Honesty?

There are those that, when confronted with "Wow, you are losing weight fast! How are you doing it?" respond, or plan to respond with... "I'm eating less and exercising more." OK Athiests... Is this an "Honest" reply? I will reply with the Definition of "Honest": hon·est ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nst) adj. 1. Marked by or displaying integrity; upright: an honest lawyer. 2. Not deceptive or fraudulent; genuine: honest weight. 3. Equitable; fair: honest wages for an honest day's work. 4a. Characterized by truth; not false: honest reporting. 4b. Sincere; frank: an honest critique. 5a. Of good repute; respectable. 5b. Without affectation; plain: honest folk. 6. Virtuous; chaste. While factually correct, "I am doing it with diet and exercise" is incomplete, intended to cause people to draw a false conclusion (ie, deceptive). It is a lie. Being a functional Athiest, one of the foundations of my moral compass is treating others as I would be treated. I want to be told the truth, so I tell the truth. In this case, I would feel deceived, lied to, therefore it is not an approach I would choose. I think people that lie about how they are losing weight are also lying to themselves. The only reason to tell this lie is so they can get credit for losing weight, rather than giving credit to their WLS. They want credit for having willpower and/or character that they don't have. The more vocal people are about their faith, the less I trust them. The "faithful" have forgiveness of all sins from their God, even for lies they tell me. Its these people that focus on the truth of their facts, and use them to convey lies. Tek

There was a woman on our state board that told the AOL diet section that she lost her weight using Slim Fast products. They had her picture and an entire profile attributing her weight loss to exercise and diet alone. We all knew differently, because we had given her support for quite some time, and some had even forgiven her for a previous, horrendous, name-calling attack on another member she disagreed with. She no longer comes to the board. We were chastised by many for publicly calling her out on her lie. People were coming to out state board from the main board telling us that WE should be ashamed of ourselves for judging her. Go figure. Starr Jones is the biggest liar I know of. Have you seen her? She has had WLS and continues to lie about it even though everone knows she is lying. She is oh so religious and talks about her faith in God all the time. She nauseates me. You are how you represent yourself. If someone lies to me about such things, I have no obligation to forgive them or forget their character flaw. That is NOT who you are and, why would I ever want to be familiar with anyone who lies so easily and misrepresents themselves? I have no room or time for people like that. I agree with you 100%.

I've been questioning lately how honest I'll be and with whom, and I've decided that I just can't lie about it -- not because lying is *baaad* per se, just because it seems irresponsible to mislead people into thinking willpower is that prevalent. The longer WLS patients lie about it, the longer society will look down on WLS, and that ultimately could hurt many people who would otherwise seek the WLS option. So far everyone I've told realizes that the end will justify the means, and if people I tell in the future don't get that, well, their opinion wouldn't be worth much to me anyway because they're probably the same people who've made my overweight life more difficult.

Personally, I am not an "End justifies the means" kinda guy. Like most Athiests (or most that I've been in contact with), I've thought out my life rules pretty thoroughly. For me, the "means" and the "end" need to fit into my moral scheme (Its one of the rules ). Tek

I'm counting on people's good manners to keep me from facing this dilema. The people who need to know do. Any one else should have the good manners not to ask. D

Oh, but you know how people casually say, "What's your secret?" In fact, they probably think they're being polite and flattering by saying such things. Ah well.

I lost 50 pounds before surgery. So when people asked how I did that (and these were generally people who knew I was about to have WLS), I had a few answers. I told them that I exercise six days a week, 45 minutes to an hour at a time; that I never, ever eat fast food or drink pop; that I drink 64 oz of water a day, and that I focus on smaller meals and getting plenty of protein. None of the people I've given my secret to want to follow these minor guidelines. They hate drinking water, or they don't have time to exercise or they can't live without bi-weekly Quarter Pounders. Fair enough. But they asked me. If people ask me in future how I've lost weight, I'll probably tell them. I don't really see any reason not to be forthcoming; I'm not ashamed of the surgery. How people react to the news says a lot about them and nothing at all about me. If anyone is ever rude to me about it, I'll tell them to go screw themselves. That said, not every question deserves an answer. If someone asked you how your sex life was, or if your wife's breasts were real, you wouldn't feel compelled to reply. Answer the question as completely as you like, depending on who's asking and how they phrased the question.

Hah!!! These days there are few that understand the benefit of having manners. I certainly would not count on that.

I also would not count on the good manners of those around me. For these, I return silence or "I'd rather not discuss it." For those that hit me at just the wrong time or with the wrong tone... sometimes my sarcasm just bursts out before I can stop it. Tek

Hi All, I'll never understand a persons reasons for lying about this surgery. I had it. I lost weight. Get over it! willby