How would you like to be told you are FAT? Overweight!!?, OBESE?, Anorexic?

MarziPanda95

I think she's saying that if someone had said that to her, she might have started sooner? Or asking if we would have started sooner if that had been said to us? And I think she's trying to get us to come up with things to say to other people to get them to start sooner?
...I think.

wizzybeth

I think we all have to come to that conclusion on our own. We have to want it because WE want it not because we think it will make other people happy. Those of us who are obese KNOW that it is unhealthy. We KNOW those things..unless we live under a rock...

My ex boss made the comment about packing on the pounds to me almost 15 years ago...I really didn't get serious about losing weight and keeping it off until now. My dad constantly made remarks to women in our family about their weight. I don't think it ever accomplished anything but hurt feelings.

bpetrosky

For a number of years, my family (mostly my dad) got on to me about my weight. Not in a mean way, but definitely out of concern for my health. I'd get occasional articles he clipped in the mail as a way of helping.

My doctor also suggested losing weight would be good for me. However when I asked for practical ways to accomplish it, the best he could suggest was Weight Watchers.

I didn't out and out reject anything that was said. I knew I was out of shape, but work and stress were big things for me. This was all in the 90s, my weight was inching up at about 5lbs each year. I tried several ways, Nutrisystem, South Beach, exercise. Nothing stuck. My attempts were either ineffective, or effective but I couldn't maintain. MFP or sites like it were not common then, and not very easy to use.

What really threw the switch for me was a business trip to Taiwan (and a KTV night with the vendors) that made me feel just awful. I was pushing 240 and looked awful in photos. I also had three bad gout flares in that same year.

I went on a program that was actually effective and got down to 180. While I was on that plan I discovered MFP, and logged my meals in parallel with the plan so I could see that CICO was behind all the rules. I unlearned all the cruft I had built up over the years and started to understand what was really working. Since that point, I did gain back about half the weight, but last month I saw the scale jumping again and resolved to push things back in the right direction. I'm already 12 lbs back down in a little over a month. And I haven't had a gout flare in over a year and half.

Bottom line, nothing anyone said to me, well meaning or not, made a difference. A lot of the advice was well meaning but misguided. I did try several times to change it, some more successful than others, but nothing stuck. My doctor's off-the-cuff recommendation (WW), would probably have been a good step, but I had become so jaded over weight loss plans. He couldn't or wouldn't spare the time to discuss weight loss beyond that, so I couldn't see how WW would help.

If there is an opportunity to talk to a friend about their weight, I would talk to them about what I went through, and how a CICO based plan has worked for me. I'd give the best advice about how to use MFP or a similar site to make watching calories easier, and while what I do seems cumbersome it's actually more liberating than trying to follow fad diets. They can do with that info what they will, but if they're not open to changing their approach yet, nothing else i could say would make a difference.