Dude, you know stress leads to heart disease. All this raging is unhealthy for you. How can you be so selfish? 
I dunno … being one hundred pounds underweight would be pretty serious. 
Changing the behaviors is not so Herculean. Thing is the body wants the weight to stay and adjusts accordingly, so with consistent improved behaviors the weight loss will slow down and then stop. More weight loss then requires much more effort. When people are judging “success” by what the scale says, and even more so by achieving a BMI of under 30 if not under 25, then they get discouraged as a result, and give up or claim that they don’t care anymore. Which is a shame because the lion’s share of the health benefits can be achieved with relatively little fat loss, 5 to 10% of body weight, so long as it is maintained with the improved nutrition and exercise habits.
AqualungBats5th, ah but keeping outrage in and unexpressed is much more stressful than constructively expressing it, don’t you know?
Don’t fat people and cigarette smokers do more than their fair share to keep social security solvent? If they die at age 65, they don’t get to collect all the money they contributed.
I’m about 10 lbs overweight, and find that I don’t give a fluff. There’s more to life than some extra weight.
True enough.
But if the difference between being fat and not being fat is only a tiny morsel here and there doesnt it stand to reason that eating a smidge less to not be fat does NOT equal eating like a king versus eating like a squirrel?
One LITTLE bit less each day of all the good shit you enjoy nooming on doesnt seem to me to be major life sacrifice.
Well to lose at the same rate it’s not having the extra 100 calories (which would maintain) and subtracting another 100 calories. So it’s a 200 calorie change from mindlessness.
For me (and I’m not answering for all fat people, just me), not having the extra 200 calories isn’t mindless. I don’t care that much about food. Unless I devote a great deal of time thinking about it, I eat more than I need. The only times I’ve ever been successful at losing weight, it’s involved a ton of pre-planning, doing checklists, organizing, and fussing and hard core type-A behavior. (I’m a Myers-Briggs P) It’s been the failure to do that has been about 70% of the torpedoing of my “lifestyle changes.” (The other 30% is another thread)
I’ll leave that to others to debate. I came by to offer a perspective on how people get fat, not how they get skinny again.
I guess this is when the self-righteous skinny person–hopefully not me :looks around sheepishly:–steps in and says something about this is why exercise and reduced caloric intact go hand-in-hand.
Ectomorphic people, of whom I am a member, should probably stay out of these kinds of discussions because it’s harder for us to gain weight and easier for us to lose. So it’s easier for us to judge and not be sympathetic, when we really should be.
But 200 calories really doesn’t seem that big of a deal to me. That’s a pop tart and a sip of wine. Or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or half of a Einstein Brother’s schmeered bagel. It might mean having just ice cream for dessert instead of apple pie AND ice cream. Or getting the McDonald’s combo without the syrupy drink. Or just getting the cheese pizza without the extra meat toppings.
I can understand not wanting to calorie-count and not wanting to sweat and not wanting to deprive yourself. But 200 calories out of day’s allotment of 1700-1900 calories…it just doesn’t seem that big of a sacrifice. Maybe subtracting 200 really wouldn’t make a difference? But then it seems like the “extra 100 calories a day” thing wouldn’t amount to much either. So I guess I share you with the face’s confusion.
Well, thanks for nothing! I already know how to get fat. :mad:
The trouble is - and I speak only for myself - that when a fat person does decide he/she wants to lose weight, for whatever reason, she (let’s not kid I’m talking about anyone but myself) doesn’t want to lose at some glacial rate which is all that would happen with cutting 200 calories per day.
Besides, I couldn’t be sure that I’d only been eating an extra 100. I don’t know of anyone who counts calories when they’re not actively trying to lose weight. What if I miscalculate and a deficit of 200 calories isn’t enough? At that rate it could take me 50 years to lose the weight.
No, as another poster further up said (sorry short-term memory loss has defeated me again), weight loss programmes involve a lot of planning, fussing, calculating and organisation. Unlike gaining weight.
Are you saying I shouldn’t quit my day job and hire myself as a freelance how-to-get-fat consultant? Dammit.
Pfffft. If there was any money in teaching people how to get fat, I’d be a bazillionaire - weight up and down for decades. There’s not a lot I don’t know about how to get fat. 
I get that. I feed my inner child as well, although I realize that the older I get the harder I have to work to keep that inner child from taking over my adult body, so I tend to get more physical activity than I have before and I try to make healthier choices when it comes to food. Doesn’t mean I can’t ever have Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio and New York Super Fudge Chunk; just means it’s a treat and there is a trade-off. I can make choices that keep me healthy and I can make choices that feed my inner child. I am not unaware of the consequences of any of those choices, nor am I kidding myself about those consequences.
What I don’t get is not caring about or even acknowledging the very real impact that indiscriminate eating to excess has on the average person’s health. You may not be suffering now, but at a certain point the body’s ability to deal with excessive weight degrades and that’s when your quality of life certainly will suffer. You seem to think that an unhealthy lifestyle ends in a quick death after a short life and I think it’s a mistake to believe that. By and large, the sickest of the sick (the chronically ill) are typically these days the ones who didn’t take care of their health. Maybe in another time and place, you may have eaten yourself into an early grave. Now, modern medicine can prolong that life, but at what cost? Diabetes can kill, but amputation can save that life. A heart that has been pumping furiously supporting an excessively large body eventually weakens, but medical intervention can make that heart keep pumping. You may associate sickness with old age, but don’t kid yourself that sick doesn’t also come with younger age for people who abuse their bodies. And, yes, persistent excessive weight is abuse.
I’m not a hater. I’m dealing with weight issues myself and I grew up with parents who have dealt with weight issues. But you talk about quality of life as if it were zero sum and I think that’s naive.
10 lbs. overweight is not fat in the sense that the OP is talking. I doubt anyone’s going to take you to task for not being concerned about 10 lbs. And yes, there is more to life than extra weight. That’s the point.
Please forgive if I come across as a jerk.
But it really doesn’t have to involve “programmes”. I’m not going to say it’s easy because obviously it isn’t. A person does have to be conscientious. But finding your maintenance caloric budget based on your dimensions and activity level and dropping below that by a couple of hundred calories isn’t that brain-numbingly hard. Especially with so many free calculators on the internet.
Also, if calorie-counting is too vexing a chore, one can add an insurance policy by doing some exercise. Walking a couple of miles for 30-40 minutes removes 100+ calories easily. As you get more fit, you can make that an hour of walking and then you’ll really be sure that you’re burning.
Don’t keep any snacks in the house. That’s another way to keep the calories at bay. I went to the store today and thought about getting a bag of Fritos. But then I saw how big a bag it was…and I imagined it migrating from the kitchen counter to the living room couch and then to my bed. I thought to myself, “No, I don’t really need my bedroom to smell like Fritos!” By refraining from this single purchase, I have eliminated the need to count any calories.
I understand that it’s frustrating to see the fat melt away at a glacial rate. But something has to give. If you don’t want to tackle it with a bulldozer and see fast results, and you don’t want to chip away at it with a spoon and see slow results, then is the alternative just to do nothing? Well, I guess I see how doing nothing is the path of least resistance, especially if you don’t mind being overweight.
But if that’s the case–and I say this not to you, but to all the fat people who constantly ride my ass–I really don’t want to hear any complaining about how lucky I am that I am skinny. And how much you “hate” me, however jokingly you say it. A person who exercises daily and watches what they eat is not lucky. They are simply working harder than you are. Not caring to do what it takes means you shouldn’t be complaining about how unfair it is that you are fat and other people aren’t. Because you know what you have to do. You’re just choosing not to do it. (again, not you you, but the people-who-get-on-my-nerves you.)
I hate that I’m sounding like a jerk, but these are the thoughts in my head right now.
See, I think that’s part of the problem. It sounds like instant gratification is behind this mindset. Well, if it took you years to put on 50-100 lbs., it’s unreasonable to expect that it should come off (and stay off) overnight. Sure, you can do it quickly, but it’s not recommended and, like you said, it requires a LOT of effort and sacrifice. The “glacial rate” weight loss *is *the easy way and it’s more likely to stick because you’re creating habits that don’t require a great deal of effort and planning. It’s simple because all you have to do is make healthier food choices at least part of the time, eat less and move more. There have been numerous threads on how to do each of those things without any planning and organization at all.
monstro, imagine if someone commented to you “Hey just eat 200 calories more a day. How hard can it be?” I think you’d at least think, if not say, “Harder than many may think.”
Plus very few, thin or obese, can estimate serving sizes well; basically we all suck at figuring out how many calories we eat. Calorie counting as an effective long term life style change rarely works. (Not never, but rarely.)
amarinth, jabiru, how about screwing calorie counting? Instead commit to just a few things:
- Eat a healthy breakfast every day.
- Half of each plate or serving of food is vegetables and fruits (without high fat dressings or added sugars).
- Take a smaller serving and wait five minutes before taking more, asking yourself first if you are really hungry for more, and don’t take more unless you are.
- No, or at least very rare, added sugar or highly processed foods.
-And adding in some small additional exercise, to add up to at least half an hour every day. Could just be parking farther away from a destination and walking briskly ten minutes to and fro with taking the stairs a few times a day.
Indeed you won’t suddenly become svelte doing those things, but you will, within a very short period of time, improve your health.
Well, note that I said I know losing weight isn’t easy and that a person does have to be conscientious.
But also note that I’m not going around telling people how lucky they are that they are not underweight, nor am I complaining about how hard it is for me to gain weight. I am consuming at a rate that makes me feel comfortable
(something analogous to 100 extra calories a day), and I have gained weight since I created that GQ thread. I may not be at my 125 lb goal yet, but I’m not wasting away anymore. So I don’t think I’m being hypocritical. The slice of pecan pie with ice cream I had for dessert is a testament to this.
And also note that I am not giving up because I think it’s too hard. I know what I need to do and I will continue to work on it. I know it’s not rocket science. It’s just discipline and doing what you have to do to be healthy. Damn how easy or hard it is for other people.
Again, and maybe I wasn’t clear - it’s the monitoring. Not eating the 200 calories isn’t the problem. I don’t feel hungry and deprived. I feel frustrated and annoyed at the lists and the checking and the calorie counting and the planning and reporting and checking and fussing. For me (again, not for everyone) making sure those extra 200 calories don’t sneak in takes a lot of mental work and frustration. Maybe you’re the type of person who likes that - wakes up every morning with a to-do list and enjoys checking it off as you accomplish your tasks for the day and making other lists & lists and enjoys that type of organizing. I hate it. Drives me up the wall. The only people I know who have been successful at losing weight have done exactly that.
And 1700 calories? That’s a lot. My metabolism (which has been checked by professionals) is nowhere near that high. Even with a reasonable exercise program (“at least a half an hour a day” would be a substantial decrease for me) that’s maintenance at best, and probably just a slower gain.
DSeid, the only thing that has ever worked for me is very careful monitoring and that only lasts until it drives me crazy. Also, do you think there are people who are overweight who haven’t heard that?
FTR, the other category of people I know who have lost weight and kept it off are distance runners.
A valid point and I am happy to hear you are doing so well.
Let me emphasize - no it has *not worked *for you. Not at all. You treated a symptom for a period time, until the unsustainable change drove you crazy, is all. The definition of working, in my book, has little to do with losing weight; it has everything to do with improving long term health. Do that and some weight comes off as a byproduct.
Really heard it? No, I don’t think many have. It is hard to hear over the voices, both from society around us and from within our own heads, that define the problem as the weight, not as the nutrition and exercise behaviors for their own sake.
Really heard it? Obviously not. Losing weight? That is hard but not very hard. Lots of people do it. Losing weight and keeping it off long term and actually improving long term health prospects? That is something few who are fixated on “losing weight” as the goal achieve. The ones who do are not the ones who impose an unsustainable diet plan on themselves.
You’ve heard that list before. So which items on that list are too difficult to achieve? What item of that list overwhelms you?
Guaranteed it works … even when the weight loss doing it is modest.
BTW, how did those professionals “check your metabolism” and determine it is 1700 calories a day?