I'm sorry I was only reading the first page of the thread..this was in relation to the attack on rachel!! sorry it appears so off topic now...

You know, there were times when I weighed 318 pounds when I'd be buying chips or chocolate for a kids birthday (or even an adult) party, and I'd tell myself I was being paranoid for thinking that the cashier was actually noticing what I was buying and thinking THAT was why I was so fat, and it was obviously my own fault.

Sometimes the chips WERE for me, but it still makes me feel a little sad to know I wasn't being paranoid, after all. Sometimes people really are checking out our carts, then making a decision about whether it's our 'fault' or not.

I don't think Holygirl intends to be mean by what she posted, of course, but it's still feels a bit like finding out that what you thought might have been just an urban myth, is actually true.

It makes me wonder if skinny people buying junk food get the same reaction. I have an acquaintance who works in the store, and now that I think of it, the only time I ever hear a comment out of her is when one of several obese customers come in and buys junk.

Although, it's funny that I've only actually heard a comment out LOUD from a clerk when it was a skinny person ahead of me buying bags of chips, doughnuts, etc... She said "Wow, it sure must be nice to be able to eat ALL THAT!" then laughed. How did she know that the girl wasn't, in fact, bulemic or something? I guess since our fat is so very visible, our problems are out there for everyone to see and draw conclusions on.

The problem with judging someone by what's in their cart is that you can in no way know who those items are for. You can assume that they are for the person who is actually buying them, but we all know what tends to happen when we assume, right?

For example, I'm in charge of buying the Sunday School and after-church coffee and cookie supplies. So, every week, I'm in the store buying several packages of cookies. I'm in this store frequently so it's quite possible that the cashiers there are clicking their tongues as I walk out with my purchase, saying to themselves, "No wonder she's so large!" but they would be wrong, wouldn't they?
Life is too short to worry about what total strangers think of you and your food purchases.

Let me clarify what I meant. I work in every department of the store...have been there for 3 years while I am going to school and trust me, I am so used to my job I won't notice half the things I scan through for people. What people buy is their own business and I don't ever judge them. When I say she buys chips, I mean her AND her daughter have opened the bags and started eating before they even left the store. And this is EVERY time she is in...which is a lot. I realize that there could be a lot of explanations for her weight (medical etc)...all I am saying is this is certainly NOT something you want your daughter to inherit. This little girl is now in the habit of picking up a few treats for the night every time she is in with her mother. She is very friendly and we always chat while I am ringing her through...and she tells me they are for her for later.

I have binge days myself (who doesn't?) but I was just trying to say that I think it is people who are not willing to change their unhealthy eating habits who are giving people the impression that they are overweight by choice (which I realize is not always the case).

For all of those who are afraid to check out with candy, fear not the cashier!! This is just an extreme situation and the only reason I even noticed is because I have been there for ages and she is a regular customer.

It's still a matter of being fat "by choice", though. If you've ever been in the throes of carbohydrate addiction to the degree that you'd eat yourself immobile, it doesn't FEEL like a choice to eat those chips. Yes, everyone has the basic capacity to limit food consumption, but whether for medical/metabolic OR emotional disorders that mess with that mechanism, some people aren't able to save themselves FROM themselves without drastic forms of intervention. That's where gastric bypass can come in.

I mean, think about it. Without an underlying condition affecting the hungry/full mechanism, would someone actually CHOOSE to eat until they feel sick, harm their health, and become the kind of sideshow people really seem to get a kick out of wagging a shaming finger at?

This was me as I was gaining all those pounds that got me to be, at my high, 287 lbs. I was carb addicted and eating compulsively to push down anger/sadness/ more anger......I could not stop eating..and when I did finish all the pasta that I had cooked, then I'd go eat a pint of ice cream.....it all would just lay in my stomach and I could not sleep as it layed there. Some nights it came back up on me because I have a hyetal hernia....I hated myself and everything I was doing to myself.....and yet I could not stop. It was a nasty vicious cycle.

Please know that I desperately wanted to stop....I tried for 15 yrs to get a handle on my compulsive eating with very little to no success. It took alot of years in therapy before I got to a place where I had looked my demon in the eye and killed him off. This was my time for success.

Some people just cannot stop eating.....for those that do get bypass surgery and don't deal with their issues, I fear that they won't have long term success. This makes me very sad for them. Its not just about low carb and is about an emotional component too.

I've never been a drug addict, and when I see one, whether on a TV show or on the news or in real life or whatever, I have to admit that I don't understand. How can they keep taking the drugs that are obviously killing them? I don't understand cutting or anorexia or any number of other issues people struggle with either. All issues that if you don't have them, look like they are a matter of choice. Just choose NOT to do whatever the behaviour is.

However, I'm smart enough or aware enough or whatever to know that one doesn't choose pain and humiliation freely. Something drives them. I don't understand what, but it must be there. So, I think to judge that they aren't trying hard enough to kick the drugs or stop starving themselves or whatever is insensitive. The same goes for food. Call it an emotional addiction, a physiological addiction to carbs or whatever the hell it is, there is some driving force that compells us to overeat even when we are dying inside from pain, fear and humiliation at our weight. Never assume we didn't care. We cared, we obsessed over it, we cried at night, we judged ourselves a hundred more times harshly than you ever will. I've called myself the most disgusting names for my lack of will power to stay on a diet. I can't understand why I continued to eat in the face of all that pain any more than you can, but know for sure it wasn't because I wasn't trying hard enough or didn't care.

When I said earlier that a well supported ketogenic diet probably should be tried before weight loss surgery, I meant it, but to take it from there and say it's an offence worth suing over to have not had that suggested by the doctor is going too far in my opinion. Ketogenic diets are great, for me. And obviously for a lot of other people too. But the aren't a magic bullet for everyone in my experience. Lots of people fail on them. Lots. Go to the member list for this site and see how many people don't post anymore. Sure, some may have moved on and still lost weight, but MOST will have failed in their attempt to lose weight. And don't say it's because they didn't try hard enough on LC, that goes back to the argument above. We tend to forget LC isn't THE ANSWER because it has been the answer for us, but it's really not fair to judge everyone because they haven't had the success we have had with it.

Someone asked what I thought of WLS for those with less than morbid obesity but who had it for diabetes. I don't know really. I'm not a proponent of WLS, remember, I FAILED with it. I lost 120 lbs originally and regained 80 of it, and was still gaining when I found low-carb.

I just hate to see it dismissed out of hand because we've had some success with LC. I think to assume that obesity is a problem with only one answer is incredibly wrong and simplistic. Lots of people have had success with low fat, lots have had success with WLS, lots have had success with portion control, lots have had success with LC. Why do all the other methods have to be wrong just because I've found success with LC? My boyfriend is a low-fat guy. He lost weight (and keeps it off) with low fat. He eats tons of rice and bread everyday with his lean proteins and keeps fat down to a low level. I don't have to convince him he's eating wrong, it WORKS for him.

If the diabetic can't control his diabetes without the WLS, and the WLS will work to control it without insulin or blood sugar problems, maybe it is a good idea. Surgery isn't always a bad option to fix a problem. People laser their eyes everyday rather than wear contacts and there is always a risk of blindness with that operation. Why is that a lot different than having WLS to cure your diabetes?

Val

It's not about the money, it's about changing what is considered by the medical industry to be the acceptable protocol and saving lives and people's health, which is what doctors should be doing.
Lots of people appear to be very poorly informed on just how to go about it, the science behind, what is and isn't healthy to eat - look at all the people here who still think saturated fats are unhealthy. What if people could get good information and solid support for ketogenic dieting from their doctors, instead of having to figure it all out for themselves from the endless conflicting information in the popular press and internet? It's amazing anyone succeeds, really. But I am not suggesting that WLS should not be available to anyone. But it truly should be a last resort.I'm not judging people who have had WLS. I'm judging the medical industry. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it won't change unless we consumers stop accepting it.

Wyv

I don't share your pessimistic view of the medical profession. Perhaps it's my bias showing being Canadian where being a doctor isn't the money-making proposition it is in the States, but my experience is doctors want to help their patients. For most doctors, I believe that if they truly felt a ketogenic diet would do that better than WLS, they'd suggest it instead.

Saturated fats are unhealthy, according to mainstream medicine. I don't believe it personally, but until there are as many studies or more that debunk the myth as there are studies confirming the myth, we can hardly blame doctors for not believing us. Give it time, the truth will come out eventually as more and more studies control for carbs and prove that saturated fats aren't unhealthy. I don't believe the doctors KNOW saturated fats are healthy and CHOOSE to pretend they aren't to fool their patients into having WLS. The doctors might be wrong, but they honestly believe they are right, they aren't being malicious. Now, they lobbying groups, special interest groups that push a certain agenda, sure, they might be malicious, but that's not the doctors.

As for whether doctors will give patients a good well-supported ketogenic diet, well, that's interesting. There were those studies recently that suggested that while initial weight loss on low-carb was better than low-fat that after 6 months or a year, the weight loss was approximately the same in both groups (going by memory here folks, I might have a detail or two wrong). If I were a doctor without first hand knowledge of the benefits of low-carbing in taming my cravings and hunger, would I be particular if a patient tried low fat vs low carb? No, probably not. I'd say, you tried, it didn't work! Why would I think low-carb would work better?

I'm sorry if you thought I was criticizing you for judging WLS patients, I wasn't refering to you (or anyone in particular), just the culture of judgement we seem to have against obesity in the Western World. I didn't feel you were critical of WLS patients at all, I did get it was the doctors you felt upset with.

I do agree we need information. We need to educate doctors, we need more and better studies proving the benefits of low carb, we need a way to legitamize low carb after years of being the all you can eat meat diet, but I think it will take a while before that happens.

Val

As someone is and was considered "Super-Hyper-Mega-Nintendo Obese" I thought I would give my 2 cents.

In relation to compulsive eating. I would that as I stacked on the pounds (after giving up on Weight Watchers) I became a lot more insulin resistent. I didn't know what insulin-resistent was at the time, I just knew I was a lot more hungrier, and I could no longer last for more than a day on Weight Watchers!
I believe that lead to a lot more compulsive eating - it was purely physical!

The trouble with choice is that I had never heard of Low Carb until the age of 25 (4 years ago). I lived in North Queensland Australia for most of my life. In our state it was a 21 hour drive to the capital city of our state Brisbane. Life tends to forget about you up there.

So it took me any years to get my head around low carb because of all the low fat dogma engrained in me and my family.

I've had sucess now (look at my stats) and I have been on Atkins since 25th July this year.

It wasn't a choice to be overweight since childhood! I took a lot of athsma drugs when I was little and the weight heaped on me! The doctors and experts just made out like I was lazy and a gluton!!


My position on WLS - is I don't believe in it and I will never have it for me.

but, I will not judge anyone who does it because theri circumstances are different to me,

Having been judged, put down and abused all my life, simply for being me,

I have never felt that I could be judgemental against another person and their weight issues, including someone with only 15 pounds to loose!

I think this is also mostly true in the US but there are plenty of docs who seem to be in it mainly for the money and prestige.
How much time, how many more people must die or have their health destroyed? I believe there is plenty of scientific evidence now... the evidence that sat fat is unhealthy is very thin, actually. It's become "common sense" but in a court of law the facts might trump common sense.No, I don't believe they are being malicious either, but I do believe that it is their job to provide medical consumers with good information and for whatever reason they aren't doing it. We pay a huge percent of our incomes toward health care - even those of us who are healthy pay through the high cost of insurance and taxes to support Gov't funded health care programs.Because if non-medical people can understand the basic biochemistry that makes low-carbing work, you'd think someone who has an advanced degree in that stuff would understand it.
No, I didn't think you were criticising me for that at all, I just wanted to make my position clear because I think it's important for people to at least consider demanding the quality health care we are paying for, using the legal system if necessary.
This is really where I disagree. I don't think it's our job to educate doctors, it's their responsibility to learn what they need to make the best medical decisions for their patients. They have an enormous amount of authority, let them earn it. I also think there are plenty of studies supporting the safety and efficacy of low carb to justify using it as a preferred treatment for obesity. And as for it taking a while, it will take forever if we just passively continue to accept the status quo, thinking that change will naturally come about. There are powerful commercial interests fighting that change, it's not going to happen by itself.

Wyv

Well, in a perfect world, sure. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a world where doctors graduate from med school and for the most part don't question what they've learned ever again. And I don't even think obesity registers much on the average doctor's radar. The complications from obesity, yes, high cholesterol, heart problems, diabetes, etc, etc. So they tell us to lose weight without even thinking about how really. They know the answer, and they tell us, eat less, exercise more. Simple (NOT).

I agree they SHOULD know more, learn more about obesity, seeing as it's a huge contributing factor to so many of those problems, but I'm not holding my breath. I think it will take years, decades, generations maybe before the high-carb dogma/myth is debunked to the doctors community as a whole and the general public as well.

Val