Meridia -- does it work?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Obviously, not only do you not have self-control and
self-determination and willpower, you also lack self-realization.

Oh, please. You know nothing about me or my life. However, the fact that
you think it is all right to talk to me the way you have makes it is quite
obvious that you are just an abusive person. You enjoy being nasty, don't
you? I have never been able to understand people like you and I don't
want
to. You are not worth any more of my time.

No, and we don't want to know anything about you or your life from the way
you responded to Marsha's innocuous post. You post "nasty", you get nasty
in return. It is we who don't understand people like you, teena.

You are not worth any more of our time. Now, go away. I have an idea--go
over to the Dr. Laura newsgroup. You'd feel right at home.

Pat in TX

teena a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Hueyduck wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Each time I chain several days where I talk the time to walk for 1 or
12 hours, I litterally melt over the scale (yuk;-)

There's an image! Still, it's a good idea. Walking is one of the easiest
and cheapest exercises to do.

And, I can't stress it enough: it really makes me drop pounds. Whereas
when I swim, I get much benefice from it, but I never lost fat directly
from it. But I still swimm much more than I walk. Go figure. I guess
losing fat is not everything ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So if you wanted an opinion about someone who tried sibutramine and
Low-carb (because why else would you post your request on a low-carb
forum, anyway? :-),

Well, I figured (and rightly so in your case) that people on this ng may
very well have used Meridia at some point.

Actually, I think that few did. Because Low-carb tends to be appetite
suppressant as it is. This might be one ;-) of the reason you don't
get much answers here.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My sis cried her eyes out.

She lost more than 50 pounds in the following year.

I am happy that your sis lost the weight. However, I do not think that she
lost the weight because that man was rude.

Of course no one will ever say. Except from her. She admitted clearly,
years after that happened, that something happened in her head this day.
But I agree it could have turned out to be devastating instead of helpful.

Quoted message said:

He certainly was not trying to
help her. He wanted to hurt her and did something really obnoxious.

IActually I think that this man was liberating a hate he had
accumulated against someone else. Obviously, he wasn't willing to be
helful. But who cares?
My point was that you can't grow peacefully with your environment if you
don't bump into walls somtimes. It might hurt but it makes you feel
where the limits are.

Quoted message said:

It is
dangerous to say, "Oh, that abuse helped me" because it creates an
environment where abusers can say, "Oh, I am just trying to help." They
aren't. They mostly don't help. They just hurt people and that is all
they want to do.

I think they don't really care about weither you are hurt or not.
I agree when you say that some will sooner or later argue that they
where hurting people to help them. But they never have to know if they
helped us. This is our own secret, our own vengeance: we have become
stronger.

Quoted message said:

If one person, like your sis, can take the lemon of
someone's abuse and make lemonade, then great for that person! It says many
good things about the person (like your sis), but nothing good about the
person who hurt them in the first place.

Indeed it doesn't. Of course, I was telling this story as an exemple of
how things can turn. Mostly, as you pointed out, they can turn that way
if we want them to do so. My sis could well have done something stupid
after that episode. This is not what she decided (unconscioucly, I guess).

Quoted message said:

If you want to help someone,
never, EVER be mean to them. If you are being mean, be honest. You aren't
doing it to help. You are doing it because you like to hurt people.

When I read this, I wondered if I ever hurt someone in purpose, to help him.
And you are right: each time I felt like I had to bring help to someone
I cared a lot, I told him exactly what I thought wasn't right and I then
I clearly turned into stone until actions where taken.
This lead me to lose contact with very dear friends, but each time we
got together again with everything worked out in the right direction for
them.

Marsha, here, is not your friend (yet) but she already told you (a)
truth and I guess the ignoring-each-other thing must be on its way :-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

What or who are you trying to be freed from, Teena?

A lot of weight, as far as I can tell. I do not think there is a
psychological answer to every weight problem. It's nice to think that it
could be that simple and iy may be for some, or even many, but I don't think
for all.

Unfortunately, I think that a psychological problem being the source of
overweight it the reason why it is hard to get rid of it: we don't
search the solution in the right place. Being fat is the visible result
of an addiction. That is all, for many of us. The solution is remove the
need for the addiction. But this all but simple, IMHO :-)

Here's a question I ask to people I want to help realise what's wrong in
their life (btw: no, I'm not a shrink).
"If you had a magic wand, right here, roght now, with one wish to grant,
what would you do?"
according to whom I speak to, sometimes I ask this:
"What is the one thing that makes your life difficult to live, the one
thing you would remove from your life right know if you could,
reagrdless of the consequences?"

Teena, I guess this would'nt be you weight problem.

Quoted message said:

In fact, I think that belief contributes to the idea that
overweight people are somehow psychologically "sick."

"sick" is a word that may be strong, but not untrue.
But I accepted that,a s far as I'm concerned. I don't say that I'm sick,
but I agree to the fact that there is something unbalanced in my life
that I have to learn and deal with.

Quoted message said:

Do the people in the
ng feel they were psychologically sick before they started low-carbing, or
do they feel there was something else wrong that kept them overweight?
That's not rhetorical, btw.

That is a very, very good idea for a thread :-)

Huey

teena wrote in message
<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I am happy that your sis lost the weight. However, I do not think

that she

Quoted message said:

lost the weight because that man was rude. He certainly was not

trying to

Quoted message said:

help her. He wanted to hurt her and did something really obnoxious.

It is

I agree with you there. Nobody who ever called someone a "big fat cow"
was ever trying to help. They were trying to cause pain.
Unfortunately, there seem to be more and more of them in everyday life
these days.

Cheri

FOB wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

My only problem is that I love to eat and hate to exercise. And I'm

old

Quoted message said:

enough that I don't care about having a sexy body anymore.

LOL. I figure if I'm thin enough to help control my diabetes at my
age, I can cover the rest of it up with nice clothes. I'm not huge on
excercise either, though I do walk everyday.

Cheri

Hueyduck wrote:
:: To illustrate my saying, I could point out that I think that people
:: smoke to recreate the presence of a specific person in their life.
:: I myself smoked during 10 years. I started smoking just after the
:: bitter ending of a relationship. Ten years after this , the guy
:: calls me for no reason, out of the blue and , while talking to him,
:: I realized how much he was an asswhole to my eyes.
:: When I hang up the phone, I remember that I had the sensation that
:: this phone call, 10 years after, was *the real* end of the
:: relationship. I had accepted that I was never going to spend a
:: single minute with that person.
::
:: A few weeks after this phone call happened, I quit smoking. From 2
:: packs of cigarette to 0. Overnight. I simply was bored with smoking.
::
:: I had been freed.

Wow.

Cheri a écrit :

Quoted message said:

teena wrote in message
<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I am happy that your sis lost the weight. However, I do not think

that she

Quoted message said:

lost the weight because that man was rude. He certainly was not

trying to

Quoted message said:

help her. He wanted to hurt her and did something really obnoxious.

It is

I agree with you there. Nobody who ever called someone a "big fat cow"
was ever trying to help. They were trying to cause pain.
Unfortunately, there seem to be more and more of them in everyday life
these days.

Cheri

That had a terrible immediate effect on her, indeed.

I remember, once, I was walking in a very well known street of Paris
where prostitutes try and find clients and where sex shop employees try
and bring people in.
So, I walk, and as I walk, I reajust my tshirt that's covering my pants.
Then I hear a man that wants me to come into his sexshop. I politely
decline with a smile and then rejust my long t-shirt again, as a reflex,
like I would readjust my glasses up on my nose.
And then I hear the sex-shop man, behind me, say this:
"It's no use pulling your shirt, you know, it won't help us to see that
you are fat".

I heard thi sentence as if it wasn't real.
This was so mean. What good would he get from saying this?
but this sentence was so true. Taken at the first degree, it was true.

I lost 35 pounds since then. During the slimming process, nobody ever
made a remark about me being overweight.

Wow, this is personnal-anecdotes-day, for me here :-)

HUey

Roger Zoul a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Hueyduck wrote:

Quoted message said:

:: A few weeks after this phone call happened, I quit smoking. From 2
:: packs of cigarette to 0. Overnight. I simply was bored with smoking.
::
:: I had been freed.

Wow.

Is it a bit af an amuse "wow" , Roger ? :-)

Still, when I'm telling this story, I have ne evidence there is a single
link between these things.
Of course.
But the feeling is there.
I realised it when I was talking to a friend about how I had been
worrying about how I could give up smoking and how it turned out to be
so quick and painless. I was then saying that having quitted (quit?)
smoking felt like I had ended a long relationship with someone that
once was dear to me. Once I had accepted it had to end, it just ended,
like that.

Still "wow"? ;-)))
Now, the "I had been freed" is kind of funny, when I read it back. But
it felt that way.

Huey

teena wrote:

:: Thank you! I still am not sure what I will do, but I appreciate
:: your kind words.

Why don't you try low carb?

Hueyduck wrote:
:: Roger Zoul a écrit :
::: Hueyduck wrote:
::
::::: A few weeks after this phone call happened, I quit smoking. From 2
::::: packs of cigarette to 0. Overnight. I simply was bored with
::::: smoking.
:::::
::::: I had been freed.
:::
::: Wow.
::
:: Is it a bit af an amuse "wow" , Roger ? :-)
::

No, it's a bit of a "I still have unfinished business with someone too" type
of wow. Not really the same as in your situation, but still unfinished
business that I carry around everyday. I didn't end up smoking or anything
like that, but I still have those moments when nothing is going on that I
feel some pain about how that relationship ended...so abruptly, too. I
don't expect to be freed or anything, but your story just kid a chord down
inside somehow.

:: Still, when I'm telling this story, I have ne evidence there is a
:: single link between these things.
:: Of course.
:: But the feeling is there.
:: I realised it when I was talking to a friend about how I had been
:: worrying about how I could give up smoking and how it turned out to
:: be so quick and painless. I was then saying that having quitted
:: (quit?) smoking felt like I had ended a long relationship with
:: someone that once was dear to me. Once I had accepted it had to
:: end, it just ended, like that.
::
:: Still "wow"? ;-)))
:: Now, the "I had been freed" is kind of funny, when I read it back.
:: But it felt that way.

Well, I wonder if there is something from which I can be set free.

Roger Zoul wrote in message <[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Well, I wonder if there is something from which I can be set free.

Let it *lose* Roger, just let it *lose.* ;-)

Cheri

Cheri wrote:
:: Roger Zoul wrote in message <[email hidden]>...
::
::: Well, I wonder if there is something from which I can be set free.
::
:: Let it *lose* Roger, just let it *lose.* ;-)
::

🙂

Roger Zoul a écrit :

Quoted message said:

::::: I had been freed.
:::
::: Wow.
::
:: Is it a bit af an amuse "wow" , Roger ? :-)
::

No, it's a bit of a "I still have unfinished business with someone too" type
of wow. Not really the same as in your situation, but still unfinished
business that I carry around everyday. I didn't end up smoking or anything
like that, but I still have those moments when nothing is going on that I
feel some pain about how that relationship ended...so abruptly, too. I
don't expect to be freed or anything, but your story just kid a chord down
inside somehow.

What I did was taking on smoking when the relationship ended (again: I
might be wrong linking these facts. But I think that smoking was a way
to keep someone with me, in my company.
Sometimes I really think that overeating is linked to that kind of
mechanism.

Quoted message said:

:: Now, the "I had been freed" is kind of funny, when I read it back.
:: But it felt that way.

Well, I wonder if there is something from which I can be set free.

Sometimes I like to go back into fate, just for fun.
For instance, I say
"I woudn't have the lovely job I have if ...
.... this friend had not introced me to her cousin.
- I wouldn't have known this friend if she hadn't een the neighbour of
my best friend...
etc...
And sometimes I go on until I cannot or don't want to go further.

This is such an instructive (disturbing?) game ;-)

Just to finish this post , I would like to quote you
" ...I feel some pain about how that relationship ended...so abruptly".
Why wouldn't you expect to be freed from a pain?

Huey (again: not a shrink. Only a shrinky mood tonight, maybe :-)

ok, now, this is a bit far from the thread :-))

Huey

Hueyduck said:

Cheri a écrit :

Quoted message said:

teena wrote in message
<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I am happy that your sis lost the weight. However, I do not think
that she lost the weight because that man was rude. He certainly
was not trying to help her. He wanted to hurt her and did
something really obnoxious. It is

I agree with you there. Nobody who ever called someone a "big fat
cow" was ever trying to help. They were trying to cause pain.
Unfortunately, there seem to be more and more of them in everyday
life these days.

Cheri

That had a terrible immediate effect on her, indeed.

I remember, once, I was walking in a very well known street of Paris
where prostitutes try and find clients and where sex shop employees
try and bring people in.
So, I walk, and as I walk, I reajust my tshirt that's covering my
pants. Then I hear a man that wants me to come into his sexshop. I
politely decline with a smile and then rejust my long t-shirt again,
as a reflex, like I would readjust my glasses up on my nose.
And then I hear the sex-shop man, behind me, say this:
"It's no use pulling your shirt, you know, it won't help us to see
that you are fat".

Miserable people saying miserable things, just trying to make everyone
around them miserable. Bad business, too.

Quoted message said:

I heard thi sentence as if it wasn't real.
This was so mean. What good would he get from saying this?

He was angry that you wouldn't come in and he was a dreadful, unhappy person
anyway, so he lashed out at you.

Quoted message said:

but this sentence was so true. Taken at the first degree, it was true.

So what? Lots of things are true. He could have said a million true things
about you, all of them nice, but he was too much of a jerk to do that.

Quoted message said:

I lost 35 pounds since then. During the slimming process, nobody ever
made a remark about me being overweight.

You were hanging out with better people!

Quoted message said:

Wow, this is personnal-anecdotes-day, for me here :-)

HUey

Hueyduck said:

Roger Zoul a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Hueyduck wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> A few weeks after this phone call happened, I quit smoking. From 2
> packs of cigarette to 0. Overnight. I simply was bored with
> smoking.
>
> I had been freed.

Wow.

Is it a bit af an amuse "wow" , Roger ? :-)

Still, when I'm telling this story, I have ne evidence there is a
single link between these things.
Of course.
But the feeling is there.
I realised it when I was talking to a friend about how I had been
worrying about how I could give up smoking and how it turned out to
be so quick and painless. I was then saying that having quitted
(quit?) smoking felt like I had ended a long relationship with
someone that once was dear to me. Once I had accepted it had to end,
it just ended, like that.

Still "wow"? ;-)))
Now, the "I had been freed" is kind of funny, when I read it back. But
it felt that way.

Huey

That's cool. It worked for you and that is all that matters.

Roger Zoul said:

teena said:

Quoted message said:

Thank you! I still am not sure what I will do, but I appreciate
your kind words.

Why don't you try low carb?

Maybe I will. Summer's pretty much over, so all that luscious fruit won't
be tempting me.

Hueyduck said:

teena a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Hueyduck wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Each time I chain several days where I talk the time to walk for 1
or 12 hours, I litterally melt over the scale (yuk;-)

There's an image! Still, it's a good idea. Walking is one of the
easiest and cheapest exercises to do.

And, I can't stress it enough: it really makes me drop pounds. Whereas
when I swim, I get much benefice from it, but I never lost fat
directly from it. But I still swimm much more than I walk. Go figure.
I guess
losing fat is not everything ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So if you wanted an opinion about someone who tried sibutramine and
Low-carb (because why else would you post your request on a low-carb
forum, anyway? :-),

Well, I figured (and rightly so in your case) that people on this ng
may very well have used Meridia at some point.

Actually, I think that few did. Because Low-carb tends to be appetite
suppressant as it is. This might be one ;-) of the reason you don't
get much answers here.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My sis cried her eyes out.

She lost more than 50 pounds in the following year.

I am happy that your sis lost the weight. However, I do not think
that she lost the weight because that man was rude.

Of course no one will ever say. Except from her. She admitted clearly,
years after that happened, that something happened in her head this
day. But I agree it could have turned out to be devastating instead
of helpful.

Quoted message said:

He certainly was not trying to
help her. He wanted to hurt her and did something really obnoxious.

IActually I think that this man was liberating a hate he had
accumulated against someone else. Obviously, he wasn't willing to be
helful. But who cares?
My point was that you can't grow peacefully with your environment if
you don't bump into walls somtimes. It might hurt but it makes you
feel
where the limits are.

Quoted message said:

It is
dangerous to say, "Oh, that abuse helped me" because it creates an
environment where abusers can say, "Oh, I am just trying to help."
They aren't. They mostly don't help. They just hurt people and
that is all they want to do.

I think they don't really care about weither you are hurt or not.
I agree when you say that some will sooner or later argue that they
where hurting people to help them. But they never have to know if they
helped us. This is our own secret, our own vengeance: we have become
stronger.

Quoted message said:

If one person, like your sis, can take the lemon of
someone's abuse and make lemonade, then great for that person! It
says many good things about the person (like your sis), but nothing
good about the person who hurt them in the first place.

Indeed it doesn't. Of course, I was telling this story as an exemple
of
how things can turn. Mostly, as you pointed out, they can turn that
way
if we want them to do so. My sis could well have done something stupid
after that episode. This is not what she decided (unconscioucly, I
guess).

Quoted message said:

If you want to help someone,
never, EVER be mean to them. If you are being mean, be honest. You
aren't doing it to help. You are doing it because you like to hurt
people.

When I read this, I wondered if I ever hurt someone in purpose, to
help him.

Well, that depends what you mean by "hurt." I see no reason to tell a
friend he is overweight, for example. He knows it. He doesn't need me to
tell him. I am not friends with him because of his appearance, so I would
never bring it up. If he feels like doing something about it, or talking to
me about it, the gracious thing to do would be to let HIM bring it up.
However, what if they had some other kind of problem, such as spending too
much or drinking too much? Hmmmm. I tend not to offer help for a friend's
personal problems unless the friend indicates he wants it and then I put
things only in the most supportive terms. I guess as a friend I just try to
be supportive.

Quoted message said:

And you are right: each time I felt like I had to bring
help to someone
I cared a lot, I told him exactly what I thought wasn't right and I
then
I clearly turned into stone until actions where taken.

Well, what kind of actions? Certain things (like someone's weight) are none
of my business. I can't imagine telling an overweight friend to lose weight
or else the friendship was over. I did have a friend who was drinking and
driving and since that put both her and others in danger of death, I DID say
to her that I did not approve and asked her to promise me never to do it
anymore. She promised, but who knows? She moved away, anyhow.

Quoted message said:

This lead me to lose contact with very dear friends, but each time we
got together again with everything worked out in the right direction
for them.

Marsha, here, is not your friend

That's a fact!

Quoted message said:

(yet)

That's optimistic.

Quoted message said:

but she already told you (a)
truth

There are all kinds of truth. She chose to say something completely
unnecessary and obnoxious. She could have said a million other things, but
just went for the flip put-down.

Quoted message said:

and I guess the ignoring-each-other thing must be on its way
:-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

What or who are you trying to be freed from, Teena?

A lot of weight, as far as I can tell. I do not think there is a
psychological answer to every weight problem. It's nice to think
that it could be that simple and iy may be for some, or even many,
but I don't think for all.

Unfortunately, I think that a psychological problem being the source
of overweight it the reason why it is hard to get rid of it: we don't
search the solution in the right place. Being fat is the visible
result
of an addiction.

You are fascinating, you know that? Talking to you just breeds more and
more ideas. Now, this addiction thing I have problems with. It seems to me
that nowadays our society is trying to turn EVERYTHING into an addiction. I
actually think it's normal to like to eat. We evolved that way, right?
It's normal to like to be lazy, too. I read about all this in a book called
Mean Genes. Now, I work hard, long hours, make very good money, own a home,
all the stuff you are supposed to have. I am just overweight. It seems to
me that an addict wouldn't be able to do everything I do. Maybe I don't
understand addiction, but I know that the crack addicts and such I see on
the street cannot accomplish what most overweight but otherwise ordinary
people I know can.

Quoted message said:

That is all, for many of us. The solution is remove
the need for the addiction. But this all but simple, IMHO :-)

Wait a minute -- isn't low-carbing supposed to make you not have an
appetite? I read that. That's true, right? So, if that is true, then how
can you say a person has a psychological addiction if the cure is not
psychological but biochemical?

Quoted message said:

Here's a question I ask to people I want to help realise what's wrong
in their life (btw: no, I'm not a shrink).

Maybe you should think about a career change.

Quoted message said:

"If you had a magic wand, right here, roght now, with one wish to
grant, what would you do?"
according to whom I speak to, sometimes I ask this:
"What is the one thing that makes your life difficult to live, the one
thing you would remove from your life right know if you could,
reagrdless of the consequences?"

Teena, I guess this would'nt be you weight problem.\

And you are right, my friend. You are so right.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In fact, I think that belief contributes to the idea that
overweight people are somehow psychologically "sick."

"sick" is a word that may be strong, but not untrue.
But I accepted that,a s far as I'm concerned. I don't say that I'm
sick, but I agree to the fact that there is something unbalanced in
my life
that I have to learn and deal with.

Is anyone's life balanced?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do the people in the
ng feel they were psychologically sick before they started
low-carbing, or do they feel there was something else wrong that
kept them overweight? That's not rhetorical, btw.

That is a very, very good idea for a thread :-)

Thank you.

Quoted message said:

Huey

teena wrote:
::
:: Wait a minute -- isn't low-carbing supposed to make you not have an
:: appetite? I read that. That's true, right? So, if that is true,
:: then how can you say a person has a psychological addiction if the
:: cure is not psychological but biochemical?

People are so screwed up....they can have biochemical problems and
psychological ones, too (and others). Low carb reduces that part of
appetite driven by blood glucose swings, but it doesn't remove all desire to
eat.

teena a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Hueyduck wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

When I read this, I wondered if I ever hurt someone in purpose, to
help him.

Well, that depends what you mean by "hurt." I see no reason to tell a
friend he is overweight, for example. He knows it. He doesn't need me to
tell him. I am not friends with him because of his appearance, so I would
never bring it up. If he feels like doing something about it, or talking to
me about it, the gracious thing to do would be to let HIM bring it up.

Sometimes the situation is what brings it up.
You feel like you have to tell your friend that something changed in its
physical appearance.
I have a very special friend, who won't hesitate to say that I put on
waight if it is very noticeable. She doesn't say that fat doesn't
become me, she just notices. And when *she* notices it , out loud, I
know that she means "Are you in trouble? Are you suffering?". It doesn't
hurt unnecessarily because it's her. But it still hurts. Just the right
amount of hurt, in order to know that: no, it was not unnoticeable, no,
it was not only a few pounds, and yes, I have to solve some problem more
quickly than I might have thought.
See how it works for me?

Quoted message said:

However, what if they had some other kind of problem, such as spending too
much or drinking too much? Hmmmm. I tend not to offer help for a friend's
personal problems unless the friend indicates he wants it and then I put
things only in the most supportive terms. I guess as a friend I just try to
be supportive.

Quoted message said:

And you are right: each time I felt like I had to bring
help to someone
I cared a lot, I told him exactly what I thought wasn't right and I
then
I clearly turned into stone until actions where taken.

Well, what kind of actions?

Actions that tend to solve some of the causes of the problem.
For instance, (her we go again for a new story of mine ;-) I have a very
dear friend that, 10 years ago, smoked pot from early morning to late
evening. We were both working at the same restaurant, at the time, and
sometimes he would come to work with no white anywhere in his eyes (is
this a clear image?).
In the end, he had quitted his job, his grilfriend, and was asking for
money in the streets. It made me sick. I cared for him like a brother at
this time.
I just let him go down, having stated clearly that I dissapproved of his
behavior.
When I was walking in the street with some firneds of mine , I would see
him sitting on a stairway, with other beggers and their poor dog. I
just had a glimpse at the group and when I made sure that his eyes had
crossed mine, I would dive into the conversation with my friends and
continue as if the group of beggers wasn't here.

I did that several time.
And one day he left the other tramps, suddenly, and almost ran after me.
He said that I should say hello, at least. I said "what for?".He said
"because that's what friends do"?. I told him that if I was really a
friend, he would not act as if I hadn't told him that he was going in
the most wrong direction.
He said that I should know that he was actually listening to me. And a
phrase I will always remember came out "Tell me what I should do and I
will do it".
I told him to leave this town and start again.

A few weeks later, he had move back to his parents, had a new girlfriend
whom he married 3 years later.
He stopped smoking pot as soon as he had changed girlfriend and moved.
He is now an ingeneer with 2 kids.
This is not thanks to me.
This is thanks to his will and the fact that I confirmed with my voice
and my behavior, at the right moment, with the right intensity,
something that he already knew: he had to leave.

IMO, when you says something like "You got a bit fat, latelyn haven't
you?", you might just confirm what he was waiting confirmation for.
Of course, this kind of saying occurs privately, never in front of other
people. That is what makes the main force of it.

Quoted message said:

Certain things (like someone's weight) are none
of my business. I can't imagine telling an overweight friend to lose weight
or else the friendship was over. I did have a friend who was drinking and
driving and since that put both her and others in danger of death, I DID say
to her that I did not approve and asked her to promise me never to do it
anymore. She promised, but who knows? She moved away, anyhow.

You think as alcohol and overeating as very different things , maybe,
because you focus on consequences, not on causes. Consequences are often
unavoidable and necessary to finally eradicate the cause.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Marsha, here, is not your friend

That's a fact!

Quoted message said:

(yet)

That's optimistic.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

but she already told you (a)
truth

There are all kinds of truth. She chose to say something completely
unnecessary and obnoxious. She could have said a million other things, but
just went for the flip put-down.

Take what's good, leave what's bad ;-) That's one of my credo.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Unfortunately, I think that a psychological problem being the source
of overweight it the reason why it is hard to get rid of it: we don't
search the solution in the right place. Being fat is the visible
result
of an addiction.

You are fascinating, you know that? Talking to you just breeds more and
more ideas. Now, this addiction thing I have problems with. It seems to me
that nowadays our society is trying to turn EVERYTHING into an addiction.

I noticed that too. Really. I think that you want to express the fact
that some would want us to beleieve that anything is an addiction. But
what I think is that many people try and find what can be turned into an
addiction. It's because addiction is what makes the more money.

Quoted message said:

I actually think it's normal to like to eat. We evolved that way, right?

I think it's normal to like to eat what's necessary for our life.
You have a sudden appetite for chocolate, or milk, or cheese. That's
your body speaking.
But when you are stuffed like a christmas turkey and struggle to reach
the fridge and have a piece of cheese or a cup of ice cream, that's not
normal.
That's your brain saying "hey, when you eat, I get dope, so you go on
eating or I'll bring up all your nasty problems. Oh, go on, this is only
food after all, we'll say that you are hungry, won't we...".

Quoted message said:

It's normal to like to be lazy, too. I read about all this in a book called
Mean Genes. Now, I work hard, long hours, make very good money, own a home,
all the stuff you are supposed to have. I am just overweight. It seems to
me that an addict wouldn't be able to do everything I do. Maybe I don't
understand addiction, but I know that the crack addicts and such I see on
the street cannot accomplish what most overweight but otherwise ordinary
people I know can.

That's because the consequences of the acts of a crack addict is more
immediate.
I'm very happy to read that you have a good situation, but there is a
sentence here that bugs me: "All the stuff you are supposed to have".
In my conception of life, nowadays, I am not supposed to have anything.
I want to be and to do.

Addiction, I think, occurs when a behavior becomes more important than
life and happiness of ourself or others. Very personnal definition 🙂

To me, some persons have an addiction to TV, or to internet, or to
cellular phones.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

That is all, for many of us. The solution is remove
the need for the addiction. But this all but simple, IMHO :-)

Wait a minute -- isn't low-carbing supposed to make you not have an
appetite? I read that. That's true, right?

That's not ;-)

Low carb suppresses several of the symptoms of overeating.
It allows your body to learn and listen to *real* hunger signals.
This occurs because the body has no way to stock dietary fat without
carbs. The only way the body has to deal with a high fat/ normal
protein/low carb way of eating is to deliver hormones that say "Hey you,
guy, I can't deal with more food, so I send you dope so that you feel
happy for som time, ok? But please, let me digest and use what you gave
me. Ok here's another dose".
So, slowly, you get addicted to fat digestion (yukkk! but true). Guess
what: your fat is made of fat ;-)

Quoted message said:

So, if that is true, then how
can you say a person has a psychological addiction if the cure is not
psychological but biochemical?

Oh no, no, this is a very biochemical addiction, indeed.

I say that the cause is not.
And I also think that the addiction is used to mask the existence or the
absence of a perturbing person/fact.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Here's a question I ask to people I want to help realise what's wrong
in their life (btw: no, I'm not a shrink).

Maybe you should think about a career change.

omg,I don't think that would be a good idea ;-)))

Mostly because everything I say here is empiric.
And to be a shrink you have to make a psychotherapy first (am I not
right saying that?). And, while I know I will do it, I'm still looking
for the necessary courage.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"What is the one thing that makes your life difficult to live, the one
thing you would remove from your life right now if you could,
reagrdless of the consequences?"

Teena, I guess this would'nt be your weight problem.\

And you are right, my friend. You are so right.

I guess that when you wrote that I was right, you thought immediately of
a precise situation. Solve this and you will ose your excess weight.
This might involve moving, or leavin someone, or changing job...
Sometimes you have to move just to move on, for instance.

I know that advice is easy to give ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

But I accepted that,a s far as I'm concerned. I don't say that I'm
sick, but I agree to the fact that there is something unbalanced in
my life
that I have to learn and deal with.

Is anyone's life balanced?

For many, life is not. Any abnormality of the behaviour might well be
understood as a way to adapt to a special environment. This is nature.
But who said that we could not make changes in the environment rather
than in our behaviour? That's what it's all about.

When you move, you change environment.
When you change job, your change your environment,
When you break up, you have a brand new environment,
etc...
changing environment is not always simple though. But you only have
one life.

When someone hesitates to take a decision that is obviously the right
way to take, I say
"Anyway, it doesn't matter. You can always do that in your next life".

Hope I haven't been to long.
I am very sleepy and I can't re-read myself so I'm sorry about the typos
and I wish everyone here a good night.

Huey

FOB said:

My only problem is that I love to eat and hate to exercise. And I'm old
enough that I don't care about having a sexy body anymore.

I'm in a similar position, except I also don't want another heart
attack, so low-carb it is.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

Hueyduck wrote:

<snip a lot of stuff about how quitting smoking>

I think this has been more useful for me to read than this useless
prescription of Chantix.

Thank you.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/