Vanity can be a Good Thing

I stumbled onto this forum about a week ago looking for something on nutrition. I’ve been struck by the number of stories where the undercurrent is subtle justification of not looking good and settling for something less. To be sure, there are medical and other reasons people are overweight, but for the most part, it’s giving up on yourself that does it. I did it. The standards you set for yourself will end up defining you as a person, whether you like it or not.

I was fortunate in that as a kid and an adult, I was never overweight until about 7 years ago. I was an aggressive, outgoing professional and relatively tall at 6’0”. But corporate life, bad eating habits, drinking and giving up smoking caused me to gain at least 40 lbs. It was only recently that I began to understand how difficult it is for people when they are pre-judged by their appearance. I had worked with many of my colleagues for years, but even they had forgotten what I looked like when I first met them. Newer people who worked for me never knew me as teenager, a younger person or a competitive tennis player; it was hard for people to believe I ever did play tennis. They began to form an image of me that was largely inaccurate.

One day, prior to going on my diet, I caught myself making some derogatory comments about my weight in front of some people after being kidded - a sort of comedic fallback just like certain kids used to do when they were picked on in school. I realized for the first time in my life how a lot of people cope with being ostracized. It was a terrible realization that I had lost my self-esteem - and I had readily accepted that in front of others.

With the help of my wife and the prodding from my kids, I went to the Dr. Bernstein clinic and got into the program. It’s been three months and I’ve lost about 56 lbs. Everyone comments on how good I look and I get a lot more attention from women. I haven’t really changed – I’m still the same person. Unfortunately, people don’t always see that, particularly people who don’t know you. Its really vain on their part. I can’t help but like the way I look and when I was going through this program and had cravings, I kept imagining what I looked like when I was younger. That did the trick.

Don’t use the excuse that the images and standards that are set by society are too difficult to obtain. Picture yourself at 20 lbs or even 50 lbs lighter. It will keep your hand in your pocket next time you reach for something you shouldn’t. Develop some vanity – it goes a long way.

Hello Pete,
Such wise words that are very encouraging and taken straight to my heart. After falling off the program on the first day many times, I've vowed to get back on and stay on. Though it's only my first day and I havn't cheated one bit, that really is a remarkable thing for me. I'm the type of person who looks for overnight success and I have to realize that it doesn't happen that way. Your words will be etched in my head and whenever i get a craving or about to slip, i'll think about how good i'm going to look in the future and that's better than any food out there!!! Keep it coming everyone!!

nOcaRbgurL ,

I'm glad to see you're inspired. Try and look at this way. Take it one day at a time. If you stick to what you're supposed to do, tomorrow you'll be a little bit thinner. It works, it always works. Don't follow the scale too much, but just do what you're supposed to do, knowing tomorrow you're going to look better. And there's always sugar free jello!

Pete, I too was impressed by your wisdom and rhetoric. Also by the amount of weight you have lost. Congratulations! I wondered whether you were referring to (among other things) a thread I started up called "In the eyes of others", which dealt with some of the issues you raise. It sounds as if you have something new to contribute to it, so if you click on this link, it will take you there:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...&threadid=26316

Jane, if you want to stick to a new way of eating you are finding difficult to maintain, why not start up a journal, if you have not already done so. This will help to keep you focused and on track. It will also enable checks and any necessary tweaks to be made. Glad you found Pete's words inspiring - there was some good sense there. Incidentally, you would need to start your journal under the letter "N" as they are filed alphabetically under the first letter of each user name.

Good luck to you both,

Andy

Hmm. Tried that and it didn't quite seem to work. But, learning how to be humble and grateful has worked wonders.



Have you ever had any contact with anorexics or bullemics? They picture themselves as being much lighter and work towards that goal. It's their choice to behave in this way, but it's still heartbreaking to see happen.

Karen

Karen,

Come on, you know the reference to bullemics is out of context. I'm beginning to realize that using a pun like vanity is not going to go over well here.

Outside of here yes, but in the context of this forum, no. There are people here who have been and are bullemic as a way of life. How did they get this way?

You seem to have found the right way of life and that is a great accomplishment. I would like to believe it's what everyone here is trying to achieve.

Karen

Karen,

And the right way of life is the key. I could have easily replaced "Vanity" with Health and maybe I should have. But I hope readers understand the point. If someone's version of looking better is being thinner (within limits of course), it can have healthy benefits - which is the real end game.

Pete,

Your words were quite encouraging and visualizing yourself thinner can be good a motivator. I sometimes look at my picture from 3-5 years ago (okay someitmes older) and I realize I wasn't always fat (and ugly). I've decided to put one of those pictures on my fridge so the next time I go and grab a snack that is a nono I'll think twice.

It's weird that even though I've gained 30-50 lbs over the past year, I don't see that big person everyone else sees. Maybe that's why people tend to gain the weight and never quite lose it. 'Cause we don't realize how much we've changed physically.

Thanks for your story.

I would discourage people from vanity, especially women, for we have been told all our lives that we are only worth a plugged nickle insofar as we match some impossible (not "difficult to attain"--impossible!) "beauty" goal.

I think that for women especially, I'd suggest (if they wanted my advice) working with "Fat acceptance" or other therapeutic sanity-enhancing techniques in addition to losing excess fat.

Then, learn to judge others not by how fat they are/how tall/their race/how "fashionable" clothes or haircuts they can afford, but by the content of their character. Be blind to everything but true substance in others.

Focus on what your body can do, not on how it looks.

Accept that some fat on the thighs and buttocks is healthy and normal for a woman, not a sign of weakness or moral decay.

Embrace your stretchmarks and sagging breasts as signs of mature womanhood, of blessed signs of your bringing new life into this world.
Surround yourself with people who also are accepting of many types of people, who look for character rather than looks.

Cut the time you spend in front of a mirror in half every six months. Take that saved time and use it to paint, garden, create, volunteer with people in need, or meditate/pray however that is most meaningful to you. And laugh, laugh, laugh--one of the best ways to spend time in life!

This path leads, in my experience, to a richer life of mind and spirit, a more interesting group of friends, and the possible end to the fixation on external details and self-hatred that plagues well over half the women on this board and elsewhere, whether they manifest that self-hatred through vomiting, taking dangerous diet pills, or not.

And then, you'll be well situated for reaching ages 40, 50, 60, and beyond, when very few people will give you credit for outward "beauty." You'll have something inside you that no one can take away with a insult or slight.

By all means, don't give up on your Self. But Self is much much more than externals. Joyously discover all the myriad facets of yourself. Live fully now, at 15 or 50 or 150 pounds overweight, too! You're a one-time gift in a vast universe. Know that and rejoice in it.

I must admit, I've never spent this much time on a computer in a forum like this.

You know Razzle, I've posted a few strong sentiments in this forum and the feedback seems like - well, a little bit of self defence is the best way I can put it. Its everywhere. I'm not out to criticize anyone. That's not it. But why do you say "I would discourage people from vanity?" That's not really the subject of my post, that's not it at all.

Its about the continued rationalization that seems to me to be the cause of most people's problems. Why should people work on "Fat Acceptance"? Would you say that to an alcoholic? A drug user?

I agree with you whole heartedly that you have to set realistic goals, but as soon as you set the standard too low, as soon as you start to rationalize appearance by "the impossible beauty goal" I think you lose out and your not facing the problem head on. Its tough, very tough. I've been there. A lot of people in North America are overweight - they don't all have medical problems. I still am a little overweight. I may never get to where the charts tell me I should be. But I think its worth the try, I think its very good to try and "look good" - because its really about being healthy. If vanity does it, so be it. Its the end game, the end game.

yes, I would say to a drug user to accept themselves and love themselves for the person they are inside, to not beat themselves up solely but educate themselves about the nature of their metabolic disorder. We can only grow as human beings from a point of self-love, never from a point of self-hatred. Drunks who get dry starting with self-hatred are never recovering alcoholics; they are only dry drunks.

Am I defensive? I read through my post and see mostly love and caring for any new person arriving here, not anger. Perhaps I am defensive though. Ten years of anorexia (talk about "self control!") , rebound weight gain eating only 1200 calories a day, and then later understanding the nature of obesity and eating disorders has made me both more rigid in some ways (we must work towards self-acceptance and acceptance of the variations in body types of others) and less rigid in others (knowing that the nature of obesity is not behavioral for most people but metabolic and knowing that each individual's experience and background is going to be different).

You might want to read this: Adiposity 101 to self-educate a bit about situations other than your own. I see from your posts that you're missing a lot of facts--which is not shameful or anything, and can be remedied. Rarely do women end up overfat (a definition that is more cultural than carved in stone and objective) because of overeating, though that is more common for men and may be how you got overfat. European longitudinal studies show that the lowest rates of morbidity and mortality are in women from 30-40% body fat, so "thin" isn't clearly the healthiest state. Weight loss from all sources (including 'healthy diets") always results in increased mortality rates and decreased life expectancyy. What about neuropetptide Y research, the role of lipoprotein lipase, the metabolic response to weight loss? And so on. There's a lot to learn about obesity as both a physical and social phenomenon, and much that reseachers don't yet know a thing about. Most family practice MD's are woefully ignorant about metabolism and obesity, too, much less your typical morning talk show host, who informs the typical person of all his 'facts'.

Trust this claim: obesity is such an unpleasant social situation that no one would choose it voluntarily or avoid it if a simple act of will for six months were all it took to remedy it. If weight were easy to keep off, 99.8% of women would not regain their lost weight within 7 years of taking it off.

And controlling metabolic obesity has little to do with looking in the mirror and admitting we're bad or weak. Most of the women here work, raise kids, keep a house with precious little help, may have worked their way through school, are upstanding members of both their real life and on-line communities. They are not weak. They are not bad. And beating themselves up further will help them not one little bit. Self-hatred has never been shown to speed weight loss. But it surely can sap all the joy from a life.

You see Razzel; I don't think it’s about looking in the mirror and admitting your bad or weak either. And yes, metabolic obesity is a problem and I'm sure there are other medical conditions that contribute to being overweight. I'm not questioning that or attacking that. My point is different.

No, I haven't read too much on obesity. I've listened to my doctor, read the Health Canada guidelines on nutrition as he suggested, went to a specialist and read a few US studies that suggest that 61% of US adults are overweight or obese and 13% of children are. I'm sure there are similar trends in Canada. Now, unless there's something in the ecosystem we don't know about, 61% of the US population can't all be subject to some medical problem. If women don’t end up overfat from overeating as you suggest, then maybe it’s from underexcercising. We can play on the words all day, but damn it all, its just about trying to be healthier and honest with ourselves. That's my only point. No offence meant, no attack on anyone but the rationalization that its "okay", because I work, I'm good, I like myself today - that’s the killer in my view. Heck, I used those kind of rationalizations.

Well, I think I've overdone it. I certainly didn't intend my original post to be antagonistic. I think I'll call it quits. My apologies if I have inadvertently offended anyone, that was not my intention.

I agree with the last part of your statement.

But Pete, this is a Low-Carb support group. We recommend to anyone who comes here to pick a plan and read the book that goes along with it, and I'm recommending that to you too, even if you don't intend to follow it! Reading Protein Power by Drs. Michael and Mary Eades is a real eye-opener.



It is a medical problem, and a huge one! It's called insulin resistance! It's slow, insidious, and deadly. It is the root of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. It's caused by a diet heavy in carbohydrates.

Along with it comes carb addiction, which is an addiction that few people recognize. Everyone thinks they're doing the right thing because of the way that low-fat and the Food Pyramid have been touted as the second coming. What it has done is given people licence to eat carbs, because, well hey, they're not fat! For all the people on this forum, that obviously hasn't worked.

It's dangerous to keep on messing with your body and looking at this as a "diet" that you can hop on and off of. You can gain weight on a low-fat diet. You can put yourself into "starvation mode" by not eating enough calories. With low-carbing, very simplistically, it's fat in = fat off and less carbs = fat off.

Low-carb, done properly teaches you good eating habits for the rest of your life without starving or mucking up your metabolism. Low-carbing is the light at the end of the tunnel for a lot of people. Hopefully they will learn more about themselves on the path to health and sanity as part of the process.

Karen

The diet I was on through Dr. Bernstein and with the help of my own doctor is not too different from what your describing. It was a low carb diet and I'm still very careful regarding sugars and carbs. It was also a low fat diet if I can call it that, but never has it been advocated to me that you can just eat as many carbs as you like because its not fat.