[buriedbeds]

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Good to hear!

I admit I have always looked down on morbidly obese people and this does give me some insight. It also shows that anyone can make their way out of it.

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I'm very, very glad to hear that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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In your mind, do you feel there is any excuse for being obese?

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Define "excuse"...there are REASONS for being obese. Some are medical, some are because of parenting that set up negative patterns and behaviors, etc. etc. etc. For the medical ones, a lot of people are told that it's their personal faults as a human being that are doing it, and they are shamed into believing that their "lack of character" or personal faults are their reason for being fat, so they never get it fixed - or maybe not until they're much older. PCOS in women is a major problem, or thyroid disorders for both genders, as examples.

As to being set in a cycle of negative patterns and behaviors, you're stuck three ways - first, you, too are hit with being told that it's your personal faults as a human being that are doing it, and you, too, are shamed into believing that your "lack of character" is your reason for being fat. If that's the case, then why even try?? You're an irredeemable loser. You lack character. The whole "if you're going to treat me like a criminal, then why not be one" mentality.

Next, because you were never taught and don't know what can really help you nor what really works for someone in your boat (because the patterns set in front of you were ineffective by those with similar genetics), you don't KNOW what kind of diet will work for you. For example, some people will be very healthy eating a well-rounded vegetarian diet. I tried it, I was constantly unbelievably hungry. Some people will be healthy and happy with the AHA's recommended diet. I tried it, I was always hungry. For others, weight watchers will work - doesn't work for me. Some people, like me, need to cut out the sugars, starches and other carbohydrates before they're going to be healthy and happy. Obviously, there are thousands of other kinds of diets out there. And because you don't know what works for someone with your body, you can hit a LOT of dead ends before you hit the one that does it for you - that is if you're lucky enough to continue to have the will to keep trying long enough that you don't first either die or concede to what other people have been telling you your whole life - that you're just a lazy loser who doesn't give a damn about your own health or personal presentation (even though you've tried SO DAMNED HARD for SO DAMNED LONG, which none of these genetically-blessed skinny people understand because they only see you in doses at work or school) - and give up.

Third, it is really, really, really, really hard to re-learn something so extraordinarily basic to your existence. Eating and sex are the two fundamentals of life. The same way that learned sexual patterns are difficult to break (fetishes formed in early adolescence, your view of what a "functioning" male-female relationship is really like, for example), so too are the ones you've learned about eating. It gets hard-wired into your brain and you need to put a lot of effort into changing it because your brain learned early on what was supposed to make you survive, and it's going to want what it's going to want. You need to spend a lot of time and effort teaching it otherwise, because it doesn't want to screw that up and let you go and kill yourself - it thinks it's trying to save you.

So is there an excuse? Well, if you're still looking to fix it, then definitely. And if you're NOT still looking to fix it, then there are reasons like the ones I've described. They may not be acceptable to you, if you're a thin person who's never faced it, but I think you can at least see how it could happen. And how degrading them as human beings directly contradicts their ultimate goal to NOT be degraded - it sets up in their minds the idea of "I guess I just am a loser. I guess I just am a failure."

Some willful pricks, like me, however, just won't listen to that. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

-bb.