jenniferjoyner.com Blog

Choose You

I can’t tell you what it means when people share their personal stories with me.

For them to feel comfortable enough to write to me, telling me painful things about themselves, I feel so….honored.

And I want to do right by them. I want to give them the right encouragement, say the right thing, so that they will know that yes, their story matters. Yes, they deserve to be happy, to be healthy, to be loved. I tell them all that because I truly believe it, but I also know, from being in their shoes, how very hard it is to convince yourself that you are worthy.

When you are mired down in self-destructive behavior, you can’t bring yourself out of it because you don’t think you are worth the effort. It’s so much easier to believe what that little voice is always telling you—that you are nothing. To battle against that—to stand up to the negative and to reclaim your life—it seems like such an enormous task—one that you’ll never be able to achieve. You give up before you start.

I’ve been there. Heck, I’m still there, in a lot of ways. I get tired of trying and I just want to give up. I have to force myself to remember how far I have come, and even though I have so much further to go, I know I can do it—deep down, I know the only thing standing in my way—is me.

So today, I am getting out of my own way. I am choosing to fight for me—because I deserve to be happy. And so do you.

Let’s keep reminding each other…okay???

Say yes to drugs (only when legal and with research, of course)

There’s news this week that a new diet drug is showing promising results, more so than any other drug in a long time.

(For more info, google the drug Qnexa. If I were cool, I would know how to link to an article here, but alas…I am clueless.

Folks, this is good news. I wrote in Designated Fat Girl about my experience with diet drugs and how I benefited from them a great deal, only for the pills to be yanked away (once by the FDA, once by a power-hungry doctor). It seems the medical community is just a little bit touchy when it comes to using pharmaceuticals to help lose weight—any sign of a problem and the patient is left high and dry. For my 16 years battling morbid obesity, the only time I lost significant amounts of weight were either with diet drugs or with surgery. Am I particularly proud of that? No…I wish I could say I’d been able to “do it on my own”. But in the end, something had to be done and I did finally do it, so there!

My point….yes, there are risks with diet drugs, some pretty scary side effects, even. But I ask this: what are the side effects of carrying more than 300 pounds on your frame? What is your extra weight doing to your heart, your joints, your psyche? Shouldn’t a patient be allowed to consider all the risks and make the decision on their own? And if they choose to use diet drugs to help lose weight, shouldn’t we support such a brave decision???

New diet drugs means there’s been new research, and that makes me happy. The more we talk about this obesity epidemic, I have to believe we are getting closer to finding real solutions to abolishing a hideous condition.