[Jules]

I didn't start regularly watching the show until midway through the second season -so honestly I had no idea what anyone else's professions were. From where I started watching everyone was making a big deal about Dr. Jeff's profession because that was also his motivation. I'm not trying to pick on Dr. Jeff -he seemed really nice and it was amazing the resolve he had. And I wouldn't have come to these boards if I didn't realize how amazing this show is.

But you've got to admit people in the health profession know more about exercise and nutrition. Just look at these boards -people not knowing ketchup has sugar, people not knowing how much/what to eat or how to exercise. I pick up an exercise book and it starts talking about glutes and triceps and stuff and they could be talking about my ears for all I know.

However, I agree that everyone is ultimately responsible for their own health and everyone can fall to the bad food habits. It's just that the path to health is less convoluded to those who have already spent the time and effort learning about the composition of the human body and the ways metabolism works. For some of us, we have a lot more learning to do before we can just go to a gym and use the weights/machines properly. For some of us, we have to spend hours looking up foods to see if they have low calories or not. Others have chosen to know these things as their careers.

True we all still have to face responsibility for our choices and put our minds in gear, but some of us don't know how to get where we want to be. This does make a difference in the process in my mind anyways. Ultimately our choices will get us there in the end, but some of us have some catching up to do on the learning curve of healthly living so we're just getting there slower.

Carrie, I think you're 100 percent right that people had to face their insides as well as their outsides. I wasn't trying to say it wasn't great that Dr. Jeff lost all that weight. I only posted this because to me it's frustrating trying to figure all this out -and not eveyone has to learn as much as some of us. I tried to give an example above with the finances -it's frustrating to see people toss away their resources and their knowledge and disregard useful information when I am spending hours reading books and reading online trying to learn what they already knew before going on that show. They needed different things -like motivation and to work through problems, but they were still ahead of the game in some ways, so to speak.

I really liked Nicky's comment "I was just meaning that I don't think it matter who you are or what you do... we can all be in the same situation and sometimes it just takes a certain kick in the pants to do things..." A kick in the pants is necessary for sure!