Fatties and their Haters [Archive]

Sylvia727

07-22-2008, 04:43 AM

I am a big woman, though certainly not the worst of the lot. One day, I went to a grocery store and picked up a bag of candy. The cashier, a pleasant looking older lady, was laughing and joking with the customers in front of me. When I got up to her register, I was therefore in a good mood and cracked a joke on the same subject. She half-nodded and dropped eye contact. I then complimented her on her brooch, which was very pretty. She half-nodded again and told me my total. She didn't smile once during the entire transaction, when she'd been laughing just a moment before. As I left, I told her to have a good day, to which she didn't respond.

Later, I repeated this story to my sister, who if anything is on the skinny side. As I wrapped it up, I said, "And the worst part is, I don't know if she was being rude because I'm an overweight woman buying candy, or if I'm just being oversensitive." This shocked my sister. Apparently, she had never realized that my weight might be a factor in my interactions with other people, or that I evaluate people's responses to see if they dislike me for my size. It doesn't come up particularly often, maybe once or twice a week, but I always wonder how much prejudice against me is invisible. I can't tell if the waitress is being short because she's had a bad day or because she doesn't approve of my size.

Amethyst, if I ever overheard your dad make those comments about me, I would give him the double-barreled salute. I intensely dislike people who feel they can make judgements about my health and my appearence.

Another question: why is it unacceptable for fat people to eat the same food as everyone else? If twenty people are eating in a McDonald's, folks act like only the fat guy shouldn't be there. Maybe he only has a twenty minute lunch break, or maybe he forgot his wallet and needs something cheap. Maybe he likes their food, Heavin forbid. Why pick on just him?

Rapscallion

07-22-2008, 06:16 AM

I'm fairly overweight. I have the advantage of not looking as fat as I actually am, but until a few weeks back I was about 280 pounds, or just under 20 stones for us who use real money. I'm physically active, and I have both a reasonably large frame and more than average musculature. However, I still carry at least five stone (70 pounds) of excess weight - I'll find out how much when I finish this current diet.

I've never looked for people who are biased against me because of my weight. Truth to tell, there are so many people of my size or more - many of whom obviously get no real exercise (half my working week is in the warehouse on average) and therefore look it - that I can't see that someone's going to be biased against that many people. Well, if they are then it's going to be a very small number doing it.

Granted, as I said, I don't look hugely overweight.

Acceptability of eating certain foods? Never had that happen to me. Mind you, most owners of fast food businesses know that their customers tend to be on the large side, so there's no point in chasing away your regular customers, and many patrons are also on the large side. If someone overweight is in a fast food place and a skinny person eating there is critical, why is the skinny person in there?

Common sense dictates that too much weight is bad for a person, but common sense also says that pretty much everyone knows this, and anyone who eats something greasy when overweight is doing so of their own free will and accepts the consequences. A lower life expectancy is implicitly accepted. Of course, when it comes to someone who is unable to leave the house due to really excessive eating (very rare), and I once read a piece by an EMT who had to help five colleagues carry someone out of an apartment once (they strained badly), then it's affecting other people.

From the other side of the coin, I see propoganda from the other side declaring that fat people are beautiful as well. Let's put it this way, as far as I'm concerned this viewpoint is wrong. There are a few people who love the larger person, but they are rare. I'm a gutbucket, and I know that if I went searching for romance I would have to lose a fair amount of weight to have a better chance of being considered. Looks aren't everything, but they bloody well help at first.

Rapscallion

AFPheonix

07-22-2008, 07:41 AM

It's probably due to the fact that out of all the things people get picked on for, weight is one of the things that is controllable. Not to say that picking on people is wrong, it's because people tend to perceive obese people as being lesser beings for having less self control and being more selfish. Also some people resent the obese for choosing to become disabled by getting so large it affects their health.
It's interesting that obese people get so picked on considering how large of a percentage of the population is overweight themselves.
The other interesting thing is some of the backlash from some of the super obese by attempting to tell themselves that they are healthy and normal and are "real women" (as opposed to those fake skinny women, I suppose). They conflate the risk of anorexia and eschew doctors who tell them that they're killing themselves if they don't lose weight. People who were obese and are taking steps to lose weight are shunned for denying their true selves. There are blogs dedicated to this line of thinking.

Now, it's easy for people to say that fat people should be better able to control their weight, but apparently it's going to take more than an individual effort to change the epidemic we have going now. It's going to have to take a concerted effort to change attitudes about how much we eat and when and what.
New York is taking a pretty cool step right now by requiring eateries to list the caloric contents of their meals. Apparently a lot of people are finding that what they thought was pretty healthy really isn't. I'd love to see that go into effect here.

Amethyst Hunter

07-22-2008, 07:59 AM

Amethyst, if I ever overheard your dad make those comments about me, I would give him the double-barreled salute.

I wouldn't feel much sympathy for him, because he'd totally have it coming. I've given him looks/said stuff to him before along the lines of "...and this trivia is important to me WHY?" I don't think he has any genuine hatred towards overweight folks (though feel free to debate that amongst yourselves) like some people seem to, but he doesn't get that this kind of behavior makes him look like a jerk.

(My dad isn't a BAD person, but he does have some bad *habits*, if that makes any sense. Unfortunately this is the way he was raised and the type of social environment he grew up in, so I don't look for him to change much - if any - of his ways anytime soon. :( )

IDrinkaRum

07-22-2008, 10:42 AM

I've always hated the argument that fat people can control their weigh through diet and exercise alone. That's not true.

There are some prescription medications that people need to keep them alive that cause added weight. Some people can't exercise because of health problems. These might sound like excuses, but they're not.

Plus, for the overly obese? At the gyms, they buy equipment that has a weight limit of like 250 pounds. I'm over that & my husband are over that. Why waste so much money on a gym membership when we can't use the equipment anyway?

BlaqueKatt

07-22-2008, 12:36 PM

It's interesting that obese people get so picked on considering how large of a percentage of the population is overweight themselves.

By the altered and "one-size-fits-all" BMI index. All these stories about the "epidemic" of obesity are fueled by two digit number that a mathematician developed in 1830*, that's right not a doctor, or scientist, or even a nutritionist, a damn mathematician. Let me say this again to make sure it it remembered BMI Developed by a MATHEMATICIAN in the 1830s(who observed that, among his samples of early C19th Belgians, weight tends to increase in proportion to the square of the height, once they were fully grown)-Because I know I go see my accountant to tell me if I'm healthy. :rolleyes:

Rememeber the diet industry and big pharma are out to make money, if they can get more people to buy their products they will. But if weight is only an issue for say less than half the population, let's just change the definition, or move the stick to where we define disease. Just to show how absurd using the BMI is Arnold Schwartzenegger, Lance Armstrong, and Tom Cruise are highly obese by the BMI.

One other reason I know the BMI is crap-I'm 5'5" and a size 6 with less than 10% body fat however; going by the BMI I'm overweight I have a BMI of 25. Before I had my son and my bone structure in my hips changed(went from 34" to 36") I was the same weight and a size 3-so the BMI still said I was over weight AT A SIZE 3!!!! My ex-husband who was in the army(and had a 32" waist-yes he had the 6-pack abs) was classified as "obese" by the BMI. Do a 5'5" size 3 female and a 5'9" soldier with a 32" waist conjure the images of overweight and obese respectively? It's misleading at best and downright deceptive at worst.

The body mass index (BMI), is a statistical measure of the weight of a person scaled according to height. As such, it is useful as a population measure only, and is not appropriate for diagnosing individuals. However, BMI has become controversial because many people, including physicians, have come to rely on its apparent numerical authority for medical diagnosis, but that was never the BMI's purpose. The newest survey in 2007 indicates an continuation of the increase in BMI, 63% of americans are overweight, with 26% now in the obese category.(lies, damn lies, and statistics anyone?)

Or maybe 63% of Americans are like me "overweight" due to increased muscle mass, or bone density**(which is not taken into account by a 150+ year-old Belgian Mathematical formula), and 26% are professional bodybuilders, athletes, and soldiers. But that wouldn't get people to panic, and buy diet pills, and diet foods would it?

Forgot to add *link to BMI info (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index)

**and how many Belgians in 1830 were malnourished or had poor bone density?

Lace Neil Singer

07-22-2008, 01:48 PM

There aren't that many obese people who are in that state for medical reasons; most are there cuz they ate all the pies. It's not being rude to point that out; and yes, if they did stop eating enough to feed a family of four and started exercising more (even if you have back or bone problems, there are exercises you can do; swimming, for example, or yoga) they'd lose weight. There is no point in pretending that you can see the Emperor's clothes on this issue.

Having said that, the legendary BMI states that I'm overweight. I'm a size 16-18, depending on the shop, and have an hourglass figure; big hips and big boobs. I go by how my clothes fit, not on weight or BMI cuz it's all so inaccurate. Seeing as I've had a lot of male attention, I really don't see that my weight is an issue; a lot of my male friends have said that they hate skinny girls cuz they have no boobs. There are still people who like skinny girls tho; it's all a matter of preference.

AFPheonix

07-22-2008, 06:00 PM

I've always hated the argument that fat people can control their weigh through diet and exercise alone. That's not true.

You can, the first law of thermodynamics says so. The biggest thing is that we all overconsume calories, especially in the things we drink. Eating too many simple carbs, overly large portions, and not enough complex, harder to digest carbs are our biggest problem. Look at your daily food intake first if you're serious about dropping weight.

By the altered and "one-size-fits-all" BMI index. All these stories about the "epidemic" of obesity are fueled by two digit number that a mathematician developed in 1830*, that's right not a doctor, or scientist, or even a nutritionist, a damn mathematician. Let me say this again to make sure it it remembered BMI Developed by a MATHEMATICIAN in the 1830s(who observed that, among his samples of early C19th Belgians, weight tends to increase in proportion to the square of the height, once they were fully grown)-Because I know I go see my accountant to tell me if I'm healthy. :rolleyes:

Uhh....if big pharma wanted to continue to make more money, they'd have a lot more interest in keeping the populace fat than thin. Weight loss drugs are not the worlds biggest sellers. Statins like Lipitor and Crestor are.
Not to mention drugs that fly off our shelves like diabetes meds, blood pressure meds, and incidentals like stomach medication, hormones to counteract glandular conditions aggravated by extra weight, COX-2 inhibitors, inhaled steroids, durable medical goods like industrial strength beds, C-PAP machines, etc etc etc. Hell, just blood glucose testers and their accessories are a huge seller and the strips are expensive.
At the other end of the spectrum, we rarely sell hardly any appetite suppressors or other meds like Alli or Xenical in comparison.

As for the mathematician argument, so what? He's trained to recognize trends. Size of the people in the populace is a trend, and I'll bet he used journals published by medical professionals to put the mark at the populace's ideal weight.
BMI is flawed because it does not apply to all individuals well (it's a population trend, after all) and every person who wants to make themselves feel better about their weight will always point at that and say, "SEE? I'M NOT THAT FAT AND IT SAYS I'M A LARDO!" Right. Sorry, most people who make that argument are not professional weight lifters. Typically they're getting cheeto dust down into their keyboards as they're angrily banging out their manifesto against a society telling them to get thinner.
There will be people who are above or below the BMI trend line for their weight and height. Yay for statistics. That doesn't mean to say that we can't get valuable information from it, however. We can get the general gist that society as a whole is getting fatter.
Why? Partially because in our country, people have been encouraged to be lazy by our car culture. Also, the sheer amount of advertising thrown at us daily by food vendors is staggering. People are also getting fatter earlier in life. Time had a great series of articles on childhood obesity in the June 23rd issue.
Furthermore, clothes companies continue to stroke our egos through vanity sizing. Women love to say that Marilyn Monroe was a plus sized girl. In reality, she would wear a today's size 0.

We ARE getting fatter as a populace, and it does affect more than just the fat people. People are dying earlier than they should from comorbities associated with obesity, people are having to pay more for insurance because obese people are having to make more claims to treat their size-related health problems. It is an issue that we all have to tackle.

BlaqueKatt

07-22-2008, 06:42 PM

Women love to say that Marilyn Monroe was a plus sized girl. In reality, she would wear a today's size 0.

actually she couldn't wear anything off the shelf:
Height: 5 feet 5 1/2 inches
Weight: Varied, 115 - 120 lbs.
Measurements: 37-23-36 (Studio's Claim); 35-22-35 (Dressmaker's Claim)
From official website (http://www.marilynmonroe.com/about/facts.html)

She would be closest to a size 4 or six depending on manufacturer(you have to go by hips not waist-you can take in the waist but not let out the hips that much)-and her BMI would be 19.7

AFPheonix

07-22-2008, 07:35 PM

OK, I stand corrected on the Marilyn thing. You hear different stats on her all over the place. However, the underlying point still remains. People who justify being fat because they think they're the same size as her (and I'm saying people who are larger than even the average, size 14 or more in today's sizing) are deluding themselves.

Boozy

07-22-2008, 08:24 PM

There's another thread kicking around here where we discussed so-called medical reason for obesity. The fact remains that so few people fall into that category as to be statistically insignificant. Even the worst offenders among prescription drugs for weight gain as a side effect only cause an additional 10% increase in body fat.

The fact remains that if you're obese, there is a 99.9% chance that it's because you eat too much.

But that doesn't mean that the obese aren't deserving of sympathy. No one wants to be fat. As AFPheonix said, the US is a society of cars, convenience, and fast food. Obesity isn't caused by a physical illness so much as a mental one; and it has infected the entire culture. An individual can manage their weight through personal responsibility, but until we address the bigger issues, it will remain an epidemic.

I have never been overweight, but I smoked for years before finally quitting. I know what it's like to be fighting an addiction, to know that you are destroying your body and your health, and still feeling powerless to stop yourself. Telling overweight people to put down the bag of chips won't help them, any more than telling me to put out the smoke would have helped me.

With that said, I don't like people making excuses. My husband, who still smokes, has all sorts of bullshit reasons for continuing. I used to do the same thing. I didn't quit until I acknowledged that there is NO reason to continue, and I had complete control over the decisions I made - not my family, my friends, or Big Tobacco. There is no secret to quitting; I just had to do it. Similarly, overweight people need to realize that they have the power to lose weight, as long as they quit making excuses.

miyon

07-22-2008, 08:43 PM

I am overweight, about 270.
About 3 years ago I was diagnosed with schizo-effective disorder. I had 3 good medications that help. One caused no weight gain but the side-effects were horrible so the Dr put me on the other two.
I take 100mg of one and 300mg of the other. They both cause serious weight gain. As soon as I started taking them I gain 40 pounds in less then 2 months.
And it just keeps adding on.
I went to the YMCA to exercise everyday for 3 months and I was still adding pounds.
The weight gain has now made my depression even worse. I hate how I look. I hate leaving the house. I go out to dinner with my family and see how they watch me eat, knowing what their thinking, just like at the grocery store. It might be paranoia but I still feel it.

Finally after 3 years of this my parents are helping me pay for Nurta-System and I (with out telling my dr) I have cut down my medication. So the voices are back. The mood swings, all of it. My mom thinks it is a terrible idea to reduce the medication but I cant take it anymore.
I havent checked because I am afraid to but some people have noted that I look like I lost some weight.
Im scared though because once I lose the weight and bring back the right amounts of medication I feel like the weight will come right back.

There is a new drug that is awaiting FDA approval that is for my disorder and doesnt cause weight gain. I just have to wait for them to ok it.

Boozy

07-22-2008, 08:50 PM

miyon - Thanks for correcting me about the prescription drug thing. Someone had told me a while back that certain psychotropics caused crazy weight gain, but I'd forgotten that.

RecoveringKinkoid

07-22-2008, 09:02 PM

To illustrate how messed up the so called "BMI" system is, I went and did mine again. It used to say I was overweight, when I clearly wasn't, but I've dropped a few pounds since then. Now I am on the high end of normal. When I was "overweight", I was a size 8 at 5'6". I'd just had a baby.

Now I'm between 23 and 24. I'm now wearing a size 6.

Um, yeah. That's accurate. :rolleyes:

People can NEVER guess my weight. I'm strangly solid, and weigh quite a bit for my size. I have muscular legs and shoulders, and I suspect my bones are very solid. More than one guy has nearly herniated himself thinking I would be easy to lift.

So since the BMI takes pretty much nothing into account about how much someone would weigh, it's worthless, in my opinion.

Amethyst Hunter, sounds like your dad is suffering from acceptance of that wonderful old chestnut, The Double Standard. It's far more okay for a man to be overweight than a woman. An overweight man is forgiven. An overweight woman is not; or women, it's an unforgivable crime to be "unnattractive" (and that's not to say big girls are unattractive, but you know what I mean.)

I know a lot of very large people. And pretty much every single one of them is overweight because they either eat too much, or they eat the wrong stuff, or they simply will not get moving. However, it's not anyone's business but theirs. How it became acceptable to point out "flaws" in others is beyond me. Fat people know they are fat. They dont' need help drawing that conclusion. It's an extremely offensive mindset.

My dad and my very senile grandmother do that too, point out large people in public. It drives me up a freaking wall. I have actually said, "Dad, you've known me for four and a half decades, have I ever thought that was funny? Have I ever cared a stranger was overweight?" Geez!

AFPheonix

07-22-2008, 09:07 PM

Seroquel is a pretty gnarly drug for weight gain. Zyprexa might be worth a try if you haven't given it a whirl.

BlaqueKatt

07-22-2008, 10:25 PM

. Weight loss drugs are not the worlds biggest sellers. Statins like Lipitor and Crestor are.

not quite-
CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/01/eveningnews/main2222867.shtml)
"Americans spend about $35 billion a year on weight-loss products. "
Barrons smart money (http://www.smartmoney.com/barrons/index.cfm?story=20040614)
"The drug industry's statin sales surpassed $15 billion last year."

That is over twice as much on diet products than on Statin drugs.

.Yay for statistics. That doesn't mean to say that we can't get valuable information from it, however. We can get the general gist that society as a whole is getting fatter.

There are 3 types of lies-Lies, Damn lies, and statistics-Benjamin Disraeli.

Statistics can easily be manipulated to cause panic where there is none-there are even entire books (http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=pd_sim_dbs_b_4/104-9729128-0997535) devoted to this-"The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify,"

in the book More Damned Lies and Statistics, the author warns against believing as facts the statistical figures that are always presented to us from various sources - both authoritative and otherwise. The solution is to be critical and to ask questions such as: Who produced those numbers? Exactly what was counted? What are those numbers really saying? Is there a way to present the information in a clearer more objective way?

The SEER cancer review which can be found here (http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2004/), lists cancer statistics for all forms of cancer, including age of death, median age for diagnosis, etc. Shows the rates of melanoma increasing every year since 1975-does this mean there's more cases or just better diagnosis?

Also the median age for diagnosis is age 59-going by statistics my husband shouldn't have worried about the dark spot on his abdomen-if he had believed in statistics, he'd be dead from the skin cancer his doctor removed at age 21.

Statistics are numbers and when there is missing data(number of "overweight/obese" people-that have higher muscle mass) the numbers lie.

example of how statistics lie (http://www.davehitt.com/facts/epa.html)-second-hand smoke is a cancer risk, it kills 3000 per year-we all "know" this "fact"-however:

Relative risk is determined by first establishing a baseline, an accounting of how common a disease (or condition) is in the general population. This general rate is given a Relative Risk of 1.0, no risk at all. An increase in risk would result in a number larger than 1.0. A decrease in risk would result in a lower number, and indicates a protective effect. As a rule of thumb, an RR of at least 2.0 is necessary to indicate a cause and effect relationship, and a RR of 3.0 is preferred.

The EPA announced the results of the study before it was finished. The EPA based their numbers on a meta analysis of just 11 studies. The analysis showed no increase in risk at the 95% confidence level.
Even after excluding most of the studies, the EPA couldn't come up with 3,000 deaths, but they had already announced the results. So they changed the CI to 90%, which, in effect, doubled their margin of error. After juggling the numbers, The EPA came up with an RR (Relative Risk) of ETS causing lung cancer 1.19. Although the EPA declared ETS was a Class A carcinogen with an RR of 1.19, in analysis of other agents they found relative risks of 2.6 and 3.0 insufficient to justify a Group A classification.

So Statistics can be used to lie-(The 1993 EPA study was thrown out by a federal court because of this)

miyon

07-23-2008, 01:02 AM

Seroquel is a pretty gnarly drug for weight gain. Zyprexa might be worth a try if you haven't given it a whirl.

Seroquel is the one that I take 3 times a day totaling 300mg. Clozaril is the 100mg each day.

The dr's have tried me on a number of different drugs but only the Seroquel and clozaril together help with the crazies. Over time my symptoms keep getting worse and the only thing to counter it is more drugs.

I will say the Nutra-system is pretty good so far. The food tastes great and are very easy to make, Just pop in microwave for 1 min and hot yummy food. I just finished a cheese pizza for dinner tonight. But its damn expensive.

AFPheonix

07-23-2008, 06:48 AM

not quite-
CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/01/eveningnews/main2222867.shtml)
"Americans spend about $35 billion a year on weight-loss products. "
Barrons smart money (http://www.smartmoney.com/barrons/index.cfm?story=20040614)
"The drug industry's statin sales surpassed $15 billion last year."

That is over twice as much on diet products than on Statin drugs.

The weight loss drugs you quoted included herbal and otc remedies. If we want to even out that cost compared to stuff to help treat symptoms of obesity llike statins, we should really include all of them, including alpha and beta blockers, diuretics, diabetes mainenence meds like Glucophage, and so on. We should also include all the herbal remedies people take to help treat their problems as well. I imagine the total cost would then go into the stratosphere.

There are 3 types of lies-Lies, Damn lies, and statistics-Benjamin Disraeli.

Statistics can easily be manipulated to cause panic where there is none-there are even entire books (http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=pd_sim_dbs_b_4/104-9729128-0997535) devoted to this-"The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify,"

Indeed, you just tried to do so with your example with your husband's skin cancer. (Glad he's doing well, though). A median age of course won't apply to every single person, as people fall on both sides of that number. All it can give you is a general guesstimate for the majority of the population. This is the same thing with BMI. There are exceptions to numbers that are fairly broad like both of the examples we're working with now. That doesn't mean that there aren't valid points to be gleaned from either in regards to the general populace.

Now, to get back on point: you seem to be saying that we as a society are NOT any fatter than we have been in the past, by attempting to shoot down BMI. Let's address this further. Let's define BMI. BMI = weight (kg)/height (m^2). This measurement was only meant to give physicians a starting point to talk to people who are of average build regarding their size or lack thereof. It of course goes haywire in the case of very small fine-boned people or larger, more muscular people.
BMI of course could be affected by height and muscle, since height and weight are the two variables that are plugged in to get that number.
We already know that BMI has been increasing steadily over the last few decades. This can be the result of one of two things: either the weight of people with average builds has been ballooning, or people have been getting a helluva lot shorter.
Average height has held steady since at least the 50's, so the first option is going to be more plausible.
People can put weight on in essentially two ways: heavy weight training or just getting fat. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell am not seeing over half the populace running around muscle bound. So, option number 2 is the more plausible again.

Sorry, The US and Australia are full of fatties, and Europe isn't far behind.

Greenday

07-23-2008, 12:13 PM

We already know that BMI has been increasing steadily over the last few decades. This can be the result of one of two things: either the weight of people with average builds has been ballooning, or people have been getting a helluva lot shorter.
Average height has held steady since at least the 50's, so the first option is going to be more plausible.
People can put weight on in essentially two ways: heavy weight training or just getting fat. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell am not seeing over half the populace running around muscle bound. So, option number 2 is the more plausible again.

Actually, I'd say average height has been increasing in the past few years. My generation for the most part seems taller than the last generation.

It really is true. You do see a ton more overweight people than you do see muscle.

blas87

07-23-2008, 02:07 PM

I'm not so sure I agree with you, Greenday. I see more short men these days than taller ones.

I see a lot of guys who are no taller than 5'6......and really close to my weight.

Greenday

07-23-2008, 02:12 PM

I was nearly 5'11" when I graduated and I was one of the shorter guys.

BlaqueKatt

07-23-2008, 04:56 PM

The weight loss drugs you quoted included herbal and otc remedies. If we want to even out that cost compared to stuff to help treat symptoms of obesity llike statins, we should really include all of them, including alpha and beta blockers, diuretics, diabetes mainenence meds like Glucophage, and so on. We should also include all the herbal remedies people take to help treat their problems as well. I imagine the total cost would then go into the stratosphere.

non-overweight people use those as well, diabetes is not only an overweight disease, neither are heart conditions, and for that matter when I was 16 I had high cholesterol, I weighed 94 pounds, due to an eating disorder, my sister has perfect cholesterol and shes over 250*.

*6 months ago she was over 300, she quit drinking soda, lost 20 pounds, and I gave her my old bicycle when I got a new one-she's doing really good.

Giggle Goose

07-23-2008, 05:35 PM

I was nearly 5'11" when I graduated and I was one of the shorter guys.

Wow, where did you graduate from Greenday? I'm with Blas; it's damn hard to find a guy over 6' around here. :D

My thoughts on the rest of this matter? I was disgusted enough with myself growing up as an overweight kid WITHOUT the "helpful' advice from my peers and strangers.

AFPheonix

07-23-2008, 06:09 PM

non-overweight people use those as well, diabetes is not only an overweight disease, neither are heart conditions, and for that matter when I was 16 I had high cholesterol, I weighed 94 pounds, due to an eating disorder, my sister has perfect cholesterol and shes over 250*.

*6 months ago she was over 300, she quit drinking soda, lost 20 pounds, and I gave her my old bicycle when I got a new one-she's doing really good.

I have a few skinny people on statins too. I also had an extremely bony person looking for weight loss products yesterday. So?
Glucophage and glipizide and drugs like that are typically used in Diabetes type II patients. That's why I included those into drugs to treat symptoms of obesity. Heart disease, high blood pressure, and overstressed joints are also part of the range of problems aggravated by obesity, as well as endocrine issues and PCOS.
Again, if "Big Pharma" wants to make lots of money, they want the populace fat. More health issues to medicate.

powerboy

07-24-2008, 10:11 AM

I am overweight. It is because I eat to much. I am on a diet and I gave up Sodas. Well only 1 day a week i will have drink soda other wise, it is water and milk.

blas87

07-25-2008, 12:52 AM

Personally, it's much more satisfying to make fun of stupid people.

CancelMyService

07-25-2008, 04:54 AM

While it's obviously rude to make fun of/discriminate against someone who's overweight, those "fat acceptance" groups bother me because they are basically advocating a lifestyle that is horribly unhealthy.

I mean, as stated already in the thread, there are those who are overweight for reasons they can't control. The folks who are the most vocal about others "accepting" overweight people are the ones who overeat and don't excercise enough.

(In the interest of fairness, I'm overweight myself so don't think this is some "skinny dude bashes fatties" post)

AFPheonix

07-25-2008, 06:26 AM

I'm 30 pounds over currently. Between this thread and a few going on over at Something Awful, I'm doing something about it. I'm stopping drinking soda. I figure one small change to get started. Nothing huge. I like water, if I want a little flavor my store sells these little packets that are like Crystal Light for a buck a box.
I looked at the gatorade bottles I was drinking and was honestly amazed at how much sugar was in those. Those are going away too.
Something simple, but it's a start, and it will be interesting to see if and how it pays off in a few weeks.
I was reading a blog by a woman who got up to over 500 pounds as a fat activist. She decided to get weight loss surgery because her health was in danger. Now she's getting flak from the fat activist crowd for "selling out". She gets crap from other people for still being super obese although she's lost a fair amount of weight. But reading about her travails got me thinking. Everyone always asks themselves how people let themselves get that way, even if they're packing a few pounds more than they ought. Well, I'm not about to let myself get there.

RecoveringKinkoid

07-25-2008, 01:00 PM

Check out this video blog on sugar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3g8OSOolmE

You'll probably lose weight, just quitting the soda. You will not be the first, I know several folks dropped quite a bit of weight just knocking it off with the soda.

Boozy

07-25-2008, 01:13 PM

Sodas are the easiest thing to remove from your diet, because they don't fill you up. Dropping sodas provides bang for your diet buck - you can drop a ton of calories without leaving yourself hungry.

I stopped drinking sodas a few years ago when I was removing various things from my diet in an effort to figure out how to control my migraines. I lost a lot of weight, to the point where I became too thin. It made me realize just how much of my daily calorie intake I must have been getting from those sodas. All in refined white sugar. :(

I changed my diet immediately. It has done nothing for the migraines, but I feel better in general.

Lace Neil Singer

07-25-2008, 01:32 PM

I probably could get down to a size 14-16 if I dieted, but I really don't see the point. I'm happy in my own skin, after years of not being and I don't see it's anyone's business. I've had a few skinny girls make comments, but as far as I'm concerned, if you send bitchery my way, expect to get it back times ten. It's amazing how many of these girls fold as soon as someone hits back at them where it hurts; I refuse to feel guilty cuz a girl who'd called me a "fat cow" bursts into tears cuz I call her a "skinny bitch" in return. As I stated before, I'm not obese, just curved. I eat relatively healthy; however, I refuse to diet just to fit society's ideal. In any case, due to my body shape, I couldn't be skinny anyway.

RecoveringKinkoid

07-25-2008, 01:33 PM

One reason I went to a low carb diet was to treat migraines. I still get them, but extremely rarely. A couple a year instead of maybe once or twice a month.

The ups and downs of sugar/insulin response can cause an addrenaline response, and by turn, migraines. And because I suffer from chonic low sugar, this was a big issue for me. Controlled carbohydrate diet very effectively fixed that right up for me.

blas87

07-25-2008, 04:23 PM

Quitting soda doesn't work for everyone.

When my pants stopped fitting properly and I was growing a muffin top, I quit soda all together and started drinking 8-16 bottles of water a day, on top of doubling my exercising and eating only fresh, good food. I did not lose a single pound. With everything I had done to myself, I completely slowed down my metabolism.

I admit, I bought into the diet pills. I bought Mega T Green Tea diet pills in February or March. I have ONE soda pop a day (sometimes 2 on the weekend to splurge) and occasionally will have one of those small frappuccinos after work. I still kept exercising and went back to how I had been eating, which wasn't that bad or that much to begin with.

And I lost ALL the extra weight by late April/early May.

But please be aware, I gained all that weight because of stress and stress alone. I didn't drink much soda to begin with, drank lots of water and had been exercising for at least 30 mins a day since age 14. I was under so much stress and was angry and anxious all the time that my body literally gained that weight all by itself. Everything I ate seemed to turn into more fat.

I still take the diet pills, but not to lose anymore weight, but to make sure I will not gain it back. I don't trust my own metabolism after what happened. And I don't want to find out what will happen.

Boozy

07-25-2008, 09:17 PM

Quitting soda doesn't work for everyone.

It's not a magic bullet. And some people can down sodas like there's no tomorrow and not gain an ounce. My husband is one of those people.

It's just an easy way to cut back calories; nothing more, nothing less. 160 calories per can. Substitute water for just one of those daily cans, while changing absolutely nothing else about your lifestyle or diet, and you will lose over 15 pounds in a year.

AFPheonix

07-25-2008, 09:51 PM

It's still just about the 1st law of thermodynamics. You cannot get fat off of nothing. The energy stored as fat had to come from somewhere, and it's from the food you eat. If you take in less energy than your body needs, then your body will take energy from stores. This is a basic law of physics that really has yet to be broken.

And healthful food does not necessarily mean low-caloric food. It can be very good for you and still be energy dense.

BlaqueKatt

07-26-2008, 02:12 PM

People can put weight on in essentially two ways: heavy weight training or just getting fat. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell am not seeing over half the populace running around muscle bound. So, option number 2 is the more plausible again.

That's because you're looking for this (http://femalefitnessfigurebodybuilders.blogspot.com/2007/04/female-bodybuilder-cathy-lefrancois.html), when the reality is this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/blaquekatt/1536638499/)

I'm close to 160 in that picture(157.5 actually)-do I look all "muscle bound" to you? Not all people with high muscle mass look like bodybuilders/musclebound. Not even a high percentage of them do, to look like the first pictures takes hours a day in a gym, to look like me takes walking, biking, working in a warehouse loading furniture onto trucks. I've got muscle mass and strength, but I really don't care about muscle definition that would require working out, and targeting specific muscle groups.

AFPheonix

07-26-2008, 04:37 PM

Ok, so that is you. A single person does not a trend make.

So. Again, do you see more people like yourself, or people who are frankly packing more fat around then they ought to?
I still say the latter. I have a fair amount of muscle on me too, but it's still got fat over the top. More than there should be, so I'm doing something about it.

tropicsgoddess

07-27-2008, 12:32 AM

There are a few people who love the larger person, but they are rare. I'm a gutbucket, and I know that if I went searching for romance I would have to lose a fair amount of weight to have a better chance of being considered. Looks aren't everything, but they bloody well help at first.

As a kid I was big for my age, then I grew out of it when I was in my teen years and remained skinny until I moved out of my parents house at 21. I was around 115 lbs at the time, but now I'm 5'7" and 180 lbs. I don't look incredibly huge,but you could see I'm a little thick in some areas. I always say, I'm not fat I'm rubenesque. My SO on the other hand, he's always been big since day one. He's 6'9" and over 300lbs and he's the first big man I've ever been with. I have no issues over weight as long as it's not to a point where he's putting his health at risk. Besides the health risk, I have an issue with the really big women who go out wearing tight,skimpy and trashy clothes. It's all good to have some meat on your bones, but I don't wanna see somebody dressed like a hooker with a muffin top and *shudder* camel toe or moose knuckle. My personal gripe in regards to my weight is where people mistake me for being pregnant. I think it's pretty insulting to just assume that a woman who has a little tummy and meat on the bones is pregnant when they're not.

BlaqueKatt

07-27-2008, 03:31 AM

Ok, so that is you. A single person does not a trend make.

I never said it did, you're the one that said you aren't seeing people walking around all "muscle bound", and I was just showing that not everyone with high muscle mass looks like a bodybuilder. If you saw a group of 20 people like me, you would more than likely assume we were a "normal weight", but for statistical purposes we are lumped in as "overweight" or "Obese" because the BMI is not accurate. How much do you think that skews the statistics? Remember any bodybuilders and professional athletes aren't taken out of the stats they're added in under the overweight or obese category which makes the problem look worse than it really is.

It's like taking a group of 100 people and saying 50% are blond because they have light hair and not bothering to find out 25 dye their hair to be blond but they're actually redheads. They're giving an incomplete statistic to induce panic. To put it another way: headline-new killer virus has 75% death rate!!!!! What they don't ever tell you is there are only 4 confirmed cases and 3 died.

The members of the US Armed Forces usually have a BMI that places them in the overeight to obese category due to muscle mass from the amount of physical training they must complete, as of May 2007 this was 2,885,105 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States) both active duty and reserve components they are included in the statistics as overweight or obese as they are part of the US population which according to the US Census (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html) is around 303,824,646, take out under 15(BMI is only for over 18 but the census only breaks down to 0-14, 15-64, and 64-up) and you are left with 242,677,893. Granted that only accounts for 1 percent-but they never include that in their figures. What is the number of bodybuilders/professional athletes/people that work out regularly? But when they claim only 37% of almost 250 million people(94,644,378) are at a healthy weight, I honestly don't see anywhere near that (they say 63% overweight with 26% obese-I certainly hope that those numbers aren't to be added* but they never clarify that either-if they are to be added that leaves only 11% of almost 250 million people{26,694,568} at a healthy weight) I find that extremely hard to swallow.

So. Again, do you see more people like yourself, or people who are frankly packing more fat around then they ought to?

If you see a group of "normal sized" people and one who is around 400 pounds which one will you notice? you'll totally forget about the 20 or so normal weight and remember the "fatty".

And if you're asking what I personally see around-I actually see more girls that are way too thin, I'm talking pelvic bones protruding over the top of their hip huggers, ribs countable from a distance-thin. I live in a college town, most of the population here is under 30, I may see 4-5 overweight people a week. The rest are my size or smaller.

*I'm assuming the following is how the numbers are expressed:
total population =242,677,893
percentage that is overweight=63
percentage of above overweight number that is also obese=26
(the 26% would be a percentage of th 63% that are overweight)

As opposed to
total population =242,677,893
percentage of population that is overweight=63
Percentage of population that is obese not counted in the above overweight percentage=26
(the 26% would be above and beyone the 63% and would need to be added to the 63% overweight to have a total not at normal weight)

AFPheonix

07-27-2008, 05:38 PM

Looking at the people who come into my pharmacy, this is the type of body shape I see most often:
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2002/HSG/pix/flab.jpg

Also, using army stats to extrapolate over an entire population is misleading, as you have to have a certain fitness level to even get into basic training. I would hazard to guess that army doctors also use other methods like calipers to double check their first evaluation with BMI. Again, BMI is only a quick way to estimate your fat level, and is only best applied over large sample sizes.

Furthermore, you can have some muscle mass, but still be obese as you can still have a high fat percentage. The types of people who are muscular and have a 30+ BMI yet still have less than 10% body fat are far rarer than those with a 30+ BMI and a much higher body fat percentage. This is what I meant behind my muscle bound comment.

I have about a 28 or so BMI right now, I don't know what my body fat percentage is, I don't have a set of calipers kicking around. I can still tell you I have too much fat on my abdomen though.

You mentioned that BMI was invented in the mid 1800's. Do you think that there were more or less of your body type then? It was a more agrarian society.
I would expect to see more of your type per capita then, and those with even leaner body mass. So what would explain the rise in BMI per capita. especially over the last 20 or 30 years? I don't think that muscular people are throwing off the calculations off THAT much. I think people in Lil' Rascals scooting around Disneyland with a turkey leg in both hands are.

Xanthina

07-29-2008, 07:05 AM

Lace Neil Singer

07-29-2008, 12:04 PM

Personally, I would have told her to mind her own business and stop being such a spiteful bitch. After all, you can lose weight, but she'll always be a nasty bitch. Then again, I'd also be crying, cuz I always cry when I'm angry.

Rapscallion

07-29-2008, 03:55 PM

There are claims that fructose - the type of sugar found in fruit - is more likely to be deposited as fat (http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/ng.asp?n=86729-fructose-beverage-obesity).

Fruit's not bad for you, but gorillas get sodding huge!

Rapscallion

AFPheonix

07-29-2008, 05:31 PM

the thing that gets me... is the way people are treated as a whole. Which I think is the original point of this post. Back a few years ago, I was very careful in my dieting and had lost almost 40 lbs, leaving me only 15 lbs over weight. I'd been very good, and in my lunch I had packed myself a cookie. A normal sized, homemade cookie. I also had fruit, a nice sandwich and water. While I was eating my lunch, my coworker started making nasty, P/A comments about my cookie and how I should only eat fruit.

Why is it that people think it's ok to say harmful things about others? She said these things in front of coworkers and customers. When my manager confronted her, she said that she was trying to help me. It's not helpful... it made me what to run away so that I could cry.

And that I can agree with. Treating people badly because of the way they look is wrong. It's not a random stranger's place, or even a coworker's place to give you health advice. I guess you're coworker was too stupid to notice how much smaller you'd gotten.

However, people like Kate Harding (http://kateharding.net/) can be ridiculed on sight for all I care. Anyone who spreads deliberate misinformation on health like she does can go rot in hell.

blas87

07-30-2008, 02:46 AM

On the same note, I would like to mention something that really bothers me.

I've always been into exercising religiously, this is no secret. However, once I started dieting and chugging water and eating simple sandwiches for lunch at work, some of the things and comments people have said are really rude.

"It really won't kill you to have a pop."

"You could eat whatever you wanted and won't get fat."

"Do you have an eating disorder? You're NOT fat. So eat some more!"

"You do NOT need to exercise that much."

I DO have pop. ONE a day. No, it wouldn't kill me to have 10 a day. But would I still be at the weight I am now? No...I'd be back at where I was 6 months ago. I want to keep the weight off.

I DO eat. And I eat well. Most of these rude comments are made by my coworkers, which pisses me of because they of all people should understand that with our odd schedule, my eating schedule is obviously backwards. I eat a large supper when I first wake up in the evening. Then I eat a sandwich or something small and sensible at lunch (3:00 am). Then I eat a sensible "breakfast" after work. I did not work this hard to lose all the "stress weight" just to gain it all back. I need to be careful.

Most doctors recommend at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. Some days I'm lazy and cut it short a few minutes, but most days I do 30 or more. Then again, this is coming from people whose most physical activities include driving to and from work.

I do not have an eating disorder. I weigh 121 lbs, which is perfect for someone who is 5'3 and has a small frame. Plus, I have very muscular arms and legs and very large breasts and an ample behind...if you took that ALL away, then I would have an eating disorder and would probably be 90 pounds, then they'd have reason to worry.

What is wrong with wanting to be healthy and watch your weight and take care of your body? I do enough bad things to myself by smoking and tanning and drinking too much alcohol on the weekends. I would like to grow old and still be a healthy weight. I don't want to have a massive heart attack or have high cholesterol at any age.

Sorry, I just really had to let that out.

Amethyst Hunter

07-30-2008, 05:23 AM

"It really won't kill you to have a pop."

"You could eat whatever you wanted and won't get fat."

"Do you have an eating disorder? You're NOT fat. So eat some more!"

"You do NOT need to exercise that much."

They say that misery loves company and I think it's very apt. There've been studies done showing that in families (or other cohabitation situations) where someone is dieting (or otherwise trying to improve themselves in some way), it's quite common for people to 'sabotage' one another by pushing food or conveniently leaving 'temptations' in plain access. I can see this pattern in my own family, because my parents will buy stuff that they should lay off or cut out entirely, despite knowing better. (My dad has Type II diabetes, which came about from - you guessed it - his own habits) I don't diet myself (never have, never will) but I do try to lower the amount of crap (sodas, candies, cookies, etc.) I eat, but if it's there and I'm feeling a particular craving for it, nine times out of ten I'll go for it. Not having it so easily available makes it less likely that I'll gank it.

And here's another thing that pisses me off about the whole weight deal. (May have mentioned this before, but I forget now) Women are FAR more likely to get crap for it than men are; girls are brought up on purpose to worry about weight. Too fat (whether in reality or by other people's standards), you're a face-stuffing pig. Too skinny (same thing), you're anorexic or on drugs or something. There's just no way to win this kind of sick game!

Greenday

07-30-2008, 11:50 AM

"It really won't kill you to have a pop."

Hahahahahaha...You guys call it pop lol.

In all seriousness, guys deal with the whole being too skinny thing too. I have skinny friends and they get teased a lil bit about it by close friends. It's definitely not just women who deal with it.

As for Amethyst's reply, it seems true that people do that kind of sabotage to each other. My mom and sister will go on a diet, then my step-dad will go out and by certain ice creams or crackers and cheese that my mom likes, then my mom gets pissed at him for it, and since she has no will power, she eats it. He always does it too. Even when I tell my parents not to buy junk, because if it's not there, I can't eat it, they still always buy crap when they go food shopping. Hypocrite...

Boozy

07-30-2008, 12:59 PM

I have skinny friends and they get teased a lil bit about it by close friends. It's definitely not just women who deal with it.

I'll bet guys are teased worse if they're skinny than if they're a little bit overweight. That's just a guess; guys, let me know if my hunch is correct.

Greenday

07-30-2008, 01:04 PM

I'll bet guys are teased worse if they're skinny than if they're a little bit overweight. That's just a guess; guys, let me know if my hunch is correct.

I honestly don't know too many overweight guys, but the few I do, I don't see get teased.

blas87

07-30-2008, 02:20 PM

A lot of guys get picked on for being really skinny. Bonus points if they are shorter than average.

Unfortunately, I will admit to teasing one of my male coworkers for weighing less than I do. And I also admit that I don't find overly skinny males attractive, but on the same note, I don't find overweight males attractive either.

Giggle Goose

07-30-2008, 04:48 PM

This is another thing that's kinda sexist, but I'll throw it out there: I think guys lose weight waaaay easier than gals.

My brother lost about 50 pounds by just lifting weights and running a bit. He still eats the same crap he was eating; fast food, etc. Maybe a bit less, bit still way more than I eat. I've also had exes/male friends that lived off of fast food and were still thin.

Maybe a woman's body probably WANTS to hold onto weight due to childbearing, etc?

Rapscallion

07-30-2008, 06:55 PM

A woman's body is - at the generally accepted view of normal - going to have a higher percentage of fat than a man's. Other than that, I'd have to seek a medical opinion before venturing further into the idea that women don't burn it as fast.

Actually, the figures for calorific intake recommendation for women are usually a bit less than a man's. May be something there.

Rapscallion

AFPheonix

07-30-2008, 07:54 PM

We tend to have less lean muscle mass compared to males, so unless females take up some weight training to compensate, they have fewer body tissues that burn more calories per pound like muscle can.

Although just cutting one easy thing out makes a big difference. In this last week I've stopped drinking pop, I've already lost a pound.

blas87

07-31-2008, 02:20 PM

And although you shouldn't buy into everything you see on commercials, there is some truth to the SlimQuick diet pill commercials. Every commercial, a woman says "My husband stopped drinking pop and lost 20 lbs. I've been drinking water for a year and haven't lost a pound!"

Men lose weight much easier than women, I truly believe that. I think women are more prone to Cortisol and stress related weight gain, as I experienced. Women also have a very hard time losing weight because of our hormones, birth control we may be on, stress (again), and all kinds of other things.

Giggle Goose

07-31-2008, 02:43 PM

Cutting out pop, soda, and whatever you wanna call it is good for any gender trying to lose weight. That includes diet soda for me; even though there aren't any calories. The carbonation just makes me feel bloated and gross.

AFPheonix

08-01-2008, 03:04 AM

BlaqueKatt

08-02-2008, 06:19 AM

I think women are more prone to Cortisol and stress related weight gain, as I experienced.

Me thinks you've been watching too many diet pill commercials

Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone produced by the Zona fasciculata of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland. It is a vital hormone that is often referred to as the "stress hormone" as it is involved in the response to stress. It increases blood pressure, blood sugar levels and has an immunosuppressive action. In pharmacology, the synthetic form of cortisol is referred to as hydrocortisone.

From the mayo clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress/AN01128)

no evidence that the amount of cortisol produced by a healthy individual under stress is enough to cause weight gain. Rarely, chronic stress — stress that lasts months or years, instead of days or weeks — may elevate cortisol levels sufficiently enough and for a long enough period to cause weight gain.

and fitwoman (http://www.fitwoman.com/fitbriefings/stress.shtml)
Cortisol - The New Diet Buzzword

"A study published this month demonstrated that women who constantly restrict food (that is, who constantly diet) have higher levels of cortisol"

CortiSlim is a weight loss system marketed by Window Rock Enterprises. It is formulated by Dr. Shawn Talbot, PhD (Nutritional Sciences). The CortiSlim tablets, part of the weight loss plan, contain vitamins, minerals, and various plant extracts. The company originally claimed that CortiSlim tablets aided weight loss by reducing levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. However, in October 2004, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that marketers of CortiSlim and CortiStress were making false or unsubstantiated claims in their advertising.

Flyndaran

08-02-2008, 08:04 AM

Ain't that right!
Too much cortisol has a name, Cushing's Disease and is a serious medical condition. If someone has it, then they need to see a real doctor, not some nutritionist/quack.

As to fatties, I've had a unique life. I've been overweight most of my life, but have never had anyone mention it. Looking back, as a tall, fat, geek wearing darker clothing than most everyone else, you'ld think someone would have picked on me.
Part of it may be that no one believes that I weigh as much as I do. The last time a nurse weighed me she jerked the 50! pound counterweight from my hand as obviously I was putting it way too far to the right. I guess I'm made of lead.

blas87

08-02-2008, 04:06 PM

I never tried the CortiSlim diet pills. I don't remember if it was the dosing or the side effects that I didn't want to risk....I just remember looking at the box and saying "Err....no."

BlaqueKatt, what I went through wasn't a typical "bad week" or "bad few days". I was under constant stress and anxiety for 7 months straight. That may be a small dent in time considering I've been alive for 21 years, but it was long enough to gain weight. Every day for seven months I was anxious, scared, angry, flat out irate, and above all, overwhelmed. I've never been a comfort eater. I didn't eat more or less than usual. I exercised the same. And gained weight anyway. Trust me, I'm being legit here. Although most people in my situation would have ended up losing weight, I gained weight.

What I do know is that the Mega T Green Tea pills did help me lose all the weight, and now I love myself again. I couldn't be happier to be who I used to be again.

BlaqueKatt

08-02-2008, 05:05 PM

What I do know is that the Mega T Green Tea pills did help me lose all the weight

according to this (http://transform07trainer.menshealth.com/2008/06/can-green-tea-h.html) they don't work at all, they may contain no caffeine but they contain Guarana. Guarana contains a high amount of guaranine, a chemical substance with the same characteristics as caffeine. This makes Guarana a stimulant similar to coffee, which means that it:

* quickens perceptions
* delays sleep
* helps with endurance based activities
* can help to recover from a hangover
* impairs the appetite
* will lead to more frequent visits to the toilet(a diuretic)
* causes a higher blood pressure and an increased heart rate
* can make you feel jittery and may prevent sleep at all.

Guarana is not:

* a 'miracle medicine'
* a dangerous drug
* an easy way to lose weight
* a vitamin
* a food supplement

they're basically "water pills"-when you drink less than 1-2 quarts of water per day(pure water, soda, milk, coffee don't count they remove water due to sugar and caffeine) your body stores water in fat cells(usually in the belly), water pills remove the stored water(look my "tummy pooch" is gone) dehydrating you further so when you stop taking them you "gain weight" or bloat back up due to your body retaining water again. Long-term use of these fluid reducers can cause electrolyte abnormalities or even kidney damage.

There are essentially two main things that help stop water retention. Ironically, the first of these is drinking more water. Water retention is common when we are dehydrated or low on water. The body tends toward conserving water, and will retain a bit in order to keep us hydrated. Drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day helps shed extra water, reducing water retention.

The other thing that can help stop water retention is minimizing extra sodium in the diet.

Hsua, C-H., et al., Effect of green tea extract on obese women: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Clinical Nutrition, 27(3), 2008.

This level of EGCG* exceeded the amount given to subjects in a past Green Tea extract study that showed an increase in metabolism. So if Green Tea was to work for weight loss, than this study would prove it.

However, for folks who are praying that Green Tea is a miracle weight loss solution, the results were disappointing. There was only a 0.3% reduction in BW (0.15 kg) after 12 weeks of treatment with GTE, and that was not a significant improvement over time or better than the placebo group.

*491 mg catechins containing 302 mg EGCG
mega t green t diet pills only have 90 mg EGCG from what I've been able to find, which is a third of the amount used the above study that proved it didn't work for weight loss.

ElMarko

08-26-2008, 06:41 AM

There is no right way to go about obesity. Either we make fun of them, which is bad for their feelings. We can't go on about how it's unhealthy, because then we are still being rude or some absurd crap. And we can't ignore it, because it is a huge problem. So what do we go with, since all are so ineffective?

You could mind your own business. You CAN ignore it since it is their health, not yours.

Now I have a related gripe. It's when the morbidly obese complain about the images of women in the media. Someone who is carrying a few extra pounds has a legitimate complaint.

I could stand to loose about 70 pounds but you don't hear me complaining about all the Fabios and [insert some other hot guy]'s here.

Flyndaran

08-26-2008, 09:28 AM

You could mind your own business. You CAN ignore it since it is their health, not yours.
...
But everyone pays for others' poor health with increased insurance premiums and loss of regional economic surplus.
I still aver that obesity is ostensibly their business, but it does affect us all.

RecoveringKinkoid

08-26-2008, 07:25 PM

But everyone pays for others' poor health with increased insurance premiums and loss of regional economic surplus.
I still aver that obesity is ostensibly their business, but it does affect us all.

So does riding a motorcycle without a helmet, too much booze, smoking, and extreme sports. Where do you draw the line?

Someone else's weight problem is no more or less my problem than any other dangerous, unhealthy habit or situation others have.

As for why women complain about images in the media, it's because those images weigh heavily on our self-image and self-worth. These models are sick to start with, then airbrushed into fantastic proportions and perfection. No matter how smart we are, no matter how much we know better, it's hard to fight against that image that we are being unfairly and unrealistically compared to.

When a company that sells clothing to large women doesn't use large models in their catalogs, that ought to illustrate how messed up it all is. But we shouldn't blame the media. We should blame ourselves. After all, we women are buying these magazines with the skeletal models on the covers. We're purchasing from these catalogues that use sick women to peddle things to us. WE need to realize what we are doing and STOP.

Lachrymose

08-26-2008, 08:54 PM

It's a very slippery slope.

And it looks like Alabama has decided to start sliding down that hill:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080825/alabama-obesity-penalty-stirs-debate

RecoveringKinkoid

08-27-2008, 04:23 AM

Pardon me while my head freaking explodes.

daleduke17

08-27-2008, 05:11 AM

It's a very slippery slope.

And it looks like Alabama has decided to start sliding down that hill:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080825/alabama-obesity-penalty-stirs-debate

Heh, according to BMI (linked in the article) I am on the borderline of overweight and obese. I've been down to the "correct" weight for my height and wasn't really fond of being that low (I prefer being a little above it as I actually look healthy then).

jedimaster91

08-29-2008, 02:00 AM

Personally, I've feel like the biggest hypocrite as of late. Growing up, I was a ballet dancer. I remember my dance teacher saying on several occasions, "You can never be too rich or too skinny." I was not overweight in the slightest (5'2", 108lbs), but I still felt like I was. And I watched a couple girls I used to dance with battle anorexia and/or bulemia. Not a pleasant thing. I also remember saying that if the fatties would get off the couch and away from the TV/computer/video games, they'd lose weight. Well, once college consumed my life, I quit dancing. The combination of not dancing 6 days a week and starting birth control pills have caused a nice little weight gain (currently ~140-ish lbs). And I spend a considerable amount of time on the Internet instead of "getting off the couch." Even though I was more than likely underweight through high school, I still have that mindset that I need to be skinnier. I hate the way my body looks these days, but I seriously lack the motivation to do anything about it.

On a related note, what is all this pop I keep reading about? 'Round here, we call it "coke," and you can pry my Mt Dew from my cold, dead fingers. Although I do try to limit myself to one a day, but the caffeine keeps me from killing things.

blas87

08-29-2008, 04:43 PM

jedimaster, it's just different slang from different areas. Most people in Wisconsin call it pop, I call it soda or soda pop. We say it that way because we CAN'T just call it a coke, otherwise that's what you'll get!

jedimaster91

08-29-2008, 08:45 PM

I know. My husband calls it "pop" since he grew up in Idaho and Oregon, and it drives me crazy. But I really meant that comment as a joke. Guess I should remember the smilies next time. :D

BlaqueKatt

07-07-2009, 03:12 AM

from NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439&sc=fb&cc=fp)

I made some of these same arguments in an obesity thread (http://www.fratching.com/showthread.php?t=589)* and was basically told I was wrong-I think the "Math Guy (http://www.stanford.edu/~kdevlin/)" from NPR sums it up pretty well-name link is his credentials.

From the article:

"The person who dreamed up the BMI said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual. "
(yet it is-by the news media and medical professionals alike-heck the CDC even claims it is)

"The CDC says on its Web site that "the BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people." This is a fundamental error of logic. A high BMI does not mean an individual is even overweight, let alone obese. It could mean the person is fit and healthy, with very little fat."

"Because the BMI is a single number between 1 and 100 (like a percentage) that comes from a mathematical formula, it carries an air of scientific authority. But it is mathematical snake oil."

"Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can't fix the data, rig the formula!"

"It is embarrassing for one of the most scientifically, technologically and medicinally advanced nations in the world to base advice on how to prevent one of the leading causes of poor health and premature death (obesity) on a 200-year-old numerical hack developed by a mathematician who was not even an expert in what little was known about the human body back then."

*my post with these arguments are at the bottom of the linked page-and on a few other pages-with everyone telling me I'm wrong the BMI is accurate, everyone's gaining tons of weight etc.

RecoveringKinkoid

07-07-2009, 04:13 AM

You'll get no argument from me. The thing is a joke.

Nyoibo

07-07-2009, 04:39 AM

Almost all the people I know are overweight or obese according to the BMI, and not one of them is, their body fat % is in the perfectly healthy range, they're all gymnasts, dancers or circus performers, they're all fit, but all of them have a BMI over 26.

I'm a good example of the BMI not working, I'm overweight, that's true, but I'm about half the size of some other people who are the same weight or even lighter than me and who are the same height, I have fairly high muscle density, even at the lightest I could healthily be I'd be at least 80-85KG, that still leaves me at a BMI of 33, but much lighter and I'd probably be dangerously low on bodyfat.

AdminAssistant

07-07-2009, 04:50 AM

My "ideal" BMI would put me at 120-125 lbs. I have seen me at that weight, when I was 15, and it was not pretty. All knees and elbows and collarbones and no boobs. My bf was beyond thrilled when I went on birth control, gained some weight, and grew some tits and an ass.

I am overweight, and I do need to lose some weight, but IMO the healthiest I was ever at was when I was at 150 lbs and taking lots of dance classes. *sigh* I wish I could get back into that.

AFPheonix

07-07-2009, 07:45 AM

BMI is used incorrectly, it's true, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have applications. It is best used to measure populations. It's also best used as a quick way to "eyeball" obesity in an individual in order to see if it's worth doing additional testing such as fat calipers and whatnot. It was never meant to be super accurate, it's quick and dirty.

There will always be exceptions to the rule with BMI, that is where other tests such as body fat percentage come in. Those weed out the few people who have more muscle than fat from the regular people who sit too much, eat too many processed foods and have the cellulite to prove it.

This article also ignored the fact that BMI in the US is increasing. A quick look in any Walmart tells me that it sure as hell isn't because we're getting more weight lifters and footballers coming in.

Nyoibo

07-07-2009, 08:29 AM

I'll have to see how it goes in my next 80 hours of clinic, but in my first 20 hours I never had an overweight client, hell I only saw maybe one overweight client in the waiting room the whole time, so out of 640 people, 1 person was overweight, at least looked so, I'm sure there were plenty overweight according to the BMI.

ladyneeva

07-07-2009, 11:04 AM

There are more "overweight" and "obese" than there were 20 years ago partly because in the early 90's they moved the goal posts (overweight used to be anything over BMI of 27... then in 93 they changed it to anything over 25 -- millions of Americans went to bed 'average' and woke up 'overweight'... how absurd is THAT) and partly because there just plain are more people.

There is a good post covering that on the Junkfood Science blog -- the writer there seems pretty with it, she has cites and links to references. It isn't entirely opinion based. It's my 'go to' site for things on this topic simply because she has cites and references and breaks it down into plain language that I can grasp.

http://tinyurl.com/626r9k

And thats assuming it's EVER a good idea to marginalize and categorize people based on fairly meaningless criteria. More and more studies are being done that show that BMI alone has relatively minimal impacts on overall health. For example, the one Junkfood Science covers here - http://tinyurl.com/mkzorr

There are a few other articles on similar studies, I think most of them are linked on the side bar of that one.

Regardless though, even if being fat is every bit as bad as claimed... does that make it at all appropriate to bully, tease, torment, insult, marginalize, ignore, and demonize an entire group of people? Really, if being fat is as bad as claimed... we're only killing ourselves. It's not like you can catch "second hand fat", and since we'll be supposedly dying younger we're no more of a drain on health care resources than someone who lives to be 100. We'll just cram all 100 years of medical care into 50 years, theoretically.

Although... if we're all getting fatter and fatter, and being fat drastically shortens our life... how come the average life span has been going UP? Theoretically, if everyone is doing something that shortens life spans, shouldn't the average be going DOWN?

Sorry if this is disjointed... a cat jumped on my stomach from a great height and caused extreme pain, and I've not yet gotten back to sleep... and considering I'd only BEEN asleep for an hour at that point, my brain just isn't fully functional today lol

Lace Neil Singer

07-07-2009, 11:58 AM

Technically, there is a way of catching "second hand fat"; when an obese person becomes a parent and passes their bad habits on to their kids.

Then again, there's a huge difference between being slightly overweight and being obese that I don't think that doctors see. I could stand to lose a few pounds and tone up, however, I'm much healthier in some ways than this girl I know who's skinny. She's a bit too skinny, in my opinion; her arms are like matchsticks and she's constantly on a diet. She gets every cough, sniffle and cold going; yet there are people who'd point to me and say I was the unhealthy one, just cuz I have meat on my bones, and that she was the ideal. -.-

BroomJockey

07-07-2009, 02:53 PM

*MOD NOTE* Merged with the thread BlaqueKatt referenced, since this is really a continuation of the same.*/Mod note*

BMI is used incorrectly, it's true, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have applications. It is best used to measure populations. It's also best used as a quick way to "eyeball" obesity in an individual in order to see if it's worth doing additional testing such as fat calipers and whatnot. It was never meant to be super accurate, it's quick and dirty.

So you admit it's being used incorrectly, and it's poor to use on an individual due to gross inaccuracy. But somehow, that inaccuracy doesn't matter when you go to a larger group. ...I'll leave that alone and move straight to the argument "If it is consistently being used incorrectly by a large number of people, and the use isn't helpful by the majority of those using it, wouldn't it be better to retire its use all together, rather than continuing to spread inaccurate facts?" After all, you admit there are other tests, which are more accurate on a per-individual basis. I have to think at least one of those would scale effectively to a large population, and would then prevent misinformation on the level we're talking about. Just because a tool has use doesn't mean it should be continued to be used when there's other, better tools.

AFPheonix

07-07-2009, 04:57 PM

When I say incorrectly, I mean that when people think it means that that one little number is absolutely biblical in the implications for an individual's health.

Think of it as the difference between quick and dirty math and sitting down and working out a problem long-hand. You can use the quick and dirty method to get a quick guesstimate when that number is appropriate, and the more accurate number when you need that.
BMI can be used as a quick estimate for MOST people. Obviously it will not be accurate in regards to the exceptions already mentioned here. That is why they are the exception, not the rule. For your average, sedentary American, it really isn't "grossly inaccurate".
It's cheap, and as I said, useful in the measure of populations because most people don't have titanium-dense bones or are muscle bound. Most people, at least in the states, are pretty squishy. That's why it can be generally used to measure trends in populations.

Ladyneeva, moving the goalposts doesn't take into account that the overall numbers are higher. Average BMI is higher. There are more people in the several-hundred pound range and up than there used to be. It's not because sumo is an exploding sport, either.

I'm not saying that BMI is perfect. It's not. In fact, if someone came up with something between in and the Ponderal Index, we might have a better tool to use.

Boozy

07-07-2009, 09:49 PM

So you admit it's being used incorrectly, and it's poor to use on an individual due to gross inaccuracy. But somehow, that inaccuracy doesn't matter when you go to a larger group.

Correct. Large samples (say, the population of the United States) will have many body-builders, but they will also have many people with much lower than average muscle-to-fat ratios. These two groups rule each other out when the sample gets large enough. Therefore BMI is a good way of determining obesity trends in the US, but is a bad way of determining whether any given individual is overweight.

BroomJockey

07-07-2009, 10:04 PM

These two groups rule each other out when the sample gets large enough.

Okay, so it looks like I won't be ignoring this argument. Yes, it seems like they should cancel each other out, except that if you have a large enough margin of error in each individual case, it becomes magnified at larger samples. The "margin of confidence" becomes widened to the point where the statistic is basically useless. The only way your sample can avoid this is to actually use the entire population.

Put it this way: If I take a sample, and each person has a margin of error of +/- 50% for the calculation (meaning that upon inspection, the BMI is either correct, wrong up, or wrong down), then there's no way to know if the sample is skewed to the point bias. Unless you count the entire population, with a statistic as generalized as BMI, any pocket of deviance you miss will greatly skew the results. Only within the margin of confidence can you say the BMI is correct, but BMI is proven to have a large margin of error. It simply can't be generalized up in a population without a greater degree of initial accuracy.

If you can't say "Person X with a BMI of 28 is overweight" without greater tests, then it's a poor measure. To then bring this to a group of 10 people, if you say that these 10 people have a BMI have an average BMI of 28, you still can't say if any are overweight. Why? Because any further test on an individual can rule that out. It might be that you have a very skinny person with a BMI of 12, and then everyone else is BMI 29, and muscular. If you expand that to a group of 100, and the 100 have an average BMI of 28, you might have one person at 40, most people at 28, and some people at 25. But you still can't say if anyone's actually overweight, since, you know, you need more tests. You can keep scaling it up as far as you want, but since it doesn't allow a conclusion about an individual, it doesn't allow for a conclusion about a group. This makes it a bad measure to rely on.

ladyneeva

07-07-2009, 11:20 PM

So according to you, the fact that I am fat and you don't like it is all the justification needed to do or say anything to me that you like, because it's for my own good?

Wonder how that would work if we applied it to a homosexual person, a black person, or someone with a birth defect.

Boozy

07-07-2009, 11:27 PM

So according to you, the fact that I am fat and you don't like it is all the justification needed to do or say anything to me that you like, because it's for my own good?

When you say "you", whom are you addressing? I can't seem to find anyone making this argument in this thread.

BlaqueKatt

07-08-2009, 01:25 AM

It was never meant to be super accurate, it's quick and dirty.

And he skewed the results by fudging a formula to fit the data(squaring height) because otherwise it didn't work

This article also ignored the fact that BMI in the US is increasing.
Um no it didn't-that was the lead in
"Americans keep putting on the pounds — at least according to a report released this week from the Trust for America's Health. The study found that nearly two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.

But you may want to take those findings — and your next meal — with a grain of salt, because they're based on a calculation called the body mass index, or BMI. "

and then it goes to rip apart why the BMI is bad science, and useless.

"the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals."

A quick look in any Walmart tells me that it sure as hell isn't because we're getting more weight lifters and footballers coming in.

We are getting much better bone density and a large portion of the city I live in goes to health clubs several times a week-we're also pretty bicycle friendly.

There are more "overweight" and "obese" than there were 20 years ago partly because in the early 90's they moved the goal posts (overweight used to be anything over BMI of 27... then in 93 they changed it to anything over 25 -- millions of Americans went to bed 'average' and woke up 'overweight'... how absurd is THAT) and partly because there just plain are more people.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

They did the same thing with blood pressure (https://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0803a.shtml)-change the definition of disease-broden it and catch more people to medicate and charge higher insurance premiums to.

Normal is now not. What was classified as normal or high-normal blood pressure (a systolic pressure of 120-139 mm Hg and diastolic pressure of 80-89 mm Hg) is now categorized as prehypertension.

This meant that 45 million Americans who had gone to sleep with normal blood pressure woke up with higher-than-healthy blood pressure.

45 million people now unhealthy with the stroke of a pen-makes it look like the number has gone up significantly if you don't realize the definition was changed and the people stayed the same.

This article (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/28558.php) on abnormal PSA readings for prostrate cancer explains the issue pretty well.

They found that if all US men aged 40-69 (those most likely to be screened) were tested using PSA with a 4.0 ng/mL threshold, about 1.5 million of them would have a PSA level abnormally high enough to justify a biopsy. Lowering the threshold to 2.5 ng/mL would call for an additional 1.8 million men to receive biopsies. This group of "abnormal" men would comprise 10.7% of all US men between the ages of 50 and 59, and 17% of men between the ages of 60 and 69.

To put things into perspective the authors point out that in the next 10 years, relatively few men are expected to die from prostate cancer--0.3% of men aged 50-59, and 0.9% of men aged 60-69.

ladyneeva

07-08-2009, 06:48 AM

Sorry, for some reason I didn't copy my entire post when I pasted it into the quick reply box. First couple paragraphs were missing.

--
Based on a statements in this thread I guess we can take it as a given that many of you consider those of us who are fat to be second class citizens. I didn't go through all the posts in the thread but these are the kinds of things that are being said about those of us who aren't perfect little size 0's and nobody challenged any of these hateful (and mostly untrue) statements:

Either we make fun of them, which is bad for their feelings. We can't go on about how it's unhealthy, because then we are still being rude or some absurd crap.

There aren't that many obese people who are in that state for medical reasons; most are there cuz they ate all the pies. It's not being rude to point that out; and yes, if they did stop eating enough to feed a family of four and started exercising more

Typically they're getting cheeto dust down into their keyboards as they're angrily banging out their manifesto against a society telling them to get thinner.

---

Sorry those are the "yous" I was referring to -- and in a more general sense, "you" is also referring to a society who thinks everyone who is overweight is greedy, lazy, and stupid.

And if you dare say anything about how being constantly ridiculed, put down, insulted, and subjected to hateful language and even physical attacks makes you feel... you get one of two reactions. Either people claim you're just trolling for sympathy, or people heap even MORE abuse on you and tell you you're just not TRYING hard enough.

DesignFox

07-08-2009, 03:05 PM

Ladyneeva, I don't think they were saying that fat people deserve ridicule.

I think they were all saying that yes, some people bring the ridicule down upon themselves. Some people are also just overly sensitive. If a doctor says, "Hey, it would improve your health if you dropped a couple pounds" is that really grounds to get insulted?

Regardless of the issue, it seems that you have to walk on eggshells around people to avoid "offending" someone. And to me, and I think some others on here, that is total crap.

There's a big difference between the simple fact that being grossly overweight poses health risks and someone pointing and laughing and making rude remarks. A doctor or friend may point out the former, but no one deserves the latter.

For me, I really think there are few excuses for being overweight. Trust me, I know drugs affect things- my brother has some behavioral issues and his meds cause his weight to flip flop up and down like crazy.

I also knew a young girl who got extremely ill with pancreatic cancer. Her meds made her blow up like a blimp. :(

But the simple fact is that many people are getting heavier. And it isn't due to medication. I don't need a BMI statistic to tell me that Americans are getting fatter. I just need to look out my window and watch the people walking down the street. I just need to look at myself from 8 months ago- I was nearly 140lbs! At 5' tall that's seriously bad!

So. What did I do about the awful situation I was in? I started counting calories. I realized that I was MASSIVELY overeating. Even with the horseback riding I was doing each day, I was consuming FAR too much food.

I cut back. It was the easiest thing in the world to do. I simply watched my caloric intake. I started taking walks before or after dinner. I cut out sugary drinks.

Then, I even got lucky (although I didn't realize it at the time) and my ex broke up with me. I went back home. Closer to my horse, to my true friends, and working in a better location I became happier. I hadn't realized how miserable and stressed out I was until I was home for a month or two. And miraculously, all these things combined dropped off that excess weight. Even my doctor, who expressed serious concerns the first time I hit 140 on the scales, was impressed and noted the weight loss.

I'd still like to lose another 5 or 10lbs (and to that end I've been doing more excercises and spending more time at the barn) - but at least I look normal again!

er...I was going somewhere with this...Oh...

If you *really* wanna lose weight. Count your calories. Do things that make you happy. And start slow. Just go take a walk after dinner! It's really not that hard.

If you don't want to do those things, I won't ridicule you. But don't *complain* to me that you're fat, either. ;)

THAT'S the difference!

BroomJockey

07-08-2009, 03:29 PM

If you *really* wanna lose weight. Count your calories. Do things that make you happy. And start slow. Just go take a walk after dinner! It's really not that hard.

5 months ago, I started walking to and from work every day. 5 days a week I walk half an hour in the morning, and half an hour in the afternoon. I've also cut back on the amount of food I eat, and generally it's of more nutritional value.

Since then, I've gained 30 lbs.

Talon

07-08-2009, 03:33 PM

When has public ridicule ever been a force for positive change in an individual?

Apart from the occasional SC adult-child who has just never been called out, I say NEVER. I say the public screechers are pathetic ego-projectors, can't feel good about themselves unless they're attacking someone else.

That being said, people who whine and sue their doctor for daring to suggest they need to lose weight to improve their health: would they, along with the ego-projectors, please hurl themselves out of a flying 747 and land anus-first on the spire of Winchester cathedral :p

DesignFox

07-08-2009, 03:40 PM

5 months ago, I started walking to and from work every day. 5 days a week I walk half an hour in the morning, and half an hour in the afternoon. I've also cut back on the amount of food I eat, and generally it's of more nutritional value.

Since then, I've gained 30 lbs.

Yikes. I wonder why that is? Is it muscle weight you've gained? Or did the flab just stay? (trust me, no matter how many sit ups I seem to do, my tummy flab doesn't seem to go anywhere...so far)

Do you elevate your heart rate at all? The other thing I've been told is that the best way to drop fat is to get the heart really going. (which is what I'm adding to my current regimen- we'll see what happens!)

Also, again I guess because it's written word I better say it all (since I left it out before)- there are exceptions to every rule.

Obviously, I am not going to ridicule someone who works their ass off but still can't seem to lose weight. But if you sit there having a pity party with a box of cookies in your hand (and devour the entire thing) I'm apt not to be as sympathetic.

That's my point. I don't point at random people on the street and make snide remarks. Because I don't know which end of the spectrum they fall in! And it's really none of my business.

But. That said. I don't think a majority of people are overweight due to meds or bad genetics. I really think they eat too much and excercise too little.

Nyoibo

07-08-2009, 03:55 PM

(trust me, no matter how many sit ups I seem to do, my tummy flab doesn't seem to go anywhere...so far)

Sit-ups will do nothing for tummy flab, they will however tone the muscles underneath the flab so when it's gone you'll have a six-pack.

AdminAssistant

07-08-2009, 03:55 PM

I cut back. It was the easiest thing in the world to do. I simply watched my caloric intake. I started taking walks before or after dinner. I cut out sugary drinks. ...

- but at least I look normal again!

I'm really happy it was easy for you. It's not easy for many. To me, having to count calories would be a mini-hell. I like to enjoy my food, not have to statistically analyze every little thing I put in my mouth. I do plan on trying to get serious (again) after I get back from my trip home, and thoroughly enjoy all the wonderful unhealthy food the South has to offer.

I'm overweight (technically, I'm "obese" but I don't look it so whatever). I look "normal". Just because I wear 1X shirts and size 16-18 pants doesn't make me a freak of nature. Although the clothing designed for 'plus-sizers' might make it look that way.

The fact is, many people don't have time to exercise. I'm a grad student. My life during the school year is the definition of busy. Exercising on many days would cut into my sleep time...and I have to have my sleep time. I suppose you'll all say that I need to make time to exercise, but I also need to make time to have friends and make time to stay in touch with my family and make time for relationships and make time for schoolwork and make time to write lectures and (do you see where I'm going with this?)

Besides, for many people, including myself, there are underlying reasons why we eat. I'm a stress eater. I have a bad day, I make myself feel better with a pizza. For many, it's not as simple as take a walk and eat a carrot. And it's a little insulting to imply that it is.

BroomJockey

07-08-2009, 03:55 PM

Yikes. I wonder why that is? Is it muscle weight you've gained? Or did the flab just stay? (trust me, no matter how many sit ups I seem to do, my tummy flab doesn't seem to go anywhere...so far)

Do you elevate your heart rate at all? The other thing I've been told is that the best way to drop fat is to get the heart really going. (which is what I'm adding to my current regimen- we'll see what happens!)

I'm pretty sure it's a mixture of muscle weight and flab, and yes, I do up my heart rate. I continually try to push myself to make the journey faster. So far, I've actually managed to shave off about 3 minutes of my trip, and I feel less crappy after doing so.

If it keeps up, I'm considering going to a doctor and seeing if I might not have some hidden issue. Because I gotta tell you, it's a little disheartening to cut out the foods you like (I used to have a bag or two of chips every weekend, now it's not even a bag a month, if I bought a box of cookies, it'd be gone in a few days, now I've a box getting over a month, and it's still half-full, etc etc) and still not see any kind of positive result in body shape.

And I think that might actually be part of what keeps many people heavy. They try something, stick it out for like a month, and then don't see anything change, and since they're likely doing it alone, they just give up. I know that you need to stick with it more than a month to actually see anything, but it's getting on half a year now. You'd think I'd have at least *maintained* my weight. *shrug*

DesignFox

07-08-2009, 04:35 PM

<snip>

Besides, for many people, including myself, there are underlying reasons why we eat. I'm a stress eater. I have a bad day, I make myself feel better with a pizza. For many, it's not as simple as take a walk and eat a carrot. And it's a little insulting to imply that it is.

I'm not trying to be insulting. But the fact is, you have to do SOMETHING. You can't sit around and do nothing and expect to lose weight. I used to do the very same things- eat a pizza, complain there was no time to excercise (and trust me, I went to college, I can sympathize). But when I became unhappy with the state of things, I decided to stop complaining and do something about it.

And just because I count calories doesn't mean I'm eating carrots. I just take a look at the caloric content of that cheeseburger and revolve the rest of my day around it. It takes time for your body to become accustomed to it. And it is HARD. I was hungry A LOT when I first started. But you do adjust. Just because I said it was "easy" doesn't mean that the results were insantaneous or that there weren't certain frustrating side effects...

<snip>

And I think that might actually be part of what keeps many people heavy. They try something, stick it out for like a month, and then don't see anything change, and since they're likely doing it alone, they just give up. I know that you need to stick with it more than a month to actually see anything, but it's getting on half a year now. You'd think I'd have at least *maintained* my weight. *shrug*

I agree. I've been up and down with trying all sorts of different things to convince myself to excercise. Most of them fail after about a month.

The calorie counting thing stuck because I did actually see results- first in the fact that I maintained and stopped GAINING weight, then as I added some excercise, it started to drop.

Plus, at the moment, I have significant incentive to stay slimmer- my horseback riding has improved dramatically since I dropped those extra pounds. And the extra core strength has helped with my ability to stay put when the horse acts stupid, or as we're going around a course of fences. My instructor is the one who "ordered" me to do push-ups and sit-ups every day. She wants to see me get up to 50 sit-ups and at least 25 push-ups (I've finally managed to get to 30-35 sit ups and 20-25 push-ups after doing this for a little over a month).

Anyhow. I can see how it gets frustrating. And I agree that that is part of what makes it so difficult. Going from overeating, to eating properly or bouncing around trying to find the right amount of intake for your system takes its toll. If you have no "moral support" or real goal in mind it can make it tough.

I'd definitely say, at least in your case, that you seem to be doing the right things. I would certainly ask a doctor if it all doesn't improve.

Mine thought I had a thyroid issue initially (I assured her that I really was just eating like a pig- and then tried dropping the weight to prove it- in my case, that WAS the problem).

Cat

07-08-2009, 05:13 PM

I'm a calorie counter as well, and for me that worked. I know if I have a yummy treat that has more cals then I should be eating...I make up for it....either my walking more or cutting down on a meal. And there are days when I don't count ( I call them the weekend, lol) I'm not super anal about it now, but it has helped me become more aware about what I am eating.

We started a walking club at work...it started as a few of us walking for a mile duting lunch break. Well, I took it upon myself to eat lunch at my desk and then use my hour to get 2.5 mile in. Granted, this works for me, not for everyone and esp if your work sechdule doesn't allow it.

It isn't easy, but if it is something you want, you work for it, like anything else in life.

I'm also an avid hiker and an in traing to hike some decent mountains soon, so I have my reasons to lose the weight :)

Flyndaran

07-08-2009, 09:01 PM

...She's a bit too skinny, in my opinion; her arms are like matchsticks and she's constantly on a diet. She gets every cough, sniffle and cold going; yet there are people who'd point to me and say I was the unhealthy one, just cuz I have meat on my bones, and that she was the ideal. -.-

My best/only friend is like that. She is skinny, but hugging her feels like hugging a pillowcase full of mashed potatoes and sticks. I'm the fat one, but never get sick, and am in absurdly good shape for being a lazy bum.

..
Wonder how that would work if we applied it to a homosexual person, a black person, or someone with a birth defect.

You know of ways as easy as eating less to "fix" being gay, black, or birth defects?
Seriously, giving strangers advice is rude no matter how "helpful" they think they are being.

...
If you *really* wanna lose weight. Count your calories. Do things that make you happy. And start slow. Just go take a walk after dinner! It's really not that hard.

If you don't want to do those things, I won't ridicule you. But don't *complain* to me that you're fat, either. ;)

THAT'S the difference!

No, for many people it is hard. For many people, living every single day worrying about calorie count is not living a happy life. For others, their very own body will fight, so that weight may actually go up when cutting back on food. My girlfriend is much heavier and more active than I am, but she eats far less. This isn't magic, but it isn't as simple as diet and exercise.
You aren't everyone. What's easy for you could be impossible for others.

How about me? I was once up to 270. Then the weight just disappeared for no reason. I didn't exercise, eat less, or anything. 50 pounds just left over a couple of months. If that can happen to me, why can't the opposite happen?
Biology is almost never simple.

DesignFox

07-08-2009, 09:45 PM

Flyndaran

07-08-2009, 10:21 PM

I didn't say biology was easy.

I just said that I will gladly sympathize with someone doing their best to remedy something they are unhappy about.

I will *not* sympathize with someone complaining that they are heavy who isn't even trying. (or has any other problem they refuse to *try* to resolve)
...

Can we all stop being offended now?

I wasn't offended. I just thought that you may be oversimplifying things.
How do you or any of us for that matter really determine who is and is not trying? That's the thing that bothers me about judging others. I do it, but with how many normal activities are simply too hard for me, I try to give others the benefit of the doubt with regards to thier lives.

AFPheonix

07-08-2009, 10:33 PM

And he skewed the results by fudging a formula to fit the data(squaring height) because otherwise it didn't work

That's what he claims, but you'd think a self-proclaimed math expert would understand that squaring and cubing numbers in equations has to do with calculating area. Obviously cubing the number isn't going to be correct, since people's frames get narrower respectively as they get taller. Frankly, squaring isn't quite right either, hence the comment in my last post that noted finding a multiplier in between a cube and a square would be more accurate.

Um no it didn't-that was the lead in
"Americans keep putting on the pounds — at least according to a report released this week from the Trust for America's Health. The study found that nearly two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.

But you may want to take those findings — and your next meal — with a grain of salt, because they're based on a calculation called the body mass index, or BMI. "

and then it goes to rip apart why the BMI is bad science, and useless.

"the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals."
Ah, missed that, but again, he's really only arguing what I've said, which is that BMI, when used correctly, applies to measuring the adiposity of a population. I've not claimed that BMI can necessarily be applied well to individuals, although it can be a starting point for evaluation for an average person.

We are getting much better bone density and a large portion of the city I live in goes to health clubs several times a week-we're also pretty bicycle friendly.

So is Portland, but I'm seeing an increase in those Lil' Rascal scooters, too. I strongly doubt that bone density and bicycling are the major contributing factor in the explosion in BMI over the last 20 or 30 years or so, especially since overall Americans are more sedentary due to less physical jobs.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

They did the same thing with blood pressure (https://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0803a.shtml)-change the definition of disease-broden it and catch more people to medicate and charge higher insurance premiums to.

Normal is now not. What was classified as normal or high-normal blood pressure (a systolic pressure of 120-139 mm Hg and diastolic pressure of 80-89 mm Hg) is now categorized as prehypertension.

This meant that 45 million Americans who had gone to sleep with normal blood pressure woke up with higher-than-healthy blood pressure.

45 million people now unhealthy with the stroke of a pen-makes it look like the number has gone up significantly if you don't realize the definition was changed and the people stayed the same.

This article (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/28558.php) on abnormal PSA readings for prostrate cancer explains the issue pretty well.

They found that if all US men aged 40-69 (those most likely to be screened) were tested using PSA with a 4.0 ng/mL threshold, about 1.5 million of them would have a PSA level abnormally high enough to justify a biopsy. Lowering the threshold to 2.5 ng/mL would call for an additional 1.8 million men to receive biopsies. This group of "abnormal" men would comprise 10.7% of all US men between the ages of 50 and 59, and 17% of men between the ages of 60 and 69.

To put things into perspective the authors point out that in the next 10 years, relatively few men are expected to die from prostate cancer--0.3% of men aged 50-59, and 0.9% of men aged 60-69.

While I don't agree with insurance companies basing premiums on a measurement not meant for individuals, I can't say that I'm too surprised, either. After having to deal with the suckers on a daily basis for the last 5 years, I've decided they've made a pact with the devil.
As for the blood pressure thing, health recommendations are subject to change as scientists learn more about our physiology as a species. That's a good thing. Being rigid to a set of numbers because it's what we've always done is generally bad medicine. Isn't that the point you're attempting to make with wanting to ditch BMI?

DesignFox

07-08-2009, 11:44 PM

I wasn't offended. I just thought that you may be oversimplifying things.
How do you or any of us for that matter really determine who is and is not trying? That's the thing that bothers me about judging others. I do it, but with how many normal activities are simply too hard for me, I try to give others the benefit of the doubt with regards to thier lives.

I guess I'm just getting tired of having to restate things three ways from Sunday.

I stated in my original post that I do not make snide comments to people based on their weight. Especially, if I don't know them or their circumstances.

I also stated that if said person had told me their situation, I'd be sympathetic- assuming they aren't eating a whole tub of fattening food while they're complaining. Everyone of every weight and body type should enjoy what they want to enjoy- but understand that if you don't do it in moderation, it's going to affect you and you don't get to whine about the consequences.

Much as I'd love to lose the belly fat, I admit that I eat a few too many M&M's for my own good...I'm making an effort to change that, but in the mean time I don't go crying over my tummy flub. (not that it's that noticable, anyway, thankfully- and when it was, I cut the M&Ms out of my diet)

That's all I'm saying. Nothing's simple for everybody. But for the majority of people, they have the power to make simple changes and see results.

BroomJockey

07-09-2009, 05:07 AM

I
That's all I'm saying. Nothing's simple for everybody. But for the majority of people, they have the power to make simple changes and see results.

Yep, and as you said, it can be different changes that people need to make. No "magic bullet" solution. =\ Which is too bad, really. I bet I could make an absolute fortune.

DesignFox

07-09-2009, 01:17 PM

<snip> =\ Which is too bad, really. I bet I could make an absolute fortune.

Doesn't stop drug companies and other random companies from trying though...

I wish it was so simple that all I had to do was "drink a shake!" or "take this pill!"

Trust me, there were days when I was first starting the "watching the intake" thing that I absolutely felt like I was starving. But after a few months, I stopped noticing. And it got to a point where I didn't miss the desserts. Certain sweet things actually started making me feel ill.

I'm back to eating dessert now- (as I posted about liking M&Ms and such). :D They don't make me feel oogy anymore. But I really do make an effort to minimize any desserts to a handful of M&M's or 1 cookie. And IF I get dessert when I go out, I always share it or box most of it up and take it home.

I've also noticed that once I stopped drinking sugar sodas (that was probably 3 or 4 years ago) and stopped putting cream in my coffee, I absolutely CANNOT drink them anymore. Insta-headaches and nausea. Weird. But true!

ladyneeva

07-10-2009, 10:40 AM

The thing isn't how rudely you tell me that I'm a bad person, it's that you're equating a physical trait with a moral imperative and telling me that since I don't measure up to YOUR ideal of a good person then obviously I must be a BAD person.

Also, studies have been done that show that dieting does not work. It's not that you can't starve yourself into a smaller size, it's that eventually your metabolism adapts and starts storing every possible nutrient as fat instead of using it to repair tissue, build muscle, etc.

I can't find the full text anywhere for free (which is not unusual for scientific papers honestly) but there was a study done as far back as 1991 that concluded:

decades of research on the biology of weight regulation make clear the unlikelihood of success with dietary treatment, information which the health professions have been slow to integrate. Recommendations are made for improving lifestyle, health risk factors, body image, and the self-esteem of the obese without requiring weight loss.

Thats from the abstract of the study, which can be found here if you want to pay for it: http://tinyurl.com/nkpxxd

Junkfood Science (yeah I know... but they're about the only source I've found that breaks down the studies into plain language I can understand and actually cites their sources) did a break down of that article and a few others in the same vein back in December 07 (http://tinyurl.com/mv3wpw) and one of the things quoted in their blog post really made sense to me. Paraphrasing here (the exact quote is in the post I linked in this paragraph)

Some 54 million Americans are currently dieting... yet the number of people who are fat keeps going up. If dieting worked, wouldn't that cause the rate to at least hold steady if not drop? Just a bit down from that observation, there is a paragraph that says:

A study of 784 participants, she reported, discovered that in trying to maintain their weight loss, they were obsessively exercising 1 1/2 hours a day and eating severely calorie restrictive diets of about 1,400 kcal/day. “In other words, their life is devoted to weight loss.” They generally exhibit anorectic behaviors, not healthy, normal eating.

And you know thats really not the kind of life I want to live. And contrary to the comment made a little earlier (forget from whom), I'm not "whining because I'm fat".

I'm "whining" because of how I'm being treated for being fat.

And speaking of things said earlier... the comment that children can catch second hand fat learning unhealthy habits from their parents.

Is catching second hand anorexia better? That is JUST as (in my opinion, MORE of an) unhealthy of a habit, and the incidence of eating disorders among children as young as 5 to 7 is increasing as a result of our society that feels it needs to tell children that unless they're skinny and perfect they're bad.

cites -- http://tinyurl.com/ck44lg http://tinyurl.com/kpnwxd http://tinyurl.com/32vnpv

And finally... it's pretty well accepted that two things which actually CAUSE weight gain are stress and depression. So... how will causing people to feel ashamed of themselves, to cause them to hate themselves because everyone else does, to make them stress out obsessing over every single calorie they ingest and worry about how they'll make time to work off that calorie and even skip sleep (another thing thats been indicated as causing weight gain) in order to exercise away that sin before anyone sees it on their hips... how is that kind of thing doing ANYTHING to support your (general sense) stated goal of making sure everyone becomes thin?

You can't hate people for their own good.

oh, and Flyndaran, my comment about how would this work if we were shaming people for being gay, black, handicapped, etc was sarcasm -- obviously, calling people evil and telling them they should be ashamed of themselves for those things is a horrible rotten thing to do. I was attempting not so subtly to make the point that telling people they're horrible and should be ashamed of themselves for being fat is ALSO a horrible rotten thing to do.

Cat

07-10-2009, 12:35 PM

I "work out" roughly 1.5-2 hr day.....Its not obsessive at all....its hiking....its my hobby. I also do eat around 1400 cals (or less some days) Obsessive,,,,not...if I want that Twix bar taunting me in the vending machine....I'll eat that lil bastard.

To each their own....if people want to work out, do it. If not, don't. I just can't repect people who WANT change and do nadda about it (this applies to all things in life...I can start another thread about friends who want to get jobs but do nothing to look for them)

Boozy

07-10-2009, 01:29 PM

And speaking of things said earlier... the comment that children can catch second hand fat learning unhealthy habits from their parents.

Is catching second hand anorexia better?

There is obviously a middle-ground between obesity and anorexia. Just because my parents didn't let me eat cake whenever I wanted doesn't mean I was raised to be obsessed with my weight.

DesignFox

07-10-2009, 05:54 PM

The thing isn't how rudely you tell me that I'm a bad person, it's that you're equating a physical trait with a moral imperative and telling me that since I don't measure up to YOUR ideal of a good person then obviously I must be a BAD person.

<snip>
And you know thats really not the kind of life I want to live. And contrary to the comment made a little earlier (forget from whom), I'm not "whining because I'm fat".

I'm "whining" because of how I'm being treated for being fat.

<snip>

I think you misinterpreted my posts. I certainly never said that I think fat=bad person. In fact, I think if you re-read, you'll discover I'm saying just the opposite. If I don't know a person's situation, I'm not going to judge.

I never said that you personally were whining for being fat, either.

I said that I have known people who have- and what were they doing about it? Sitting on the couch and eating a box of cookies. So, no. They don't get my sympathy. Because they are doing nothing but complaining.

If any problem in life is bothering a person- be it their job situation, bad habit, weight gain or loss, lack of fitness, boredom, etc. I will be a sympathetic friend- but not if they don't bother *trying* to help themselves.

No one on here said anything about people being awful for not "dieting" either.

Making changes in your diet, doing a basic calorie count, and just being aware of what your intake is, is not the same thing as doing a crash diet.

I don't diet. It doesn't work. You're right. The body will adjust to the lack of intake. I just don't take in more than my body needs to function for the day. Because that's where the extra fat comes from (in MY case- which I've already stated several times varies from other people's)- extra unused energy.

I think everyone agrees that it isn't right to judge based on appearance. And I agree that depression and stress can lead to weight gain. So ridiculing someone for being heavy certainly isn't helping their situation.

Trust me. When I was 15 lbs heavier, my Ex used to ridicule me quite a bit and tell me I was fat. It was depressing. Part of the reason my life changed drastically after we broke up. It was a blessing in disguise. Truth be told, I was miserable because partly his words were true- I *had* gotten fat, and I hated it. So, I did something. I finally found something that worked.

Some people are naturally going to be heavy. There's nothing for it. But I refuse to believe that this is true of 90% of the population. I agree that snide remarks and prejudgements are inappropriate. So I do my part by not saying nasty things. If a friend asked me for advice, I'd tell them the things that worked for me, or things I know that worked for others, or I'd tell them to consult their doctor if they really want to make changes.

Outside of that. Some people are horrible. They always will be. I've just come to accept that.

EDIT:
Oh maybe the way I should say things is this- If someone is heavy, and happy that way, then I certainly agree that people should keep their mouths shut. I would never tell a friend of mine they needed to lose weight or give them advice on such if they never expressed an interest in losing weight. I agree, THAT would be very rude!

joe hx

07-10-2009, 05:56 PM

I wish it was so simple that all I had to do was "drink a shake!" or "take this pill!"

adipose industries - the fat just walks away!

Nyoibo

07-10-2009, 07:26 PM

I get sick of hearing this shit "I can't loose weight" "Diets don't work for me" *insert generic "it's not my fault"*

Seriously, unless you have a medical reason, yes it bloody well is your fault, I'm 110kg, I'm overwieght, and you know what, I'm not blaming anyone else but my self, I do circus tt 1-2 t aek, 'mdoing 4 hours of massage 3 days a week and medieval training once a week, that's a fair bit of exercise, want to know why I'm not loosing weight at the moment? It's not because I'm dieting and it doesn't work, it's not because I can't loose weight, it's because of the freaking half a 24" pizza that I had for dinner, the massive amounts of fruit juice, the chocolate.

People can loose weight, but people don't want to put in effort, they don't want to do the hard yards, they want a quick fix, so they go for stomach banding, or gastric bypass and if they can't get the quick fix complain it's not their fault, instead of maning the fuck up, stopping eating all the shit, eat sensibly and moderate portions and do some fucking exercise.

As for weight gain being caused by depression or stress, I don't buy it, overeating causes weight gain not depression, I've lived with what has been classed as dysthymia/severe clinical depression for 4 or 5 years now, it's not responsible for my weight.

As to dieting, it does work, to an extent, but weight loss can only be achieved and maintained by a change in lifestyle, cutting out sugar and carbs, hitting the gym, that will loose weight, but when you stop dieting, you have to keep going to the gym and not go back to your old eating habits, yoyo dieting is what fucks your metabolism up and sends it into starvation mode, which is where it converts any energy it gets into fat, a sensible eating plan won't do that.

Some 54 million Americans are currently dieting... yet the number of people who are fat keeps going up. If dieting worked, wouldn't that cause the rate to at least hold steady if not drop?

Because of those 54 million, how many after they've dieted go back to their old eating habits?

Just as an aside for healthy eating, does anyone know what the recomended serving of meat/protien per day is?

The size of the palm of your hand, not the whole hand, just the palm, how often do you see a cut of meat that small? how often do you eat one that small?

BTW ladyneeva, this was in no way directed at you even though it may look like it, it's just a pet peeve of mine that turned into a rant in general.

BroomJockey

07-10-2009, 07:36 PM

Just as an aside for healthy eating, does anyone know what the recomended serving of meat/protien per day is?

The size of the palm of your hand, not the whole hand, just the palm,

Close. It's "a deck of cards," and it's "2-3/day." Just the size of your palm would be one, maybe 1.5 servings, depending on the size of your hand.

Boozy

07-10-2009, 08:22 PM

While we're on the topic: One of my pet peeves is having to eyeball my meat servings to figure out how many servings I've got. Other than maybe my hamburger patties, nothing I eat is shaped like a deck of cards, and I'm bad at making spatial comparisons. I suppose I could get a food scale, but who wants to go to all that trouble? I like to watch what I eat, but weighing stuff is just too much.

Every time I put on a few pounds, it's always something seemingly minor that's causing it. When a Starbucks opened down the street from me, I gained about ten pounds (I'm estimating here, as I don't have a scale). It took me a while to figure out that I had replaced my regular morning coffee (with a small splash of milk and a bit of sugar) with venti lattes....made with 2% milk. I was drinking an extra 200 calories a day without realizing it, because I never had to factor coffee into my diet planning before. So I cut back on the lattes.

It made me realize how easy it is to take in calories from sources you don't think about. Dressings, for example. There are salads on the menus of many fast food places that have more calories in them than their hamburgers, all due to the dressings they give you.

anriana

07-11-2009, 04:42 AM

I get sick of hearing this shit "I can't loose weight" "Diets don't work for me" *insert generic "it's not my fault"*

I've lived with what has been classed as dysthymia/severe clinical depression for 4 or 5 years now, it's not responsible for my weight.

And everyone else ever is exactly like you, so your situation applies to them.

As for weight gain being caused by depression or stress, I don't buy it, overeating causes weight gain not depression,

Depression causes overeating. Overating causes weight gain. Tada.

As to dieting, it does work, to an extent, but weight loss can only be achieved and maintained by a change in lifestyle, cutting out sugar and carbs, hitting the gym, that will loose weight, but when you stop dieting, you have to keep going to the gym and not go back to your old eating habits, yoyo dieting is what fucks your metabolism up and sends it into starvation mode, which is where it converts any energy it gets into fat, a sensible eating plan won't do that.

Do you know what calories are?

Nyoibo

07-11-2009, 07:07 AM

And everyone else ever is exactly like you, so your situation applies to them.

Yes, yes it does. (yeah, no one ever expects that reply)

Depression causes overeating. Overating causes weight gain. Tada.

And weight gain causes depression, the vicious cycle, stop eating *gasp* the cycle is broken.

Do you know what calories are?

Yes I do actually, a calorie is about 4.18 Kilojoules, As to what it's a measurement of a Calorie (C) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1kg of water (1 litre) by 1 degree Celsius, a Calorie (cal) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius.

During adolescence is when you gain fat cells, adults fat cell numbers remain basically constant, they do however expand massively, so childhood really does set the precident for adulthood in terms of weight, that's one of the reasons that dieting without changing your lifestyle doesn't work, the fat cells don't go away, they just shrink, so they're there waiting to fill up again if you go back to what you were doing.

Flyndaran

07-11-2009, 07:42 AM

..
During adolescence is when you gain fat cells, adults fat cell numbers remain basically constant, they do however expand massively, so childhood really does set the precident for adulthood in terms of weight, that's one of the reasons that dieting without changing your lifestyle doesn't work, the fat cells don't go away, they just shrink, so they're there waiting to fill up again if you go back to what you were doing.

Also infancy. But that doesn't determine how fat you must be. It just determines where you distribute it.
I was a morbidly obese baby, so when I gain or lose weight it flows from all over. It is almost impossible for others to guess my weight because of how even it is.

I get sick of hearing this shit "I can't loose weight" "Diets don't work for me" *insert generic "it's not my fault"*
...l.

When insulting people, it's probably best if you use correct spelling. It's lose not loose. That also happens to be a pet peeve.
It is interesting how you know more about people's health and what is and is not possible for them to do, than they themselves know.
On average it is unlikely for every obese person to have an underlying problem. But on an individual basis, you know jack shit.
As long as you don't spew this venom toward any real person, then I've got no problem.

violetyoshi

07-11-2009, 08:53 PM

I was informed by a mod at Customers Suck, that I should post here about the issues I have concerning this thread:

http://www.customerssuck.com/board/showthread.php?t=50435

I was going to post this website at that forum:

www.bigfatfacts.com

This is an egregious form of fat prejudice, and while I understand that these people are "off the clock", but not everyone is required to be of perfect physical health to exist in society.

I hope to see the mods at customers suck, regard fat prejudice with the seriousness it should be dealt with. There's a difference between complaining about one fat customer, and then allowing a thread to go on claiming all fat people are like said customer.

There also needs to be a way for people to speak out against such prejudice, without it being an issue of turning things into a debate. There would be no debate, if people could simply understand that everyone is different. There are healthy fat people, there are unhealthy thin people. It seems so hard for people to be able to comprehend this reality.

violetyoshi

07-11-2009, 09:26 PM

adipose industries - the fat just walks away!

Have you seen this episode of Dr Who?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MTFcfGTGyc

The little babies made from the fat are just so freaking cute! :D

Flyndaran

07-11-2009, 09:32 PM

I was informed by a mod at Customers Suck, that I should post here about the issues I have concerning this thread:

http://www.customerssuck.com/board/showthread.php?t=50435
....

I read that thread and didn't see any fatty bashing. They were legitimately complaining about a type of lazy customer. They didn't call all fatties lazy.

BlaqueKatt

07-11-2009, 11:13 PM

I hope to see the mods at customers suck, regard fat prejudice with the seriousness it should be dealt with. There's a difference between complaining about one fat customer, and then allowing a thread to go on claiming all fat people are like said customer.

I was rezoning the floor and this lady flies over to me
She seemed perfectly healthy, but I know you can't see all disabilities

where do you see "fat customer" in those only two lines describing the customer?

I also don't see anyone "bashing fat people" in that thread I see them bashing people that complain about having to walk incredibly short distances(8 feet, 20 feet. 2.5 blocks etc). The OP didn't even mention the size of the customer complaining, the only mention of weight was people speculating if people being too lazy to walk anywhere had anything to do with rising obesity rates. Saw nothing about "ZOMG all fat people are lazy!"

I've seen more "thin prejudice" than "fat prejudice" on CS

I remember a thread in particular where a poster was harassed by the clerks in a plus-sized clothing store-EVERY POST said something horrible about the "skinny-ass bitch" and the OP mentioned that stores don't make clothes for "real women" implying that anyone under a size 12 was not real-I mentioned this disparity and got jumped on by everyone except the op-the OP realized what she said was as hurtful as saying something about a larger person and edited her post. No one else saw it that way though-but everyone jumps on someone calling someone "fat" or one of the other euphamisms for it, but it's perfectly ok to call someone "poster child for anorexia"-do smaller people not have feelings?

I'm not a doctor-I won't say anything about anyone's weight-I only ask the same.

DesignFox

07-12-2009, 01:42 AM

I read that thread and didn't see any fatty bashing. They were legitimately complaining about a type of lazy customer. They didn't call all fatties lazy.

I'm in agreement here. I didn't see anything in that thread bashing heavy people...I don't see what the debate is.

Nyoibo

07-12-2009, 03:17 AM

When insulting people, it's probably best if you use correct spelling. It's lose not loose.

And when picking something trivial like that to bitch about it's probably best if you learnt to use the multi-quote tag instead of pissing off the mods who have to edit your posts.

See, I can pick on pointless things too.

but everyone jumps on someone calling someone "fat" or one of the other euphamisms for it, but it's perfectly ok to call someone "poster child for anorexia"-do smaller people not have feelings?

I'll call 'em how I see 'em, although I do reserve judgement until I know the facts.

ladyneeva

07-12-2009, 08:40 AM

So basically what you (general sense of the word, directed towards everyone who holds the thought that "it's easy all you have to do is not eat like a pig" mostly at the moment Nyoibo) are saying is that if the end result is being within acceptable bounds on the BMI chart then it does not matter how we have to get to that magical number or what damage we do to ourselves physically or psychologically as long as being within that numerical range is the result?

Nyoibo

07-12-2009, 09:11 AM

No, fuck the BMI, I've yet to know more than 1 or 2 people that it's actually acurate on, what I'm saying is if you're overweight You have one of two options, lose weight (got it right that time Flyn :p) or deal with the shit that comes with being overweight, because unless you have a medical reason then it's your own damn fault, no one elses, no one made you buy the food, no one made you eat the food.

We seem to as a society coddle people all the time now, for everything and there's no accountability, there's a line in Liar Liar "Stop breaking the law asshole" and it applies to a lot of overweight people "Stop eating the crap asshole"

ladyneeva

07-12-2009, 09:43 AM

Even if you DO have a medical reason you'll still have to "deal with the shit" -- or do you think those who are sick have a giant neon sign on their heads?

And how do you define "sick"? Depression causes weight gain (also weight loss... depends which way you roll, if you start comfort eating or if you stop eating)... does that mean that depressed overweight people 'deserve' to be bashed because they're just eating too much? Even though it's a physical and chemical imbalance in their brains that cause it?

For that matter, many people consider chronic overeating to be a disease on the same order as chronic under eating (anorexia)... so are they sick and their weight is a symptom, or do they just need to be publicly humiliated until they put down the Twinkie? And if their weight IS a symptom, how do you suppose we treat it?

Also... over what weight? And who gets to decide? If I thought you were underweight, would that give me the right to publicly mock you to try and force you to eat (even if you were happy with the weight you were at, but sick of 'dealing with the shit'?)

My take on the situation is that it is NEVER ok to make another human being hate themselves. We as a society look down on children who torment other children to the point where the tormented ones become depressed, withdrawn and suicidal. So why should it be ok for people to treat a behavior that results in adults feeling that way as something they DESERVE just because some of us think it would be easy to stop eating?

There is really a double standard at work here -- someone at a 'normal' weight range can go into any store and buy anything they like and eat it... and nobody says a thing. Someone who is overweight goes into a store, buys the wrong item (or too much of the right items) and everyone and their cousin feels entitled to judge their purchase.

Or take a look at weight loss surgery for another example... after that surgery, a victim is told they can only eat about a half of a cup (four ounces) of food and they need to eat it very slowly... that half a cup of food should take at LEAST an hour to eat. This is the desired result. If a fat person announces that they're planning on getting this surgery they are applauded. People clap them on the back and say good for you, this is a great thing you are doing, congratulations! Heck, their insurance company will probably PAY for it, and their doctor is probably the one who suggested it.

If an average sized individual were to announce that they were starting a diet that had the same result... people would call them insane, anorexic, sick.

Does that not seem WRONG to anyone else? That we can view the exact same behavior as a wonderful thing if one person is doing it, yet a sign of mental illness in another... even though it's the exact same thing with the exception of the fat person being permanently damaged while the thin person has a chance to smarten up and say "oh wait, starvation isn't as fun as I thought!"

Lace Neil Singer

07-12-2009, 10:38 AM

Let me point something out; there are other eating disorders other than anorexia and bulimia, you know; I used to suffer from one called Compulsive Eating Disorder and yes, it was actually diagnosed by a doctor. Here's some information if, like most people, you don't know what it is.

http://www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/mentalhealth/eatingdisorders/compulsiveeating

This is a variation on binge eating where sufferers eat even when they are not hungry, without having the willpower to stop. This may happen all the time or come and go in cycles. Some overeaters just nibble consistently, others binge and then starve themselves before eating again. Most compulsive eaters are overweight and have low self esteem, and use food as a comforter rather than face up to the underlying problem. Many feel guilty about their habit and aim to cover it up. Men are thought to suffer from compulsive eating more than any other eating disorder.

Treatment for these and other eating disorders begins by recognising and dealing with the problems in your life that cause you to use food as an escape.

Symptoms include:

Depression
Bingeing on food, then fasting, then bingeing again, but no purges.
Obsession with body weight
Mood swings
Low self esteem

A lot of compulsive overeaters also self harm or were sexually abused. They overeat to try and fill the void with food, or to cover up feelings of worthlessness. When they fail at their attempts to lose the weight by dieting or fasting, they then feel even more worthless and binge again.

I used to cut myself whenever I failed at losing weight; I struggled with this disorder and the selfharm for years before I learned to like myself and therefore was able to get over the disorder. I then started a proper healthy eating programme and the weight fell off. Before tho, I'd set myself unrealistic targets, and starve myself to try and lose the weight. I find it very insulting that the umbrella term for all overweight people is "eat less". To a sufferer of compulsive eating disorder, that's like telling an anorexic to "eat more".

ladyneeva

07-12-2009, 11:17 AM

I just use anorexia because it's one that pretty much everyone can be expected to have heard of. It's easier to discuss something if most people know what you are talking about.

BlaqueKatt

07-12-2009, 01:16 PM

Or take a look at weight loss surgery for another example... after that surgery, a victim is told they can only eat about a half of a cup (four ounces) of food and they need to eat it very slowly... that half a cup of food should take at LEAST an hour to eat. This is the desired result. If a fat person announces that they're planning on getting this surgery they are applauded. People clap them on the back and say good for you, this is a great thing you are doing, congratulations! Heck, their insurance company will probably PAY for it, and their doctor is probably the one who suggested it.

Personally I think that surgery is horrible, and sadly it's being done on children (http://www.healthandfinesse.com/gastric-bypass-surgery-and-children.html) now.

"The development of a child’s body may eliminate them from becoming a gastric bypass patient; however, the development can also work to their advantage. A child or teenager still has the ability to lose a significant amount of weight on their own. Instead of risking their child’s life parents are encouraged to save the money from gastric bypass surgery and use it to hire a personal trainer or promote healthy eating."

So this ability magically goes away in adulthood? Just curious.

Nyoibo

07-12-2009, 01:47 PM

So this ability magically goes away in adulthood? Just curious.

To an extent yesduring childhood and adolescence the number of fat cells in your body changes a fair bit, once you reach adulthood the number of fat cells in your body stays pretty much constant, so a person going from adolescence to adulthood with fewer fat cells will find it easier to stay thinner than one who was overweight.

I then started a proper healthy eating programme and the weight fell off.

And there in lies the problem most people have, they don't do that

Instead they do
Before tho, I'd set myself unrealistic targets, and starve myself to try and lose the weight

And that's why although there are so many people dieting the number of overweight people increases.

Lace Neil Singer

07-12-2009, 02:51 PM

Way to miss the point; the point is, that I had an eating disorder. Would you tell an anorexic to eat more?

Nyoibo

07-12-2009, 03:14 PM

Way to miss the point; the point is, that I had an eating disorder. Would you tell an anorexic to eat more?

Yes I would.

BroomJockey

07-12-2009, 03:19 PM

Yes I would.

So your cure for mental disorders is "Shut the fuck up and deal with it?" Because that's what telling an anorexic to eat more is equivalent to.

BlaqueKatt

07-12-2009, 03:25 PM

Way to miss the point; the point is, that I had an eating disorder. Would you tell an anorexic to eat more?

yup people do-I know from experience, and people laugh (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9_v-o_eFps) about it too

when I was in the midst of my 7 year battle with anorexia-all anyone did was tell me "you need to eat more"-I was 5'5" and weighed 80 pounds-ended up not breaking 100 pounds until I was 23-I wore a kid's size 12 a size 0 was too big. I collapsed at school and was put in the hospital at one point-all they did was put me on a "calorie count" where I had to show the nurses my tray after I was done "eating"-when they caught me giving the food away or throwing it out-I turned to vomiting-it looked like I was eating, and they quit bothering me. I was never classified as bulimic as a PB&J sandwich is not classified as "binging", though I did "purge".

Anorexia is not about weight or food, it's about control.

from medicinenet.com (http://www.medicinenet.com/anorexia_nervosa/article.htm)

"A person with anorexia initially begins dieting to lose weight. Over time, the weight loss becomes a sign of mastery and control. The drive to become thinner is actually secondary to concerns about control and/or fears relating to one's body. The individual continues the endless cycle of restrictive eating often to a point close to starvation in order to feel a sense of control over the body. This cycle becomes an obsession and is similar to any type of drug or substance addiction."

Nyoibo

07-12-2009, 04:19 PM

So your cure for mental disorders is "Shut the fuck up and deal with it?" Because that's what telling an anorexic to eat more is equivalent to.

No, and no it's not, alot of the time people try and protect poeple from reality, it doesn't help them it hurts them, and alot of the time coddling doesn't help, people need to be told the truth and face reality, and sometimes a harsh wakeup call is what they need.

I've seen it more and more with counselors* that they try to ne nice and friendly and it's not working, these days we're so caught up in political correctness and trying not to offend anyone that people are suffering and paying the price so that a bunch of PC dicks who never had anything wrong with them or experienced and hardship can feel better about themselves because they "protected" some poor helpless person from the big bad world. Half the people in this world need to stop being enablers and the other half needs to stop being victims, everybody's fucked up in some way, people need to learn to deal with it, not be given excuses or reasons to hide behind.

*And before anyone says "What do you know about counseling or any thing else, yes I do have a qualification in counseling, and just for the hell of it to throw it out there I do also have qualifications in anatomy and physiology which does include things like chemical imbalances in the brain and body.

I'm also going to apologise if I've upset anyone, at the moment I'm tired, drunk and angry/upset because I had to have a horse that's been in my family for 31 years put down and buried today, so I'm not in the best frame of mind, having said that, feel free to rip into me and pull apart my post, I do enjoy a good arguement.

violetyoshi

07-12-2009, 07:10 PM

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes

I've seen more "thin prejudice" than "fat prejudice" on CS

There'd be less thin prejudice, if there was less fat prejudice in the world. Fat people all time are faced, with the privelages thin people get that they don't consider:

Such as, being able to buy clothing wherever you want, in what style you want. Being able to find a doctor, who you don't have to convince that you are healthy in despite of being fat. Being able to travel, without being seen purely as a burden. Not being judged as weak-willed or having a lack of morals, for the body you have.

I understand those may not pertain to someone who appears Anorexic, however, at least the person who's perceived Anorexic can board a plane without being joked about crashing the plane cause they weigh so much, or being a burden as far as fuel costs go and that they should be able to loose the weight, if they only had the will-power or sense to. Yeah, I forgot, people think fat people are dumb as well.

So sorry, if I'm not willing to suggest that life is as hard for a thin person who appears Anorexic, as for a person who appears fat. I also apologize for getting upset over a post, where people assume that the sole reason fat people exist is they don't walk enough. Perhaps most of the people here, don't realize that after hearing time and time again, that fat is a simple matter of calories in calories out, and after they've discovered that DOES NOT WORK for them, they still have to hear from ignorant people that it does, they're an idiot for not making it work. As if our bodies are completely under our control the whole time.

powerboy

07-12-2009, 07:55 PM

No, and no it's not, alot of the time people try and protect poeple from reality, it doesn't help them it hurts them, and alot of the time coddling doesn't help, people need to be told the truth and face reality, and sometimes a harsh wakeup call is what they need.

Exactly. I agree with you on this. Everyone needs the harsh wakeup of reality. But nooooo, we can't do that. It might hurt someone. If more people were straight forward, everyone would be better off. Just come out and say, hey when you do that, you are a jerk. Make them realize it.

AFPheonix

07-12-2009, 08:57 PM

Exactly. I agree with you on this. Everyone needs the harsh wakeup of reality. But nooooo, we can't do that. It might hurt someone. If more people were straight forward, everyone would be better off. Just come out and say, hey when you do that, you are a jerk. Make them realize it.

What you are failing to realize is that people who have a mental illness aren't just going to all of a sudden go "well gee there, Powerboy, I guess you were right. I'll just stop this here silly destructive behavior. What on earth was I thinking?"
They are not operating on the same level at that point as a rational human. They need help from a professional to work through their issues.

ladyneeva

07-13-2009, 10:51 AM

Normally, I prefer to link to articles/blogs and I like to think that anyone actually involved in a debate would go read the sources. In this instance, I'm going to quote a few paragraphs directly because I'm fairly sure those parties advocating diet and restricted intake as a panacea for the 'obesity epidemic' are not willing to read an article it took me almost 45 minutes to get through just to see these paragraphs that I feel are important to the discussion.

Restricting food for decades to extend life by a couple of years might be more acceptable if it weren’t accompanied by perpetual hunger, said professors Speakman and Hambly. Their research, however, found that hunger never really goes away. Even after 50 days of {calorie restriction} in mice (about 5 people years), hunger had not diminished and when the mice were taken off the restrictive diet, they were hyperphagic (gorged).

Nourishment is one of life’s greatest pleasures, as well as one of its most basic necessities. Advising people to live their lives obsessed with counting calories and restrained eating, where the pleasures of eating are replaced by punitive dietary regimens and chronic hunger, and where avoiding death becomes the main preoccupation of living, takes on more of a religious ideology, than sound science.

“One can say {calorie restriction} might add some years to your life but it will not be a life worth living,” wrote professor Magalhães. There’s the mental stress of being hungry all the time, he said, which can lead to depression and anxiety behaviors, as have been observed in {calorie restriction} studies. “{calorie restriction} also makes people feel less energetic, less alive. And finally there are the sexual problems: diminished libido is a common side-effect in people under {calorie restriction} and infertility is also possible.” {calorie restriction} has also been reported to reduce the ability to fight infection and research has suggested it might even leave motor neurons more vulnerable to degeneration.

The bolded sections are the parts I want to particularly emphasize, and were added by me. I also replaced all the instances of CR with {calorie restriction} because I was unsure if everyone would make the connection without having read the full article. Which, by the by, is located here: http://tinyurl.com/m6n8vn

The whole quoted section sums up my feeling on this... which is that even if I bought into your moral outrage that fat is bad... SO WHAT? By being the arbitrary weight that it has been decided I can be, I might at best add a couple years to my life... but they'll be years wasted obsessed over every little thing I eat or drink, performing meaningless repetitive and BORING actions just because they burn off the little calories I do allow myself, and trying to convince myself that plain water or bitter herbal brews really do taste better than lemonade.

Again, a life of perpetual hunger, obsession, boredom, and a complete lack of enjoyment would not, to me, be a life worth living. It might very well be longer... and it would definitely FEEL longer... but it would not be any better.

This whole thing is just another example of the perpetual mind-fuck we inflict on ourselves. Everyone is told to just be yourself, that it's ok to believe different things and as long as you're not hurting anyone nobody has the right to discriminate against you for it. But if part of 'being yourself' is enjoying your life instead of having to constantly count calories and eat things you hate, you are fair game to be discriminated against. Be yourself, as long as that means being exactly the same as everyone around you basically.

Boozy

07-13-2009, 12:12 PM

Nyoibo

07-13-2009, 12:35 PM

Most of what is in that couple of paragraphs are also the side effects of being overweight, I'm starting a diet on Wednesday, our neighbours have been on it for 9 weeks and lost 16kg each, they had us over for dinner last night and I had the same thing that they had, part of the diet, I didn't feel hungry, I was completely full, it was extremely tasty, and it was also healthy for me. Most of the meals in this diet are reasonably simple, nutritious and tasty, once the diet's been taken to completion it'd be a fairly simple thing to modify the meals to others to keep a healthy eating plan, and as I've been trying to say, it's not a matter of starving yourself, or counting calories, but changing your lifestyle to one that is healthier.

But if a life of hedonism and not taking responsibility is what you want because doing something good for you is "not nice" then fine, but I will give no sympathy if and when you develop or have to live with problems caused by being overweight like type 2 diabetes, joint problems and degeneration, compressed discs and other spinal problems, having to buy 2 seats on a plane to fly, having to go to specialty shops for clothing and a host of other things. And you know what, people will ridicule you for being overweight, just like we ridicule people on CS who make their lives difficult for being a dick, people who are overweight make lives difficult for themselves by being overweight.

I have all the time in the world for people who want to help themselves, I do not however have time for, nor give a shit about people who are unwilling to change or help themselves.

blas87

07-13-2009, 04:11 PM

I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of being scrutinized for having a nice, healthy body and shape.

When I'm at work debating what I want to eat, and one of the whales on my shift says "You can eat whatever you want, it's not like there's anything to you anyway!" it really irks me. And yes, I said whale. Sue me.

What, am I supposed to apologize because I exercise 6 days a week and try to watch what I eat? Am I supposed to apologize because all that exercise does me good and I stay at a healthy weight and keep a good looking shape?

I'm not going to apologize because I make good food choices and because of all the exercise I do, I keep my metabolism good and going so that if I do stray and have an upside down food pyramid day, it doesn't affect me.

Wingates_Hellsing

07-13-2009, 04:18 PM

I don't think anyone here or most people there want you to apologize. If they want to make a funny comment so be it, it's funny. Are they jealous? maybe. Do they think being skinny is a bad thing? probably not.

I don't see where you get that from, really, unless the tone implied that they are jealous to the point of despising your success.

I don't think you should apologize, nor do I think they should apologize for seeking a little humor out of the situation.

BroomJockey

07-13-2009, 05:03 PM

I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of being scrutinized for having a nice, healthy body and shape.
<snip>
What, am I supposed to apologize <snip>
Am I supposed to apologize <snip>

I'm not going to apologize <snip>

A fat person being offended by being called a hippo, or a whale is an attack on you and your body? No one's asking you to apologize. Not that I've seen anyway. What we're asking for is that you DO stop calling people whales. After all, if we want to get in to appearance based insults, you've already indicated that you hate when people generalize about people sharing your appearance. You hate when people say "Some blond, overtanned bimbo" came in. So why do you have a problem with that, but not saying "that whale"? You feel attacked when someone makes the bimbo comment, every overweight person feels attacked when you say "whale." Have whatever bloody body shape you want, just stop insulting other people for having theirs.

In the end, their weight may or may not be their fault, it may or may not be something they want to fix if they can. But insulting another human for how they look isn't a class move, no matter what.

Lace Neil Singer

07-13-2009, 06:44 PM

What you are failing to realize is that people who have a mental illness aren't just going to all of a sudden go "well gee there, Powerboy, I guess you were right. I'll just stop this here silly destructive behavior. What on earth was I thinking?"
They are not operating on the same level at that point as a rational human. They need help from a professional to work through their issues.

This is exactly what I was saying. I had an eating disorder, that was just as difficult to work thru as anyone with bulimia or anorexia, and that I still have to watch in case I fall back into it. Someone saying to me "Just eat less, fatso" would have just driven me back inside myself, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to seek help for my eating disorder ever again.

Tho it's true that there are people who are greedy and are fat just cuz they ate all the pies, it's prejudiced to assume that all people who are overweight are so cuz of that. Also, if you've never been in the grip of a mental illness, you're not going to understand it. I also had clinical depression at one point and nope, being told "Cheer up!" wouldn't have done the slightest good when I was struggling with it. :rolleyes:

violetyoshi

07-13-2009, 06:44 PM

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes

I have all the time in the world for people who want to help themselves, I do not however have time for, nor give a shit about people who are unwilling to change or help themselves.

This is the same position people have about drug addicts, except you do not need to take drugs to live. You do need to eat to live, and that's what makes losing weight difficult.

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes

I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of being scrutinized for having a nice, healthy body and shape.

When I'm at work debating what I want to eat, and one of the whales on my shift says "You can eat whatever you want, it's not like there's anything to you anyway!" it really irks me. And yes, I said whale. Sue me.

It seems you need to work on empathizing with others. I'm sorry, if you having a perfect body, and having to deal with the occasional off comment, doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. You don't know what it's like to never see yourself represented properly in the media. To only be able to buy clothing from certain stores, and have no choice in personal style. As well as people perpetually being "concerned about your health" becaue the news is always acting like people like you will drop dead in a matter of minutes. Or that you always eat junk, when you're eating healthy and it's just that due to genetics you'll never have a model's body.

What I'm seeing here, is a person who's dealt with little to no prejudice in their life, and doesn't see how arrogant they sound when they're complaining about someone making a stereotype of them. Only then, to go ahead and make a stereotype of someone else. So you keep patting yourself on the back, and talking about fat people as if they're beneath you.

Someone hands you a compliment, saying you can eat anything you want, and you call them a whale. That sounds plain b***y to me.

protege

07-13-2009, 07:06 PM

Thought I'd chime in here about something...

I have no problem with people who are overweight. I'm not exactly skinny either. In fact, I have a slight spare tire. Mainly, because I sit on my ass all day at work, and my metabolism has slowed a bit since turning 30. Also, working full-time, plus taking care of the house, putting the MG back together, etc. means that I don't have time to be constantly exercising. Would I like to do more? Of course I would. With that said, I don't give others shit about their weight.

I do though, have a problem if they (and I apologize for sounding like an elitist asshole) weigh more than both of my cars, and they're giving *me* shit about *my* weight. My feeling is, that unless they're perfect, they have *no right* to say anything. If they do anyway, they're *inviting* some rather nasty comments from me, usually "fuck off" or the Pittsburgh Salute.

Right now, I've had to deal with some nasty comments from my brother about my "spare tire." He's unemployed, sponging off my mother, so has plenty of time to work out. I can't bust his chops about *his* weight (apparently bullshit weighs more than fat :D), but I *can* bust his balls about not having a job. Usually, that's enough to shut him up :p

Thought I'd mention this too--when I do work out, there's one woman there...who I have to give mad props to. She's actually one of my mother's friends, and she's usually the first person to make fun of her weight. Usually, she says something like "I ate a VW Bug for lunch." If she's secure enough to say things like that, more power to her. Oh, and within the past year...she's lost enough weight...that she's literally about half her size!

violetyoshi

07-13-2009, 07:55 PM

I think it's ridiculous for people who are bigger than most others, to act as if somehow they're an authority on health. They might be, but it's ignorant to assume someone will take them seriously at their size, that's just how it is. I also don't know what a Pittsburgh Salute is, I looked on Urban Dictionary and it's not defined yet. So if you want to head over there and define it, that'd be cool. Or you could explain it here, and I will go over and define it.

BroomJockey

07-13-2009, 07:57 PM

I also don't know what a Pittsburgh Salute is, I looked on Urban Dictionary and it's not defined yet. So if you want to head over there and define it, that'd be cool. Or you could explain it here, and I will go over and define it.

I don't think it's really worth putting on UD. It's simply "giving someone the bird," "a one-finger salute," or "extending your middle digit on your hand to indicate a high level of displeasure with an individual or their actions."

ladyneeva

07-13-2009, 08:20 PM

That is not an example of a healthy attitude, it's thinly veiled self hatred. I make digs about myself all the time, and it hurts the people around me. You know, the ones that actually love me and care about my well being, not the so-called friends who are secretly repulsed by me and view me as an object of disgust like you do your mother's friend. If you actually care about someone, you aren't happy, you don't find it FUNNY that they talk down about themselves.

As for the difference between calorie restriction the "radical lifestyle" and calorie restriction the diet plan... I fail to see the difference between the two. A "CR" lifestyle or whatever you call it advocates eating 30% fewer calories than recommended. Most "diet plans" in the US at least advocate eating no more than 1500 calories.

Care to guess what 30% fewer calories than recommended for a 40 year old 150lb female who exercises 30 to 60 minutes a day is?

1540

Tomayto/Tomahto

DesignFox

07-13-2009, 09:52 PM

Well, when I said I counted calories, I meant nothing about a restrictive diet. I simply made myself more aware of what I was stuffing my face with.

Now that I'm not pounding back more food than my body can handle, I'm not gaining weight. AND my body doesn't feel hungry all the time like it did at first.

I don't starve myself. Never claimed that as a solution. You can be aware of your caloric intake without calculators and scales. Just read the nutrition information on the box, or check out the information on the website of your favorite fast food places.

I've also discovered 100 calorie snack packs. Fantastic way to solve cravings for cookies and the like, without going overboard.

If anything, I feel a lot less lethargic than I did a year ago. And I have never had issues with my libido. :p

Everyone is different. The problem I can see with the calorie restrictive diet being described in the links, is that it doesn't allow you to figure out how many calories your body *needs* for the day. You have to meet your needs. You can't starve yourself. But neither can you indulge too much- else your body just stores it up.

The 2,000 calorie diet isn't for every person! It's an average estimate. Each individual needs to figure out what balance works best for them, and use it.

Ever since I've taken on sedentary jobs, I've discovered that I really don't need to eat 2,000 calories in a day. I certainly don't need to be eating MORE than that. So I estimate and keep myself around 1,500-2,000. On a more active day, I might eat a little extra if I feel hungry.

I'll never be a supermodel. I'm too short, and there are certain flaws that will never go away. But I do what I can to feel good about myself and my appearance.

If anyone is unhappy, then they should do something about it. And no, it won't always be easy. That's where your true friends tend to distinguish themselves from other people.

Boozy

07-13-2009, 10:01 PM

As for the difference between calorie restriction the "radical lifestyle" and calorie restriction the diet plan... I fail to see the difference between the two. A "CR" lifestyle or whatever you call it advocates eating 30% fewer calories than recommended. Most "diet plans" in the US at least advocate eating no more than 1500 calories.

But is there anyone here who is advocating that? I thought it important that people here understood that the article you were quoting from was referring to a diet plan to which very few people adhere. Most people who maintain a healthy weight don't starve themselves. They simply pay attention to the calories they are consuming.

There are more than two diets in the world. There is middle ground between "eat whatever you want whenever you want" and the absurdity of the Calorie Restriction diet. I don't think you're going to find anyone here who advocates a starvation diet or anorexia.

DesignFox

07-13-2009, 10:03 PM

But is there anyone here who is advocating that? <snip>
Most people who maintain a healthy weight don't starve themselves. They simply pay attention to the calories they are consuming.

There are more than two diets in the world. There is middle ground between "eat whatever you want whenever you want" and the absurdity of the Calorie Restriction diet. I don't think you're going to find anyone here who advocates a starvation diet or anorexia.

I wish you had posted that before I got all long winded. :D

BroomJockey

07-13-2009, 10:09 PM

There are more than two diets in the world. There is middle ground between "eat whatever you want whenever you want" and the absurdity of the Calorie Restriction diet. I don't think you're going to find anyone here who advocates a starvation diet or anorexia.

Not really defending either side, but pointing out that the CR that ladyneeva is talking about seems to be advocating over 1500 calories/day, according to her math, and then she says many diets call for less than 1500/day, so the CR isn't absurd in that light. I really don't know enough to comment either way about any of it, beyond the difference between "dieting" and a persons "diet" being sometimes subtle but important.

Ree

07-13-2009, 10:22 PM

Yeah, our "fatness" is our own fault in most cases.
Very few overweight people get that way by eating nothing.
That doesn't mean we deserve ridicule for our appearance.
We are, after all, supposed to be about more than just our looks.
What a shallow world it would be if the opposite was true.

As has been said, people have to eat to live, so when a person has a genuine food addiction, it can be very difficult to balance that out.
It seems that food addiction is the one addiction that people are still allowed to ridicule and judge, and have the perception that it's not real, and is just a simple case of laziness or lack of discipline, with people just making excuses for their own lack of self control.

While not excuses, there are quite often very real contributing factors to a person's overeating.

Some examples:
-childhood trauma or abuse resulting in the use of food to fill a void
-poor parenting, especially where a parent uses food as a replacement for love and attention, or rewards good behaviour with food
-childhood sexual abuse resulting in emotional trauma with overeating as a result
-rape or assault (the woman eats to excess to make herself as unattractive as possible)
-muscular-skeletal problems that make physical activity and exercise difficult
-emotional trauma resulting in eating to excess
-depression resulting in overeating or food binging

I will admit there are cases where a person just loves food, and loves eating and consumes too many calories.
That still does not give anyone the right to use derogatory names based on a person's appearance.

Boozy

07-13-2009, 10:59 PM

Not really defending either side, but pointing out that the CR that ladyneeva is talking about seems to be advocating over 1500 calories/day, according to her math, and then she says many diets call for less than 1500/day, so the CR isn't absurd in that light.

The numbers don't mean anything out of context. Your ideal calorie intake depends on age, sex, and lifestyle. 1500 calories a day is not restrictive for a woman who is very short and very sedentary, for example. My elderly grandmother, for example, is on a diet of about 1550 calories a day. She can't exercise due to heart problems, and she's barely 5 feet tall. So anything more than that and she'll start packing on the pounds.

violetyoshi

07-13-2009, 11:05 PM

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes

While not excuses, there are quite often very real contributing factors to a person's overeating.

If I haven't heard this BS a million times. People can be fat without constantly overeating, it's called genetics. People are born with the genes to have different body types, some are bigger than others. It's simply a difference, most people can't manage to handle without making it an issue of blame.

Not everyone fat has gone through trauma. This is about as reasonable as saying anyone who is extremely thin is because of trauma. It seems you've bought the fat hate propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.

My problem isn't that I overeat, I'm not very active. Yes, you can be fat too simply from not being that active, it isn't all about people stuffing pies in their faces. Not everyone has 24/7 to be spending exercising. We live in a society now where people do not need to expend the same amount of energy when they had to hunt and survive.

So Ree, go ahead and cheer for the team, that is against you. You have fun with that. We're trying to fight for fat acceptance, and here you are being wishy-washy about shaming yourself, or accepting being fat as a natural part of human diversity. Now I know why Lucy always was so frustrated with Charlie Brown.

Nyoibo

07-13-2009, 11:52 PM

This is the same position people have about drug addicts, except you do not need to take drugs to live. You do need to eat to live, and that's what makes losing weight difficult.

You need to eat to live yes, not gorge to live, having that hamburger once a week, or that t-bone once a week is fine, haveing the burger fries and coke 3 or 4 times a week is not.

My problem isn't that I overeat, I'm not very active. Yes, you can be fat too simply from not being that active, it isn't all about people stuffing pies in their faces.

No sorry, your problem is that you overeat, you overeat for your level of activity and nutritional needs, if you're not very active you need less food than you do if you were active, if you havent modified your eating habits to allow for that then you are overeating.

kibbles

07-13-2009, 11:56 PM

I cannot speak for Ree; but, I don't thnk she was being wishy washy or shaming herself. She made very valid points. Yes there are people who are bigger through no fault of their own; but, there are a lot that are bigger due to their own choices.

One cannot say all people who are big are overeaters, just as one cannot say that all people are big because of their genes and they can't help it.

Flyndaran

07-13-2009, 11:59 PM

...
I have all the time in the world for people who want to help themselves, I do not however have time for, nor give a shit about people who are unwilling to change or help themselves.

And if we have no sympathy for you if you develop a disease, that's ok too? You don't seem to want to help yourself to not be a jerk, so it's the same, right?

...
When I'm at work debating what I want to eat, and one of the whales on my shift says "You can eat whatever you want, it's not like there's anything to you anyway!" it really irks me. And yes, I said whale. Sue me.
...

I won't sue, but I have lost some respect for you. Responding to someone's mistaken belief with bigoted speech is not honorable or nice.
There really are some people that can't keep weight on no matter how much they try to eat.
My best friend's mother was prescribed many drugs including marijuana to try to kick up her appetite. She is still woefully underweight. It isn't even anorexia. She wants to be healthy, but her body simply has anti-hunger.

...
I do though, have a problem if they (and I apologize for sounding like an elitist asshole) weigh more than both of my cars, and they're giving *me* shit about *my* weight. My feeling is, that unless they're perfect, they have *no right* to say anything. If they do anyway, they're *inviting* some rather nasty comments from me, usually "fuck off" or the Pittsburgh Salute.
...

Eh, fat people aren't immune to the skewed culture of fatty hating. They are just as likely to unconsciously spew such bigotry as skinny people.

...
No sorry, your problem is that you overeat, you overeat for your level of activity and nutritional needs, if you're not very active you need less food than you do if you were active, if you havent modified your eating habits to allow for that then you are overeating.

Biology is not that simple!

AFPheonix

07-14-2009, 12:17 AM

Ladyneeva, the article you have quoted from is not about basic dieting, and it's certainly not about eating a healthy diet based on fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. It is about Calorie Restriction, an intensely restrictive dietary plan supposedly meant to increase longevity. The goal of CR is hunger.

For those who are not familiar with Calorie Restriction, here's the wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction).

The vast majority of people who are watching their weight are not restricting themselves to the point of perpetual hunger. CR enthusiats are a fringe group, and they shouldn't be presented as the norm.

Exactly. The most effective diet is figuring out your personal Basal Metabolic Rate (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/), then creating a small calorie deficit by going for a few hundred fewer calories per day. A larger person's BMR will be larger than a small person, simply because they have that much more mass to maintain.
Yes, losing weight can be difficult for people, but it's not nigh on impossible. Start with one small item to give up or substitute.
For example, last summer I stopped drinking soda and gatorade and replaced it with plain water. I also stopped drinking as much alcohol (notice that I didn't stop cold turkey), and started making more of my meals at home where I can control the ingredients. I've lost 10 pounds in the last year just with those small steps. (I can not only zip up my chaps by myself, I can mount my horse from the ground in them, because they're loose enough to allow my knees to bend :D )
Creating a large deficit by undereating or over exercising can actually prevent weight loss. That, and it's not particularly healthy for you.

This is exactly what I was saying. I had an eating disorder, that was just as difficult to work thru as anyone with bulimia or anorexia, and that I still have to watch in case I fall back into it. Someone saying to me "Just eat less, fatso" would have just driven me back inside myself, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to seek help for my eating disorder ever again.

Tho it's true that there are people who are greedy and are fat just cuz they ate all the pies, it's prejudiced to assume that all people who are overweight are so cuz of that. Also, if you've never been in the grip of a mental illness, you're not going to understand it. I also had clinical depression at one point and nope, being told "Cheer up!" wouldn't have done the slightest good when I was struggling with it. :rolleyes:

There's a lot of reasons why people are overweight, it can be a physical thing due to glandular issues, it can be a mental health thing. It can be a socio-economic thing.
If we want to tackle the issues of weight loss, we are simply going to have to go beyond telling people to boot-strap it. It's going to have to start with some real, honest to god CORRECT education on nutrition. People simply don't realize that we are not above the first law of thermodynamics. A lot of people don't realize how much crap goes into processed foods. They think diets mean sticks and stale water, when that simply isn't the case.
We need smarter zoning in cities to allow for real grocery stores to be accessible to all. We need better nutritional information in restaurants and stores.
Having said all that, it still ultimately is up to the individual to figure out how to make use of that information and to get help for themselves, because ultimately it's their hormones that are going haywire from all the excess fat putting out estrogens into their system, it's their knees and hips groaning under more weight than they were designed to carry, it's their hearts that can't get all that fluid moved around the body effectively. If they need mental health care, with the help of an advocate, they need to go get it.
If it's a medication issue, they need to work with their physician to get a combo together that doesn't have unwanted side-effects. If it's a thyroid issue, well, that's easily fixed with a script that's found on most every store's $4 generic list.

MaggieTheCat

07-14-2009, 12:26 AM

I cannot speak for Ree; but, I don't thnk she was being wishy washy or shaming herself. She made very valid points. Yes there are people who are bigger through no fault of their own; but, there are a lot that are bigger due to their own choices.

Yeah, I think Ree was just pointing out that, out of the people who are overweight because they DO overeat, some of them have real medical, physical, or psychological issues that contribute to their overeating, that makes it that much harder for those people to cut back on what they do eat.

If I haven't heard this BS a million times. People can be fat without constantly overeating, it's called genetics. (snip)

Not everyone fat has gone through trauma. (snip)

So Ree, go ahead and cheer for the team, that is against you. You have fun with that. We're trying to fight for fat acceptance, and here you are being wishy-washy about shaming yourself, or accepting being fat as a natural part of human diversity.

Ree never said that the only reason people are fat is because of trauma, and that people only get fat by overeating. She was just pointing out that trauma is one possible cause of people overeating. I also don't see where she's "cheering for the team that is against her" or being wishy-washy or shaming herself. Honestly, your response to her post didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Ree

07-14-2009, 12:58 AM

If I haven't heard this BS a million times. ...
blah
blah
blah...
insult...
blah
blah
blah...snark and snip
Now I know why Lucy always was so frustrated with Charlie Brown.

Excuse me?

Did you read all of the post or just pick and choose what you wanted to use against me to boost your own argument?

I can do without the snotty comments, thank you very much, as I did not say everyone who is fat has background emotional issues. I did say that in many cases, that is the situation. I have not "bought the fat propaganda" as you so snarkily suggested.

I did say that excess weight is usually due to eating too much combined with inactivity.
It's just common sense.

You can go on about genetics all you want, but the fact is, calories in with no energy out = excessve weight, no matter how you want to put the spin.

I have a foster child who weighed 90 lbs soaking wet.
That kid would tie into a plate of food that would put my husband to shame, yet she never gained an ounce.
She was pretty proud of her genetics and metabolism.
After she moved out, I didn't see her for sseveral months.

When I did see her, I know the shock on my face was evident.
She had gained close to 50 lbs.

Her eating habits hadn't changed at all in that time, and she still had the same genes she was born with.

She had moved to another town and was living with this controlling dude who wouldn't let her go out with friends or do much of anything except sit around the apartment.
When she was living with us, she was active and walking daily.

Now, she is out of that situation and has moved back to our town.
She is still eating the same as she always did, yet she is now back to that 90 lb little stick of a girl.
She's back to the daily walking and keeping active.

As for cheering for the team that's against us, I am seriously doing a major WTF??
You made no sense there, Lucy.

Sorry if I frustrate you, but I happen to like Charlie Brown, and I really don't get what you were trying to say there.

AdminAssistant

07-14-2009, 01:11 AM

As for cheering for the team that's against us, I am seriously doing a major WTF??
You made no sense there, Lucy.

Sorry if I frustrate you, but I happen to like Charlie Brown, and I really don't get what you were trying to say there.

Lucy used to call Charlie Brown "wishy-washy" all the time, I think that's where the reference comes from.

Blas, I'm chiming in with the others. It's just as rude to call an overweight person a "whale" as it would be for them to call you a "bimbo".

Ree is absolutely right. Being overweight is caused by eating more and exercising less. However, the reasons for overeating/not exercising vary person to person. It could be genetics, lifestyle, trauma. Not everybody has access to a gym or lives in a place where you can exercise outside all the time. I certainly wouldn't go for a walk in KS in January, not anymore than necessary. Not everyone has time to do it. There are some days when my only breaks are mealtimes. If the option is 'go exercise' or 'finish the paper on time'...well, that's a pretty easy choice.

I really don't care what you think about me privately. I look in the mirror, and while I'm not thrilled, I'm content enough. Enough men still find me attractive, and I'm a generally happy, likeable person. I've never been bigger, but I've never been at a happier place in my life, generally speaking. All I ask is that people keep their nasty fattie comments to themselves. That I can go into stores that sell both regular and 'plus-sized' clothing and get the same service as a thin person. Stuff like that, that's all.

Flyndaran

07-14-2009, 02:23 AM

I've been skinny, normal, fat, and obese. Guess what, I'm happiest being fat. Screw anyone that says I shouldn't be. It's my life, and I deserve the same measure of respect regardless of my weight.

violetyoshi

07-14-2009, 05:43 AM

Lucy used to call Charlie Brown "wishy-washy" all the time, I think that's where the reference comes from.

That's where it's from. If the above poster loves Charlie Brown so much, I would imagine they'd be able to figure out that easy reference on their own. My name isn't Lucy, it's Jackie.

Ree

07-14-2009, 10:41 AM

That's where it's from. If the above poster loves Charlie Brown so much, I would imagine they'd be able to figure out that easy reference on their own. Duh!!

I knew where the reference came from, and once again, if you had actually read the words posted instead of jumping the gun to bash me, as you have been doing for reasons I don't really understand, you would see that.
I meant that I didn't feel the analogy was warranted and so, didn't really understand what the heck you were trying to say.

I don't know what your real name is, nor do I really care but I used the name "Lucy" as a bit of a tongue in cheek joke.
You see, I have always felt that Lucy is a bit of a bully, (and is my least favourite character as a result), and your reply to me came off as just a bit on the hostile and bullying side, so you rather did remind me of Lucy.

I've lived with a weight problem my whole life, and as much as I would like to blame it on other factors and pretend that genetics just dealt me a lousy hand, the truth is, while genetics does play a small part in my body shape and build, my eating habits and activity level do not match.

I really don't eat all that much, actually, and on some days, I will even forget to eat meals, but if I look back at what I actually did consume, it was either something really quick and full of starch, salt, or fat, yet my activity level for the day was practically nil outside of my normal workday or running around after and lifting my granddaughter.

I don't really understand the need for such venom toward my comments.
I thought I had made the point that nobody deserves to be made fun of just because of their weight, and I had thought that was your point, too.

In other words, I had thought we were on the same team.
You talk about me siding with the team that's against us, but you're the one slapping away the hand offered in solidarity.

ladyneeva

07-14-2009, 11:20 AM

I was using an average for my calorie estimate -- 40 year old female, 5'10", 150lbs, exercising 30-60 minutes a day. As for the 1500 calories being what people try to stay under, you're seriously telling me you did not notice that at least twice it has been stated that that is the poster's goal? And thats just this thread... I can link to at least a half dozen threads I've participated in or read in the past year where people were advocating down to 800 calories a day as being the magic amount that will 'fix' everyone.

Assumptions are being made (in all threads of this nature, including this thread) about people when the people making them have no way of knowing if they're true... and if we try to tell you you're talking out your ass about us you accuse us of lying! It's a no win situation, you have already made up your minds about us, sight unseen, based solely on the number on a scale.

Regardless of the reason I (or anyone else) is fat... we're not BROKEN. We do not need you to fix us, and we sure as hell don't need or in most cases WANT your pity and condescension. We just want to be treated like human beings, not called "whales" or have garbage thrown at us from car windows because we dared show our hideousness in public.

I find it infuriating in this society that if someone were to post on a board like this that they were called a stupid slut because they're skinny, blond and dressed in revealing clothes almost everyone will comment about how inappropriate that comment was, yet if someone says they were called a fat cow because they're over 25 BMI they get told "well if you don't like it, lose weight".

Why should a fat woman be expected to put in an enormous amount of effort to temporarily change something (every study ever done except the most biased and least scientifically valid ones has pegged the long term success rate of dieting to lose weight at no more than 20%, most put it at between 3% and 5%) just to earn the right not to be insulted? We don't expect the blond to dye her hair and wear sweatpants if she wants to be treated like a person.

All anyone wants to discuss though is why people are fat... and honestly, that just doesn't matter. What needs to be discussed is why society in general thinks how someone looks is the single most important facet of their personality and if they don't fall within some narrow range of "average" they're free game to be called names, physically and psychologically assaulted, and assumed to be stupid, lazy, immoral, and anything else the person in question wants to accuse us of. Who *cares* why we're fat, what I want to know is why everyone only thinks that is wrong but the way we are treated because of it is just something we should accept as being nothing more than we deserve for our "crime"?

Lace Neil Singer

07-14-2009, 11:47 AM

Plus there's a huge difference, pardon the pun, between being a few pounds overweight and being morbidly obese.

I could probably stand to lose a few pounds, however I'm a lot healthier than some of my skinnier friends; one in particular is thin, exercises regularly and is a vegetarian, yet catches every cold going and has far more health problems than I do.

ladyneeva

07-14-2009, 01:39 PM

I hate the term obese. And overweight for that matter. Those are clinical check marks on some bullshit mathematical scale, and once you get labeled with one of them you're screwed. You're no longer just a large person who can choose if they want to diet away a couple pounds for vanity, you are suddenly a national freaking health crisis and the symbol of all that is wrong, lazy, gluttonous and horrible about modern life.

I am not even kidding. I have a family member who was going in for monthly checkups due to a completely non weight related issue (broken hand due to getting it crushed between a trailer hitch and the associated trailer while hooking it up... how she managed that I have no idea). As a routine matter of course, they took her weight every visit. For months her doctor had absolutely no problem with her weight. She even asked a couple times if he thought she should diet and he said that he did not think it was necessary.

Then one month she went in and the magical BMI formula came back overweight... and suddenly she was getting The Lecture. You have to lose weight, you have to lose it right now or you will die! You need to lose at least 50lbs if not more! Here's the number for a nutritionist so she can teach you what foods you can and can't eat if you want to live.

How much weight had she gained?

ONE POUND.

That is how BMI (the system which the terms 'overweight' and 'obese' are based on) is used. You can argue until you're blue in the face that it's intended for use in statistical models of population trends, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to health care, insurance, and public opinion it's used to decide who is a good person and who is a bad person that just has to accept being mocked/insulted/assaulted because it's really all their fault anyway.

Nyoibo

07-14-2009, 02:20 PM

AdminAssistant

07-14-2009, 03:24 PM

Possibly different in the US, but in Australia people being overweight has a bearing on me, my taxes go up, public health care gets overtaxed treating symptoms of overweight people.

So does smoking, tanning, drinking alcohol, and having children. I would actually argue that having kids is a larger burden on the insurance system than being overweight. That argument doesn't hold much water with me; there are many activities that can potentially increase someone's health costs - everything from laying out in the sun for an hour a day to riding a motorcycle.

ETA: Actually, my weight had never come up directly at a doctor's appointment until recently. When I went to the clinic for migraines, the doctor told me, "Well, exercising for 30 minutes a day would help." Um, how exactly? *sigh* Then when I went to see the gyno she said, "You know, your BMI isn't where we'd like to see it, but I bet you know that." (She said it in a friendly, polite manner; we'd been laughing and joking our way through my medical history). Then, "You may want to consider talking to the folks in our wellness center". Which I intend to do once I'm in classes again and can go to the clinic without an extra fee.

ladyneeva

07-14-2009, 04:27 PM

Considering that three fourths of the health care costs are to pay to treat fatness itself and not anything that might be caused by it, if the medical care system would stop pushing expensive drugs (with equally expensive to treat side effects, remember fen-phen?) and even more expensive surgical mutilations on us in an effort to 'fix' us, the cost savings would be immense.

Then you have the observed fact that many many fat people resist going to the doctor until it is very seriously bad... mainly because we know that we'll just be told to lose 100lbs and call them in the morning anyway. If we're going to get blown off until the problem has escalated to the point where even a first year medical student can't ignore it anymore anyway, why bother spending the $20 to $40 for the office visit?

So by the time we do go, we're usually in such severe straits that a condition which could have been entirely cured with a cheap pill or minor outpatient procedure is now something requiring much much more money just to stabilize and often CAN'T be cured but only maintained.

Of course, part of the "added cost" of being overweight on the health care system might just be that instead of dying from a stroke, heart attack or kidney failure we actually have a better chance of SURVIVING? http://tinyurl.com/yuf3tu

The fact that we survive those incidents better means that yes we'll cost more than someone who dies the first time.

For that matter, there is an idea starting to be tossed around that maybe the higher risks of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc aren't a result of being unhealthier overall but rather the result of being healthier overall... and therefore living long enough to get them! Maybe these things are actually very common as our species ages, and it's just that previous generations weren't living long enough for them to develop. Since we're now living longer on average, we're now seeing them more. And since medical care is better than ever, they're also starting to be detected earlier than ever, which is also adding to the "rising numbers" that are being reported.

But nobody wants to think like that when it's easier just to blame people... after all, if you can convince yourself that they brought it on themselves because they were lazy, gluttonous, or stupid that means that since you know you aren't any of those things, that you're a good person, it means you won't get them yourself.

AFPheonix

07-14-2009, 05:55 PM

I'm sorry, you're quoting a blog as gospel. A blog that goes pretty much in the face of every peer reviewed article I've ever read on the subject.

Being fat is NOT GOOD FOR YOU. I really don't care that much if your fat. Whatever, that's your gig. Hell, even after that 10 pounds I lost by mild restriction and substitution, I have probably 15 more to go. But deliberately spreading misinformation displeases me. I deliberately ignored the fact a few pages ago that you quoted me as an example of someone who hates fatties, when you apparently didn't bother to read that particular post, or even any of my other posts. I am not hating on fatties in general. That post was railing against pretty much what you've been doing the last few posts, which is being deliberately ignorant about basic physics and heath.

It is a FACT that obesity greatly increases the risk and severity of heart disease.
It is a FACT that it greatly contributes to our rising numbers of type 2 diabetics, and the age for onset of that type of diabetes is getting younger.
It is a FACT that excess adipose tissue acts as part of the diffuse endocrine system and proceeds to screw up the rest of your glandular activity. (see the fact about diabetes)
It is a FACT that you can lose weight with a moderate calorie deficit. It is a FACT that creating a large calorie deficit prevents you from actually losing weight.

violetyoshi

07-14-2009, 05:58 PM

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes.

It is a FACT that obesity greatly increases the risk and severity of heart disease.
It is a FACT that it greatly contributes to our rising numbers of type 2 diabetics, and the age for onset of that type of diabetes is getting younger.
It is a FACT that excess adipose tissue acts as part of the diffuse endocrine system and proceeds to screw up the rest of your glandular activity. (see the fact about diabetes)
It is a FACT that you can lose weight with a moderate calorie deficit. It is a FACT that creating a large calorie deficit prevents you from actually losing weight.

www.bigfatfacts.com

Try reading these FACTS.

AFPheonix

07-14-2009, 06:11 PM

www.bigfatfacts.com

Try reading these FACTS.

Ah yes, from the Big Fat Blog. Again with the people using blogs from fat activists as gospel.

Get me some peer reviewed articles to back up your claims that obesity is a healthy condition.

BroomJockey

07-14-2009, 06:16 PM

Get me some peer reviewed articles to back up your claims that obesity is a healthy condition.

From the references at the bottom of the quoted page.

"Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity" by Katherine M. Flegal, PhD; Barry I. Graubard, PhD; David F. Williamson, PhD; Mitchell H. Gail, MD, PhD
JAMA. 2005;293:1861-1867.

"The Epidemiology of Overweight and Obesity: public health crisis or moral panic?" International Journal of Epidemiology 2006;35:55-60
by Paul Campos, et.al.

Check through whatever journal viewing sources you have for appropriateness of citations, I suppose. I'll look at them when I have a spare.

AFPheonix

07-14-2009, 07:10 PM

From the references at the bottom of the quoted page.

"Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity" by Katherine M. Flegal, PhD; Barry I. Graubard, PhD; David F. Williamson, PhD; Mitchell H. Gail, MD, PhD
JAMA. 2005;293:1861-1867.
Here's the abstract of that one. (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/15/1861) Oh look, obesity is associated with more deaths relative to people at normal weight.

"The Epidemiology of Overweight and Obesity: public health crisis or moral panic?" International Journal of Epidemiology 2006;35:55-60
by Paul Campos, et.al.
This seems to be the one they pulled most of their info from, but I guess they totally ignored the many later articles at the bottom of the page that cite this one and then proceed to prove exactly the opposite of what this one says. Go figure.

Both of those blogs are classic examples of the fat advocacy does. They pick and choose out of different articles, completely represent other findings, and in general obfuscate facts to make themselves feel better. If you're really happy about being fat, then be happy. Whatever, that's your schtick. It doesn't affect me directly. BUT. Don't try to lie to make yourself feel better or even feel superior to others. It's wrong.

BroomJockey

07-14-2009, 07:29 PM

Oh look, obesity is associated with more deaths relative to people at normal weight.

You CAN park the snarky attitude. As I said, I'd not had the chance to read them yet.

powerboy

07-14-2009, 09:02 PM

You CAN park the snarky attitude. As I said, I'd not had the chance to read them yet.

Seriously, AFPheonix you seem to be doing the samething as the people who wrote the blogs. If you do not want any fat people around, then you have a couple of choices. 1) Do something about it, besides bitching on some website. 2) Move to a deserted island, where you can be by yourself.

Who gives a damn, if someone is overweight. As long as they are happy. For your information, people can be in shape and still be overweight. It is called muscle mass. Think about that.

Boozy

07-14-2009, 10:03 PM

Powerboy, I fail to see where AFPhoenix has said that she doesn't "want any fat people around". She's said multiple times that she's fine with people weighing whatever they want to weigh. But like me, she dislikes bad science, or real science used in dishonest ways.

I could care less what someone weighs. I don't judge based on appearance. I don't tell my overweight friends to lose weight, because their body is their business. I don't even care if someone's weight costs me more in taxes (due to universal health care here in Canada), or otherwise mildly inconveniences me. After all, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

But if facts are being misrepresented, especially on a debate forum, then someone is well within their rights to point that out, without being accused of hating fat people.

AFPheonix

07-14-2009, 10:07 PM

You CAN park the snarky attitude. As I said, I'd not had the chance to read them yet.

I fail to see how that was all that snarky to you. I read the article abstract and skimmed the body, and that's what they concluded, contrary to what the fat blog would like people to believe. I'm not attacking you, I'm going after people who purposefully misrepresent information.

DesignFox

07-14-2009, 11:01 PM

I was using an average for my calorie estimate -- 40 year old female, 5'10", 150lbs, exercising 30-60 minutes a day. As for the 1500 calories being what people try to stay under, you're seriously telling me you did not notice that at least twice it has been stated that that is the poster's goal? And thats just this thread... I can link to at least a half dozen threads I've participated in or read in the past year where people were advocating down to 800 calories a day as being the magic amount that will 'fix' everyone.

<snip>

Um, If you're talking about me, I specifically mentioned that for MY, not everyone's, just MY, body type and calorie needs, I stay BETWEEN 1,500 and 2,000.

If you are 5' 10" and 150 lbs, you are almost a foot taller than me and 30 lbs heavier.

I would presume that your body has different needs from mine.

AND if you'll go back and re-read my posts, I'm going to say this for the last time, I agree that it is rude to simply assume that someone wants or needs help losing weight. AND I even agree that it's wrong to demonize someone for being fat.

If however, a person DOES feel unhappy because they are fat, then they should DO something about it and quit complaining. Otherwise, they don't get my sympathy.

The only point I do disagree on, is that being obese is healthy. Sorry. When someone starts getting 100-200 lbs overweight, that isn't healthy. More power to the person who is happy that way. I don't care- afterall- that person isn't directly affecting me- but they probably aren't healthy.

My own experience with weight gain was quite negative. I was quite lethargic. There's a lot of things that improved *for me* when I lost that extra weight. And I am trying to trim up a bit further. But I don't starve myself. I don't go on crash diets or use dietary aids. And I certainly don't over exert myself. Nor do I do any of those things that people with genuine eating disorders do. Nor do I advocate such things.

I have known more than one person who was physically fit that could be described as heavy or overweight. (one's quite the equestrian- she fox hunts 3 days a week, year round...you'd never know it by her appearance!)

And, at least on THIS thread, I didn't see a single person advocating the consumption of 800 or less calories in a day... Nor did I see a single person mention a specific number that will "fix" anyone.

I think a few people shared what worked for them, for the couple of people that described their situations and wanted to know.

AND I think almost everyone stipulated that they understood that everyone's bodies and dietary needs are different.

Where's that dead horse beating icon?

BlaqueKatt

07-15-2009, 01:34 AM

When I went to the clinic for migraines, the doctor told me, "Well, exercising for 30 minutes a day would help." Um, how exactly? *sigh*

well actually exercise has been proven (http://www.elements4health.com/study-shows-continuous-aerobic-exercise-reduces-migraines.html) to help migraine sufferers-

"The findings show that the program decreased the frequency of migraines and improved quality of life.

Some migraine patients have found that regular exercise helps in reducing the frequency of migraines, and many headache experts recommend exercise in migraines."

from relieve migraine headache.com
(http://www.relieve-migraine-headache.com/headache-and-exercise.html)
Why Exercise can help you!
Not convinced? Think you're better off just taking a pill? Don't see the connection between headache and exercise? Here's how exercise makes a difference if you are dealing with headaches.
» Reduced muscle tension You know, all that tension that makes you feel tired out all the time, that makes you not want to exercise in the first place? Another headache and exercise link.
» Reduced anxiety which makes it easier to cope with any kind of pain
» Toned up blood vessels, a place where an important part of the migraine and headache chain-reaction takes place.
» Increased relaxation in general
» Increased blood and lymph circulation That means more oxygen in (an important headache-fighter), and more toxins out!
» Reduced fatigue Some people believe that fatigue itself is a migraine trigger, or perhaps the lack of exercise that results.
» Improved sleep, more sleep Very important for the migraineur for a number of reasons!
» Improved digestion This means more nutrients that your body needs, and quick removal of toxins.» Muscles less likely to spasm and trigger a headache.
» Blocking of “bad” chemicals Exercise causes complex chemical changes in the brain. Some believe that when some of these “good” chemicals start flowing, they actually block the “bad” chemicals that can be part of the migraine chain-reaction.
» Increased endorphins in the body. Endorphins are your body's natural painkillers. They also help you feel better overall. The problem is that endorphin levels often seem to be low in migraineurs, and frequent use of painkillers can lower the level still further. If you can increase the endorphins through exercise, you're decreasing your need for other painkillers and ending the downward spiral. Endorphins are a huge headache and exercise bonus.

What if you had a pill that did all that? And that's only a few of the benefits that directly impact people with headaches. We could list many more. Why not give exercise a second chance? You may find that the headache and exercise link could change your life!

heck enter the search term "Exercise helping migraines (http://www.google.com/#q=exercise+helping+migraines&hl=en&fp=1&cad=b)" in google and the first page is full of studies where aerobic exercise reduces frequency of migraine attacks. My migraine attacks decreased from two a week to once a month when I started riding my bike to and from work.

but hey of course the doctor was just picking on your weight-not trying to help with migraines :rolleyes:

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

I agree with DF on the complaining thing, if you don't want to fix anything* you have no right to complain about about it.

It's like complaining you're getting rained on but refusing to open the umbrella in your hand for whatever reason

*anything meaning anything from feeling bad because you're overweight(not because of what others say-there's over 6 billion people on the planet, one person's opinion doesn't hold much weight), to being in an abusive relationship, to being depressed.

I have no sympathy for those that won't try to fix their problems(their own self-identified problems, not problems others may think they have)-but want to complain about them-example- my coworker "J" is constantly complaining about her BF hitting her(well he hits her back after she hits him),does she do anything other than complain? Nope, so no sympathy.

Nyoibo

07-15-2009, 02:15 AM

Fat acceptance, www.bigfatfacts.com, one assumes that there is also support for pro-ana then too, because it's the same thing.

BroomJockey

07-15-2009, 02:28 AM

Fat acceptance, www.bigfatfacts.com, one assumes that there is also support for pro-ana then too, because it's the same thing.

Err, no. Close, but not quite. There's a difference between promoting acceptance of a body shape and promotion of a mental affliction, since anorexia/bulimia are recognized disorders.

I fail to see how that was all that snarky to you.

"Oh look." As in "I'm smart to have known this already and had my position confirmed." The tone was completely unnecessary. A simple statement of "The study says this" would have been fine.

violetyoshi

07-15-2009, 02:39 AM

http://community.livejournal.com/childfree/9972377.html?view=189232281#t189232281

Interfering with a working SD is a felony. And I would press charges, I don't care how young the kid is. If they're above the age of criminal responsibility, their ass is going to be charged.

Two parents are walking with their daughter, who is 4. They point out, "Oh look, a doggy!" and the kid comes running over. I place myself between her and my dog and say, "Do not touch the dog!" in a mean adult voice.

Moo and Duh immediately start yelling at me for telling their kid not to touch the dog. Duh said, and I quote, "She's only four, she doesn't know better!"

And I said, "But you're not four and you do know better. Keep your kid away from my dog or I will call the police and have you arrested for felony interference with a service dog."

They went to complain to the store manager, using choice insults like, "Fat and lazy isn't a disability, blah blah.

The manager told them to leave. And not to come back. He then apologized to me, explained that in the future an employee would accompany me around the store to handle the problem customers and children and assist me in my shopping."

Just an example of the discrimination that is allowed to be said about fat people. The manager of that store had the decency to ban those people from their store. However, most people feel it's perfectly reasonable to assume that a person is lazy simply because they don't have washboard abs.

You couldn't get away with saying, being Black isn't a disability, or Mexican, or Gay in the same regards. Yet it's alright in our society to assume, if someone isn't thin, they must be abusing the disability system, and it must be because they're fat and don't have a real problem.

AdminAssistant

07-15-2009, 04:24 AM

well actually exercise has been proven (http://www.elements4health.com/study-shows-continuous-aerobic-exercise-reduces-migraines.html) to help migraine sufferers-

"The findings show that the program decreased the frequency of migraines and improved quality of life.

» Reduced muscle tension You know, all that tension that makes you feel tired out all the time, that makes you not want to exercise in the first place? Another headache and exercise link.

but hey of course the doctor was just picking on your weight-not trying to help with migraines :rolleyes:

Just picked out a few parts.

As I explained to my doctor, this was the mid-semester, pre-Spring Break crunch. I did not have time to exercise. I wasn't getting much sleep and I was stressed to the max. It was still freakin' cold outside. I didn't see how getting up even earlier and going to the gym...so all the people there could laugh at the fatty on the elliptical was really going to improve my situation. (I know, logically, that doesn't happen, but I have self-image issues that I try to work through. I'm finally getting okay with the person in the mirror now, but I wasn't then.) Added emotional stress combined with even less sleep? No thank you. He actually did prescribe midrin, that did fuck all, so I just decided to be in pain, because I didn't have time to go back. Besides, as he also told me, I didn't have migraines, I had tension headaches. My symptoms weren't "severe" enough for a migraine. Whatevs man. They've been much much better this summer, but if they come back in the fall, I'm going back.

Riding a bike to school? Well that would be nice, if I had a spare $250 lying about for a decent bike, could ride a bike properly, and if my school wasn't at the top of a huge ass hill. And have I mentioned how cold it gets in Kansas during the winter?

Y'know, hopefully my schedule in the fall won't be so hectic (12 hours of doctoral level classes in one semester are a bad idea, btw) and I'll be able to exercise and cook more and do all those wonderful things that fit in with a healthy lifestyle. But ultimately, right now, school comes first. I have to get through this program, so that I can finally get a job and get on with my career. If that means carrying a little extra baggage around, so be it.

But all of this is besides the point of this thread, which is: I deserve to be treated the same as everyone else.

AFPheonix

07-15-2009, 08:26 AM

Err, no. Close, but not quite. There's a difference between promoting acceptance of a body shape and promotion of a mental affliction, since anorexia/bulimia are recognized disorders.

"Oh look." As in "I'm smart to have known this already and had my position confirmed." The tone was completely unnecessary. A simple statement of "The study says this" would have been fine.

I apologize if I came off as snarky to anyone on the board, while I did intend snark, it was directed at the blog writers who intentionally misconstrued the paper they cited, not to you or anyone else I've been replying to here on the board.

As for the Fat Acceptance movement and pro-ana, for a segment of FA, there really is no difference between them and pro-ana people. They purposefully suck in people who are obviously mentally ill, and then when those people do get help and actually start losing weight, they are shunned. If they were truly pro-body acceptance, they would accept people's decision to lose weight just as they choose to accept people who retain their girth.

violetyoshi

07-15-2009, 08:54 AM

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes.

If they were truly pro-body acceptance, they would accept people's decision to lose weight just as they choose to accept people who retain their girth.

They do. They just advise against losing weight, because in most cases it's a futile effort. There's yo-yo dieting, the body's resistance to starvation causing one to put more fat on after a starvation period, than before it.

I'm sure you'll just say it's like pro-ana people advising their followers against eating though.

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting.~Please edit quotes.

I didn't see how getting up even earlier and going to the gym...so all the people there could laugh at the fatty on the elliptical was really going to improve my situation.

I'm sure AFPheonix will be more than happy, to suggest that people making fun of you while you exercise, isn't making fun of you, it's motivation. :rolleyes:

ladyneeva

07-15-2009, 10:19 AM

Both of those blogs are classic examples of the fat advocacy does. They pick and choose out of different articles, completely represent other findings, and in general obfuscate facts to make themselves feel better.

And thats different from what the diet industry does... how exactly?

If you're really happy about being fat, then be happy. Whatever, that's your schtick. It doesn't affect me directly. BUT. Don't try to lie to make yourself feel better or even feel superior to others. It's wrong.

It's kind of hard to be happy when you can't leave your own fucking house without being told what a worthless piece of shit you are and how you should just die so that you're not wasting valuable resources. Especially hard to do when even those in support of the whole dieting thing admit it has an 80-90% or higher failure rate. So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Oh look, obesity is associated with more deaths relative to people at normal weight.

Wow, thats juvenile. Going "I'm right and you're wrong nyah nyah nyah" is snarky in the extreme. I can't afford a JAMA membership to actually read the study under discussion myself, but I can tell right there that it is not a STUDY exactly but rather the study of a set of surveyed statistics... do we know that the statistics were relayed correctly? If all they did is look at the death certificates they're not going to get accurate results. For example, if someone dies of heart failure that is exactly what their death certificate says... "heart failure". If that same person is also "overweight" or "obese" by the BMI measurements, a study such as this would mark them down in the "death by obesity" group. Even though the heart failure could have had NOTHING to do with the weight, and the weight could have had NOTHING TO DO with the BMI.

Example, my father... his death certificate says "heart failure", and his BMI in the 70's would have been around 35 range as he was 6'4" and around 290 or 300 at the time. I seriously doubt a man who made his living climbing telephone poles while carrying 50-60lb rolls of phone line and a tool belt (we still own it and I think most of the tools are still in it, it weighs 40lbs) for 8 to 10 hours a day then went home and did all the tasks required to maintain a functional farming operation was FAT.

He also had a congenital heart condition which claimed his life at the age of 72. His death certificate says cause of death is heart failure, his BMI says he was "obese"... and a study like this would peg him as his death being caused by obesity... even though it wasn't.

If there is one example, there are probably more.

Secondly, they are including deaths caused by obesity treatment as proof of obesity causing death. For example, weight loss surgery alone, by itself, has a one year post surgery death rate of 4.6% (which is three and a half times greater than that for triple bypass surgery... an emergency procedure performed on usually 75 year old heart attack patients immediately following a heart attack while weight loss surgery is an elective procedure most often performed on fat but otherwise relatively healthy 40 year olds). Undoubtedly they also counted people with depression who killed themselves... even though there is no scientific evidence that fat causes depression but rather that the way you are treated for being fat causes depression.

And they probably also counted people who died of heart failure caused by taking fen-phen as contributing to the death by fat numbers. This weight loss drug regimen caused an estimated 50,000 cases of valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension (some of which resulted in death) in those taking it. It was on the market since the 70's, the numbers could be higher since a lot of doctors will see "fat" and "hypertensive" and blame the fat without considering it could be a drug interaction. Even after the news broke about that and the drugs were recalled, it's entirely likely some doctors still blamed the fat for hypertension in former fen-phen users. And thats just one diet drug cocktail... there are others, and a lot of them have side effects which can result in death.

Those are just three possible explanations for why numbers based on comparing surveyed BMI and only BMI to reported cause of death... and you also missed some important information from the results section of the report in question:

Results Relative to the normal weight category (BMI 18.5 to <25), obesity (BMI ≥30) was associated with 111 909 excess deaths (95% confidence interval [CI], 53 754-170 064) and underweight with 33 746 excess deaths (95% CI, 15 726-51 766). (1)Overweight was not associated with excess mortality (–86 094 deaths; 95% CI, –161 223 to –10 966). (2)The relative risks of mortality associated with obesity were lower in NHANES II and NHANES III than in NHANES I

1: overweight was NOT, I repeat NOT associated with excess mortality... which was the reason this study was cited on the Big Fat Facts website -- the ones shoehorned into the obese label are fewer than those in the overweight category, and it was a discussion of the overweight category NOT the obese category that caused this study to be cited on that website

2: notice that the risks of mortality went DOWN in the two newer studies... could that possibly be because medical care, as a whole, is getting better and a lot of the deaths they blamed on obesity from the earliest study might not have been caused by obesity at all? Might possibly we discover that as medical science progresses that say heart disease is caused by something other than fat and fat is merely a side effect or even completely unrelated? My opinion, and honestly it's not worth much because I haven't studied the subject in any depth.

They purposefully suck in people who are obviously mentally ill, and then when those people do get help and actually start losing weight, they are shunned.

Please tell me you did not actually just say that fat people are mentally ill if they don't diet. Because thats sure as hell what it looked like.

And as for the "complaining" thing... I AM NOT COMPLAINING THAT I AM FAT.

I am complaining because people don't fucking treat me like a human being deserving of decency.

I am complaining because I have a backache caused by having a 250lb pinball table slam me back first against a stair railing and I can't get any treatment for it even if we could afford it because I happen to also be fat (so they blame the backache on the fat rather than BEING SLAMMED INTO A WALL BY AN OBJECT THAT MASSES DAMN NEAR AS MUCH AS I DO).

I am complaining because I have a foot that even their own damn x-rays say the bones are seriously fucked up in and I can get no treatment for it because apparently organic damage caused by a bad fall when I was 12 is because I am fat now... even though at 12 I was in the 95th percentile for height but only 'average' for weight... which means I was proportionally skinnier than other girls my age, since that average weight had to cover 6" more height at least.

I am complaining because even though I would LIKE to ride my bike more, and I would LIKE to walk more and I would LIKE to swim more... every time I do any of those things it's another fucking nail in my psyche because of "children" as young as their 20's who think they need to follow me around, call me names and throw shit at me.

I am complaining because nearly every damn time I go to the grocery store, some asshole thinks it's ok to comment on whats in my cart... even though they have no idea if the food in my cart is even for me!

I am complaining because I feel like I can't even leave my house anymore without my husband, because of the intolerant assholes in my community that have actually driven me to attempt suicide at least twice this year alone, and because of the intolerant assholes in the medical community I can't even get a REFERRAL for psychological treatment, and because of the assholes in government now that my husband has lost his job I damn well BETTER succeed next time because we can't afford it if I fail without insurance.

I am complaining about living in a society where everyone from the government talking heads, to your doctor, to assholes on the internet and in the street ASSUME I eat at fast food places 3 times a day when the reality is I maybe eat there 3 times a month and that was when we had $600+ extra a paycheck to blow on whatever the hell we wanted.

I am complaining because when I DO go to a fast food place and eat maybe half a burger and half my fries I get judged for ordering fast food... while my husband sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME eating two burgers that are usually twice the size of the one I order and fries that are also usually larger doesn't garner a second look.

I am complaining because again, everyone from the talking heads in the government to people on the internet is all "you need to eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains!" but none of them is willing to give me the ability or wherewithal to DO it... and then when I can't do it because those things cost upwards of twice to three times as much, when I can't do it I GET BLAMED FOR IT.

I am complaining because I am getting blamed for shit that isn't even remotely my fault, such as global warming and health budget spending.

THOSE ARE THE THINGS I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT

REFERENCES:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/15/1903
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fen-phen

Nyoibo

07-15-2009, 11:17 AM

Please tell me you did not actually just say that fat people are mentally ill if they don't diet. Because thats sure as hell what it looked like.

I believe they were refering to people who have an obsesive problem or such, basically the same way pro-ana people work, other wise you could say "Please tell me you did not actually just say that thin people are mentally ill if they don't eat."

I am complaining because again, everyone from the talking heads in the government to people on the internet is all "you need to eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains!" but none of them is willing to give me the ability or wherewithal to DO it... and then when I can't do it because those things cost upwards of twice to three times as much, when I can't do it I GET BLAMED FOR IT.

I don't know what it's like there, I have no idea what prices for food are like there, how much is fruit and veg and meat where you are?

Boozy

07-15-2009, 11:27 AM

I'm sure AFPheonix will be more than happy, to suggest that people making fun of you while you exercise, isn't making fun of you, it's motivation. :rolleyes:

Again, I have to ask: Where in this thread has AFP ever said that it is okay to make fun of overweight people?

ladyneeva

07-15-2009, 01:02 PM

I don't know what it's like there, I have no idea what prices for food are like there, how much is fruit and veg and meat where you are?

Depends on what time of year it is, what area of the country it is, and what products we're discussing. Our grocery stores tend to price things in "tiers" where I live. So you'll have 2-3 products at the lowest price (typically $1/lb or $1.24 AU per 16oz), maybe 3 or 4 at the next highest price of $2/lb ($2.49 AU per 16oz) then everything else is $3/lb to $9/lb typically with a very few "luxury" items over that.

So for vegetables right now, at the $1 level you can get radishes, sweet corn, and summer squash. At the $2 level are red or green leaf lettuce, mushrooms and green beans right now.

Fruits... strawberries are the only option at the lowest level, the $2 level has cherries (finally! I've been waiting... last month they were running $4+ per pound), nectarines, and peaches.

Meats are a special case... while the prices are advertised per pound, often enough that price is only available if you get the 'family size' packages of 10lbs or if you buy whole cuts rather than just one pound

So for example, at the $1 price we can get pork shoulder right now, but it's ONLY priced that if you buy the whole shoulder -- both shank and butt ends. Thats easily 20lbs of meat. Thats about what my husband and I go through a month... no matter HOW good the deal is, eating one and only one kind of meat for an entire month isn't very appetizing. And pork shoulder is pretty fatty anyway (thats basically an unsmoked ham -- the smoking process draws out a good bit of the fat, consider how fatty it has to be before that!).

At the $2 level you can get chicken breast (in 10lb packages) pork chops (in 10lb packages) or 93% lean hamburger (in, you got it, 10lb packages).

Fish right now is starting at a minimum of $3/lb.

It's not so much that there aren't any cheap options -- it's that what is cheap either requires you to buy a massive amount (making it not cheap, and ensuring that you get sick of it) or the selection is extremely limited. Meaning you'll get very sick of it if you end up eating, say, zucchini every meal for a week.

Nyoibo

07-15-2009, 03:05 PM

AdminAssistant

07-15-2009, 03:24 PM

Where I live, chicken is pretty expensive (about $6-$7 per package of chicken breasts), and even then it's the 15% rib meat injected with fluids. Beef is pretty reasonable, but I don't really eat much red meat.

Produce..eh...drawback of living in the middle of the country. You can get the really fresh, homegrown, organic stuff...if you want to pay an arm and a leg. I do have the problem that lady neeva has...it's just me. I can't go through a package of grapes or a bunch of bananas before they go bad.

Ah well. Going back home has been a nice reminder at how relatively cheap food prices in Kansas are.

ladyneeva

07-15-2009, 04:11 PM

That's a hell of a lot cheaper than here, here pork chops are around $10-$15 a kg, ground beef is about $13 and lamb is between $15-$20, food prices are way cheaper there by the looks of it. I would suggest buying it in 10lb packages and freezing it, buy one of each of those $2 ones and there's meat for a few months, and you have variety to choose from.

A kg is a bit over 2 US pounds, and I'm assuming you're also using AU dollars... so your pork chop example there while it sounds really expensive is equivalent to US $2-3 a pound -- which, when they're not on sale (I was quoting prices out of an advertising flier, so naturally it's the products on special sale this week) is about what we pay. Assuming we buy the 10lb packages, generally the smaller the package the higher the price. Lamb I have no idea, I don't care for it... but it's considered somewhat of a 'yuppie' food -- something rich people buy to show off with, not something that is an everyday food for the 'working class' -- so I imagine it's quite expensive. I will look next time I go shopping.

And you also misunderstood the pricing in another way... it is $2 PER POUND not per package. The packages are 10 pounds at $2 per pound, so the actual price you pay for the package is $20.00... when your food budget for a month is only $80-100, you simply cannot afford to blow a quarter of your budget on one item.

Nyoibo

07-15-2009, 04:22 PM

Closer to $4 a pound, but yeah about that, and that is on special. Lamb here is basically what beef is to the US.

I got that it's $20 per package for the meat, I'm just curious, if you can't afford fruit vegetables and meat, then what do you eat? I am genuinley interested because I have no clue what sort of stuff households have in the US.

BlaqueKatt

07-15-2009, 04:48 PM

And have I mentioned how cold it gets in Kansas during the winter?

I live in WI-I've seen -37f ambient temperature with a wind chill making it -80f-I ride until it snows enough to stick, I have torn up ligaments in both knees, biking is easier on them than walking(no impact) and due to my migraines I don't want to get my DL as mine will render me almost blind at times, all I'm saying is the doctor was more than likely not picking on your weight like you assumed-exercise can help, if you have time for it.

AdminAssistant

07-15-2009, 05:51 PM

BK, and hopefully I will have time for it, I just didn't then. And I hate hate hate the cold. One of the other doc students makes fun of me because of my getup for walking around during winter - coat, gloves, scarf, headband, hood up...literally no exposed flesh. I just can't handle it. I'm the odd duckling that prefers scorching heat to freezing cold. :shrug: So, outdoor exercise is pretty much out from late November through March.

AFPheonix

07-15-2009, 06:06 PM

And thats different from what the diet industry does... how exactly?

I'm not advocating for pill pushers either. As I've posted before, I'm advocating sensible eating habits, understanding and getting to the bottom of pathology of obesity and rectifying them, if there's a physical, mental, or socio-economic reason. That's it. If you are mentally healthy, glands are in good working order, and you're happy with your weight no matter what it is, more power to you. If you're struggling with OCD or depression or whatnot and the obesity is a side effect, then I advocate making mental health care affordable.
If you have a craptacular thyroid, then I advocate an extremely cheap $4 generic medication.
If you live in an inner city where there is nothing to eat except fast food or convenience store food because you have no car and no public transportation, then I advocate people getting on board with their local governments to work on zoning and other social issues to alleviate that problem.

It's kind of hard to be happy when you can't leave your own fucking house without being told what a worthless piece of shit you are and how you should just die so that you're not wasting valuable resources. Especially hard to do when even those in support of the whole dieting thing admit it has an 80-90% or higher failure rate. So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And that's really unfortunate that people are doing that to you, I'm not advocating doing that to people either. As I've mentioned, I really don't care what weight you are, it doesn't affect me one way or another, just don't spread misinformation to people.

Wow, thats juvenile. Going "I'm right and you're wrong nyah nyah nyah" is snarky in the extreme. I can't afford a JAMA membership to actually read the study under discussion myself, but I can tell right there that it is not a STUDY exactly but rather the study of a set of surveyed statistics... do we know that the statistics were relayed correctly? If all they did is look at the death certificates they're not going to get accurate results. For example, if someone dies of heart failure that is exactly what their death certificate says... "heart failure". If that same person is also "overweight" or "obese" by the BMI measurements, a study such as this would mark them down in the "death by obesity" group. Even though the heart failure could have had NOTHING to do with the weight, and the weight could have had NOTHING TO DO with the BMI.
I suspect that this study and many others went a bit more in-depth than that to keep track of any variables that might affect their findings. Yes, heart disease can be attributable to other causes such as smoking and family history. However, smoking rates have decreased, I suspect family histories have held fairly constant, and obesity rates have risen. Rates of heart disease have also risen, at least in the US. What do we make of that?
We can also thank Big Pharma for putting a bandaid on the problem by making some really incredible new drugs in the last 20 years, such as the beta blocker class, the statins, and others. However, barring for family history, people who stop smoking and start eating correctly tend to need less of those medications because the mitigating factors that were increasing their cholesterol and blood pressure went down.
Eating better and exercising even moderately equals a healthy populace, and costs a helluva lot less than a ton of people on Lipitor.

Example, my father... his death certificate says "heart failure", and his BMI in the 70's would have been around 35 range as he was 6'4" and around 290 or 300 at the time. I seriously doubt a man who made his living climbing telephone poles while carrying 50-60lb rolls of phone line and a tool belt (we still own it and I think most of the tools are still in it, it weighs 40lbs) for 8 to 10 hours a day then went home and did all the tasks required to maintain a functional farming operation was FAT.

He also had a congenital heart condition which claimed his life at the age of 72. His death certificate says cause of death is heart failure, his BMI says he was "obese"... and a study like this would peg him as his death being caused by obesity... even though it wasn't.

If there is one example, there are probably more.
I'm sorry to hear about your father, mine also passed a few years back. But your father was older, that was a mitigating factor, he probably had a family history of heart disease. As has been said before on this board, the plural of anecdote does not equal data.

Secondly, they are including deaths caused by obesity treatment as proof of obesity causing death. For example, weight loss surgery alone, by itself, has a one year post surgery death rate of 4.6% (which is three and a half times greater than that for triple bypass surgery... an emergency procedure performed on usually 75 year old heart attack patients immediately following a heart attack while weight loss surgery is an elective procedure most often performed on fat but otherwise relatively healthy 40 year olds). Undoubtedly they also counted people with depression who killed themselves... even though there is no scientific evidence that fat causes depression but rather that the way you are treated for being fat causes depression.
And again, I'm not advocating weight loss surgery except for the most dire of circumstances, and for those people that do end up getting it, they need to be working with a nutritionist, a doctor and a mental health care provider to keep them from relapsing.
This is still not comparable to what I have been advocating, which is what I've outlined above, and pretty much mentioned in my first post in this thread.

And they probably also counted people who died of heart failure caused by taking fen-phen as contributing to the death by fat numbers. This weight loss drug regimen caused an estimated 50,000 cases of valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension (some of which resulted in death) in those taking it. It was on the market since the 70's, the numbers could be higher since a lot of doctors will see "fat" and "hypertensive" and blame the fat without considering it could be a drug interaction. Even after the news broke about that and the drugs were recalled, it's entirely likely some doctors still blamed the fat for hypertension in former fen-phen users. And thats just one diet drug cocktail... there are others, and a lot of them have side effects which can result in death.

That one has been off the market for years. Perhaps Vioxx would have been a more salient example, although that's been off for nearly 5 years as well. All medications have side effects, even ones as innocuous as tylenol or advil. Which is why I would prefer diet to be the primary method of achieving better health.

1: overweight was NOT, I repeat NOT associated with excess mortality... which was the reason this study was cited on the Big Fat Facts website -- the ones shoehorned into the obese label are fewer than those in the overweight category, and it was a discussion of the overweight category NOT the obese category that caused this study to be cited on that website

2: notice that the risks of mortality went DOWN in the two newer studies... could that possibly be because medical care, as a whole, is getting better and a lot of the deaths they blamed on obesity from the earliest study might not have been caused by obesity at all? Might possibly we discover that as medical science progresses that say heart disease is caused by something other than fat and fat is merely a side effect or even completely unrelated? My opinion, and honestly it's not worth much because I haven't studied the subject in any depth.

As I mentioned earlier, quite a few drug classes have come out in just the last 30 years to treat many of the comorbidities of obesity. And again, would you rather people eat better and exercise, or take a pill for their problems? I know which one is cheaper and safer, especially since we just got done talking about how many drugs have side effects.

Please tell me you did not actually just say that fat people are mentally ill if they don't diet. Because thats sure as hell what it looked like.
Not at all. I said that people who are obese as a result of mental illness are preyed upon by FA advocates like Kate Harding. I'm not saying that all obese are mentally ill, I haven't said that yet in this thread. I realize this is a subject near and dear to your heart, but please, actually read what people are posting, don't try to find insult in places where there is none.

And as for the "complaining" thing... I AM NOT COMPLAINING THAT I AM FAT.

I am complaining because people don't fucking treat me like a human being deserving of decency.
-snip-

I am complaining because I am getting blamed for shit that isn't even remotely my fault, such as global warming and health budget spending.

THOSE ARE THE THINGS I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT

REFERENCES:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/15/1903
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fen-phen

If you've seen me peg any of that on fat people, then I apologize. However, after going through my posts, I don't think I've said any of that in the slightest. What I've said is all plainly here for anyone to see if they calm down long enough to read it.
That goes for you too, Violetyoshi, I don't know if I kicked your puppy or something, but I'm not sure why you're choosing to mischaracterize anything I say.

ladyneeva

07-15-2009, 11:10 PM

I got that it's $20 per package for the meat, I'm just curious, if you can't afford fruit vegetables and meat, then what do you eat? I am genuinley interested because I have no clue what sort of stuff households have in the US.

Processed foods. Raman noodles, boxed mac and cheese, frozen pizzas, canned (tinned) pasta products, lunch meats (like really cheap bologna and stuff that I'm not even sure what species it is never mind what part of the animal).

AFPheonix... you advocate for all these big sweeping social changes... but until then we just need to put down the pie, but we're wrong for being offended that you just called us all greedy pigs. Got it.

anriana

07-15-2009, 11:47 PM

I got that it's $20 per package for the meat, I'm just curious, if you can't afford fruit vegetables and meat, then what do you eat? I am genuinley interested because I have no clue what sort of stuff households have in the US.

If I couldn't afford fresh fruits and vegetables, my diet would be rice, beans, pasta, and canned vegetables in various configurations. I might add tofu depending on exactly what the budget is, as it's a somewhat cheap protein source. I would make my own hummus (beans and spices). And I would eat packaged noodles from the Asian grocery (just as cheap and a billion times tastier than ramen). It may be just my area, but fresh vegetables like onions and potatoes are cheap and so are fruits like apples and bananas.

Rice is easy and quick to make, even without a rice cooker. I can pop it on the stove and stir-fry some veggies + tofu or mix together some beans and veggies and have a healthy/cheap/yummy dinner and lunch the next day.

This is pretty close to what I eat now except I buy a few more types of fresh fruits and vegetables and occasionally get lazy and buy prepackaged food.

But I'm not the typical American resident as I don't eat meat.

Boozy

07-15-2009, 11:58 PM

AFPheonix... you advocate for all these big sweeping social changes... but until then we just need to put down the pie, but we're wrong for being offended that you just called us all greedy pigs. Got it.

[MOD NOTE]

This again. I'm getting tired of it.

Neither AFPheonix nor anyone else here has called you a "greedy pig." Putting words in the mouths of other members is poor form. I realize that people will interpret what people post in different ways, and that's usually fair game for debate. But we take name-calling very seriously around here. Please do not accuse another member of name-calling unless you have a quote or post to back it up. And in that case, the proper course of action is to report the post.

LeChatNoir

07-16-2009, 12:56 AM

And you also misunderstood the pricing in another way... it is $2 PER POUND not per package. The packages are 10 pounds at $2 per pound, so the actual price you pay for the package is $20.00... when your food budget for a month is only $80-100, you simply cannot afford to blow a quarter of your budget on one item.

My husband and I also generally shop on a budget. Something we do that helps us get a lot of meals is we buy the bulk packages of meat. Say, 5-6 lbs. package of hamburger, and then we freeze it in 1 lbs. packages. We also buy a large bag of frozen chicken (costs about $7 here for 6-7 pieces). This usually lasts us 2 weeks, sometimes more, depending on what we eat. Granted, we go through a lot of chicken/hamburger helper type meals...but it's a substantial meal for not a lot of money, and that way we're not eating the same thing every single night. Another nice cheap meal option we eat a lot of is spaghetti. A can of spaghetti sauce, half a box of noodles and a pound of meat and there you go.

Anyway, this was kind of a ramble. Obviously my suggestions aren't necessarily "low fat/low calorie" choices, but they keep us from going crazy from monotony without destroying the bank. I can't eat the same stuff all the time.

Cat

07-16-2009, 01:05 AM

I like making soup (okay, is the only thing i CAN make). If i make a huge pot, it lasts a week and is only around $20. I change up the spices to try to make it more interesting :)

violetyoshi

07-16-2009, 03:22 AM

[MOD NOTE]

This again. I'm getting tired of it.

Neither AFPheonix nor anyone else here has called you a "greedy pig." Putting words in the mouths of other members is poor form. I realize that people will interpret what people post in different ways, and that's usually fair game for debate. But we take name-calling very seriously around here. Please do not accuse another member of name-calling unless you have a quote or post to back it up. And in that case, the proper course of action is to report the post.

I see, and what about the numerous posts where AFPheonix insinuates that someone has to be mentally ill in order to be fat?

Flyndaran

07-16-2009, 05:51 AM

Fat acceptance, www.bigfatfacts.com, one assumes that there is also support for pro-ana then too, because it's the same thing.

Umm, anorexics die very often and very early. The fattest man to live lived over 50 years. Not comparable risk factors.

...
You couldn't get away with saying, being Black isn't a disability, or Mexican, or Gay in the same regards. Yet it's alright in our society to assume, if someone isn't thin, they must be abusing the disability system, and it must be because they're fat and don't have a real problem.

I don't think ethnicity is a disabilty. I don't think I'm in the minority on this.
Also, chubby people don't suffer catcalls. It's almost always the morbidly obese that usually suffer this stigma. So if you plan on hyperbolizing, then please exaggerate every part of your argument. It's less confusing.

... Besides, as he also told me, I didn't have migraines, I had tension headaches. My symptoms weren't "severe" enough for a migraine. Whatevs man. ...

Not every horrible headache is a migraine. For example, most men suffering from severe head pains have cluster headaches that are just as painful, but different than migraines.

... There's yo-yo dieting, the body's resistance to starvation causing one to put more fat on after a starvation period, than before it.
...

Actually yo-yo dieting is healthier than staying fat all the time, as long as the weight was lost in a healthy manner.
Starving is always bad. Eating healthy is always good.

I'm sure AFPheonix will be more than happy, to suggest that people making fun of you while you exercise, isn't making fun of you, it's motivation. :rolleyes:

No evil person knows that they are evil.
I guess dicks don't know that they are dicks as well.

...
It's kind of hard to be happy when you can't leave your own fucking house without being told what a worthless piece of shit you are and how you should just die so that you're not wasting valuable resources. Especially hard to do when even those in support of the whole dieting thing admit it has an 80-90% or higher failure rate. So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
...

...the hell? I seriously doubt you are slammed with such nasty vitriole every single time you leave the house. It may feel like that, but I simply refuse to believe that you are surrounded by that many vocal a-holes.
Dieting almost always works. It's just really hard to keep eating healthy when your very essence screams constantly for food.

...
Example, my father... his death certificate says "heart failure", and his BMI in the 70's would have been around 35 range as he was 6'4" and around 290 or 300 at the time. I seriously doubt a man who made his living climbing telephone poles while carrying 50-60lb rolls of phone line and a tool belt (we still own it and I think most of the tools are still in it, it weighs 40lbs) for 8 to 10 hours a day then went home and did all the tasks required to maintain a functional farming operation was FAT.
...

Actually exercise does not magically make one a healthy weight. It's always easier to avoid eating 500 calories than it is to exercise 500 calories off.
Did you watch that old "Nova" program that took a total of 13 average people and got them into shape to run a marathon? The fat ones were still fat at the end.

I believe they were refering to people who have an obsesive problem or such, basically the same way pro-ana people work, other wise you could say "Please tell me you did not actually just say that thin people are mentally ill if they don't eat."

I'm maybe a little too loose with the mental ill label. Heck, I used to call all religious people delusional. People that are morbidly obese, but for whatever reason refuse to lose weight, are mentally ill in my opinion. My phobia and anxiety make me mentally ill.

I'm not advocating for pill pushers either. ...

Heh, I would be advocating for pills if there were any diet substances that weren't just stimulants or ineffective appetite supressants. If they developed ones that worked as advertised, then I would be perfectly happy to give them out like candy.
Better living through chemistry!

...
AFPheonix... you advocate for all these big sweeping social changes... but until then we just need to put down the pie, but we're wrong for being offended that you just called us all greedy pigs. Got it.

That is uncalled for. Nowhere on this forum did he make such an accusation.
To convince us of your opinions you need to respond to what people actually write rather than what you are afraid they might write.

...
But I'm not the typical American resident as I don't eat meat.

Not everyone can eat totally vegetarian. I tried but got rather ill. I hate that we are evolved to be omnivores. All I can do is avoid eating mammals. I eat chicken, but I feel guilty about it afterwards.

I see, and what about the numerous posts where AFPheonix insinuates that someone has to be mentally ill in order to be fat?

There's a big difference between morbid obesity and simple fat.
Also, it's okay to express a general opinion in this forum as long as it isn't a personal attack. Calling a large group that one believes to be mentally ill such is not a personal attack.
For example, I could call religion a mental illness. Even if you are religious that does not make that a personal attack, just something that nearly everyone will dissmiss as silly or just plain wrong.

AFPheonix

07-16-2009, 06:35 AM

I see, and what about the numerous posts where AFPheonix insinuates that someone has to be mentally ill in order to be fat?

I have not made that insinuation. I have made the accomodation that depression and other mental illness can lead to obesity for some people, which is hardly a novel idea.

It's kind of like the idea that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

Again, did I kick your puppy or something? You sure have drawn a bead on me for really no reason at all.

Anyways, as for cheap meal ideas, getting really cheap cuts of meat such as roasts and then slow-cooking the hell out of it can be nutritious, healthy, and often doesn't take too much effort as you can throw the roast in the slow-cooker with some veggies and seasonings, head out to work for the day and come back to a fabulous supper.
I love my slow cooker :3

Boozy

07-16-2009, 12:05 PM

I see, and what about the numerous posts where AFPheonix insinuates that someone has to be mentally ill in order to be fat?

...it's okay to express a general opinion in this forum as long as it isn't a personal attack. Calling a large group that one believes to be mentally ill such is not a personal attack.
For example, I could call religion a mental illness. Even if you are religious that does not make that a personal attack, just something that nearly everyone will dissmiss as silly or just plain wrong.

Flyndaran offers good clarification here. Thanks. :)

How AFPhoenix's posts can be interpreted is a fair subject for debate as long as accusations of rule breaking aren't involved. I ask this because when I see someone accusing another of calling them a name, I have to carefully comb through the thread to see if there is some merit to the complaint. And this thread is LONG. :p

ladyneeva

07-16-2009, 12:08 PM

Boozy

07-16-2009, 12:16 PM

Not every horrible headache is a migraine. For example, most men suffering from severe head pains have cluster headaches that are just as painful, but different than migraines.

Cluster headaches are much, much more painful than migraine headaches. They're also known as suicide headaches, since so many sufferers make attempts on their own lives during an attack, and in fear of one. They're generally accepted as the worst pain known to humans.

Migraine is a neurological disorder, which may or may not include headache symptoms. People tend to call every bad headache a migraine, but doctors aren't likely to diagnose migraine unless the headache is accompanied by other neurological symptoms and/or nausea. For example, I've had migraine attacks where the left side of my body has become numb, but I haven't had the headache pain.

Whether or not AdminAssistant had tension headaches or migraine, exercise does help. The frequency of my attacks is cut in half when I'm getting regular exercise. I've found regular exercise helps with virtually every bodily complaint I have (with the exception of viruses like cold and flu). I made excuses not to exercise for years, but once I finally started I couldn't believe how much better I started to feel. Exercise is the magic pill, no question.

Boozy

07-16-2009, 12:28 PM

If you can't see how saying someone "eats enough for a family of four" or "just won't put down the pies" are phrases that's only possible meaning is that the person engaging in those behaivors is greedy (taking an excessive quantity that they do not need) or a pig (commonly understood to be someone who is fat, greedy, and often lazy) then I do not now to explain it.

To clarify: You accused AFPhoenix of calling "us all" greedy pigs, implying that there was a personal attack when there was not one. How you interpret her post is up to you, as long as you accept that she is speaking about obesity in general and not about you personally.

I love how all of you are so happy to tell me what I should be eating to 'cure' my fatness... but not one of you knows what I do eat. I guess it's ok for everyone here to make assumptions about my life, but it's not ok for me to make an assumption about what they meant by saying I 'won't put down the pies' or 'eat enough for a family of four'.

I don't believe that anyone has told you what to eat. You are internalizing everyone's arguments and assuming that they are speaking about you personally. They are not.

This is a debate forum where broad issues are discussed. One might be an adherent of a religion that is being debated, or a member of a political party that is being skewered, or just a proponent of an idea that no one likes. Whatever the case, we need to be able to debate these things in general without worrying about causing personal offense.

Nyoibo

07-16-2009, 12:31 PM

And this thread is LONG. :p

Oh come on, 24 pages isn't that long. :p

If you can't see how saying someone "eats enough for a family of four" or "just won't put down the pies" are phrases that's only possible meaning is that the person engaging in those behaivors is greedy (taking an excessive quantity that they do not need) or a pig (commonly understood to be someone who is fat, greedy, and often lazy) then I do not now to explain it.

What else do you say from someone eating enough for a family of four?

I love how all of you are so happy to tell me what I should be eating to 'cure' my fatness... but not one of you knows what I do eat. I guess it's ok for everyone here to make assumptions about my life,

Hey, I did ask thank you. Assumption will come into it a bit, would you be forthcoming if we asked you to tell us what an average meal plan for the day entailed?

Boozy

07-16-2009, 12:38 PM

Hey, I did ask thank you. Assumption will come into it a bit, would you be forthcoming if we asked you to tell us what an average meal plan for the day entailed?

I don't think that's a good idea, frankly. The issue here is obesity in general, not any one member's diet plan.

Nyoibo

07-16-2009, 12:42 PM

I don't think that's a good idea, frankly. The issue here is obesity in general, not any one member's diet plan.

Hmm, maybe I should have phrased that better, I claim fatigue, what I meant to illustrate is that without information beinf offered or supplied assumption must enter into any thinking on a subject.

That make more sense?

AdminAssistant

07-16-2009, 02:56 PM

Heh, I would be advocating for pills if there were any diet substances that weren't just stimulants or ineffective appetite supressants. If they developed ones that worked as advertised, then I would be perfectly happy to give them out like candy.
Better living through chemistry!.

Well, there is Alli...losing weight through diarrhea! Even if I wanted to suffer through that, I can't take it because I've had gallbladder surgery. EW.

Whether or not AdminAssistant had tension headaches or migraine, exercise does help. The frequency of my attacks is cut in half when I'm getting regular exercise. I've found regular exercise helps with virtually every bodily complaint I have (with the exception of viruses like cold and flu). I made excuses not to exercise for years, but once I finally started I couldn't believe how much better I started to feel. Exercise is the magic pill, no question.

I don't know that I'd call it a magic pill. "Magic pill" implies an easy solution, like taking a pill. To me, exercise is not "easy" or "fun" or "invigorating". It's hard and icky, but yes, when I get back from my visit home, I am going to make a more concerted effort to do something...due to silly university rules, I can't go to the health center or gym this summer because I'm not enrolled in summer classes.

I guess my complaint was that when the midrin didn't work, I didn't feel like I could go back to the doctor because I wasn't exercising for reasons I've already mentioned. So I just hurt for the rest of the semester.

violetyoshi

07-16-2009, 05:02 PM

I have not made that insinuation. I have made the accomodation that depression and other mental illness can lead to obesity for some people, which is hardly a novel idea.

It's kind of like the idea that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

Again, did I kick your puppy or something? You sure have drawn a bead on me for really no reason at all.

Anyways, as for cheap meal ideas, getting really cheap cuts of meat such as roasts and then slow-cooking the hell out of it can be nutritious, healthy, and often doesn't take too much effort as you can throw the roast in the slow-cooker with some veggies and seasonings, head out to work for the day and come back to a fabulous supper.
I love my slow cooker :3

Nobody can disagree with you, without you acting as if someone kicked your puppy. With your "I haven't done anything at all.", you've only bothered to contradict and claim anything anyone says in regards that obesity isn't a complete death sentence, must be wrong.

BlaqueKatt

07-16-2009, 10:37 PM

glaring out and out lie on the first page of "bigfatfacts"

THE CLAIM: Obesity is unhealthy. It causes heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, arthritis, impotence, depression, sleep apnea, deep vein thrombosis, and dementia.

THE TRUTH: Obesity has not been found to be the primary cause of any of these health problems. There is little evidence that adiposity (excess fat tissues) produces the claimed pathologies.

From medline plus medical encyclopedia (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000313.htm)

This article focuses on type 2, which usually occurs with obesity and insulin resistance.

but I suppose a medical encyclopedia is "biased" and big fat facts which has an agenda to push is totally reliable despite outright lying on it's first page.

Boozy

07-16-2009, 11:05 PM

I guess my complaint was that when the midrin didn't work, I didn't feel like I could go back to the doctor because I wasn't exercising for reasons I've already mentioned. So I just hurt for the rest of the semester.

It's too bad that your doctor didn't offer you any choices.

My doc prescribed some simply back exercises to help with my scoliosis. I didn't like doing them because they made it difficult to listen to my iPod at the same time...which is the only reason I like to work out. So I just didn't do them. When I went back for a follow-up, I complained about pain, but was honest and said I hadn't done any of the physiotherapy. He just sighed and wrote me a prescription. Then he said, "You can have back pain. You can have some nasty side effects from this drug. Or you can exercise. Those are your options. Your call."

I ended up doing the exercises.

Flyndaran

07-16-2009, 11:07 PM

Well, there is Alli...losing weight through diarrhea! Even if I wanted to suffer through that, I can't take it because I've had gallbladder surgery. EW.

I don't know that I'd call it a magic pill. "Magic pill" implies an easy solution, like taking a pill. To me, exercise is not "easy" or "fun" or "invigorating". It's hard and icky, but yes, when I get back from my visit home, I am going to make a more concerted effort to do something...due to silly university rules, I can't go to the health center or gym this summer because I'm not enrolled in summer classes.
...

You don't lose weight through diarrhea unless you ignore the medication's requirement and totally overwhelm it. Under normal usage, loose stool is not that common of a side effect.

Magic pill could just as easily mean that it helps nearly all physical ailments.

glaring out and out lie on the first page of "bigfatfacts"

THE CLAIM: Obesity is unhealthy. It causes heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, arthritis, impotence, depression, sleep apnea, deep vein thrombosis, and dementia.

THE TRUTH: Obesity has not been found to be the primary cause of any of these health problems. There is little evidence that adiposity (excess fat tissues) produces the claimed pathologies.

From medline plus medical encyclopedia (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000313.htm)

This article focuses on type 2, which usually occurs with obesity and insulin resistance.

but I suppose a medical encyclopedia is "biased" and big fat facts which has an agenda to push is totally reliable despite outright lying on it's first page.

Being obese is the opposite of exercise, in that it makes nearly every problem worse. Even if it doesn't quite work as the one and only cause of said problems.

I don't see why you need overwhelming evidence that being super heavy might lead to joint damage, having a much greater blood volume might lead to heart disease, poor diets might lead to cancer, fatty throats might lead to sleep apnea, etc. They seem pretty obvious to me, therefore I would need evidence that fat doesn't often lead to such problems.