If I Had Cancer Would I Fight It?

I'd like to think that if I had cancer, I'd fight it. Especially now that I have kids. But here's the thing. I have a chronic, ultimately fatal disease that I didn't fight for a decade: obesity. What made me not want to fight for all those years? And will I once again, one day, throw in the towel?

One reason for not fighting it is because obesity doesn't spread uncontrollably like cancer can. If I put off fighting obesity until next month, there's a good chance I'll be fine. But you can use that excuse day after day, week after week until you fall off the face of the Earth at a premature age. Some people may think I'm a bit dramatic with my talk of death but obesity does kill you eventually.

With some people it can be at a very early age. A nurse friend of mine works in a cardiac unit and sees plenty of obese people at death's door. One woman was just 35 when she died of her obesity. When I was in my late twenties I thought that was going to be my fate so I did something about it. But only a few years after that, I once again stopped fighting.

Recent studies paint a rather grim picture for those suffering from obesity. Scientists are understanding that people who lose weight have many processes in their bodies that conspire to gain the weight back. Formerly overweight bodies become efficient at burning calories, possibly 20 percent fewer than another person of the same gender, weight and height. Their bodies are able to conserve calories while exerting the same amount of effort and people's bodies tell them to eat more than they need.

Canadian obesity expert Dr. Arya M. Sharma believes that few people beat obesity long term because the deck is stacked against them. If someone has their stomach reduced with surgery, they tend to gain all their weight back if the surgery is reversed. In order to maintain your weight loss you have to do what you did to lose the weight--forever. That's very difficult to do. You have to be obsessive about exercising and calorie counting permanently.

So science tells us that obesity is a chronic, ultimately fatal disease with no cure, just treatments. The treatment is diet and exercise but the treatment has to continue or the patient will deteriorate. But what if I had a different chronic disease? There are many chronic illnesses that have less effective treatments than obesity does, or no treatments at all. Perhaps I should consider myself lucky because counting calories and exercising isn't all that bad compared to what some people have to deal with who have other chronic diseases.

Even if we are thin, exercise is something we all should be doing our whole lives. I recently saw a news story on a 90+ year-old body builder. He was ripped! Exercising as we age wards off the effects of old age and has countless benefits no matter what our weight is. I shouldn't complain about exercise as a treatment for my illness because I should be doing it anyway.

So to successfully battle this disease I will have to become an exercise fanatic, a crazy person obsessed with exercise and watching every thing I put into my mouth. It's going to be very hard and I'm going to need ongoing support. But it could be worse. Exercising and watching what I eat isn't the most difficult treatment for a chronic disease. And unlike treatments for some other chronic diseases, this treatment is 100% effective if kept up.

I'll just count myself lucky that I have this chronic disease and not something with more difficult or less effective treatments. And I'll continue to believe in myself and hope for the best. What other choice do I have?