Be Who You Are: The Paradox of Weight Management

Be Who You Are

Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Henri Marcoux.

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T A B L E      O F      C O N T E N T S

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .i

Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Foreword . . . . .  . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii

Chapter 1

Being Who I Am . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Chapter 2

A Biographical Perspective: Lessons from my early experiences . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Chapter 3

Significant Stories to Learn From . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 4

Getting to the bottom… My Life as a Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .40

Chapter 5

Be Who You Are Implementation, 1990-2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 6

Hitting Bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Chapter 7

Futilities

The Futility of Dieting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 98

Chapter 8

You can run, but you can’t hide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Chapter 9

Is there a way out? 400 Pounds in a Restaurant:

The meaning of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .  116

Chapter 10

Being with the paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .  121

Chapter 11

The Dynamics of Being Slender or Having Normal Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Chapter 12

Generating Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 132

Chapter 13

Fat Facts and Basic Physiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146

Chapter 14

Charting Your Course . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .150

Chapter 15

Lessons from The Guilt trip Mechanism. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .157

Chapter 16

Weight Management Principles . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176

Chapter 17

Getting Into It: The Owner’s Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 186

Chapter 18

Being With the New Self . . . . . .  . . . .  . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Chapter 19

Be Who You Are Workbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . .211

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . 214

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . .. . . . . . .  . .. . 216

D E D I C A T I O N

Dedicated to the James Yeo’s of the world who have found health, life and congruency with who they are.

I

A C K N O W L E D G M   E  N  T

The author wishes to acknowledge Beverly Suek for her important contribution in helping me to see the manuscript with fresh eyes and from there, suggest very functional editorial changes. I am grateful.

I am also deeply grateful to all the patients who have given me the experience and the confidence to outline another way to help the many who are perplexed about why they cannot manage their weight, their body and their health.

These beautiful people have taught me that the key to a happy life is being OK with not loving your fat, but instead being in love with who you are!

II

F O R E W O R D

Although obesity is often stigmatized in much of the modern world, especially in the Western world, this was not always the case. At other times in history and in various parts of the world, Europe and Asia, obesity was considered a symbol of wealth and fertility. While there may be solid societal considerations for asso-ciating obesity with wealth and prosperity, there were likely other concerns with periods of famine and starvation both in Europe and Asia. Obese persons were considered healthy with plenty to eat and in no danger of dying of starvation. A woman seemed to be especially favored when she was overweight or obese. That meant that she was healthy and could be a good mother to create healthy offspring.

Society in the 19th to the 21st century acquired a different attitude about body weight. In the last 200 hundred years, obesity became less popular and probably less frequent as the industrial revolution took hold and men and women worked harder and had less opulence. By early 20th century, it was not fashionable to be obese. One could get by with being overweight as long as he or she was not fat.

Fat became the new word for ugly.

Today it is considered one of the most serious public health problems.

III

DR. HENRI MARCOUX

Do not let the title of this book fool you into thinking or assuming that the author does not acknowledge the seriousness of obesity. The author acknowledges the fact that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported in September of 2010 that the United States was the fattest of the OECDs thirty-three member nations. The report states that 70% of the population is obese or overweight and that this number is expected to grow to 75% by the year 2020. Canada’s population is deemed to be 60% overweight and at least 25% obese. Two out of three Canadian men are overweight.

The economic impact that obesity has on North American economy is considered to be 147 billion dollars annually, according to the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy. Being overweight has an annual cost of US$524.00 for a woman and US$432.00 for a man while being obese has an annual cost of US$4879.00 for women and US$2646.00 for men.

This general estimate is based on the extra cost of buying enormous quantities of food, paying for the extra material to make bigger sizes in clothing, the cost of sick days and disability claims due to diseases or disorders linked to obesity, repairs for damages to furniture, and for extra costs for the manufacturing of larger stur-dier furniture and mattresses. Consideration is given for the extra expenditures on car repairs and fuel associated with transporting more weight. Also considered are the additional costs of over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription drugs utilized to treat diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and other obesity associated health disorders including larger caskets, higher cremation expenses and funeral costs associated with the fact that obese people generally die younger. There are significant expenses for surgical procedures such as stomach banding, liposuction and a number of other cosmetic procedures. People incur major expenses for treatment of acute and chronic spinal and musculoskeletal problems for medical care, physical therapy, nursing, and chiropractic care associated with joint injury and degeneration.

IV

BE WHO YO U ARE

Knee and hip joint replacements are common.

These delineated expenses are the visible costs. The enormous cost of the invisible psychological problems such as depression, anxiety and a myriad of other emotional issues associated with obesity cannot be accurately established. Some studies have revealed that larger women earn less in the workplace than their skinnier counter-parts.

Then there are those who spend billions to buy special food programs and herbal remedies to cure obesity along with special fad-food diets guaranteed to help obese people lose weight. Being fat is an expensive proposition both in terms of our economy and the costs to human lives. The George Washington University report also states that a lifetime of additional health care costs for a person weighing seventy pounds or more above their normal weight total as much as $30,000.00 depending on gender and race. What this book proposes represents a radical departure from the losing battle of weight loss. If weight-loss diets and dieting programs really accomplished what they are supposed to do, why is it that obesity is epidemic and weight-loss programs are becoming more common? What is it about our society that tolerates and has recently been glorifying weight loss and obesity in the media? What is it in our western societies that drive us to eating junk foods laden with fat, sugars and other additives that lead us into obesity and disease?

One thing that is clear, however, is that the solution to this serious and rapidly growing problem will be found in the individual person taking the responsibility to manage his/her health. The solution is clearly not found in weight-loss programs that lead towards a variety of starvation approaches. Simply put, it means that you and I need to fully experience whom we are as individuals and to honestly own it. If I am aware of whom I am, and become willing to take the responsibility for whom and what I am, then weight loss changes to a weight management process.

V

DR. HENRI MARCOUX

The degree of sincere ownership of whom we really are as over-weight or obese persons, short circuits willpower as a means of losing weight. This is a much easier way to succeed either as a person who wants to manage body weight or as a person who is able to be healthier and still be significantly overweight.

Simply recognizing that anxiously trying to lose weight by will power and diet does not lead to modifying food-related addictive behaviors, opens the door to the personal growth necessary for weight management.

This book will explore several new and possibly controversial concepts. These will help the sincere person who really wants to learn to manage his/her weight without going into the bottomless pit of failure and anxiety associated with the greatest majority of weight-loss programs.

The ultimate weight-loss program that guarantees absolute success is the following: Stop eating altogether and starve yourself to death.

VI

I N T R O D U C T I O N

What is outlined in this book is sculpted by forty-seven years of clinical experience with thousands of patients who presented with a large variety of different conditions. However, obesity became one of the most perplexing conditions that I encountered. I did what I thought would be of greatest value to those patients who were seeking to lose weight, taking into consideration what I was taught and what I knew. Then there were some obese people who were not in the least interested in losing weight. They were convincingly happy to be fat and they felt good about it in spite of the frequent societal reminders of how bad it was to be fat. This was confusing for me and was contrary to what I knew to be true. I thought these happy obese persons were dealing with major psychological issues and were making the best of what and whom they were.

Overall, the results of anything I did to help were less than successful. Over time and through a variety of clinical and societal experiences, I was led to the development of a different interpretation and understanding about the nature of obesity and how to best manage this condition. What became abundantly clear was that simply following a diet or a program to lose weight or force the body to absorb and burn away pounds of fat was a colossal waste of time. And yet, fat people never seemed to lose hope about losing weight by utilizing variations of starvation diets, in spite of rarely ever achieving permanent results.

VII

DR. HENRI MARCOUX

Early in my career, I realized that a person becomes overweight or fat because at some level of their being they want to be over-weight or fat. We are not possessed by the condition. We create the condition and spend a lifetime denying that we have done so or we activate elaborate strategies to keep ourselves unconscious of the control we actually have over the condition. We know there is something not right when we are obese and blame our lousy diet, our family, our genetics and our circumstances rather than take the responsibility for choosing the lousy diet, the consciousness and the lifestyle that promotes excess fat!

Most weight-loss programs actually promote the anxiety, the sadness, the frustration and the anger that underlies being over-weight or obese. It is my conjecture that being without the foods that one craves or wants produces emotional reactions not unlike the ones that relate to being deprived of something important early in life. I am referring to the gamut of emotions like fear, rejection, aloneness, feeling unwanted and abandoned, feeling abused, sadness, joy, peace, belonging, relationship and security. Sooner or later this becomes intolerable and breeds more fear, anger, and blame, hurt and becomes inner-directed and unconscious.

You may recognize the words written on these pages from your own experience as a person with weight issues. What is presented here may be a completely new approach that will inspire you to explore other ways of advancing your own weight management strategies. My wish is that you consider the words here as being realistic, effective and evolving. If you are dealing with your own weight issues, you may be willing to do the work suggested in these pages and experience the evolution that will take place in your life. If you are a health care provider, I ask you to compare your experiences with my observations and conclusions and advance the work by challenging my conjectures and conclusions.

VIII

BE WHO YO U ARE

The material presented in this book is not intended to be a purely scientific treatise on the subject of obesity and on the latest most scientific way to manage weight. Instead, this treatise is a reporting of valid clinical and personal observations that suggests that weight losing diets and gimmicks are not the way to manage weight. The conclusions I have formulated are based on objectively looking at the issue of obesity from my personal clinical perspective.

There is no doubt that science can offer us great insights, but so can experience. Life is not a scientific process, but science can provide great observations and explanations and make life easier for everyone. I have always attempted to approach this subject with a more scientifically objective view, in spite of the fact that being objective is rarely possible. The only objective parameters seen in obesity, generally, are factors like weight, fat distribution, blood findings and what we eat and it certainly looks as though all of the above can be modified by subjective experience. This book will deal with the two sides of excess weight. The first will look at the subjective experience of being overweight and fat (obese) from the experience of a number of patients and the second will provide a foundation for a realistic solution to this problem and successful weight management.

The material in this book is not intended to deal with pathological states that have been associated with and can cause excessive weight gain and obesity. In those instances, consultation with a competent health care practitioner will help to deal with those pathological states. In spite of this possibility, the advice given in this book will serve anyone wanting to manage his/her weight, including those whose weight is influenced by a disease process.

IX

C H A P T E R ¹

Being Who I Am

"I am a part of all that I have met."

Ulysses

During the 70s and early 80s,I spent hundreds of hours in Human Relations groups or Encounter groups both as a participant and as a facilitator. I learned a lot about human behavior and group dynamics. Most of all, I learned to observe people in a variety of different situations and predicaments. From these experiences, I acquired a deeper understanding of the deep foundation upon which we manifest and manage our lives. This foundation is a conglomerate of all our life experiences, good and bad, and is poured into the entire structure of the body.This phenomenon manifests at the cellular level as much as it does in the way we hold our posture, create movement and in our physical attributes. This includes body shape, the distribution of our fat, our behavior and personality traits.

In this book, I am describing some of the clinical and personal experiences I discovered in my attempts to help obese persons lose weight. In the early years of helping obese people to lose weight, I was working on the premise that it was abnormal to be over-weight. I held the common view that obesity was a disorder, an overt abnormality that required a therapeutic intervention.

1

DR. HENRI MARCOUX

It was clear to me that this disorder had a physical component via the diet, an emotional