I just joined this site yesterday and I was surfing the forums, and I couldn't help recognizing all of the fighting...is this normal? My doctor recommended this site as a source of support as I start this journey, but I'm not so sure. Is this site always so negative?

Have you heard the phrase "Minnesota nice"? I'm from western Wisconsin, where we've stolen the idea and made it into an extreme sport! Open forums on the internet are a nightmare. I'll never be able to understand how people can feel free to verbally abuse others for any reason whatsoever. I also don't buy the "tough love"argument. If you can't find a way to tell someone that their behavior is self - destructive without tearing apart their self - esteem, then you should keep your opinion to yourself. They have enough problems without you adding to the mix. That being said, I agree with those that advise you to carefully pick your way through this minefield called the internet. Good luck on your journey!

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Honestly, I would stay away. I was also recommended to this site but I have found that r/WLS on Reddit is a much better resource, albeit smaller. Yeah the world isn't black and white, but I don't need negativity masquerading as concern. I haven't been on here in months because of it.

9 hours ago, ShilohD said:

I joined this site back in Feb. as my surgery was in March. At the time I didn't see very many things negative. I have begun seeing some in the past few months, but as a whole, I think the site is more of a place to gain support and offer each other ideas that help us in the interim... Usually, I work to ignore the negative. But ...

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Yeah, so far, no one has attacked me for being transgender or falsely accused me of being a man or something like that. So, it's still better than the society at large.

6 hours ago, Redmaxx said:

I used to be really active of here, but like you said there has been a lot of negativity. There was a mass exodus a few months back because some of the "senior" members got upset over something that Alex did.

Ah yes, the "tough lovers"...

3 hours ago, jrmoseley said:

I also don't buy the "tough love"argument. If you can't find a way to tell someone that their behavior is self - destructive without tearing apart their self - esteem, then you should keep your opinion to yourself.

Me neither. There is a difference between telling things like they are and being an a*****e.

18 minutes ago, summerset said:

Me neither. There is a difference between telling things like they are and being an a*****e.

And I, for one, won't defend someone being an asşhole. That's when it becomes unacceptable.

Me neither. There is a difference between telling things like they are and being an a*****e.

I 100% agree.

5 hours ago, jrmoseley said:

If you can't find a way to tell someone that their behavior is self - destructive without tearing apart their self - esteem, then you should keep your opinion to yourself.

Amen to that!

Sadly, some people who have 'serious history' doing this to family and loved ones don't notice until the boot is on the other foot.

- - -

Mind you, what I call COMPLACENT COMMERCIAL OBSERVATION is bad too. "And what is that?" I hear you ask. COMPLACENT COMMERCIAL OBSERVATION is when three family doctors in the space of 35 to 40 years treat each ailment/illness/injury related to obesity (or morbid obesity) as single episodes.

I wish that Doctor K back in 1980 had just said, "I know you've told me you've been to Weight Watchers and that you play a lot of sport but are not able to maintain a normal weight. Would you like me to monitor your weight and involve other health care services? Reality is, RainbowWarrior, that 105kg is very bad place for you to be when you really should be seventy-five to seventy-eight kilograms."

Doctor K and two other GPs (and a couple of locums) failed to say anything like this at all while I was in their surgeries. It was an older Chinese-born GP filling in one Saturday morning about 2013 who said to me (while he had my history up on the screen), "90% of your health care issues would go away if you lost that 90 or so extra kilograms you're carrying everywhere."

Were my doctors too complacent to tell me the truth as I may have been a long line of regular $$ to them? Mmmm. Maybe I'm overly suspicious.

In the last couple of years, I found a doctor who listened better, reflected better and invited me to do regular swimming at the same pool he and the practice doctors go.

"Were my doctors too complacent to tell me the truth as I may have been a long line of regular $$ to them? Mmmm. Maybe I'm overly suspicious. "

I think obesity research is even now in its infancy. Many doctors don't know any more about it than those of us who are living it.

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sup yo

9 hours ago, Rainbow_Warrior said:

In the last couple of years, I found a doctor who listened better, reflected better and invited me to do regular swimming at the same pool he and the practice doctors go.

Fast is, obesity treatment is frustrating for both the patient and the doctor because the results are usually very poor unless surgery is involved and his suggestion didn't cure your obesity so you might have liked his suggestion but it didn't really help you when it comes to getting to a normal weight.

On top of this many patients have given up and so have many doctors (how many frustrating tries does one need to give up unless something really promising is available on the horizon?). That's also the case with smoking. Most of our patients that are treated with PTA have heard countless times to stop smoking. Did that make them stop? Not the majority.

2 hours ago, summerset said:

his suggestion didn't cure your obesity so you might have liked his suggestion but it didn't really help you when it comes to getting to a normal weight.

A bit negative there, SummerSet.

In actual fact, my fitness improved massively over time. There was a range of positives albeit NOT long-lived ones.

Week 1 - I could hold my breath underwater for 18 seconds and swim about 12 laps slowly in 14 minutes.

Week 75 - I could hold my breath for 47 seconds underwater and swim 120 laps in 117 minutes.

Week 1 - my belt was buckled at the third hole.

Week 75 - my belt was buckled at the eleventh hole.

I was down 2 or 3 slacks/jeans sizes depending on brand. I was down 3 shirt sizes (6XL to 3XL).

In the initial stages I lost a lot of body mass but struggled to lose more later on.

The NSVs were okay. I came from a BMI near 52 to the low 40s.

Sadly, not long after, I yo-yoed back towards my old self ... as described elsewhere.

5 hours ago, Rainbow_Warrior said:

A bit negative there, SummerSet.

Indeed I'm negative. In fact I feel that I can't be writing negative enough about this issue because we were talking about curing obesity and not of physical fitness goals.

On 14/09/2017 at 3:28 AM, Rainbow_Warrior said:

I'm at a loss to know what you're referring to, celticNgel

the above is one of your posts, i was reading a few threads and your response to the guy REALLY threw me off, to the point i remember it!

so this is the kind of thing she means about negativity, you could have just not replied the guy.

anyway

On 13/09/2017 at 0:15 AM, celticNgel said:

I just joined this site yesterday and I was surfing the forums, and I couldn't help recognizing all of the fighting...is this normal? My doctor recommended this site as a source of support as I start this journey, but I'm not so sure. Is this site always so negative?

Were is the fighting ? I see it every now and again lol But clearly not as much as you have seen, maybe you have a skill in finding those post as I have not seen much