This threads title, “Can my employer hire anybody other than cackling hens with HUGE ASSES?” really got my attention. I thought there was a job I definately had a shot at getting.
Hugh Jassis - AKA Legion. 
I have to confess, I don’t understand the “I’ve not got the time to exercise crowd”. The solution is simple. Just get up earlier. What’s the problem? Oh, you get up at 6am already? Then get up at 5! Oh, did I hear someone at the back mention they already get up at 5? Then get up at 4. Brew some strong coffee and run around the block a few times.
Napoleon conquered half of Europe on 3 hours sleep a night fer cryin’ out loud. You can get up an hour earlier and jog round the block.
If you’re not prepared to do that then weightloss isn’t a major priority and you lose all rights to bitch about your weight.
Gomez
[sub]who drags his ass to the gym five times a week while juggling a degree and two jobs (one full time, the other part time) and managing/promoting/performing with his band[sub]
Such a regime may leave you unable to code, however.
Can you put a note on the vending machine, asking whoever fills it to put some pretzels or rice cakes in it, in place of some of the junky stuff? We did that at one place I worked where the vending machine was full of just chocolate - candybars and Ho-Hos type of snack cakes all the time. We wanted a choice of at least chips and pretzels. We also got him at add Iced Tea to the soda machine. (Don’t forget to say “Please” 
)
Back to the OP…
I also think some people are missing the point. I worked with a woman like this before. Yeah, she was fat, but that wasn’t the point. She was constantly eating crap all day; snacks and candy, and constantly bemoaning the fact that she was fat. Like Krebnut said, she’d pull that stupid crap of “Don’t look! If you don’t watch me eat it, it doesn’t have any calories!”
Or she’d buy those fundraiser candy bars people would sell for their kids (the ones that are twice as big as a regular candybar), and say, “It’s for a good cause, so it doesn’t have any calories!” while eating 2 or 3 right in a row.
She’d hit the vending machine every hour, it seemed, and buy two ot three things each time. If customers brought stuff in for us, she’d do that thing of how she “just had” to eat it. She’d eat an entire plate of cookies or brownies, and then complain about her fat ass and fat thighs all afternoon. It really got tiresome.
If you want to eat it, fine. Just don’t tell us it doesn’t have any calories because it’s “for charity” or complain about your fat ass all afternoon while eating 3 gigantic candybars.
I can see why people get offended when they see another person generalizing, and throwing negative comments around about a particular group of people. I can see why it would be a hotbutton issue, subject to knee jerking responses. I can see the point, that it isn’t easy to be able to burn calories, to stay slender. (I’m having some trouble with this right now, but when the weather is a bit warmer it will sort itself out, my joints shouldn’t be quite so stiff and sore.)
I can also, however see how annoying it is to be around someone who is constantly undermining their own attempts to beat an addiction, or stop a bad habit. I’d get pretty annoyed with anyone like this, whether it was smoking, drinking/drug use, overeating, or being an enabler etc.
It’s dealing with an addict who is paying lip service to quitting for appearance’s sake, but isn’t yet ready or able to do so. It takes getting better inside, beginning to get healthy emotionally, before you can have the strength to stop such addictions. It’s hard not to say “Shit or get off the pot” to that person, especially if you’ve never had to deal with an addiction yourself, or helped a loved one beat one.
It’s annoying as all get out, to see someone who complains how broke they are, and they need to quit smoking so they can make rent, all they while “smoking a last pack”, which of course is quickly replaced, and the effort reset. Or, the person complaining about how badly their lover treats them, and how miserable they are, and they know the person won’t change, yet they go back. People who overeat, and don’t take charge of their recovery fall into this type of catagory unfortunately. I do try to just weigh whether or not my words will be heard, and either speak up, or stay silent depending.
It was very hard not to grab my little brother (not blood relation, good friend) by the shoulders, and shake him and say “Wake up! She’s bad for you, she treats you like shit, you’ll die of an ulcer or an STD if you stay with her, or of starvation because she’s eaten everything! She’ll drive you to your death, by emotional anxiety if nothing else because she always has to be first, and always right!” I didn’t, because it was his choice, and would do no good. That’s not what being a supportive, non enabling friend does.
He knows I won’t go around her anymore, and why, that’s enough. He knows he can come talk to me, if he needs to be listented to. He knows I hope he’ll get strength, and work things out for himself. He also knows I won’t sabatoge his marriage, and that I don’t approve of how she treats him.
I can see both sides in this thread, and maybe my words will help everyone to see the other’s points. I hope so.
Sounds to me as if your employer has a “thing” for overweight women. Check to see if he’s posted on the “What’s Your Fetish?” thread.
Ilsa, in general, we don’t disagree. But the article doesn’t stipulate physical stress only. I could be mistaken.
Cheesepickles: Are you telling me there is nothing you can do to eat better, exercise some and try to have a relatively healthy lifestyle so that you don’t have a heart attack at 30?
I’m not certain to whom your question is directed. Certainly there are things that can be done and medical studies reveal more all the time. Sometimes that may include actually increasing your caloric intake. (Although I can’t imagine anyone recommending doing that with donuts.)
But weight loss, eating disorders and compulsive behaviors are very complex issues and continue to be studied and researched. For example, although overeating may appear to be a matter of will power, it can be as uncontrollable as the impulse of some people to check to see if their door is locked exactly seventeen times. Those of us who don’t have that compulsion find it impossible to understand why a person can’t just stop doing that. We take for granted our own brain wiring.
I recall seeing one man with OCD who couldn’t seal an envelope because he had to keep checking to see if his daughter was inside. The man wasn’t stupid. Rationally, he knew that his daughter couldn’t be inside the envelope. But his brain was wired to compel him to check anyway.
That behavior has much in common with compulsive overeating (which is a disorder). The person cannot think of anything else until the food is eaten.
If it were just a matter of will power, anti-convulsive medications wouldn’t work to supress anti-compulsive behaviors. (Or, at least that is what makes sense to me.) And I suspect that they are probably going to be more effective in keeping the weight off permanently. (Almost anything would work better that the current 5% success rate after five years.)
Someone asked how cutting calories and exercising for weight loss are different from getting off of alcohol and cigarettes. The most obvious answer is that alcoholics don’t have to have three drinks a day and cigarette smokers don’t still have to have three cigarettes each day. They are able to cut these substances totally out of their lives. People still have to have food.
I was a compulsive overeater at one time during my life. The closest that I could come to abstention was a liquid diet which I was allowed to stay on for six months. By the last two months of that time, I had absolutely no desire to take nourishment at all. I returned to “normal” food only because I was required to. Within a month, my compulsion had returned. Did I have will power for six months and then suddenly not have will power anymore and it just happened to coincide with refeeding? Nope. I have lots of will power or I would not have been able to endure the first three months or so of nothing but liquids.
And someone else mentioned that we don’t have the right to overeat and still complain about our weight. I think most countries represented on SDMB grant the right to say what we want.
Zabali, you are cool! I especially don’t buy the “no time” excuse.
This is not a first amendment debate . . . :rolleyes:
You’re deliberately taking those comments out of context. Yes, the first amendment allows people to say whatever they want . . . but gluttonous people with no self discipline do not have the right to complain about their weight and not get pitted.
SooOOO?? And the next job you get will have a bunch of guys who like to duck hunt, and talk INCESSANTLY about ducks, duck dogs and duck hunting. (that was the entire swing shift of a company were I used to work). The night shift crew were all readers and loved to play Cribbage (I finally got transferred to that shift after absolutely ODing on ducks, duck dogs and duck hunting talk).
And the day shifters were the dopers (ummmm, as in weed, not straight dope).
I imagine that any swing shifer who pulled a night shift was probably DARN sick of talk of books, plays and listening to people play cribbage. Just like the night shift would just absolutely shudder if they had to hear “duck dog” one more time.
Everywhere you work in life, it’s always going to be something. In this case these women are stuck in a bad cycle of not knowing the appropriate way to lose weight, and allowing themselves to give up.
So what? What other people talk about, if it doesn’t interest you is ALWAYS going to be boring and annoying.
That’s just part of life, and that’s part of the workaday world. And seeing as how there are about 63 percent of Americans that ARE overweight (in some way or another), and about 40something percent that are defined as “obese”. You ARE going to run across this in you working environment.
So, if you think that you’re going to simply change jobs and end up with a crew of angelic supermodel lookalikes who never say boo to a ghost, or a bunch of likeminded young “hipper, younger, better than thou” guys like you…dream on.
What makes you so certain that they have NO self-discipline? They have JOBS don’t they? Surely, they need self-discipline in order to last at their jobs. No one is without weakness and everyone has their vices.
I, for one, LOVE mine and don’t intend to change for anyone but my own self.
chomp chomp
However, I never complain. shrugs
I think they are complaining because they feel guilty and they want everyone to know that they know they’re bad. Isn’t that sad?
Because fat people can’t win. If they let people know they’re bad and they’re trying (they probably are trying when you don’t notice…starving people can’t resist food placed in front of them), they’re whining and bitching. If they don’t talk about it, even if they’re trying to lose weight, people assume they don’t know they’re overweight and they’re not trying. Or not trying hard enough.
Maybe they’re complaining because they’re frustrated. I know I’m frustrated with the fact that it’s an epic motherfucking struggle for me not to gain weight, and I’m not even overweight.
Granted, it’s probably annoying for you, but at least they have someone to talk to.
~M
Rhino-
I think perhaps we work for the same employer…Nevertheless, there are steps that I have take to combat this problem:
Bring a veggie or fruit platter to work and sit it at your break area. My coworkers actually prefer this now.
See if anyone is interested in walking during break/lunchtime. You would be surprised what some movement and fresh air will do for a persons disposition.
I know that it’s difficult when there are men and women parading about with a watermellon in each back pocket, but keep your eyes at face level to these folks. You are addressing the face, not the ass.
Lastly, attach a walkman to your ears if you are permitted and enjoy your favourite tunes or news. Block out the noise.
Good luck to you.
Oh and that was an observation made by my son when he was about 5 or 6 and eye level with my coworkers asses: when overweight people are running around in military battle dress uniforms-the green camoflage ones- they really do look as though there is a watermelon on each cheek. It’s funny how the mind of an innocent child works!
I did find the OP to be written in a rather, well, inflammatory manner.
However, I must agree that I am sick and tired of hearing 15 minutes of discussion about eating a damn cookie. At my office, it doesn’t matter if the cookie eater is fat, thin, or average. If there’s a tray of cookies in the office, it’s mandatory to have 15 minutes of rationalization or self-flaggellation before eating the freaking cookie.
It’s just a cookie! Eat it or don’t eat it. I couldn’t care less. Just don’t talk about it for 15 minutes like you’re rationalizing sleeping with your best friend’s spouse or stealing the petty cash!
Usually, the cookie conversations annoy me. However, when I’m feeling more empathetic, I think how sad that the simple act of eating a cookie is so tied up with feelings of guilt, shame, and who knows what else that all this discussion is neccessary.
And (as I said earlier) at least in my office, the skinny people do it too.
I find few things more boring than hearing about people’s diets/food restrictions. I don’t care if your diet is Atkins, vegan, South Beach, macrobiotic, grapefruit, low-carb, high-carb, or we’re-all-going-to-die-anyway-so-bring-on-the-ice-cream, as long as I don’t have to hear about it. As CanvasShoes wisely points out, however, we can’t choose our co-workers’ topics of conversation for them. But I can understand where you’re coming from, rhinostylee. Eat it or not, but quit kvetching about it!
LOL
Every office has those people… ha ha
rhino, your misogyny is 100,000 times uglier than any perceived physical imperfection on the women’s bodies. All women are beautiful. Your attitude is the source of all the ugliness.
Just a quick thought…try walking up the stairs to your office if its a high rise. if its 24 floors just try walking up the first 6 and take the elevator. after a couple of weeks increase by a floor. i’m amazed at people who take the elevator to the second floor. just an idea.
This thread is dumb.
The OP is dumb.
I’m skinny.
That’s all I have to say on this topic.
I believe that’s the least I’ve ever said in one of these stupid threads - someone should give me a prize or something