Obesity and addiction

[lph]

Whether the body ever really does adjust, and it is not clear that it does, I am content with my discontent. The older I get, the better I deal well with ambiguity.

This was a nice point.

I've been thinking about how to handle the gap between focusing to get what you want, and not letting that want take over your life. I realize that for someone struggling to control their weight, tracking intake is essential, maybe for life. But I also realize that if I had set myself a specific weight goal and started tracking my progress I would go from relaxed about food to pretty obsessive in no time at all. BTDT, with other goals. And I would probably not be content until I'd reached that goal, while if I hadn't had a specific goal I would be content within some kind of fluctuation, where I "felt" fitter or leaner or my clothes fit better. And time spent being not content has its price too. Am I making sense here?

Actually this goes for all goals. The more specific, the more black and white it becomes - either you make it and are satisfied, or you don't - boo. But when it comes to health, it's not like one certain spot is the only healthy place to be, it's a sliding scale, where one end is worse and the other end is better.

Any thoughts?

[Wahine]

Actually this goes for all goals. The more specific, the more black and white it becomes - either you make it and are satisfied, or you don't - boo. But when it comes to health, it's not like one certain spot is the only healthy place to be, it's a sliding scale, where one end is worse and the other end is better.

Any thoughts?

So this is a little off topic but this is a problem in my field. We are constantly being told to make clear and measureable goals with patients to trake progress. I'm all for tracking progress, but I think it's really disheartening when I make a goal with a patient like "knee will bend 120 degrees in 3 weeks time" and we don't get there for some very valid reason. Or maybe for no tangible reason at all, maybe it's just the way a person is built or wired. Then the patient gets upset because we didn't meet the goal, it often affects motivation negatively...

So I really like the idea of not putting such strict parameters on goals. For some people. I guess it might be very important for others.