Doctors and the Medical System RANT

I feel for you Shellee.  I know what you're going through and it can be devilishly frustrating.  Some people seem to shed pounds like water off a duck's back, while others fight for ounces per week it seems.

From my own experience, I find that most people who seem to have trouble losing weight have some of the following problems.  I'm not saying it's your situation, but it's what stands out the most:

1.  Not eating a good breakfast.  This should be a supercharged meal.  There is a chance you haven't eaten for the previous 10-12 hours and your system is run down.  You plug along and finally by mid day or so are ravenously hungry, and tend to overeat to make up for it.

2.  Eating while doing other things.  Sitting at the computer, or watching TV is conducive to breaking out some sort of snack.

3.  Rewarding exercise by overindulging.  Running a 10-K is not a license to eat a banana split with a bag of M&M's as a chaser.

4.  Empty calories.  Beer.

5.  Eating a large amount of food right before bedtime.

6.  Counting calories on a diet or weight loss plan, but not adding up all the little bits of "grazing" that are done during the day.  Office snacks like candy bars are the notorious culprits here.

I only know of these because I am living with your twin sister!  LOL, so a lot of these things are from first hand experience.  Especially the breakfast issue.  It's taken me forever to convince her that breakfast should be a decent size meal.  It used to be a cup of tea and MAYBE a slice of toast.

In your next email, tell her to give you her phone number and you girls can talk real time about these issues.  She's battling the same stuff!

Sorry to hear about your weight loss problems.

As I've heard from many people, which I also am beginning to believe firmly, is that, in this country, we do not have Healthcare.  We have Sickcare.

There is simply more money to be made (by hospitals and pharma cos, not necessarily by Drs) in the treatment of disease and sickness through chemical and surgical involvement than there is through education and incentive.

Even though insurance won't cover it and you have to pay out of pocket, seeing a nutritionist may not be a bad thing.  Maybe you can use it as a tax deduction or something.  Not sure, just trying to find the silver lining.

Join the Y.

Seriously.  Our Y has a RD on site.  Yes, you have to pay to see her, but it's relatively inexpensive. 

It's easy to say that you "eat well" but do you keep track of exactly what you eat to hold yourself accountable?  Have you had somebody review that with you? 

You'd think that a nutritionist would be your best answer, but like any other profession, there are good ones and bad ones.  Unfortunately, it's hard to discern for a lot of people.

It doesn't have to be complicated either.  Build each meal around a lean protein source.  Eat fruits or vegetables with each meal and take in most of your carbs from them.  Take in good fats in the form of nuts, olive/flaxseed/fish oils as well.  Keep track of your calories.  If it's not working, ADJUST what you're doing.  Don't keep doing the same thing and expecting a different results.  There are very few (if any) physiologic reasons why somebody can't lose weight.  Good luck.

I think that the key is finding the "tolerable" calorie deficit that you can stick with as long as it takes to achieve your weight loss goals.  "Tolerable" means how hungry can you stand to be all day long as well as how well you can plan your meals and how well you can enforce your exercise plan over a long period of time with life going on.  If you have more focus or fewer distractions, a higher defiicit is tolerable.  Whatever the level you can tolerate, just make sure that it is really negative.  Once you find a routine that gets you on a steady downward weight trend, even if it is just a half pound a week, stick with your routine like religion.  You learn what you feel like when you are losing and you know you can stand it.  The goal is to stay on the negative side every day for a long time so you don't have to lose the same pounds over and over. 

Good luck Shellee.  We know you can do it.

TW

Yeah, well, it should have been called Insurance System Rant, but I was kinda mad at my doctor too at the moment.

Getting my Thyroid checked is a good idea.  Now that I think about it, my mom takes thyroid pills so that's something I should look into.

Things ARE moving in the right direction - just very, very, slowly. Of course, I would like faster results.  Last time I trained for a half-marathon I lost about 30 pounds without too much trouble over the course of about 4 months.  This time - I've dropped 5 pounds.  The scale is making me crazy.   

I'm actually feeling pretty good about WW - I'm already eating more veggies and I'm liking how the whole structure of the plan works generally.

I'm going to give it a couple of weeks - and then decide what to do next.  And yeah, I know that paying for a nutritionist might be what I end up doing, it just makes me so MAD that my insurance won't pay for that.  So ridiculous.

I'm sure I'll get flamed, but look at this from the flip side.  Should your health insurance be responsible for all prevantative medicine?  Should they pay for your bike?  Your running shoes? Where does it end?  I think everyone could benefit from a nutrtional consult. Most of us could benefit from a personal trainer as well.  They would make me a lot more fit and probably increase my life expectancy some.

  As the health care system gets more and more expensive and we spend 90% of the health care dollars at the end of life in the ICU on expensive care, it's no surprise to me that insurance companies aren't paying for some of these measures.   If you think your health care costs are high now, imagine what they would be if every patient got a nutrition consult.  

  I agree with Adventure Bear.  Your physicians role was to help you assess whether the nutrtion consult was worthwhile and they did that. Now take the initiative if you feel it is worth it and make an appointment.

Mine does. 

Abstinence is cheaper still, though not as much fun. So why should your PPO pay for your recreation and not my race fees?

Abstinence is far less effective than BC pills. Fails at an alarming rate. I'd prefer to pay for a more effective method, thanks.

Does insurance suck? absolutely.  I can tell you your Dr has NO control over what your plan does or does not cover.  He/She is probably more frustrated about it than you are trust me.  The MO for insurance companies is to not pay for anything.   They are FOR PROFIT.   Complain to your insurance plan.  You are the consumer of that product.  Get everyone you know on your plan to complain.  be the sqeaky wheel. 

Everyone know guys NEED sex.  Women, not so much.