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kleinbl00  ·  2256 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong

    I cant even fathom what the problem is like.

I am obese by BMI. I have ten pounds to lose to be overweight. Note that I put on those ten pounds on the advice of a dietician who said that in order to lose weight I needed to eat more calories. IT WAS SUPER-EFFECTIVE.

I am burning a spare 2000 calories a day, biking 30 miles for roughly 2 1/2 hours a day. I eat principally vegetables and protein, probably drink two drinks every couple weeks. I'm 35lbs away from "normal". I got within 10lbs of "normal" a few years back; to get there I have to be light-headed when I stand up all day every day. As you might imagine, blood sugar that low does not improve my mood, nor my interactions with my fellow humans. I don't have that luxury here; if I eat to lose weight burning that many calories the bike wobbles and I hit stuff and then I don't make it to work.

I can't get a flu shot without someone telling me to lose weight.

I went to the doctor once with foot pain while running. They told me "you know you'd be in a lot less pain if you lost about 40lbs." I mean, what do you think I'm trying to do here? Two days later I broke a pedal off the exercise bike (which I did an hour on every day after working out). It was the second time in six months. I debated bringing it in and asking her how she wanted me to go about it but knew she wouldn't have any idea, nor would she care. She'd looked at BMI and discarded everything else. She didn't even do anything about the foot pain.

I went to a nutritionist who said "you're not fat, and we need to get your percentage body fat by doing a wet measure." I said "great. Can we do that here?" "No. There's only one place in Seattle to do it." "Is it covered by insurance?" "no. And it's $600." "Will it lower my insurance rates?" "No. They only care about BMI."

You know what it's like? It's about crafting a Mii, standing on that goddamn passive-aggressive scale thing and have it balloon your character out to parade float proportions, complete with shame-faced shaking head and sad trombone.