Doctors Don't Know

Unbelievable. I just heard a "The Zone" diet doctor giving an interview. He was going on and on about how, if you keep your blood sugar within a certain zone, you never feel hungry and therefore, it's easy to lose weight. That just goes to show that doctor's don't know.

Honestly, if it were only about being hungry, we would not have an obese society. HUNGRY?? Please. I am ALWAYS HUNGRY. Getting to this level of obesity has so little to do with actually being physically hungry. All these experts yapping about being hungry...that's soooo not the problem. It's about being bored, sad, lonely, scared, angry, all sort of things, but not hungry.

It's about being in control. Or feeling out of control. It's about finding a calm satiety. Only the satiety is followed by guilt and despair. This, of course, drives the cycle to repeat.

It took years for me to even know what physical hunger is. I spent 20 some years thinking that hunger was an emotion rather than a physical state of being. Clearly, my problem is not about being hungry. Surely someone with an MD ought to be able to realize this.

My dad has a load of problems. Always has, always will. Chief among them, he is always hungry. In 1976, he had a radical surgery - intestinal bypass - that left him malnourished, constantly dehydrated, and suffering from life-long diarrhea. Today, he is more than 100 pounds overweight. Anyway, I am a lot like him. I learned from him, his eating habits, his emotional immaturity. Luckily for me, I've learned to take better care of myself than he has. I have accepted responsibility for my life in a way that he never has been able to do. I have not overcome all of my "issues," but I have grown and learned and bettered myself. I am still growing.

For years, I was terribly jealous of my sister. She had managed to escape the "fat gene" that our father gave me. She was always cute and little and had a very, very different experience growing up than I did. In recent years, I have come to realize that she has her own issues, that she was damaged as well as I. Growing up as my father's daughter has manifested itself in different ways for my sister. She is emotionally stunted. I have very, very recently come to the realization that she can be mean. She dealt with the situation by hardening herself to it, whereas I soaked it all up like a sponge and took it all upon myself. She is mean and I am messy. I am no longer jealous of her; rather, I recognize the scars and respect her distance from us. She has done what she has had to do to survive, just like the rest of us. Turns out, she's hungry, too.