Hello my name is.......and I am OBESE

Obesity what is it? Nurses General Nursing Article

Hello my name is.......and I am OBESE

When I googled the word obesity I was astonished to find that I had 156,002,803 results.

What is Obesity?

  • Wikipedia describes it as a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems.
  • The World Health Organization (WHO) describes obesity as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. A crude population measure of obesity is the body mass index (BMI), a person's weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her height (in metres). A person with a BMI of 30 or more is generally considered obese. A person with a BMI equal to or more than 25 is considered overweight.
There's even a society for Obesity: Home - The Obesity Society
Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Once considered a problem only in high income countries, overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings.

So my question is how does all this information help me?

  • I love eating ... there's no question and I love eating foods which are 'bad' for me ... I can't help it - they are delicious.
  • So why can't I stop eating?
  • Why can't I change my lifestyle?
  • How can I stop the delicious foods cravings?
  • And, I know that 95% of diets fail ... 1 in 20 dieters will succeed.

We discussed this at work recently and decided that you can do without cigarettes and drugs; and, you can freely move around in society without ever coming into contact with them.

Unfortunately, you cannot avoid food. You have to eat - there are no two ways around it!

In all societies, we eat food for pleasure! We have restaurants, weddings, christenings, birthday parties, July 4th parties ... you name it we have a party and it all includes FOOD. Our mouths drool at the thought of all the delicious food we are going to eat.

If the food is bad then we complain and moan, for days, weeks and even years. We remember.

If the food is good we compliment that person, party, or restaurant, for days, weeks and years. We return to good restaurants for ever or as long as the food is good.

So how is it possible to lose weight and stay slim?

We read about success stories in magazines, newspapers and television.

We the OB's have to stay away from food because we can diet, and we do diet a lot, but we can't stop returning to the food which pleasures us!

I diet one year - lose 30lbs easily. I am almost starved to death whilst I am losing it. Then one day my resolve is broken ... just one candy, just one or two chips, a small bite of the cookie or the cake, an extra serving of potato and WHAM I am right back to square one! Then I feel comforted inside - Oh boy the food I am missing tastes soooooooooooooo ... it is not in my imagination it is real!!

I love the feeling of being slim I really do it is great but the problem is I love food more. The 30lb's I lost is now 50 lbs gain. How did it happen? I really don't know but who cares ... who really cares ... only ME.

Everywhere I go there is food! It's on the TV, there are cooking programs which make food look so yummy, movies and tv shows have everybody eating, at work people are eating, machines give us food, free samples in supermarkets ... you name it there it is!

I can change my lifestyle but I love my lifestyle. That's where the problem lies-it's not against the law to eat! You don't beat people up, murder or cause fights and arguments in the home, it doesn't make you abuse children or women. It is socially acceptable to eat, food is sold everywhere-you don't have to go down a back alley to deal food.

Honestly, it frightens me that I am killing myself with my weight problems-but I am happy and contented as long as nobody takes my photo.

I really don't know anybody who has weight problems and has kept off the weight! Every single person I know replaces the lost weight within a couple of years and puts more on.

This is the area we have to look at, not how to diet because I am sure every single person who is overweight knows how to diet! The problem is keeping it off. Yes! You have to change your lifestyle but I think the problem is we like our lifestyle-to change it means we can't go out every week to eat or to people's houses for meals, or go to the food parties because Temptation is why we return to our bad eating habits! If we were strong willed we would all be a size 6-10 I guarantee that.

So to all the diet companies out there...

We all know how to diet! We have been on a diet and most of us still exercise. We don't eat more, we just can't stop the weight from piling on. We need more than just salads, chicken, or fish no carbs, no cakes, no chips, choc, or candy. Give us something that is close to what we normally eat - allow certain treats. It's by no means the answer but it can help those who stray from their diets.

I want to stop this yo yo diet

Quote
The only diet that works is a change of life style. You might be able to loss weight and stay off in a few months. However, you will bounce back if you stop dieting. A recent research found women that are frequently on yo yo diet ( if they gain/lose more than 10 pound for 10 or more time in their adulthood) are 2.5 time more likely to get kidney cancer than those who have stable weight (even if they are overweight).

Yo Yo diet - How typical dieter failed to lose weight and became heavier in long term

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madwife2002

About madwife2002, BSN, RN

RN with 26 years of experience many of those years spent in dialysis. I have worked in acute care, home, ICHD as a CN, FA, and currently a director.

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I have noticed a change from overeating that was easy to deal with to a compulsion to eat that seems physiological in nature. I suspect that I have crossed the line to diabetes. About six nights ago I kept tossing and turning and waking up the entire night with an insatiable urge to not only drink something, but it had to be sweet. I actually got up at 1:30 am and went to the soda machines in the building after I had hunted down every container that might have something sweet to drink in it. Not a happy camper about this at all.

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hmmmmm....definately food for thought!!

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I am one of those 19 in 20 people who have regained most of the weight I lost a few years ago. I lost 40 pounds over a period of about 8 months. But I have regained 30 pounds over the past 3 years. Every day, I wake up with the intention of "being good" and losing a couple of ounces. But it doesn't happen. By the end of the week, I have gained another half pound. It's depressing.

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I hesitate to post this because I have no magic answers but I'm one of the 1 in 20 that has lost a substantial amount and kept it off. I think there are some things that have helped me and some things that haven't. I keep in mind that each of us is different. I just wnat to describe what my own experience has been with weight loss advice.

There are 3 basic schools of weight loss advice, one of which is, in my opinion, completely useless, one of which might work for some people and one of which might be of more use to more people, if given a fair try.

The completely useless school in my opinion is the one recommended as the basis of much, much advice to the obese: cut your calories, especially fat calories, and "be good" forever. I don't know a single solitary person for whom this has worked. If you are one of them, you have my awed admiration but I would never try this approach again. I got steadily fatter when I tried it decades ago.

The "maybe" school is the Atkins diet and its variations. Gary Taubes' research into the history of obesity advice is both startling and eye-opening. Advice on the treatment of obesity changed radically in the 20th century, and the rise in obesity rates tend to mirror those changes. Taubes' lengthy, heavily documented book on this is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" but he summed it up in a couple of articles in Science magazine and in a fascinating article in the New York Times, 2002, called "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" I found it hard to even read his book at first, but it was illuminating. Nonethless: I don't use the Atkins diet. What I did take away from Taubes was a conviction that the more I cut out refined grains and sugars from my diet the more weight I would lose and keep off. This proved to be absolutely true for me. I do know people who have lost and kept off substantial weight with Atkins, including a vegetarian friend in her 60s and my husband's doctor.

Nonetheless I eat chocolate every single day (exactly 1/4 ounce of extremely pricy Belgian dark chocolate; it melts on my tongue for almost 5 minutes and I absolutely love it) and if I want noodles, pie, cake, whatever, I eat them--but only a few tasty bites. It's the meat or fish or chicken in my meal that turn off my hunger, not the starches. I make sure every single meal I eat is delicious in some way: ripe strawberries, grilled eggplant, homemade hamburgers, scallops with pesto, etcetera, etcetera. That's what works *for me* and that brings me to the third, very neglected school of advice: the school that values food, flavor and eating as deeply human pleasures. What's important to this school is that no food be ruled out of limits, but that we don't simply eat without thought and attention either.

My mother was French and how I eat now is, to some extent, influenced by growing up with her delicious food: lots of fruit and vegetables, an absolutely fearless approach to eating real olive oil and real butter and cheese, no fake foods (croissants, oui, Twinkies, non), fresh fish often, and--I'm saying this twice--lots of fruits and vegetables. Delicious fruits and vegetables, with butter, salt and pepper or olive oil and herbs, as the case may be. Eating 4 times a day, but not between meals. Most of the time.

Some books that helped me with this third approach:

anything and everything by Geneen Roth, but especially "When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull up a Chair"

"The Skinny" By Melissa Clark (a New York Times food writer) and Robin Aronson [NOTE: This is not "Skinny *****" the single most repellant book of advice I've ever skimmed.]

"French Women Don't Get Fat" by Mireille Guiliano

French cookbooks that don't give food for special occasions, but for everyday eating. My two favorites: "Parisian Home Cooking" by Michael Roberts and "Simple French Food" by Laura Calder.

As for exercise, I seem to do just fine with 10,000 steps a day. I wear a pedometer religiously, and when I hit that number most days--my health and appetite tick along just fine. The single biggest behavior change that made it all possible was keeping a simple daily log of food and movement. To this day, when I keep it, I do fine.

Just my experience! But if it's of any help to you, I want to share it.

Dina

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I think that you should have your family involved and make yourself so busy and happy you lose your dependence on food because it cannot make you happy ALL THE TIME. I love food as well but I believe if I wanna eat alot it might as well be food for me which is HARD but it works. I recommend replacing soda with juice,water or even SMOOTHIES the chips with one's with less trans fat and limit the sweets to 1 every week. I'm no expert but I know if you practice its possible to keep the weight off.

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Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

Imagine if the alcoholic or drug addict "had" to have a little bit of their poison several times everyday...

My guess is that there would be very few "recovered" alcoholics and addicts.

We are bombarded by images and smells of food everywhere we go. You cannot turn on the tv without food overwhelming your visual and auditory senses. My spouse and my oldest child, both overweight, are avid fans of the "Food Network"...it is a love fest for food. You cannot drive more than a few miles in any urban setting without passing a variety of restaurants with the accompanying smells and delicious bouquets.

Too many of us eat for emotional reasons. Too many of us eat regularly without actually having to prepare the food or clean up the mess. Too many of us have no idea how to prepare a healthy meal without using prepackaged foods. Too many of us do not understand portion control and the strategies to reduce portion size and still feel "satisfied".

Obesity is a big problem in the USA...but there are a number of European countries hot on our chubby little heels.

Nice blog...

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You should read the book Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth. It talks about compulsive eating, and how compulsive eaters eat not to fill a physiological hunger, but an emotional hunger. Then, weight gain and overeating turn into a negative cycle of shame/self loathing/guilt which leads to more compulsive eating. It is not a diet plan and does not focus so much on what you eat or what you weigh, but more focuses on the emotions of why and when you compulsively eat. I just finished the book. It is definately not a "quick fix," but it has made me more aware of why I crave chocolate especially when I am lonely/depressed/anxious.

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No doubt about it: Excessive weight leads to a lot of health issues. I am probably going to end up type 2 diabetic myself, but am trying hard to stay healthy. I could lose the extra weight if I went on a starvation diet....and I could become a very unpleasant person to be around being irritable, tired, and grumpy all the time. That's what life was like for me when I was a size 5 long ago.....I had to keep up the starvation dieting or I would not keep off the weight, even with exercise. It wasn't worth it. I tried the deadly Phen/fen thing, and was lucky enough not to hurt my health over it, but learned a valuable lesson about trusting the FDA to look out for our health. So, I am overweight, try to exercise every day, and try to eat ok. I have two daughters, and I do not want them to grow up to be obsessed about how much they weigh, so I do not diet any more and do not engage in diet conversations with other women. I find it to be a waste of time and energy. Unfortunately, I have genetics against me as all of my female relatives on both sides of the family are rotund. (5x5 we call it :) I feed my girls healthy foods and snacks, and curb the junk and juice. Sodas only once in a great while. I don't ban or forbid foods for me or my family as I think that leads to an increased desire to have the 'forbidden' fruit, as it were.

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Its the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. I come from a family of foodies and fatties but like the Dr said "genetics don't prepare your meals"

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I have gained a lot weight and totally understand what the op is talking about. I used to be thin my whole life until after I had my 4th child. Now it seems like I cant look at food without gaining weight. I have tried to "eat healthy" without extreme dieting and my biggest downfall is that I am just so hungry all the time. My appetite is getting bigger the older I get. Im starving when I wake up and hungry all the time if there is not something in my stomach. Carrot sticks and apples do not make me feel satisfied, can anyone relate?

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Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).

I was losing weight, slowly, by just modifying my diet a little, shortly after I was diagnosed with type 2 DM. Then I started losing a lot, effortlessly. FSBS in the 300's. Thirsty all the time, hungry all the time, peeing all the time. Added Lantus to my metformin and gained 30 lbs in a month. Crap. Back to struggling to keep my glucose in control, although everything was beautiful when I first started the Lantus. So, clearly, need to lose some weight.

Those who think they may have or be close to DM, please do monitor closely. It sucks to be diagnosed, but even more to be undiagnosed. Don't wait until you're already noticing complications. The three polys are pretty clear indicators, although I'll admit polyphagia doesn't seem all that different from baseline overeating.

Good luck to us all. On the bright side, everybody dies of something.

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