From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 23:05:46 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.205544.29204@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> davis@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Barbara Davis) writes:
>The cold, hard truth is that attempts to lose weight are what ruined my
>health, not the weight itself!  

Maybe.  Or going back to old habits once you stopped.

>If I had been left alone to feel beautiful and worthwhile as a child who
>was 10 or 15 pounds overweight, I would not have ruined my metabolism
>with yo yo diets and weight gains.

What makes you think you've ruined your metabolism?

>I would not have had surgery that left
>me with a partially calcified kidney and hypoglycemia.

??  What obesity-related surgery did that?  Did you have one of those
stomach stapling operations or (shudder) intestinal bypass operations?

>And I would still
>be only 10 or 15 pounds overweight instead of 100 pounds overweight!

Maybe.

>I will never diet again.  I am not physically up to the effects of another
>diet!  Dieting was killing me!

Chuck Forsberg's "starvation".

>Mostly I eat a healthy diet.  Even that is criticized when a fat person
>eats that way.  Some people don't understand that I need the nutrients in
>bread and potatoes just as much as I need what is in fruits and vegetables.

Well, everyone does.  I've never had friends (other than my SO, and that
was the base note of this discussion) comment on my diet or my weight.
Maybe I'm lucky and I just have high-quality friends who know what's
appropriate and what's not.

>They also don't understand that I can't munch on most raw vegetables because
>I have an ulcer. 

Well, I wouldn't touch most raw vegetables other than salad fixings
on a diet or not.  But I don't see what an ulcer has to do with it.

>So, I just smile sweetly and state in a calm and assertive manner that I am
>the best judge of what I should or should not be eating.  Most people
>accept this, the opinions of the others don't matter to me. 

Still, the opinion of my SO matters to me, although it's really next to
impossible to process any such kind of "suggestion" when you're feeling
not-in-the-mood to consider dieting.  In my particular case, I was under
no illusions that my eating habits were all that healthy (or that the
source of my weight was mysterious: I liked to eat, liked to eat out,
liked to have two of everything instead of one, and liked late night
snacks.  You don't have to have a PhD in thermodynamics to wonder where
the fat is coming from.)  I'm not saying that his comments were what
motivated me to start dieting again; it was really my own decision, but they
were certainly a part of it.  He was afraid that I was slowly eating myself
to death, and I was: it was death by a 1000 candybars. :-)  I finally
found myself so heavy that my own comfort and mobility was markedly impaired,
so it suddenly became "easy" and "obvious" what I had to do.  All the
permission I gave myself in the world wouldn't make me more comfortable.

I feel 1000% better now, some five months and 45 lbs. lighter, though
I still have a ways to go.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer