Living the Lifestyle, Thursday 8/12/2020

MASSRUNNER_FRANK

We meet here to explore, share, celebrate and (sometimes) agonize over how we do (or don't) incorporate weight loss guidelines into our daily lives. "It's a lifestyle, not a diet" is easily and often said, but sometimes not so simply put into practice.


This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion.

Monday - 88olds (George)
Tuesday - whathapnd (Emmie)
Wednesday - misterhub (Greg)
Thursday - MASSRUNNER_FRANK
Friday - imastar2 (Derrick)

Today’s topic: Nature verses Nurture

How much of the issue you face with weight loss do you attribute to Your inherent Nature verses the manner in which you were Nurtured?
Do you even give much credence to this dichotomy?
And if so, have you been able or are taking steps to successfully change either to attain weight loss or maintenance?

MASSRUNNER_FRANK

Hope the topic and questions make some sort of sense.
Posted just after3 this morning, so.....

If not, try to answer to your own understanding. Or not.

I will check back in later. Hopefully before tonight.

linmueller

Sooooo I'm thinking mom's nurturing and food were definitely linked. I'm not sure how much weight (pun intended) I'd give that over nature but it's definitely there.

As for steps to changing it, I have taken them, but they've changed over the years. When I joined WW in '12, I stopped eating her high cal food (I was polite but firm), I just said 'no thank you'. Then my kids became more health conscience and didn't eat as much, so she really cut back. Unfortunately, since my dad died in Nov, she has noone to share her treats with (she always said she made them because he had a sweet tooth 🙄). She now bakes a fair amount for herself, and when we go to the cottage, she brings tons. And my strategy has changed because I feel sad for her. So now I eat a small portion, or take a bite when she's not around to see how little I've had, and then I tell her how great it is! I can't risk hurting her feelings by refusing to eat it, and so I have to suck it up and resist eating more after trying it, much harder than just saying 'no' for me.

As for nature, I'm for sure an addictive personality. When I decide to get into a craft, I buy more supplies then I will ever use. My Kindle has hundreds (mostly free) of unread books. You get the idea. So having a lot of food, including junk food, is my norm.

Since we moved, I pared my pantry way down, and have worked to keep it that way by setting rules for grocery shopping like 'only one bag of salty snacks per trip'. My success has ebbed and flowed, but right now, the last 7 or 8 weeks, my only excess is in the form of fruit and veggies, not indulgence foods (poor DH actually stopped at the store and bought some for him last week 🤣). I'm loving the freedom to eat in my house without wading through high cal foods, and, I hadn't realized til right now, that's probably why it hasn't been hard to eat w/in my 💜WW points, often carrying 4 over .

I'm not sure if I really answered your question, so in summary, I'd say both factor in, and I just need to put on my big girl pants and do the work of eating healthy. I'm not a victim.

Thanks for really making me think! I know my response is long and rambling, but you should have seen the 1st 4 paragraphs I wrote about my eating and weight growing up, to get to an understanding of the effect of mom's nurturing LOL. I deleted those, you're welcome 🤣

88olds

I think it is in nearly everyone’s nature to overeat. I have met a couple of people I’d put in the “naturally thin” club. They weren’t much interested in food. One told me once that he considered eating a pain in the butt. All the shopping, prep, eating, clean up was a waste of time. The other friend ate the same exact thing nearly every day. Didn’t matter. Was just fuel. Had to have it.

Put another way, what do you think would happen if we took a caveman to an all you can eat buffet?

So I just think my nature is pretty much the same as anyone. Given a chance, over time, I’ll tend to overdo it. It took me about 13+ year to gain 100 lbs. Not hard to do. Do the math.

Nurture? I’m too old to go there. We had bad habits in my family. I carried some into adulthood. It was up to me to change them.

One day in a post Charlie said something like
Our mission in weight loss is to just live within some reasonable limits. That really helped me. I didn’t have to solve the riddles of my childhood. I didn’t have to rewrite my personality. I just had to grow up. That wasn’t so bad. Just some limits.

MASSRUNNER_FRANK

I grew up in a Portuguese and French Canadian family where food meant love. Nightly dinner revolved around the dinner table, not the TV set. Food at times was in short supply since my parents were working class and sometimes on strike or between jobs. Dad was eventually totally disabled. And yet, food meant love. And laughter. And conversation. And security.
I was one of the few youngsters among my classmates who was husky sized until High School.
Not sure what changed then. Obviously puberty but certainly not activities or sports. My nose was always in a book.

Fast forward to adulthood and the regaining of my husky status. Was it Nurture? It certainly seemed that to me. Dieting and nutrition was far from our thoughts and conversations. Was it Nature? I could say my mind body connection was primed for a young age to take that path.

How has this changed? I have definitely taken the steps ( not literally steps) to do so.
WW was and is my weight loss management tool. Tracking meals, even pretracked days, are my navigational beacons. Currently I am back at High School weight. Insane for a 60 year old man. Will I remain here or will Nature rebel? Not as long as I remain diligent and cooperative with the diet. Otherwise, I certainly can’t blame Nurture or heritage.

imastar2

This is fairly cut and dried for me because as a very young person around the dinner table with six peoe total I was nutured (coax) to eat various types of food or encouraged. If I ate something that at first I didn't like my Father would tell me if I ate it I would be able to stick on the horse. We had several horses. So before I was a teen there was very few foods I wouldn't eat.

Nature as far as food was concerned never entered into my mind unless it had to do with wild game which we ate plenty of. So by the time I was out of high-school and done playing football I weighed in around 275.
However I knew it wasn't natural so the nature part did kick in and I lost my first of many 100 lb losses though the years.

Fast forward and nature has certainly kicked in over the years but unfortunately the fat genes and the basic damage was done and I'm certain I was left with many many fat cells.

So to answer the question:
Do you even give much credence to this dichotomy?
And if so, have you been able or are taking steps to successfully change either to attain weight loss or maintenance?

Yes for the last 55 years I've fought this battle and it still continues. There are foods I love but know I can can't shouldn't eat. The good news is I also love the foods a lot of people dislike but their just a little harder to prepare. ie; brussel sprouts, turnip greens, spinach, cabbage, corn, collards, new potatoes, you get the picture.