Moo.
[ hijack ]
**Dieting, the proper way, does work for most people. But not just diet alone. Weight-training and cardiovascular exercise are crucial in addition to diet. And it has to be longer than the month, or month and a half that most people stick with it, and it has to be a disciplined effort to work.
And yes, I’m a fitness professional.**
James Burke’s Connections series had an interesting segment on the evolution of modern medicine. He pointed out that in the Middle Ages people would go to a doctor to be prescribed a course of treatment that generally involved prayer and some sort of mild ordeal, such as fasting and/or all-night vigils, which might lead God to cure one’s ills. The patient pits his or her will power and/or religious faith against the illness, and if they are firm in their resolve and it’s part of God’s plan, they win. If not, they die or whatever.
That got me thinking about weight control, because it struck me that doctors, fitness professionals and such do pretty much the same thing nowadays, in a secular sort of way. The overweight are asked to exercise their will power against the illness and to engage in fasting and the mild ordeal of regular exercise. If they are firm in their resolve, they eventually, maybe, lose weight.
Here’s what I think. We really don’t know how to control weight right now. If we knew how to control weight, the solution would involve, not will power and ordeals, but some techno fix that will work without a lot of effort. And most people would be able to readily control their weight, instead of having this spiraling problem of obesity we now have.
Because we haven’t solved the problem, we’re using modern equivalents of medieval solutions to make the afflicted feel that a) it’s they that are the root cause of the problem and b) if they will just follow the program with the requisite amount of will power and faith, they will win. [ /hijack ]
I think “vast majority of people” is overstated a bit, UnoMundo. I know, and have known, plenty of people that had no problem with their weight, or their spouses weight, or both their weights (if they both were heavier). They are far less rare than you might think.
I mean, we manage to keep the population going and we ain’t all supermodels, right?
Philster, why “moo”?
While I do not intend to chime in on the relative merit or silliness of your suggestion with this comment, I do want to say it reminds me very much of the whole “poor people are lazy” phenomenon. Because, really, if they just worked a little harder, they wouldn’t be poor, right? Much like the situation we have here. Whether this analogy in fact holds it outside the scope of my capacity to care about debating it. Just an interesting thought.
It’s amazing that someone high-minded enough to be a World Federalist and an Esperantist can also be so shallowly petty. Thank you for popping in to make that gratuitous dig. Now go fuck yourself.
I have enough people in my social circle who flirt and hug and kiss me in public, and who have made serious advances, to be well aware of the real level of success that the social interaction is producing. Someone coming into a thread on a message board and judging my social appeal entirely based on my stated weight proves the point of the “Anti Anti Fat People”.
That’s mature. Do you start hitting your arm against your side and making inarticulate moaning sounds when you see someone with Down’s Syndrome, too? Or maybe you also yell “Got Milk?” when you see a pregnant woman.
Grow up, little boy.
The whole issue can be way too philosophical. Ultimately, a conscious decision leads one to grab food and eat it. Yes, there might be some strong motivation, such as hunger, or the happinesss reward that helps an individual decide to eat and eat more, but ultimately for the person who eats too much and exercises too little, the reward of over eating outweighs the reward of being thin, or losing a pound or two.
Everyday, we are faced with decisions, and we make our decisions based on what we feel is right, or will lead to happiness. For many, food leads to happiness, and more food equals more happiness.
I brought this up in other threads, but was often scorn for it: We could all use a little tough love, because it is valuable to realize that making ourselves happy and working off that premise in our decision making is not always in our best interest.
I piss myself off everyday, and I do things that DON’T make me happy, because of a longer term goal. I learned this from my parents, and my Catholic education of twelve years. I practice tough love on myself and I allow others to do so as well.
I pass up on food that would make me feel good, albeit briefly, but it would make me happy. Right now, from my office, I can see the food my cow-orkers brought in - a box of chocolates, cookies, pretzels, M&Ms, and a host of other goodies for Mardi Gras…donuts, cakes. I will have none of it. I am actually mad at myself for not enjoying it.
I’m 5’10", 185 lbs, and workout 4-5 times per week and wave off food about 15-20 per week that is offered from others, or in the form of seconds, etc. Every overweight person I know eats more and moves less than I do. At every turn, they eat more. They are not as active.
Are there exceptions? Sure, but in the end, a human body still needs X number of cals to survive, and while a slow metabolism may be a challenge, it’s easily overcome.
If you are 50 overweight, eating got you there. End of story. The hard work to escape that body shape is mindboggling. It’s 2-3 year challange and a whole change in the way one lives HOUR TO HOUR forever. I think about nutrtion every 30 mins! If I didn’t, I’d be 40-50 pounds overweight easily.
To be morbidly obese, food rules your life, by the hour practically. To be in shape, health/nutrition rule a great portion of your life, practically by the hour.
Most women need a scant 1500-1800 to live! That’s it! That’s it!
It’s too easy to get that in ONE meal! When a 3500 cal excess is hit, then that’s 1 pound!
It’s hard! It’s hard! It’s hard to be in shape all the time!
Being morbidly obese comes with frequent almost hourly rewards that come from eating and eating, and the socializing reward that goes along with it. EATING IS A REWARD AND A SOCIAL EXPERIENCE.
Being morbidly obese, or just being obese, has consequences, but they come up less frequently…or they are more abstract and harder to figure out than the reward of a social lunch and good ol’ feeling from eating that big ol’ social lunch.
Outside my office, I see three obviously overweight women laughing and piling up a plate with Krispy Kremes and cookies, along with some juice. One has a Coke. They are sharing a laugh, acting like a click and just trading stories about who got the warmer donut when they saw the Krispy Kreme sign go on. Oh, then joy.
Me? I’m in here punishing myself because my 34" waist pants are a smidge tighter than I’d like, and I’m thinking about my lonely 45 mins in the office gym later. Tough love. I can hear my mom’s voice saying sarcastically, “Go ahead, Phillip. You want to look like that? Go ahead, eat all the junk. Wise up”.
If other people’s negative view of your excess weight really bothered you that much, you’d do something about it.
Most people would rather be lazy and tolerate the b.s., rather than eat properly and work out.
See, JayJay
You think you have an uncontrollable condition (or other fat folks have uncontrollable conditions).
I have self control and I am able to make tough decisions every hour of my life.
Fat people make excuses.
Good for you Philster.
Looks like a case of OCD to me, but what do I know…
Thank you for reading my mind. I’ll be sure to write more in it so you don’t get bored later on.
I never said I had an uncontrollable condition. I never said anyone else had an uncontrollable condition. But are you so down on yourself, even with your steel-reinforced mental discipline, that you need to make nasty, unnecessary comments like “Moo”? What’s that for? For somenoe with the kind of iron-hard willpower that you claim to be exercising (what a joyless life you must lead…), you have very poor impulse control in this particular social setting.
What is it about weight that makes it so acceptable to say unnecessarily nasty, hurtful, rude things? It’s almost like obesity is a moral failing in some people’s minds.
Who are these women, exactly? If I ate 1500 calories a day, I would pass out.
What Evil Captor said.
Oh, and erislover? The answer to ‘Why Moo?’ is because Philster is a dickhead.
Ah, but he’s a disciplined dickhead, which naturally makes him so much better than us lazy, impulse-ruled fat people.
That’s one answer, sperfur, but I’d be interested to see what this Master of Fat Psychology has to say on the matter in his own defense, unless there’s nothing to defend.
I’m married. I’m hot and my wife is hot. We are both ‘in shape’.
I have two kids.
I’m a great dad, and excellent husband and an outstanding citizen.
I’m from the tough love sect. I don’t believe in ‘time outs’ and I’m old school in many ways.
Too often, fat people are ridiculed. Too often, they are teased.
I avoided fat women. I always preferred petite…or long and lean. I would be embarrassed to go to my reunion with a fat woman. I think that anyone who wouldn’t worry about it is ok in my book, but it’s not for me.
What boils my blood is the excuse-making by fat peole and the blind eye that is turned to people who stay in shape, or stay within a healthy weight range. We all could use a little more tough love, or a bit of a military approach in our basic training of life.
My in-laws are fat. My in-laws have totally different habits than my family, and my in-laws make excuses.
Every fat person that I saw go on a ‘diet’ has lost weight. They got off plan, they stopped losing wieght.
Just wait for science to come up with a pill to stop you from gorging yourself on muffins.
Decisions decisions: Make a total and difficult life change, or be fat, or head down the road to fatness. You’re call. Just don’t cry to me when someone teases you or mocks you. I wouldn’t cry for my own kids if they go mocked because they ate themselves into oblivion. Being a fatass has consequences. Tough shit.
No. People would rather just not tolerate the bs. Why should anyone tolerate bullshit for any reason?
I avoided this thread because I knew it would get my blood boiling. I knew it would degenerate into offensiveness, stupidity and puerility.
But I wanna make fun of fat people. Why can’t I make fun of fat people. I mean, look at them. They’re fat.
Idiots.
On closer reading, I think I may have figured out why Philster is an asswipe.
Other people are having fun, laughing, enjoying life, and eating. How dare they, when Philster is sitting in his office, starving? He’d better be nasty to them, say things like Moo and basically try to bring them down to his level of misery, before things get out of control. Don’t those fat people know that they’re not allowed to be happy - they’re fat! How can you possibly be happy when you’re fat? (I do agree its sad the won’t let you into their clique - check your spelling dude - but maybe its because you are nasty to them?)
The entire point of the ‘anti-anti fat’ people is that you have no right to be mean to someone just because that person is fat. If someone is not willing to make themselves miserable (as you just admitted that you yourself are), that does not give you the right to call them names. So get off your high horse.
Philster, you still haven’t either justified or apologized for the “Moo” comment. We’re waiting.
A military approach. :rolleyes:
Well, Philster, so you won’t tolerate any fatness in your home…your perogative. I see no need to extend that to websites that you frequent - it looks immature even without the barnyard noises, know what I mean? That was just icing on the donut. You have no authority to tell others what to eat or what they should weigh, and even less to say what they should or shouldn’t take offense to.
No one else has to listen to your Mom’s sarcasm, in other words. It’s sad enough that you do.