The Damage We Do To Ourselves......

Sounds crazy, but I wish I could walk up to overweight/obese teens and young adults and grab them by the shoulders and tell them to take care of their bodies now, before their excess weight will cause extensive damage to them.

All my adult life, I had back issues....don't we all? Carrying around an extra 200 pounds is not healthy. But now, I feel overwhelmed by pain caused by my other self-induced injuries.

Went to the Ortho last week, and got an injection in my right hip. He tells me I'm looking at two hip replacements. Went for an MRI of my R shoulder....several tears of the rotator cuff...more surgery. I'm sure my L shoulder is just as bad as the pain is even worse. Also need R knee replacement, and again, I'm sure the L knee is just as bad.

Right now, most days, the pain is tolerable....but other days, not so. Wish I could undergo one surgery and wake up as Jamie Sommars, the Bionic Woman! (Some of you may have to Google that!). Next week I have appointments at pain clinic and with Ortho and PCP to see what my options are.

My Grandmother used to quote Ben Franklin: Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

Well said, Mary. And so true. I hope the pain doctor can bring you some relief.

When people who are obese claim to be perfectly healthy and happy, I want to shake them. Obesity WILL take a toll on them someday. I see so many friends whose parents are having strokes and other health issues because they did not take care of themselves and now my friends are having to care of them. I do not want to be a burden to my kids.

It's not just about vanity. It's about being able to live life to the fullest.

I wi**** was as simple as we hope to believe. "Take care of yourself".

I was always chubby kid. I far I remember I was on diet. Trying to lose weight. Starving myself, exercising. High school? Never ending story. And I would lose weight, regain.

Rinse and repeat.

I think we don't understand why some of us get fat while others don't. There are some ideas, theories. Calories in calories out is such a BS.

Sure, to gain weight we need to I eat more than we burn. But how much more- that is a good question. And why some can't stop eating? Why do we crave the very foods that makes us fat?

For now - some of us get help by rearranging or guts. And for some of us it worked. For others - who lost weight only to regain - the journey is not over.

When I took Anatomy and Physiology I last fall, my prof told us that the big take away from the term was "what you do when you're young will kill you when you're old."

But.. at least we're doing something about it NOW.

Although. I DID know that I was damaging my body when I was young. I just didn't care because I wasn't ready to change.

I wish I could tell all those idiots who suntan this...

Lately, I feel like I'm playing Wheel of Fortune every morning......spin the wheel and see where the pain will be today. One day, it's my right shoulder, a few days later, it's the left hip, today it's the right knee -- keeps buckling today with shooting pain, causing me to be afraid I'm going to fall flat on my face. I use a cane, and keep switching from hand to hand. I think about using two canes, but that also causes shoulder pain.

This is exactly why I want to smack anybody who goes off on the HAES soapbox.

Fingers crossed that you can get some relief, Mary!!

Dadgummit, Julie! I'd never heard of HAES until now. I just read some of it...now I have something else to tick me off! LOL thanks!

Now, not to oppose the idea that extra weight is detrimental, BUT some are designed to carry it, while most are not. And if arthritis is hereditary, yes, the extra weight is a burden, but again, the joints are going to deteriorate regardless. My grandmother, uncle, and aunt were never overweight yet they suffer horribly from arthritis pain. My aunt is now the bionic woman with all metal joints. She weighs in at 85 pounds, just a skeleton with metal joints and horribly deformed fingers and toes that cause great pain. Though I have a knee replacement (blew out my left knee skiing), I have suffered far less joint pain than most of my relatives despite being heavy my whole life. My bones are extremely large and dense. I will lose 50 pounds of excess weight before I will drop one pant size. I also have osteoarthritis, so do want to get the weight off of my right knee so it does not need to be replaced.
This is not to say that it is OK to be overweight or that 200 extra pounds does not damage a body. It is just to say, I guess, that generalizing across the board can be inaccurate. I think each person deals with individual cir****tances and experiences. That said, I also want to shake young people and tell them to LOSE IT NOW while it is easiest and before you suffer whatever particular health issues you will suffer. My problem is that extra weight really didn't result in "health issues", per se. That allowed me to kid myself for a lot of years. Sooner or later, the weight will cause some issue.