Kwikdriver,

I tend to agree that telling someone to just get some willpower is usless. Yet the truth is, they have to have willpower to make any methodology work. I know people who have low carbed and failed. They had the methodology, but lacked the discipline, the willpower, the attitude -- whatever you want to call it -- to implement it.

It's the easiest way I have seen to lose weight, but I wouldn't call it easy. Just easier; a better shovel. It takes work, effort, and desire to get you there even if you are low carbing. Some have lost like lightning. I've lost at a mediocre pace. It's harder for me than some, and easier than others. That's life.

I wouldn't dare come across as someone who would tell a fat person to just buck up and lose the weight.

What I would do is try to help them strip away the excuses that bind them to failure. I don't think I would have had the same success on other plans as this one, but I think the key is always the desire to succeed, in this or any other endeavor. Take the example of telling poor people "go make money." That would be a crass thing to say, and really not that useful to the poor person. Hell, he wants to do that already.

However...other poor people have escaped poverty. Other poor people have risen from circumstances more dire than those of some people to dizzying heights. Other people have lost weight, on low calorie plans, low fat plans, what have you. Saying that it's harder to do isn't the same as saying you can't do it.

I am (obviously) not a paragon of willpower, yet I found my strength to do this in deciding that I'd strip clean all the excuses -- I have Graves Disease. So what? Deal. I am hypothyroid. Okay, deal with that and move on. I have enormous appetites. Glad to hear it. Now go deal with those. What other way is there to settle the situation, really?

I'm fat, and getting less so. You'd see me on the street and say "there's a fat dude." I have walked a lifetime in these shoes, and I know every bitter thing there is to know about fat. I know the humiliation, the self-loathing, the dread at so many situations. I know the frustration. I've never been thin.

Could I do this some other way? I think yes, but I don't know for sure. Others have, though, so it isn't impossible.

The methodology is critical, but without the desire to make it work, no methodology even matters.

This attitude is what it takes to succeed -- no doubt about it. My issue, and I suppose it's largely a philosophical one I shouldn't have brought here in the first place, is that this attitude is necessary at all, when it wasn't for the majority of history. And most people simply will not adopt that attitude because they aren't equipped to, just as most people born in poverty never rise out of it.

At any rate, enough philosophizing from me.

Kwikdriver, that's an excellent point, and one that captures my sentiments on the whole thing very well.

It's just so much more complicated than just willpower or attitude.

Valerie

Yes, Americans are getting fatter and fatter all the time. No wonder why too, as we are richer than ever (even the poorest among us are better off), we have far more choices of cheap and fattening food all around us, and they keep serving us larger and larger portions! Maybe advertising plays a role here, but to me, that just effects which product we buy, not the type. We buy fattening food because it tastes so good. And it tastes good because our genes made us like that type of food.

Why is it that poorer people often are very obese? Is it because they don't know enough about what to eat, or is it more because they don't care if they are overweight? Perhaps they aren't in social circles that would frown on them being overweight and the only thing they have to make life more tolerable is munching on yummy food.

Why are churches so down on many vices like smoking and drinking, but hardly ever mention overeating? Is that the only "sin" that is acceptable?

Anyway, since overweight Americans will shorten their lives and have increased medical costs, clearly it's in everybody's interest to do something about it. But what? How can you make people control their eating? Will you outlaw fattening food? Will you put graphic warning signs on every candy bar? Will you send people to eating education classes?

No, the most likely thing is that some drug company will come up with a "wonder" pill that takes care of the problem and since it will be quite expensive, the government will end up paying for poor people to be able to take it. That may cost taxpayers a little in the short run, but if it saves huge medical bills later, it's no big deal. End of issue and problem solved.

Until then, I suggest we try to help people by example and by telling them that we've found a way that works. The more people that succeed at this, the more that will try to emulate that success. Once you have enough people that succeed at anything, word eventually gets around that this is real and if you care at all, you should give it a try.

To me then, the big issue here is finding out how to help more of us make it all the way and keep there. Unfortunately, that currently seems to take a measure of willpower that isn't all that common given all the delicious temptations we have around us ALL THE TIME.

So I guess we're back to waiting for the "wonder" pill. Hopefully the wait won't be that long now that they decoded the human genome...

I really have trouble with talking about obesity as a sin. Many doctors believe it is a medical problem. Even if you don't think the causes of obesity are partly medical, does that make them entirely moral, so that fat people are "sinners"?

I realize Dean was drawing a parallel to drinking and smoking (are churches actively opposing smoking now?) and not making obesity analogous to say, murder or blasphemy. But allying overeating with sin seems to me to touch on the attitudes that have made fat people feel like criminals.

Which they aren't. And I know Dean doesn't think they are. But the language of "sin" seems to me the wrong way to talk about obesity.

There are a number of behaviors that churches generally frown upon. They often aren't real sins themselves, but they are often associated with lifestyles and behaviors that lead to sins. Thus, the Baptists preach against dancing because it leads to lusting and fornication. Drinking leads to drunkenness. Smoking... well smoking is not done by "respectable" people, right?

Gambling is looked down on. R-rated movies are discouraged. In some circles make-up is forbidden. And so on. It gets to be that Christians can't do hardly anything!

So, eating is about the last vice left that's "legal" and not looked down on. Go into a strict Pentecostal church and see how many very overweight church members there are. It's amazing!

But since over-eating leads to obesity, which leads to degenerative diseases, which leads to a shorten life, then you could say that your behavior is harming your body. So the question becomes, are you responsible for harming your body or is there a reason you couldn't help yourself? If you can help yourself and you still do harm your body, then that would seem to place it in the category of a "sin". If you can't, then it would be better classified as a medical problem.

So in the end, it might depend on the person and whether or not they can control their overeating.

Dean...it is a good thing I went thru my teen years in the 1960's. We had drive-in theaters in which to court, spark, date (pick one from the appropriate era). Bad news is we had lots of sex at the drive in. Good news for the Baptists among us is that we did not watch the movies!

May your week be blessed with nothing but good stuff!

How about cheap food being fattening as a reason why poor people are more likely to be overweight rather than the moral/social superiority of the more well off.

Actually, I believe gluttony is one of the named sins in some religious traditions, but I agree with Diane's point that using that kind of language demonizes us

I know plently of skinny gluttons, and plenty of fat people who eat far less than average. If we want to get into particulars, I've heard many a sermon on not wasting food because of the starving people in the world...

I know people with the most upbeat, positive attitude who are grateful to lose a pound a mont, and I know people who abuse their bodies and lose 5 lbs a week...

Yes, attitude is a factor, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

All the psychoanylizing (sp?) is hilarious.

Ya decide to lose weight, so ya get happy about it, find what works for ya, then ya lose it.

Or don't.

Whatever goal a person picks for themselves is their own decision.

When I picked my obese goal of 200, I wasn't concerned about what any amatuer shrinks would think of me. I picked it because that's what I wanted for me.

We are all different in size. And I don't wanna look like a sack of bones when I'm riding my Harley. I like the BIG THICK BEEFY CHICK look.

So there.

Analize, analize......

Let me take that jungle analogy a bit further. Ok.. so I'm in the jungle and need to get out. There are several HUGE trails (low cal/low fat diets) with flashing lights, billboards, celebrity spokespeople directing you to these trails. They also have the the government seal of approval of being the absolute best trails. *Everyone* knows these are the only trails that will allow you out of jungle. Everyone tells you over and over about how great these trails are and you believe. So you take the trail, then you get lost and you actually end up back at the place you started or even worse, further in the jungle. So you still want out of the jungle right? So you go back to find all the billboards etc still there, you know *it's the right way out of the jungle, you just didn't have the willpower to perserve through. So you try again. And again. And again. The signs are there. They're telling you it's the right thing to do, but you can not make it out of the jungle, in fact you just end up further in.

Now one day you notice a tiny trail, with HUGE warnings. Don't try this trail.. it's terribly dangerous, it could kill you, no one can succeed on this trail and it's so scary! You've tried every other trail that was supposed to work, but are still here. So you try the scary trail. And you find that this trail is not so scary, it's not so dangerous and you're actually making progress like never before! Wow... Why are they hiding this trail? Why are they making it sound so terrible? WHY??

I have no idea why. I didn't think there was another way to lose weight besides low fat/low cal. I didn't know about low carb. I think I could have saved myself years of effort and failure had I discovered it sooner.

I thought I was paying attention to the signs on the trail. And low carb totally clicked for me. I could have fat in my diet and lose weight? Who knew?? I could eat wonderful dinners of steak and veggies and lose weight... and I didn't even miss sweets, bread, etc? I found diet nirvana! When my weight loss slowed down to 4 pounds a month, I adjusted my calories down (I weighed and measured everything). When that didn't work, I started eliminating foods, like cream and cheese. When that didn't work, I started adding more exercise. I was doing everything you read in the books and here that you can do to break stalls and continue losing.

I think you might be right Dean about too much attitude. I ignored a lot that was going on with my body because of what I was reading and what I percieved to be the *right* way. I had a tremendous amount of stress in my life last summer, yet I persevered. I had a stress fracture in my foot, was in a walking cast, yet I continued to exercise at full speed, heck I even increased my workouts. My positive attitude about the diet was what kept me going. Eat less, exercise more, I could do that. I was going for the gold here... nothing was going to get in my way of reaching my goal this time. So, I ignored my exhaustion and fatigue. I ignored the increasing stress in my life, both mental and physical. I ignored the fact that all of this effort was not producing the expected results, because according to the *experts* I was doing the right thing. I continued like this for 7 months until I could no longer function. I did that until my body made me STOP. So you're probably right about the too much attitude and my strong will.

I'm now having to deal with hypothyroid, caused by the stress of my extreme dieting. I have all the lab work to show I was NOT hypoT before I started dieting or even at the midway point. That happened after I increased my efforts. I never thought I was doing an extreme diet or excessive workouts. I thought I was doing it right, making some sacrifices to reach my goal. Woo may dispute the cause of my hypothryoidism but I have several good articles that explain it better than I can. I'm not a doctor nor a scientist. As soon as I find them, I'll add them here.

While my attitude about low carbing is still positive (it's the only diet I can stick with), I've had to slow things down. Racing for the finish line left me slightly battered, but still determined. I just share a different side to the attitude equation. I'm still certain my attitude played a part, but commitment and determination were clearly evident.

You raise excellent points.
Perhaps many if not most obese people merely lack the resources (financial, educational, or even intellectual) to effectively control their weight. It's naive and idealistic to say the results one gets are directly proportional to their drive for success - not only in weight loss but in life in general. Opportunity and resources are also required. While it's true that to an extent access to opportunity and resources spring from drive, there are LIMITS to how much you can change and do for yourself in objective reality. The number of people on the earth who will ever have access to the concentrated financial resources, say, bill gates has is going to be proportionally far less than those who rival or exceed his drive for success. Obviously other factors besides genuine drive for success - factors outside of anyone's control - have resulted in his fortune.


Or a more personal example, every single one of us in the TDC lacks something physically that "normal weight" people have. Innately, some physical (metabolic/endocrine disease) or mental/emotional (food abuse) resource is deficient or defective which allowed us to get so heavy in the first place. "Normal weight" is not a natural state for us, due to this/these defect(s). However, we are now drawing upon our other reserves, which are in more generous supply, to try to "make up" for the deficiency/defect that caused such an abnormal original weight.

Every one of us here used and is using the following resources to "control our weight":
1) access to information & communication (education about nutrition, weight loss, metabolism...communities where similar people can be found for emotional support),
2) access to adequate financial resources (which will be needed to purchase the higher quality foods that you will need, once you educate yourself as to which foods you should be buying. Eating healthy is really too expensive for many, many people.)
3) the intellectual/emotional capacity and personality disposition to utilize resources 1 & 2 effectively (this - effective weight control - does require a certain intellectual capacity, emotional disposition, and personality. It requires...

a] patience and impulse control
b] tolerance for new experience
c] attention to detail
d] tolerance for structure/routine
but simulatenously,
e]ingenuity and independent thought



So, I would agree with the premise of your post. It might not be fair for us to look at a very heavy person and say "why don't they just use some control and take responsibility?" anymore than it was for a naturally thin person to look at us, before LC, and say to us "why are you so fat? why can't you control yourself with food?".


It is unreasonable to expect everyone to MAKE IT HAPPEN because, like you said, it requires access to certain resources to do that. The american dream of "rags to riches" just isn't reality, because despite drive, commitment, and dedication to success and upward mobility, some people won't make it because the resources which "drive" is fueled on are finite and contested. If you from birth have less access to these resources, you likely won't be as successful as those who do have them and are equally (or less) driven.

So it is with with weight loss.
Essentially I agree, it's more than just wanting it bad enough and trying and using willpower. It requires the good fortune to be blessed in other areas to make up for ones we are deficient it.

*BUT* this truth still doesn't excuse a lack of trying - I mean real, honest, drive and resulting effort/commitment/dedication. That is the real reason most people are failing and obesity is so epidemic.

I think you are making the mistake by assuming weight control is, like financial/social success, more about access to resources than it is attitude, drive, commitment.
Here are the facts as I see them. Weight loss really isn't that complex. It is a battle fought within yourself, your body and your mind. Unlike other goals one may have (prosperity, social success, getting married, etc), the MAIN obsticle stopping one from achieving controlling weight is... you. If you really think about it, weight control and eating less is actually quite a simple thing (hense the psychologial appeal of anorexia: of trying to avoid/escape the complexities of real life and the pressures of adulthood by focusing intently on yourself, your body, smallness and purity). It's a very simple basic thing, there aren't many factors involved in the results you get 'sides how much you eat and how much control you focus on that.

In reality, it really doesn't take all that much in the way of contested resources or quality of skills to make it happen. You eat less. You lose weight. Period. Those other things (physiology, education, finances, a certain emotional/intellectual disposition) just make it easier, but they are not crucial in the same way being born to rich, white, socially connected parents is crucial to determining whether or not you become a janitor or a CEO.

Like I said I'm not dismissing the "other stuff". Especially if you have an incredibly strong physical predisposition to obesity due to disease (hyperinsulinemia, hypothyroidism), then these things (resources particularly educational resources) are obviously much more important, because physical state is like an obsticle outside us and therefore hard to control. But the fact is though most of us aren't fat because we have some rare glandular problem. We were fat because we weren't trying very hard not to be. We either did nothing about the problem (like me), or "dieted" and then gave up repeatedly (at least 80% of us did according to the poll I conducted). We just weren't truly driven, and because of that we weren't committed and dedicated.

So, for these reasons I believe the primary factor stopping most people from making it in weight loss is attitude.
I honestly believe the majority of those with weight problems who are failing are NOT failing because they are so deficient that they can't help themselves. Not at all do I buy that for one second. I believe that in the MAJORITY of cases it is simply a conscious or subconscious reluctance to actually try, a lack of drive and a resulting lack of commitment/dedication to weight control that's responsible.

I think when it comes to weight loss, for 90% of us anyway, attitude is more than a puzzle piece. It is the frame that the puzzle is placed in. It structures all the other pieces and determines where and how or if they fit.
When it comes to losing weight, since it is primarily a battle fought against yourself, much like addiction, attitude and willingness to change is so essential that all other factors are dwarfed in comparison. They're important, sure, and you won't have a "complete picture" in your frame without them... but without the frame you've got nothing but a bunch of fragments that mean nothing, fragments that will slip out of your hands, the meanings won't make sense, and all in all your picture will never reveal itself as whole and complete (read: you'll never make your goal).

I got to say that attitude for me IS very important. The attitude that I have the power within me to change my life and that it's up to me to make it happen is huge for me.

However, I think there is another important "attitude" that has helped me tremendously. I'm talking about the fact that I see all over weight people as having an illness. I used to be fat phobic. Ashamed of my self most of all. The day I read Dr. Atkins book I finally understood that we are not a bunch of terrible weak people. We are a people of varying degrees of insulin resistance. Some people are lucky and lose very fast and thus their resistance to insulin is likely small. But I know from my own experience of dieting year after year since I was in high school, that I store fat extremely well. I have always ate less than everyone around me. But losing weight was really hard on a Low Fat diet. Once in 1995 I got really desperate and for 2 months ate 600 calories a day with very little meat/fat, and exercised an hour on the healthrider daily. I lost about 1.5 lbs a week. I had to scrape and toil for those pounds and I was hungry all the time.

My point is there is metabolic and insulin problems to varying degrees in all of us and you can't categorically say that one person losing 1 lbs a week isn't trying just as hard as a person who's losing 4 lbs a week. You can't say one person just doesn't want it bad enough if they hit a stall and haven't yet found the way around it. You can't say it's ALL attitude because that ignores how magical Low Carb has been for us. Low Carb has given me the power to feel strong, to feel independent from my food. To not feel hungry. To feel I'm in control of my destiny.

Being highly motivated is important. I was highly motivated every year I've been fat but I didn't have the education or the tools to get there. I didn't understand what foods were fighting against me. I blamed myself entirely for being fat. I don't blame myself anymore. I didn't become fat because I was a glutton as compared to the thin people around me. I became fat because sugar has permeated almost every food in the supermarket including the diet foods labeled Low fat. And my poor old insulin resistant body couldn't handle them and became more insulin resistant every year.

For me it's not about will power because I think a stable blood sugar gives me all the will power I need. But it is about knowing I can do it and not self sabotaging or giving up and being patient during slow times. Sticking to the course and having faith. So attitude is important, but attitude didn't make me fat.

Julie Huck

Woo, One of the biggest issues I see here is that you are claiming your ideas as being valid for more people than just yourself. How is it that you know that 90% of us have this issue? I don't think it's fair of you to make judgements about the rest of us and would respectfully ask that you represent yourself here rather than all of us.

I totally disagree that attitude is the framework for this puzzle FOR ME. I can't speak for the rest of the folks because I truly believe each person would have to decide this for themselves. We are all unique and trying to convince me that what you are saying is right for all of us, isn't working.

Learning about how carbs, proteins & fat work in the body, about exercise, about calorie deficits, and about healthy foods have all been drivers that allowed me to lose this weight. I've had attitude in the past, even tried low carb without reading the book or being here to learn, but didn't succeed. FOR ME, it is only when all of the puzzle pieces came together that I was able to lose the weight.