quote: “(The only exception I’d point out in this would be the parent and child one, because children need their parents, even if they’re being difficult about it.)”

Seriously, some of the most toxic relationships in people’s lives are parent-child ones, because so much of the relationship is based on guilt and obligation rather than any kind of affection. No one else has a parent (or in-law) that they would happily cut out of their life if they could do so without massive guilt?

If you are unhappy with something (yes, including your weight) and your own attempts to make a change have not helped, then maybe it’s time to invoke the assistance of a professional.

If you’re overweight and can’t tackle it, get thee to your GP and get your thyroid and blood sugar tested. If you’re just lazy, get to the rec center and sign up for an exercise class or join a sports team. If you can’t quit smoking, look in to cessation programs. If you can’t take your marriage any more, look in the couples therapy. If you can’t see how to make the positive change to get out of your funk, whatever is causing that funk, track down the specialists who can offer guidance on the best route to take.

I don’t know about ‘exactly’… (I believe I used the word ‘about’, actually – twice) I went from about 245 lbs to about 190 lbs. What I mean by that is that my weight around 190 lbs varied day-to-day between 185 and 195 – I drink a lot of water, which tends to make my weight quite variable. When it briefly got down to below 185 I was disturbed by the look of my face so I relaxed my diet for a couple of weeks until my weight went up to 195 +/-, where it has stayed ever since. Whenever I see it rise above 200 I ‘healthy up’ my snacks for a while until it drops back down. (Carrots & broccoli instead of an apple or banana at work, green beans instead of corn at dinner time, etc)

It’s possible that I could stand to lose a few more pounds, I don’t have a six-pack or anything, even when I got below 185 lbs I had a little extra flesh, but my face freaked me out. It’s possible that that was just because of the rapid change, and now that I’ve had a year to get used to 195-lb MattJ’s face, 175-lb (or whatever) MattJ’s face wouldn’t bother me. I may try to lose a little more weight over the summer to see if I like it. Or I might not. I still think my face (except the chin and neck fat) looked better when I was 245, though. My features were just more handsome when they were fleshed out, IMO. The belly was not.

I find it interesting that you assume basic biology–eating and weight–are set in stone, as it were: that you cannot change how you look and moreover, that as long as one is healthy, you shouldn’t even try. And yet you insist that our minds–just as primitive, given that the neocortex is “only” a few million years old (being a feature of mammalian brains)–should be so flexible and immune to the laws of nature that we should all be able to change our minds about race and gender and what-not at the drop of a hat.

Any suggestions? Besides what I’ve been doing – applying for five to ten posted jobs A DAY, going to every hiring/job fair for miles around, registering with every agency in town, and volunteering?

I’ve given up a lot – potato chips, fast food, Dr Pepper, etc. I’ve gained a lot, too… My GERD is gone, all (and I mean all) of the numbers that a doctor checks have dropped down to the normal/healthy range, I look better, I sweat a lot less when I dance, (the ladies prefer that) I’ve taken up rock climbing, which is something I flat-out never could have done when I was carrying an extra 50 lbs.

Maybe not everybody can do it, and maybe people here are right about me gaining the weight back eventually (I really don’t see how, I haven’t found the maintenance of my weight this past year to be difficult) but I’m glad that I got motivated to change.

But the average American is pretty clearly not gaining 10 pounds a year (i.e., 100 pounds every ten years). As Andrea says, your body has mechanisms that keeps stuff like that from happening, because evolutionarily, we wouldn’t last very long if small changes in diet could really make someone gain or lose huge amounts of weight over time.

I think we need to leave the labels of “fat” and “thin” out of the equation. Forget about looks. Make decisions that will improve your health.

Trent is somewhat correct. You walk 30 min a day, this will probably burn 150 calories. That equates 1 pound every 24 days. But if you have one more cookie, Gatorade or soda because of the walk, then weight loss will not occur. Even an extra banana or apple would push it to about 40 days to lose a pound.

If you want to loose weight through exercise, one should focus on HITT or Tabata cardio. Three 4 min tabata sets over 30 min of carido 3 to 4 times a week would be plenty. I wont go into the specifics but you will burn a tremendous amount of calories during the cardio session and you increase your resting metabolic rate for the rest of the day.

Maybe if you are very overweight (which I think you are/were?), sure, going from a couch potato to doing *some* sort of exercise, that might help shed the pounds away. Likewise for the diet — if one had really bad eating habits, when they switch to a good diet, that generally makes a difference as well. I remember something about how much soda you used to drink — of course replacing that with water will make some difference.

But not everyone is a couch potato, or eats meat or drinks 10 cans of soda everyday. Lots of people – including the overweight ones — probably have some decent eating habits (not perfect, but decent) and do some sort of exercise already (and sometimes, way more than just plain walking) without that leading to “tremendous” weight loss.

For example, I am car-less and I walk *at least* a couple of miles everyday as part of my errands-running and my commute, not for purposeful exercise. On top of that, I go to gym, I run, I bike and go on long-distance hikes. There is not a tremendous impact on my weight — when I exercise more, I am fitter, not thinner. I am in the normal range, and I also believe that there is a range that people gravitate to. Kate Harding talks about that a lot on her FA blog.

The question is: how long does it take before we get really “fed up”?

My bigger quibble is with the “unhappy” bit: yes, we all have bad stuff in our lives. But I don’t think unhappiness comes from dwelling upon the bad stuff, as it does from not being in control of your life. Between my friends who have been seriously depressed and myself (I’ve been on medication for 3 years and counting), a strongly contributing factor to our unhappiness was being in situations that someone else had decided we should be in. For me, it was not really wanting to be a doctor but being stuck in medical school anyway. Once I did something about it–i.e., packed my cats and moved to the Netherlands–a large part of that depression went away.