14:03 - THIS. Sadly, most people here do. Exactly why I remain unimpressed. They try to apply Google to actual life, thinking that it sounds informed, when it really just sounds like you are trying to milk your "google research" for all its worth. Morons.

I just had a baby and it will take me time to drop all the weight i gained. Whatever, OP. Just bc I am overweight right now doesn't mean I've thrown in the towel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, did you know that typing "medically proven" in parentheses does not mean an assertion actually is medically proven?

Evidently not. And it's just one of the many things you don't know! Wheee!

Google is your friend if you find out ... and I put there for people like you who would say there is no "proof".

Google does not distinguish between good research and bad, such as studies that conflate correspondence and causation or those that display clear confirmation bias.

Did you base your college papers on what you found on Wikipedia?

Anonymous wrote:Given your background OP, you will be far more successful with your clients and in your profession if you carve out a niche working with those who are just overweight and out of shape – those with less than 30 or 40 lbs to lose and/or those wanting to get in shape/start exercising.

You are just not going to be the right person to counsel a very overweight or obese person.

+1.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, did you know that typing "medically proven" in parentheses does not mean an assertion actually is medically proven?

Evidently not. And it's just one of the many things you don't know! Wheee!

Google is your friend if you find out ... and I put there for people like you who would say there is no "proof".

Not the PP but I had posted you can be overweight and otherwise healthy/fit just like you can be at a normal weight and unhealthy/unfit.

Weight is only one factor of many.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Until you have been fat, you have no idea what people are going through. I have been thin and fat (baby weight), and it was awful. I was treated so differently by strangers. My family and husband were loving and amazing, but complete strangers were so rude to me. I noticed it in stores mostly. When I was at my thin weight, people would go out of their way to help me. At my fat weight, I was either invisible or an annoyance.

So you are blaming others for not accepting your unhealthy choices?

Wow! Do you kick dogs, and push little old ladies too?

Anonymous wrote:Hey, did you know that typing "medically proven" in parentheses does not mean an assertion actually is medically proven?

Evidently not. And it's just one of the many things you don't know! Wheee!

Google is your friend if you find out ... and I put there for people like you who would say there is no "proof".

Hey, did you know that typing "medically proven" in parentheses does not mean an assertion actually is medically proven?

Evidently not. And it's just one of the many things you don't know! Wheee!

OP I am not overweight and never have been but DH is and so is his entire family. We're pretty close and here's what I've observed:
- Eating is a compulsive disorder that they haven't figure out how to control
- They eat to deal with their own emotional issues
- They are concerned about 'wasting' food (see deep freezer in garage) and since they are in their 60's, still have the New Immigrant Attitude about food from the 40's (always buy on sale, stock up, etc.)
- They are lazy - not always recycling, takeout food often, buy a lot of prepackaged snacks/drinks, no exercise EVER
- They don't care that much because all their friends are overweight
- They don't keep up with new information about diet/exercise (my MIL over-consumes artificially sweetened drinks, yogurts, etc.)
- They don't read labels or know enough about the foods they eat
- The TV is always on

MIL and SIL will occasionally make an effort to slim down, but they yo-yo big time. Rarely does it involve exercise; usually it's just eating salad instead of a cheeseburger and fries.

OP, you do realize that we are genetically engineered to get fat if it is possible to get fat? We are designed, over millenia of natural selection, to pack on the pounds, with the goal of being able to survive in times of famine. So expecting everyone to be magically thin is expecting them to have the strength to overcome their basic human nature. And our society provides very little opportunity for people to fight that basic nature. Our foods are not healthy. Our jobs are sedentary. We communities are not walkable. We are rushed for time, leading to fast food. We are wealthly, leading to calorie smorgasboards the average person once could have only dreamed of. The irony that humanity spent so many generations virtually starving to death, and now we are drowning in food..... Add to any of the above age (slowing metabolism), stress, depression, child rearing. It really is, for many people, a losing fight. Do you really not get that?

http://diannesylvan.com/archives/1358

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why overweight women get so bent out of shape when someone points out that they're fat. It is what it is, ladies. If you're defensive, you know that you are disappointed with your physical appearance. Instead of attacking someone, perhaps you should look inward for ways to change your bad habits..

I don't think people got bent out of shape that the op pointed out that they're fat. They got bent out of shape that OP thinks they are "horribly wrong" and because they are fat automatically hate themselves and can't walk up stairs.

I'm fat. I'm obese. I know that isn't healthy and I'm trying to change it. But I'm not horribly wrong. I don't get winded walking up stairs, etc.

OP did not say fat people are horribly wrong, but rather than being obese is horribly wrong. There is a difference. I'm overweight and I agree that it is not healthy for me...I'm doing something about it. Being obese is horribly wrong. Doesn't matter about getting winded, etc. It is not healthy to have 50+ pounds of extra fat hanging off our bodies.

Yes she did! She said

Anonymous wrote:Was there not some point you looked in the mirror and realized something was horribly wrong with your body?

When someone says something is horribly wrong with my body, she's saying something is horribly wrong with me! My body is part of me so yeah, she said something's horribly wrong with me.

OP - I agree with everyone else who says you shouldn't be in this line of work. You have a very skewed view of overweight people and how they think. You just don't get it. I don't necessarily think that you had to be fat to understand - I have a therapist who has been rail thin her whole life, but she gets it.

But, to humor you and answer your questions:

Was there a point when I looked in the mirror and realized something was "horribly wrong" with me (or my body...whatever)? No. I gained weight slowly - over several years. And just as slowly, I stopped looking at myself naked in the mirror, stopped weighing myself and then, at one point, didn't have a full length mirror in my house.

Also, when you see yourself, you have a skewed vision. I think similar to anorexics who see their rail-thin bodies as being fat, I think some fat women see a slender version of themselves.

Looking at people at the beach in their suits makes it so clear the way the human body was meant to be shaped and the way the majority of people actually are. Do you really miss the early stages when you can just scale back and drop 5 pounds?
First, if it's only dropping 5 pounds I'm concerned about, then yeah, I'd miss those days. But I suspect (if you are in this business) that you rarely have someone seeking professional help that needs to only drop 5lbs. It's more like 50lbs, so this question REALLY demonstrates you have no idea about this business. Second, I think like anything on your body that reflects aging, I think people miss being able to do one little thing that used to work in their youth and now it doesn't (think dabbing your grey roots and now you need full color to cover everything. think using a little foundation to cover wrinkles now requires botox or stage make-up...whatever).



Do you just reach a point where you don't care?
What does this question really mean??? Again, if you REALLY understood this business you'd know that if I didn't care, I wouldn't be coming to you for professional help!! DUH!! Of course I care - I just haven't been able to succeed. God, the more I try to answer your questions without snark, the more irritated I get that you are considering this field. Your poor clients! But, I'll try and spell it out for you in terms you might understand. Let's say you've always wanted to be a marathon runner. You'd train (on your own) or join various groups to train. Your legs always gave out and you could never finish a marathon. In fact, you start getting frustrated so you quit for a while and try to get back into it. But again, you don't succeed. You get frustrated and quit for a year or two, or you have a baby and decide to not spend so much time running/training and stop for a year or two. You try to get back into it, and you can't even run a 5k because you've stopped running for over a year. So, you go to a "professional" and say, I want to train for a marathon, I heard you can help. And that professional says to you, "well, you can't even run a 5K.... do you even care about running a marathon?"

Do you get it??????

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Until you have been fat, you have no idea what people are going through. I have been thin and fat (baby weight), and it was awful. I was treated so differently by strangers. My family and husband were loving and amazing, but complete strangers were so rude to me. I noticed it in stores mostly. When I was at my thin weight, people would go out of their way to help me. At my fat weight, I was either invisible or an annoyance.

So you are blaming others for not accepting your unhealthy choices?

There's no excuse for being rude to strangers.

I'm not PP, but yes, I blame people for their rudeness.

Ha. The point when I looked in the mirror and thought there was something wrong with my body was probably when I was about 12 years old. And perfect. Thanks to people like OP, those of us who look like normal middle aged people have to feel bad about ourselves, because we don't look like Heidi Klum.
Some people are lucky. Good genes, time and money to work out, eat right. Great. Good for them. Some of the rest of us struggle to get out of bed every day and go back to the same old, sit on your ass all day job so you can pay the bills. At some point did I stop eating as much birthday cake and icecream as I wanted because, clearly my metabolism couldn't keep up any longer? Sure. I eat pretty responsibly. But I am never going to be thin unless I starve myself and find a way to ignore my children so I can do nothing but work out. Not a trade off I am willing to make.

Anonymous wrote:OP here
...
By the time I begin interacting with overweight and obese people we have a huge journey ahead of us. I'm just wondering how it gets that far before someone tries to catch it. It's truly not a judgement thing. It's about understanding so I can help my clients better.

To help your clients, the first thing that you need, is an attitude change. If you truly want to help someone, you have to learn that helping them psychologically to adjust to a different mindset and life choices, is as important as the physical assistance. A professional that helps someone make those types of changes should never have "horribly wrong" in their vocabulary. If that type of language escapes accidentally, or your clients hear you talking to others in your workplace, you can truly set back your efforts. So, even if you never voice it directly to your clients, you should still avoid those types of thoughts and phrases.

A true professional would think "We have lots of work to do" rather than "Something is horribly wrong". While it is fine to ask "How did we get here?" you need to find a less judgmental way to ask for that information. In all honesty, you come across as very inexperienced in dealing with people or just very abrasive. If you can't solve that problem and learn how to handle people sympathetically and courteously, you won't be very successful in your line of work, even if you are the best physically.