Have you read this?
Two paragraphs grabbed my attention:
“Maintaining weight loss is not a lifestyle,” she says. “It’s a job.” It’s a job that requires not just time, self-discipline, and energy—it also takes up a lot of mental real estate. People who maintain weight loss over the long term typically make it their top priority in life. Which is not always possible. Or desirable.
About 10 years ago, Ellyn Satter, a dietitian and therapist in Madison, Wisconsin, developed a concept she calls eating competence, which encourages internal self-regulation about what and how much to eat rather than relying on calorie counts or lists of “good” and “bad” foods. Competent eaters, says Satter, enjoy food; they’re not afraid of it. And there’s solid evidence that competent eaters score better on cardiovascular risk markers like total cholesterol, blood pressure, and triglycerides than non-competent eaters.
And that pretty much sums up my attitude toward using VSG as my chosen tool to get to a healthier weight. If I were only "overweight" I wouldn't be one bit worried about my health. At over 80 pounds overweight, I need help getting to a point where I can use my new found love of nutrition to fuel my body for optimum results for my health. Obesity plays a factor in all the junk genes that run in my family = heart disease, diabetes, cancer. My Mom has never been fat and she is a Type 2 diabetic. My Dad was heavy and stocky, but not obese, and had heart disease and diabetes. I've had cancer, twice. I know that being at a healthy weight will help my body manage these diseases as best it can.
Highest weight 208 in 2008 ** VSG 11/27/15 weight 193 ** Current weight 128 ** Goal weight range 100 -110 ** Height - 4'11" ** Age - 49
My opinion of this article is that it's perhaps 30% good advice mixed into 70% BS. There are absolutely proven causal links between obesity and numerous life-threatening conditions. She's right that there's a lot of conflicting information floating around, but she ignores actual evidence, then uses a journal article from a personality psychology journal to support her own points. There's a reason you so rarely see an elderly person over 400 pounds!
I loved this line: "And recent research suggests that losing weight doesn’t actually improve health biomarkers such as blood pressure, fasting glucose, or triglyceride levels for most people." Really? Because so far I've cut my BP meds in half, dropped 2 of my diabetes meds, and eliminated my triglyceride med entirely, and that's not an effect of super-low calorie consumption like she suggests -- I'm pre-op and have been eating 2000-2200 calories a day for the past 6 months.
Where I think there's a grain of truth is the part about food playing more of a role than we give it credit for, qualitatively, not just in terms of calorie counts and how they affect our weight. More research is certainly needed. Sadly this point got buried under a 3-page pile of demonstrable falsehoods. Ironically, she talks about how big an industry the weight loss market is, then the article ends with a link to buy her book.
