Being part of the solution . . . .

[kathleen24]

I have been doing some reading at a favorite LC site, CarbSmart magazine, and read an archived article written after 9/11. You can read it yourself right here: http://www.carbsmart.com/newday.html and probably should if you want to make sense of what follows:

It made me think about an article I read about two men walking down the stairs in one of the Twin Towers. They came across an obese man who had given up. They talked him down, and helped him down as much as they could, and he finally gave up and sat down. One of the men sat down and said, "I'm not leaving without you." The other walked out, and lived to tell about it. The other two men were not seen again.


Here's a Katrina story, quoted from this site: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1886932005

"A bearded, middle-aged doctor, who is still wearing his green hospital garb, tells me the sad story as he and his colleagues sit at the muddy, squalid refugee-receiving post on New Orleans' I10 Highway. He does not want to give me his name and will not identify the patient out of respect.

But he wants people to know what happened in there. His lower jaw quivers as he recalls the events of Wednesday night.

"We had minutes to get out, and I asked, 'What are we going to do about this guy, because he's a big man. It was going to be tough getting him down those stairs - the elevators weren't working. That woman turned to me and said straight out, 'We're going to help him to heaven'. It makes me want to break down, how that man's life was taken away."


And finally, this one, and I can't remember where I found it:

Threats come and go. For most working stiffs, a Chinese proverb that Pauls quotes is instructive: "Of the 39 ways to escape danger, running away is best."


I can't run yet. But by God, at least now I can walk.

I don't have any conclusions about this--am still in the pondering stages. I know that after I learned about these, I still ate myself into a condition of morbid obesity.

But I am throwing this out there for your consideration. Any thoughts?

[sherbear]

Personally, I would have been very grateful to have been euthanized rather than to be left to die a horrible death, and I would not want anyone to die with me. JMHO
Sherry

[c_cat]

I can't run yet. But by God, at least now I can walk.

I don't have any conclusions about this--am still in the pondering stages. I know that after I learned about these, I still ate myself into a condition of morbid obesity.

But I am throwing this out there for your consideration. Any thoughts?

For some reason, I've not been so embarrassed about my weight (that is maybe or maybe not a true statement - still examining my own head/heart). But I have been embarrassed by what I've let happen to my physical abilities.

I thought that I deserved to 'treat' myself. And often that was food, but overwhelmingly always it was by not having to do anything physical. Never taking the stairs (even when my office building was two stories (I told everyone I had a bad knee - not true) ). I always parked as close as I could anywhere. And any chance I had for getting others to do things for me, or just not doing them is what I did. I had a bunch of employees and coworkers who wanted to get the heck out at lunch, and they were happy to bring me my lunch. I worked through my lunch every day for a decade or more. These lunches weren't salads.

I somehow got the message that it was the privilege of the adult to not have to get out the chair to change the channel (remember waaay back then), or get out of the chair to do anything.

If I had a choice between going to the movies, and laying on the couch falling asleep watching tv - I chose the one with less exercise.

A year and a half ago I started to fall down some stairs and only fell a few - because I grabbed hold of the handrail with one arm. That shoulder was barely usable for months. I was always wimpy in upper body strength - but I used that injury as an excuse not to barely use either of my arms. Even a few years ago I could do 5 full-length pushups - now I can't do one.

I've made myself an invalid.

I'm very proud of losing these 20 pounds. :agree: Even if it is the same 20 pounds I've lost before over and over and over. I still have to get through these to get lower.

And I'm working out aerobically all the time now. No running - but yes I can walk! A lot more than I could a couple months ago! At some point soonish starts muscles - and with me - anything (even just some calisthenics at home a few times a week) is an improvement.

I can't believe I made myself so immobile. But I did. And I'm working on it. I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd been in the towers or in New Orleans. I certainly still don't have the stamina many others have. I hope I don't ever get to find out.

Thanks for this. A good reminder. I feel so proud of myself for hitting the treadmill so often now - but I'm still way slower than everyone else I know.

[eyesofblue]

Wow...what a thought; deep thoughts actually. I had never thought of my weight in relation to things such as those. Very thought provoking...what else can I say, but wow.

[Judynyc]

I don't have time to go read the article but can relate it to an experience of mine.....4 yrs ago on 8/15/03, there was a huge power outage. I was 270 lbs and had to climb 14 flights of stairs several times......and it scared me...a lot!!:eek:

It felt as if I was going to have a heart attack and I think that was the beginning of my realization that I just could not go on the way I had been. :idea:

A few months later...I committed myself to doing this.

[diemde]

Kathleen, I've been thinking off and on about this thread, primarily because of the title... Being part of the solution. There is something I want to do to make a difference, but I'm not quite sure how to go about doing it. I'd like to personally attack the issue of childhood obesity.

I believe we are seeing a compounding of the problem with children getting fat because their parents were taught to eat low fat and are now passing that on to their children. It's too late for me to solve my own daughter's obesity. At 21 she is too old for me to control what she eats. Oh, how I wish I could go back to when she was 3 or 4 years old and apply the knowledge I have now!

I've been trying to think of how to make a difference. I thought about making up a flyer and just handing it out to people. If I handed out 100 flyers and it helped one child, it would be worth it. But, would anybody really read it and try to follow a lower carb lifestyle? I don't have any credentials like nutritionists or doctors have. While we low carbers understand that the so called experts really aren't expert, other people still listen to them.

I do think those of us who have seen the light ought to give back to the community. And what better way than to educate the parents of young overweight children! I just am not sure how to go about it. Maybe if enough of us got together and brainstormed some options, we could come up with a plan... maybe like the pay it forward concept. I can just see us TDC'ers on the news because we made a difference in a child's life!

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit, but I would really like to do something. It's frustrating to read threads in the media section where they want to take children away from their parents because being obese is considered a form of child abuse.

[katwoman]

It also makes me very angry (as a teacher dedicated to a LC lifestyle) to see the GARBAGE served in school cafeterias. Carbs are cheap--and THAT is why every meal served by public school systems are so high in carbs. Pasta, pizza, battered and fried chicken and fish, mashed potatoes, hot rolls, burritos. . .and our kids who are on free/reduced lunches who also get high carbs at home (for the same reason) don't have a chance.

It's a big problem--big challenge, but I'm with you Dianne. There has to be a way to get some attention focussed on this issue.

[kathleen24]

All I can say right now is wow.

There are so many people who are hungry for hope, who need to hear this. In the last week, I've spoken to two people about it. One is the wife of a man about 350. She's a charmer, looks a lot like our Judy, and just bubbly and warm and funny. She says of her husband that she loves him so much, and is worried about his health--they traveled 700 miles r.t. to look into the surgery--and I told her about this forum and LC--she was so excited. Another is a woman who had a bypass years ago, went from 300 to 140--and is back to 190, and considering another surgery. I told her about LC, and she was impressed, wanted to know more.

You know where this could really make a difference? Middle school and high school. There are kids there who are old enough to be making their own decisions, and need information. Years of misery could be spared, lives and limbs saved. I feel confident that if this tide is not stemmed, these children will reap the whirlwind. Look how much worse it is now for kids--they will be fighting this earlier, and worse than our generations have had it. Scary, yes?