Everyone just hates fat people

[mamabeeboo]

Yes I'm fat and yes I'm taking the WLI.

I've had it out with a friend of a friend during a catch up dinner yesterday and I'm fuming.

I've lost some weight and still have a good 5 or so stone more to go before I'm anywhere near the 'normal' BMI category. So no, I'm not wasting away or disappearing, or losing weight too fast.

The mistake I made was being honest about the jabs. But I stand by it, I think it's important to get healthy, regardless of how you do it, just get there.

ANYWAY, this person has suddenly decided to feel concerned for my health, now that the loss has become noticeable. With some silent nods from others about how you should 'just eat less and move more'. No shit is that what was supposed to do?!

A big discussion about:
just have willpower
just have smaller portions
do it the normal way, you don't know what you're putting into your body
it's not healthy
just put down the fork
it's about dicipline
it's not really losing weight though, is it (huhh??)
it's more rewarding to do it the normal way so you can feel achievement

It's gotten me thinking of how so many people just hate fat people. You want us to pay for being fat, to suffer at the gym doing workouts we don't like or can't do with joint pain and back pain etc. You want us to 'just have willpower' like it's that easy. You want us to try all the diets and fail so you can feel superior with your 'discipline' and that you 'look after your body'.

You hate the fact that these WLI have levelled the playing field.

I said all this yesterday and it became very frosty. These aren't my friends, I was there for the birthday girl, but I won't sit there and take it.

I'm posting because I'd love to hear what you might have heard when talking about WLI. (Or if anyone agrees with the above 🤔)

Wow this thread is really bringing out a lot of resentment and jealousy. I can’t understand how anyone would have such vitriol around people being healthier and happier.

Is that what you would say to a friend who was struggling with their weight?

Quite the contrary, discipline in the face of calorific food would've been at best useful to most humans who've ever lived and at worst detrimental. Most of us have lived in scarcity, at times when getting as much calorific food down you as you possibly could whenever you had the chance might really be the thing that kept you alive during the next lean period.

The majority of the species now live in abundance, and nothing in our evolution has prepared us for that. Hence the soaring obesity rates.

You forgot the cardinal rule @mamabeeboo - fat is a moral failing and the only way to acceptably lose weight is to suffer and fail and suffer and fail so those who are not fat can feel morally superior.

All we have heard for years is how fat people cause strain to the NHS with ‘self inflicted’ health issues and yet now there’s a solution for people who can afford it, it’s dangerous and cheating and somehow not right.

Even the NHS have a fucked up attitude about it. I was once advised by a nurse - who was checking me for something not weight related - to go on a 3 apples a day fast to lose weight to cure my diabetes. I am a late onset autoimmune diabetic. 3 apples a day will send me into a coma but at least I’d be a size 10.

You cannot win with people who want fat to be something they can shame others for.

Why would they take this route? That's between them and their doctors. Ultimately, because they will have discussed it and decided that it's the best possible option, in their individual circumstances, towards better health. There are risks and potential side effects as with any medicine, so they'll do an assessment and decide that in this case, the benefits will likely outweigh (ha ha) the downsides. If things change, the patient can stop taking the medicine and find a different path to try with the doctor.

It's not hard to follow.

Honestly, I prefer the people who are just open about the fact that they're resentful because they think their social currency and moral superiority are being devalued by what they see as an "easy" solution (yet not so easy they're prepared to gain weight and rely on the jabs for weight control). The truth will piss you off, then set you free.

It’s certainly amazing. For those making the money that is.
I genuinely hope that you do reach your target weight, and from that form new eating habits that mean you keep the weight off long term and don’t need the medication anymore. And that’s not sarcastic- I do mean that. Good luck to you

Pity you can't inject empathy eh?

Would you say that to a chronic alcoholic, drug addict etc.? I hope you wouldn't, we offer rehab, medication to help people and this is what we are offering obese people! It's a tool to support recovery from sometimes a lifetime of managing weight and reduce obesity related conditions. Why can't you see that it's not cheating, it's support, a tool that has been life changing for some people.

So you agree that it isn't the easier way out, because of the risks and the way it doesn't feel good and the chances of serious illness and clogged arteries. Glad we cleared that up.

Doctors? Do you think people are going through doctors to get this? Oh gosh. Not sure when sending in a photo to Asda last qualified as a doctor but ok.
Secondly, you can keep on harping on about others ‘feeling superior’ For me and anyone I know, that’s just not the case or reason that people are hesitant about these jabs. It sits well with those taking the jabs that’s why people are opposed- because they want to feel superior. Believing this takes away the thoughts that might occur as to other reasons people are opposed. A balm for the mind.

Can I ask what your answer is if WLI are not a route that you think is appropriate?

For example, I've been dieting, off and on, since I was about 20. I'm 42 now. I would gain a bit of weight, diet to get it off. Gain a bit more, diet to get it off. Of course, each time, I'd be gaining a bit more, rationalising "a size 14 looks ok at my height". The I got pregnant with twins and gained a lot of weight, although I was also unwell so I was 2 stone lighter than before I got pregnant! Result! Except, of course, as soon as I wasn't unwell anymore, I put it back on. And then some.
I'm not saying it's not my fault, it is, of course, but as I said before, if you've never struggled with your weight you simply cannot fathom how a plateau of several weeks, when you're restricting your intake severely (and feeling miserable about it) and the noise that comes with it, can demoralise you so much.

As it happens, my blood test also revealed my thyroid function is only one point above normal. If I was resident in France, that would be enough for medication but in the UK it's not.

Even if it didn't, I don't want to be a morbidly obese person anymore. WLI have meant I've lost 1kg a week since Feb, I'm still in the obese category, but now I can sleep and walk without pain.

So that's why I take it. And I know it won't stop you, but I don't need or want your pity for me, whether it's pity for being fat or pity for taking a drug you don't want or need.

Corrrect. People believe it’s an easier way out. I don’t believe long term it will be at all.

Yes, that's exactly what they mean.

The more obviously logic free comments are made out of a combination of panic and feeling disrespected, snubbed. They've understood, correctly, that those of us who are on WLIs don't value their belief systems, their suffering or their efforts. And that the tide is turning with us.

Some people just don't possess the ability to empathise, which really just means understand, others' experiences. Maybe nobody ever empathised with them.

@Gnomegarden32 Or the foresight to realise that our health is unpredictable and no amount of discipline, eat less, or move more is a guarantee to keep you a healthy weight, when you’re confronted with a health battle that means you gain weight - and it’s totally out of your control.

It can happen to anyone at any time. I hope that doesn’t happen to any of the people on this thread; it’s scary stuff when you aren’t in control any more.

Your best wishes would be a lot more believable without all the moral judgement. But thankfully I am uninterested in your wishes.

I couldn't care less that Eli Lilly are getting a small portion of my disposable income. You act like you find all business reprehensible, as if making money was also morally wrong. Eli Lilly have funded and developed a medication that has radically changed my life. I don't begrudge them charging for it. In a few years, they will lose their patent restrictions and generic versions will be available in the UK and there will be more choice about where to spend my cash. They also continue to develop further similar medications, whilst continuing to research their existing ones for safety and for other positive health outcomes. Including a large trial in the UK, which has employment benefits for those involved in it, and health benefits for those participating in it. Bastards aren't they!

If you're altruistically worried about drug black markets and the detrimental effect on lives and people taking illegal drugs for the wrong reasons, this really does seem a strange place to start.

Please, spare me the faux naif role.

If you're not buying from some dodgy bloke down the pub, then a doctor is reviewing your prescription.

Are you a shareholder in Weight Watchers or something? Because you know they're also in the game of weightloss making shedloads of cash from it.

The narrative of valuing 'discipline' while feeling hungry combined with the seething hatred of fatness and fat people speaks to a disordered relationship with food and a restrictive and unhealthy lifestyle more than anything else. I don't think there's any moral high ground there.

Good luck to everyone on this thread taking control of their lives. Ignore the posters who have internalised the 'thin is virtuous' nonsense - happy people don't judge others in this way.

The superiority comes in the form of concern trolling and sly judgement. We're fat, not stupid.

Agreed - it's like people are brainwashed.

No and I get that. I have been all sorts of weights between slim and overweight and I also have had twins.
Personally there are multiple things that would been to change but one main thing is the way people see ‘dieting’ Most diets are just set up to make someone money. The more you fail, the more money they make.
Women since the 1950’s have been fed lie after lie about how to keep slim. Fad after fad from fat makes you fat, diet products, slimming world and weight watchers, Atkinson diets etc. all work initially if followed. But they are doomed to fail for most and in some cases designed to fail to have you return and make more money.

If you post any thing on these threads it’s always the same sarcastic answers - ‘oh silly me, why didn’t I think of that’ ‘oh gosh if only I’d known’ etc etc. it’s impossible to have an actual discussion without people being honest with themselves and not giving incredibly scarcastic answers.

You asked for the solution:
The only right answer is to eat unprocessed foods or lightly processed. Very little UPF. Very little white starchy carbs, very little alcohol and only a small amount of dairy. No need to feel hungry. You can have lots of unprocessed foods.
After two difficult weeks the food noise dies down. And a whole host of positive feelings and energy arise.
After 1 month the changes start to become noticeable.

Get help and online check ins daily or weekly from a good mentor of which there are many to be found online. Everyone should be able to access this for a period of time IMO.

If weight loss jabs ultimately make people eat as the above for long term then great. I take it all back.

More balm. Just told you I don’t feel superior and that’s not my motivation.

Not balm - just people calling out infuriating nonsense.