I need a word, please.

[jeneralist]

When do we want to lose something?

There are many times we might want to get rid of something. We can talk about getting rid of junk, cleaning out our closets, getting past old ways of thought. "Losing" is not used for these examples. We lose football games, we lose $10 that fell out a hole in our pockets, we can even lose hope. "Losing" is bad.

Why, then, do we speak of losing weight?

I'm looking for a word or phrase that refers to intentionally lessening one's mass, that makes it sound like a good thing to do. "Shedding" a few pounds is close, but I know you can come up with something better.

Donating extra carbon to the global Goodwill?

Comments

[persipone.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of "conditioning" and "fitness." After all, weight isn't the problem- bodybuilders are real, if rare. The problem's fat. And since just "loosing" things from your diet often doesn't work- you've got to add exercise- I think an overall focus on fitness rather than weight would be a lot healthier.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

But there are many times when decreasing weight, rather than increasing cardiovascular capacity, is needed. If someone comes into my office weighing 300 pounds, and they've got knee pain, reducing the load on their knees is going to be a big part of helping them. I'm not specifying which part of the calories in/calories out, diet & exercise, to focus on (at least, not in the 1st sentence).

If I just say something like, "I think your knees would begin to feel better if they didn't have so much strain on them," some patients would think that I'm recommending that they stay in the reclining chair watching TV. I need to be more specific: "I think your knees would begin to feel better if they didn't have so much strain on them. If you could lose twenty pounds, that would make a big difference in how you feel." And then I'd talk about steps to take.

But I don't like saying "lose." It's a very negative word -- and unless I give them a different one, it's the one my patients will be saying to themselves in their internal dialog.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

"I think your knee is under too much strain. The best thing you can do right now is to tell me about how active your lifestyle is and about your diet so we can find how best to get you to a place where your body is supporting itself rather than causing itself stress."?

[persipone.livejournal.com]

I can see that end of the problem, and I guess it wasn't what I was thinking about. But, in some ways, my brain breaks this example down into two seaparate but connected issues. There are thin patients with knee pain who *do* have to be more sedentary to reduce the load- elderly individuals with severe arthritis, for instance. And being 300 lbs is a big problem even if a person's knees are ok.

I think your idea of "shed a few pounds" is a good one. Even something like referring to "loosing fat" rather than "loosing weight" would be good. I'm thinking of elderly patients again, now- I've seen some who are *delighted* to loose weight, but don't seem to connect it with the fact that they're getting weaker because of muscle atrophy.

I'd probably want to go with something like: "I think your knees would improve if they didn't have so much strain on them. If you could get in a bit better shape, that would make a big difference." Which, yes, in some sense avoids the core issue of loosing weight. I'm not sure there's a great solution.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's what you meant, but what you wrote has me thinking about the difference between "losing" weight and "loosing" weight. I've got a mental image of walking to the gate of my fenced-in yard with a wild Fat Beast, 20 pounds growling wild animal, in a cage. (In my imagination, it sort of looks like an injured and recovered sloth, with elements of a small, overfed orangutan.) I open the cage door and shout to the critter, "Go away! Be free!" to get it to return to the wild.

[persipone.livejournal.com]

Heh. Actually, it's just that I can't spell!