not to sin. And yet we have confessionals for a reason.
We all have something that is hard for us to do.
I’m going to project and guess this woman MIGHT be a bit like me.
I’m 5’5" and was incredibly fit when I was young. It came freaky easy for me. So easy there was really no effort put forth. I did work out. But only because I was a dancer, and dancing was fun. Hitting the studio up to 20 hours a week was not effort. It was FUN! I had no responsibilites that stopped me. I was able to complete all homework. Never had to deal with crying sick children for example. I was one of those that could eat whatever I wanted and it NEVER hit my hips.
When stressors came into my life, and I didn’t have all the free time in the world to do my FUN stuff my body suffered. Having NEVER had to feel like I was working for my body, it has been nothing but a struggle. It’s depressing. I do not recognize the body in the mirror. My twins took it for a ride beyond anything I could have guessed would have happend.
The equation to weightloss is not perfectly linear. There are variables involved that make it difficult. If the variables are not adjusted for because you don’t know what they are, it makes solving the problem much for difficult and quite defeating.
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LightBound
Guest
You mentioned several times on this thread about how you were able to lose weight, in spite of your paralysis. That’s great. It really is. You had quite an uphill battle and you succeeded. But please keep in mind that while you were able to do it, albeit with great difficulty, others are not you. There are many other factors that make losing weight difficult for people. Physiological, psychological, external factors, etc. Until someone has been in someone else’s shoes (or stuck in their body), they cannot possibly know what demons they are battling. In your case, it was the paralysis, for others, who knows? Deep-seated depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, metabolic issues.
Metabolic disorders aren’t easily cured with less calories and more exercise. Sometimes people need bariatric surgery to reverse or treat their metabolic issues that keep them from losing weight. I’m not suggesting that this is what the OP’s wife needs, but I’m trying to let some of the people on here know that’s it’s not as simple as joining the gym and Jenny Craig. For anyone that is seriously overweight…go see a Bariatric specialist. They have a multi-disciplinary team of specialists…dieticians, exercise physiologists, psychologists, and yes, bariatric surgeons, if need be.
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LightBound
Guest
Unless they have metabolic disorders…those are a lot more common than people realize.
As “Cat” wisely recommended a few pages back, everyone needs to be cleared by a competent physician before starting on a diet and exercise routine. For some really overweight people, that may well include an EKG or even an ultrasound of the heart. Being severely overweight can put a lot of strain of vital organs and systems. That’s why in my reply to Marie, I mentioned the importance of getting in a program run by a multi-disciplinary team of specialists that can monitor and help manage weight loss and if it’s not working due to medical reasons, they can go ahead with gastric bypass or other surgical means. That kind of surgery does come with risks, but it’s also been shown to “reset” the metabolic system so certain diseases and disorders like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and even diabetes are “cured”, so to speak.
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PennyinCanada
Guest
I hope she is watching Dr Oz in the afternoons. He talks a lot about eating healthy, exercise, and is motivating people to make some changes. He is charming and a pleasure to watch most days. The show may help her because he’s been helping a lot of people. 2 thumbs up for him.
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SurlyMermaid
Guest
Agreed.
When I taught fitness, I saw many very overweight folks would do too much too quickly and wind up injuring themselves and have to stop working out in order to recuperate. I think a good method is to start walking daily and/or swimming.
I do feel like this couple needs a date night and some time to become friends again. I’m sure she’s feeling horrible and is quite aware her hubby is unhappy with her. He may be working later than usual, simply to spend more time away. He may be generally acting differently. In the back of her mind he’s already got another woman waiting in the wings. She sounds depressed and that’s probably going to give her a certain amount of defensiveness and paranoia.
At any rate, I’m continuing to pray for this family. Maybe the kids can be enlisted to help as well. It’s a family thing. One person cannot eat healthier, etc. while the rest of the crew, high metabolisms or not, continue with old habits. It doesn’t work, and in school I found research to support this for several papers I wrote on helping others lose weight, etc.
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Catholic90
Guest
So OP has not returned…
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Cat
Guest
You’re not eating enough. That’s why you’re not losing weight. Your body has “shut down” the calorie-burning machine because it thinks it is in a “famine state.”
My metabolism is messed up. I eat very little throughout the days. Yet I am considered heavy. Most days I have coffee with about 1 tablespoon of creamer for breakfast in the morning. I sip water throughout the day. Lunch does not happen until 3:30 or 4 pm and is usually a bowl of soup. Dinner is eaten around 6 or 7, and often I am still full from my late lunch, so I do not eat a lot - 1 slice pizza or a salad or 1/2 a sandwich, usually with an arnie palmer. More water after dinner. If I eat more, I gain. If I eat a little, I maintain. I really can’t cut much out, since I do not eat much to begin with. Some people are like me. I usually walk about an hour a day.
You have to kick up your metabolism, and the way to do that is to eat more.
The dietician (registered) actually increased my husband’s calorie intake when he was having trouble losing pounds.
Biggest Loser contestants, Weight Watchers clients, and others who get involved with a healthy food planning program are often amazed at how much they are able to eat on these programs and still lose weight.
I agree with whoever said that the OPs wife may not have a problem with overeating at all. A lot of overweight people eat very little, and that’s their problem .
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Cat
Guest
People who are successful at losing weight LOVE their bodies and themselves.
People who hate their bodies and themselves do NOT lose weight and get in shape.
During all the years that I have been obese, I never stopped feeling attractive and sexy, and my husband adored my body.
The only time I felt unattractive was after I learned that my tendon was broken and my foot was deformed due to years of a collapsed arch. That’s when I felt ugly.
A person who loves their body will take care of it . The Bible says this. But a person who hates their body will neglect it and abuse it as a way of “punishing” their “bad body.”
But just because you love your body and try to take care of it doesn’t mean that you are successful.
Throughout all my years of being obese, I tried over and over again to diet and exercise. I’m guessing that the OPs wife has done the same, and has reached a point of discouragement where she has absolutely given up. Perhaps the OP senses this, and THIS is why he has apparently given up on his wife.
**I don’t think I can say it too many times–the issue of obesity is extremely complex, and anyone who tries to simplify it and say, “Just lose it” is kidding themselves. **
Obesity is so much more complicated than other addictions like alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc. We don’t need liquor, crack, and cards to live, but we do require food to live. You can’t just stop eating. You have to learn to continue to partake of the very thing, food, that you are addicted to. It’s d__n hard, everyone.
We know of a trainer who actually gained, on purpose, 50 pounds so that he could understand how fat people feel. It changed his whole outlook on obesity. I would suggest that others might want to try this. I’m guessing that they would change some of their posts in this thread.
I’m 54, and over the years, the medical thinking on diet has changed over and over again. Back when I was in my 20s, the American Heart Association recommended cutting back on meat, and consuming mainly carbs. This has made millions of people in the U.S. fat.
I can remember having a poster up in my kitchen with rice, pasta, and bread, with all the recommendations about eating as much of these as you want, but no meat.
No wonder I gained so much weight. But I was just following the recommendations of the medical experts.
Now the medical advice has changed 180 degrees. We are supposed to cut out carbs and eat more lean protein.
That has made a difference in my family, as both my husband and I have lost weight cutting back on carbs.
The problem is, carbs are yummy! And they’re cheaper than meat.
And again, you can’t cut out ALL carbs! For women especially, due to their physiology, this is quite dangerous.
Also, active children and teenagers should NOT cut out carbs! A few years back, a United States Figure Skating doctor recommended that competitive figure skaters in their teens should be consuming at least 70% of their calories in the form of carbohydrates, including bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice!
Of course, women will pick up on this immediately–it means that a mom will end up preparing TWO meals for her family–one carb-rich for her children, and one carb-poor/protein-rich for herself and daddy.
Dr. David A Kessler, M.D. has written an incrediby good book called,* The End of Overeating–Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite*. It’s the best book I’ve seen regarding the reasons why so many Americans are overweight or obese. In this book, Dr. Kessler states that only about 15% of Americans have no issues with food. That means 85% of us have some issue with food (either overweight, obese, addicted, insatiable cravings, unbalanced diet but still thin, etc.) Dr. Kessler expresses amazement that anyone in the U.S. is still at a normal weight.
Again, I’ll say it–this is a complex issue, and there are no simple answers. Those who think there are simple answers are simply wrong.
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Cat
Guest
I certainly agree with this, except for the recommendation to start walking.
Swimming is good, but it’s not a good “fit” for many people. For fat people it’s difficult to get into a swimsuit (or find one that fits), go to a place with a pool, pull on that suit, climb into the water, and swim for a long enough time to actually experiece calorie burning. I learned to swim when I was a child, but I’m so terrible at it that I honestly can’t swim a whole lap without getting water up my nose. I can’t see a thing without my glasses (contacts are no longer an option due to various meds that dry out my eyes). I’ll just say it–I hate swimming. Plus there’s all the big fuss afterward of showering to get the chlorine off the body and hair (it dries the skin and makes it crack, which is horrible, because many fat people already have skin issues, and it turns blonde hair like mine green), drying the hair, pulling on the clothes–and then stepping outside into below freezing temperatures here up North!
Should I say what I really think about swimming?!
As for walking–it’s amazing how we take this skill for granted. Until I broke my tendon, walking was my exercise. I could walk several miles with no pain.
But after I broke my tendon, walking was torture. And the more weight I gained, the more my thighs rubbed together, and then I would get chafe marks and eventually the skin would break and bleed, which is dangerous for anyone with bad circulation.
And after I started limping due to my broken tendon, my knees started going bad, and the left knee eventually became bone on bone (osteoarthritis).
So walking is not always a good option for the obese. It can actually do more damage that makes it even harder to be mobile.
MY suggestion is to beg your family doctor to please give you an RX for physical therapy, and go to a registered physical therapist, not just an exercise tech or certified trainer. IF the doctor prescribes it, it will be covered by insurance (assuming you have insurance–that’s another whole issue for the obese!).
I worked for six months three times a week with a physical therapist who helped me to get my foot strong enough (after surgery) to walk on it, and who helped me to strengthen the muscles around my knee so that I wouldn’t do more damage to it when walking.
Once I was stronger, due to the physical therapy, I was able to start doing a recumbent bicycle at the gym (not an upright bike, and NO spin classes!). The first few weeks on the recumbent bike, I was able to do a mere five minutes. The arthritis in my knee hurt so badly, and I could feel the “cracking” in the knees–like fingernails on a chalkboard.
But then I built up some more strength. My daughter (a PT) told me that with osteo, you simply HAVE to keep moving, even if it hurts, because it will make the osteo get less painful. She cautioned me to avoid incurring a inflammatory response (don’t exercise until you feel the “burn!”).
Now I can easily do 45 minutes on a recumbent bike, OR 25 minutes on an upright elliptical. I do like the elliptical because it is very low impact, and the ones at our gym have cable television (which I don’t have at home!), so I can watch HGTV! Fun!
But it took nearly TWO YEARS to get to the point where I can do 25 minutes on that elliptical. When I see obese people come in and try to do 25 minutes in their first week, I cringe, and sometimes I’ll actually tell them to take it slow and easy.
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KostyaJMJ
Guest
Except that model doesn’t work for 99% of the people who try it. Just sayin, maybe there is more to it than poor self-control, and what everybody knows is true just isn’t so.
If the system were as simple as a calorie-in, calorie-out system your calorie intake would have to have an accuracy of 0.01% to maintain your weight within 5 lbs over a 5 year period. You don’t have to worry about that because the body regulates weight on its own, that is unless the natural set-point of the body is damaged. If that happens eating less and exercising more will only make things worse.
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Cat
Guest
Dr. Kessler’s book (see my above post) discusses in detail why the “calories-in-calories-out” model is “broken” in the United States, and why people do not, as a rule, maintain “homeostasis” over their lifetime. Again, I heartily recommend it. This book has changed my husband and I when it comes to eating out–we used to eat out almost every meal. We still out a lot, but we are very careful about where we eat and what we order.
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masondoggy
Guest
Sorry but YOUR body is not MY body. Everybody’s body is different and there are a bazilion different factors that go into weight gain and weight loss. It isn’t all about food control. Saying “If I can do it,then you have no excuse for yourself” is an extremely insensitive and ignorant attitude.
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Debora123
Guest
What Marie wrote should give hope and come as a motivation to work hard without giving up or feeling sorry for yourself… not as something insulting. I thought it would be inspirational to someone who truly wants to lose weight.
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Marie5890
Guest
Lightbound,
You make very valid observations.
Many times it’s not just obesity that people are battling but other conditions as well, all making weight-loss even more of a up-hill mountain climb.
And anyone who has and does battle, any of it, day in, day out, week after week, after month after year, knows how much of a battle and struggle it is.
Thanks for showing the bigger picture.
Hopefully others will find the bigger picture instructive and motivational in finding a path way to losing the weight they feel they need.
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Marie5890
Guest
Your are right of course. Our bodies are different.
But be just please—I didnt say "“If I can do it,then you have no excuse for yourself”----Those are your words, not mine.
What I was saying that if I found a way to do it with with a serious medical condition, then there are ways for other to also achieve weight-loss, even with their medical conditions.
Is it easy? No, not by a long shot. But it is possible.
I think some of the posters here have been very helpful in expanding the educational understanding of what dynamics can go into weight-loss and metabolic disorders. And encouraging and given some ideas of what kind of experts to look to for answers.
What I found most helpful in this thread is the reminder that there are answers and solutions out there for those who struggle with obesity. It’s up to each of us take a look and see what is applicable for our own lives.
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Havard
Guest
Of course I can’t and won’t speak to any individual poster’s condition that may make them an exception.
But let’s not pretend that eating and exercise behavior isn’t a problem in America, either. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average American daily calorie intake was 2,234 in 1970 and 2,757 in 2003. And it’s not just the amount people consume that’s unsettling, there are several trends we should be worried about, such as the fact that people are eating out more (foods prepared at home are on average more healthy) and they are eating more processed foods.
usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf
Regarding exercise, in a recent CDC study, 33% of adults were considered inactive, 33% of adults had some leisure-time physical activity, and only 35% of adults engaged in leisure-time physical activity on a regular basis. Regarding vigorous leisure-time physical activity, 55% of adults aged 18 years and over never engaged in any periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity lasting 10 minutes or more per week.
cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_249.pdf
But let’s not pretend that eating and exercise behavior isn’t a problem in America, either. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average American daily calorie intake was 2,234 in 1970 and 2,757 in 2003. And it’s not just the amount people consume that’s unsettling, there are several trends we should be worried about, such as the fact that people are eating out more (foods prepared at home are on average more healthy) and they are eating more processed foods.
usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf
Regarding exercise, in a recent CDC study, 33% of adults were considered inactive, 33% of adults had some leisure-time physical activity, and only 35% of adults engaged in leisure-time physical activity on a regular basis. Regarding vigorous leisure-time physical activity, 55% of adults aged 18 years and over never engaged in any periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity lasting 10 minutes or more per week.
cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_249.pdf
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KostyaJMJ
Guest
One quick comment and then I’m done for the day.
People are eating more and exercising less because they are obese. They are not obese because they are eating more and exercising less.
We have to change the way we eat and then the calories and exercise will fall into place.
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