I’m in my 50s and fat; I wear a women’s size 16-18. Still, I’m basically healthy and active. Almost three years ago, my wonderful, warm, longtime primary care physician retired, and I started seeing a different doctor. This new doctor, a few years younger than I, focused in our first meeting on urging me to lose weight. She suggested I go on injected weight-loss drugs, which at the time were just starting to get popular.
As a longtime journalist, I asked for a little time to ponder. After a dive into the literature, I emailed the doctor — let’s call her Dr. Nah — saying I’d prefer not to take the drugs. For me, the side effects seemed a lot to deal with; there weren’t any 10-plus-year human studies on continuous use of the drugs; and research indicated that going off the meds would mean regaining most of the weight I lost.
Look, I’d be lying if I said I love my body. I want to; I really do. But we live in a world of biases toward and stigmas about fat people; I experience prejudice all the time. That said, I think I’m smart and funny and (when I want to be) charming, and I have cool hair and a sparkly smile and I’m pretty good at fashion.
I simply didn’t want to become thin by injecting a medication. So I emailed Dr. Nah, saying, well, “Nah.” And furthermore, I told her, I didn’t want to engage in weight-loss talk. “We can discuss eating well and exercising,” I told her, but not with weight loss as the goal. “If that won’t work for you, no hard feelings,” I concluded the email. “I can look for another PCP.”
A few hours later, another email popped up in my inbox, from a doctor I’d never met.
If you like her, and you can remember, you can try to always say “exercise and low-calorie diet can reduce the stress on your liver,” since she says you are allowed to talk about diet and exercise. If she is not worth trying to dance around your language, she is giving you a clear option…
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