Well, we are all better than each other (and a lot of us are better than you), because we have the “willpower” to achieve certain things that you or others have not.
Do you know how to draw well? I do. It took years of willpower to be able to do so. Study, practice, sacrifice (not a lot of frivolous pasttimes, just a lot of drawing.) Therefore, I am BETTER than everyone else who has not devoted years to learning how to draw. Oh yeah, I taught myself to do calligraphy too. So I am MUCH better than the whole lot of you. A bunch of untalented losers, you are! :rolleyes:
I’ll warrant that every fat person on this thread (and elsewhere) can boast of some talent, ability or discipline that took a lot of hard work. They took the time to cultivate this ability, and you didn’t. They are better than you. And don’t give me the “but they have a talent for it” line, because you don’t want to give anyone some slack for metabolism differences, etc.
I think that I am better than people who don’t earn as much money as I do. Being a determined, strong minded person is one of the most important qualities a person can have. And it CERTAINLY doesn’t make me ugly on the inside.
I do not and never will pity poor people. I am sorry but I don’t see why I should. I am much more inclined to pity a bald guy, a short guy, a woman with small breasts even, because these things are genetic. They can’t help it - there is nothing they can do about it (on their own anyway). While people claim being poor is something that is their parent’s fault for not giving them the opportunities, let’s not succumb to this bullshit. As I said, I feel for the very few who have intellectual problems, but other than them, these people are poor because they don’t work hard enough and studied to little. It is as simple as that. Unless they like being pathetic, poor people have no excuse to not be working or at least trying for a better job. It is not that hard. Playing games and going to the gym feels good but think how much better it is to have cash. A poor person may be the greatest nicest person on the inside, but if they want to be rich, and aren’t, that means they are lazy and lacking will power. I am not saying that person is bad. I am not saying I will treat them any differently. I am saying that deep down I am thinking, “wow how can this person allow himself/herself to have this job.”
I think being a nice person is the best quality any person could ever have. I was brought up to think that judging people by what’s on the outside, whether it be race, a disability, size, or whatever is a bad thing.
And, by the way, why would you pity anyone who is bald, short, or small breasted? Why are any of these things bad? I just do not understand why you care so much about how other people look.
I have to admit, Tony Barber, that your post was pretty clever. I actually laughed out loud. And you make a valid point. But I actually agree with some of what you said to some extent, despite your obvious sarcasm. I am not a believer in wellfare. I do not think a single red penny of money that I earn should be given to somebody too lazy to work. However, this is not the topic at hand and I do not feel like going into it.
But to respond to yosemitebabe, you compare drawing with being overweight. There is one key difference. I do not care that I am unable to draw as well as you. I do not spend nights thinking how much greater my life would be if I was able to draw with great skill. I do not have poor self esteem because of my drawing inadequacy. I do not take drawing classes, only to not pay attention and not do the required assignments. Meanwhile, overweight people on the other hand… well you get my drift. Now if you are honestly happy with your weight, then thats fine, but I am not sure that there are any obese people who honestly would take the opportunity to go to sleep one night and magically appear the next morning in great shape. To the people who are unhappy with their weight, but don’t have the willpower or determination to lose it, I do not feel sorry for you and you need to get your act together.
SonOfArizona: I daresay that I or someone else has an ability or talent that you’d like to have. And why don’t you have it? Because you didn’t work hard enough, that’s why!
Lunasea - I didn’t mean that I pity these people, i just wouldn’t scoff at them if they started complaining about these problems. I, myself, am kinda short, and I don’t expect people to pity me for it. But when I hear some overweight person talking about how unfair it is that they are fat blah blah etc etc… it is of their own doing, meanwhile I am short, that guy is bald, that woman has small breasts because of genetics. It isn’t their fault, and while they shouldn’t go around complaining about it, at least if they did, they can honestly and truly say it isn’t their fault, meanwhile the fat guy ate too much and worked out too little and can greatly improve his image if he just got up off his ass and stopped attending the annual Ribwich festival in New Orleans.
As for the short, fat, bald woman with small breasts… well I truly can say I feel sorry for her.
I did give people slack for metabolism differences if you read my post, but only for severe thyroid problems. So many overweight people cling to their slow metabolism as an excuse, but the simple science behind it is that if you work out, your metabolism speed increases.
Heres the simple question to you.
Does being fat bother you?
If the answer is no, then fine. But most likely, the answer is yes, or you probably wouldn’t even be so zealously posting in response to me. If the answer is yes, then do something about it. You compare losing weight with aquiring some great skill, but becoming skilled at something is one thing, but just avoiding fatty foods and going for a ten minute run every day is quite another.
I have a gut, but I play prop for a rugby team, so a bit of size is a benefit, and I can think of few props (even at the international level) who don’t have some girth.
What irritates me are these claims of all these whiny "overweight people talking about how unfair it is that they are fat blah blah etc etc… ". I know people that are in the entire range of body size, and I can’t recall ever hearing an overweight person complaining about how unfair it is that they are fat.
I think that alot of you ‘fat-bashers’ are bullshitting about these whingers.
You don’t find it attractive? Fine.
You wouldn’t like to be overweight? Fine.
You have a hot body? Fine.
Just remember, your superior, snotty attitude isn’t particularly attractive, particularly as there is always going to be someone better looking, richer, smarter and more attractive than you.
Why do we have to bully people who are overweight or obese? If the point is to make them not want to be fat, then it’s counterproductive; hostility contributes to depression and agoraphobia which contributes to overeating and sedentariness which contributes to obesity which contributes to hostility which contibutes to … ad nauseum.
Let’s be honest. No one should be happy being overweight or obese. It’s unhealthy. It greatly impacts their enjoyment of life – even if only because they have to put up with “moo” comments. It imposes costs on their friends and on their families. It’s just about the number one killer of Americans (and considering how it contributes to increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and suicide, then it may very well be number one). It’s a public menace. It’s like smoking – on net, a bad thing. It’s probably worse than smoking, in terms of monetized costs on the economy.
But you don’t get smokers to quit by ridiculing them. Even if you’re mad because everytime Mr. Marlboro over there sucks down another cigarette the cost of insurance goes up. That just reinforces the “us vs. them” mentality and concomitant adaptive preference formation. But more than being a self-defeating method, it’s also not justified because it imposes dignatory harms that people do not deserve. An obese person is, nonetheless, a person.
But just as I think normal weight people have a duty not to ridicule the overweight or obese, I think that people who are overweight or obese have a duty to get healthy. By remaining overweight, the obese imposes second-order costs on society. I certainly doubt that these costs are anywhere near the harms the obese directly experience (in the form of ostracism, for example). But I don’t think that the “Fat Rights” movement should for a second think that it’s OK to be obese. It’s not OK to be obese; it’s akin to a disease to correct. It’s also not OK to make the obese suffer for their obesity – and so I celebrate the “Fat Rights” movement for pillorying the anti-fat crowd’s bigotry. But I don’t celebrate them the same way that I celebrate the NAACP, in that bigotry against African-Americans is not the same thing as bigotry against the obese. Being African-American is a neutral and immutable characteristic; being obese is neither.
And I freely admit that I am a bigot. I don’t like obesity. My kneejerk reaction is to think less of an obese person. I can’t help it: I assume that an obese person suffers from a character defect. Consciously, I know that there are all sorts of involuntary ways people can become obese – either genetic or because that’s how they were raised by their parents and now they’re stuck in a rut. But I unconsciously disregard all of that unless I stop and think – which I normally don’t since I’m by nature a thoughtless jerk. I look forward to the day when I don’t have to worry about this because obesity has become a rare disorder, like gout.
Will I ever see that day? Doubtful: it would require a drastic cultural and economic transformation. I certainly won’t as long as people don’t think that they have a moral obligation not to be obese, and to prevent their children from being obese. Just because this requires a titanic effort and great sacrifice does not eliminate the duty the obese have to cease harming society by remaining obese.
Also if, say, being crappy at golf truly bothered me, but I refused to do anything about it, then yes, I would have a problem with my will power and I would consider myself lazy. I am talking about fat people who cannot look into a mirror without getting teary eyed yet refuse to do anything about it. Its laziness! Can you honestly say that it isnt? If being fat doesnt bother you then you aren’t lazy. I am not talking about you then. But if it does bother you and you refuse to act on this, then how can you say you aren’t lazy??? Your comparison to some skill is correct, if it truly bothers me and I dont do anything about it, then I am lazy.
SonOfArizona: You didn’t respond to my latest post. Unless there is NOTHING in this world that you’d like to do, like to do better, etc., then indeed, you are a loser who has not gotten his act together. Because most assuredly, somebody somewhere has acquired the skill to do something that you’d like to do, but for whatever reason, can’t.
And that makes you a loser. And that makes a whole lot of people (some of them fat) better than you. See how nicely this logic works? :rolleyes:
LunaSea - Perhaps I did not make myself clear then. I am talking about self loathing (secretly, or blatantly obviously) obese people who want to lose weight but dont have it in them to do so. So obviously I would not be talking about you either Tony Barber.
SonOfArizona: The thing is, some things come easier to some of us. I learned to draw because I can from a family of artistic people, I loved drawing, and it was a joy to draw. Sure, it was hard work, and yes, I did study very hard and acrifice. But I was destined from the start to do it, I think.
I believe that most people could learn how to draw. It’s true. There are several books out there that show us how to break through some of our brain’s barriers and learn how to draw well. Some people will have to work harder to do it. Some will have to battle their families and friends who will badger them and tell them they don’t have “talent”, so they should give up. Some of them will be barraged by unwarranted criticism while they are learning. The environment for them will make it more difficult for them to do it. Their experience in learning and my experience in learning will not compare.
I have encountered many people who see me draw and say, “Boy, I wish I could do that.” But they don’t draw for whatever reason.
Are they all losers, and am I automatically better than every single person who has ever expressed an interest in drawing but hasn’t learned? Yes, or no?
And how do you decide who is better in total, as a human being? If someone won’t learn to golf well, but learns to draw well, who are they better than, and who are they inferior to? The wanna-be golfers, the wanna-be artists? Are they inferior in total, as a human being, or just in that one area? Who is a better person, overall? Can you tell by just looking, or by just knowing a few details about them?
Alice, you need as many calories as your BMR says you need. It may very well be twice, or even three times what the average woman is “supposed” to consume. And it may very well seem like a lot of calories, if you are basing your “what you’re supposed to eat” on what the “diet ninnies” (the starve and aerobicize yourself to death school of thought) might be telling people.
For each pound of muscle you have on your frame, you will burn about 50 calories a day. Add in activities that burn calories, well you can see where this goes.
Women start losing about a half a pound of muscle a year after they reach 25 or so (a lovely gift from estrogen, which says “hey!, we might plan on having a baby someday, we nEEEeeeeeEEd to be fat”, gee thanks mother nature!!).
Women tend to make the problem worse by starving, which as anyone knows, makes your body go “Oh my GOD!! Famine! quick everyone, red alert, shut down all processes”!! And even worse, our bodies, when they “Think” we’re in starvation mode, don’t go for the fat for food, they go for the most easily broken down and quickest energy source, muscles!!! But all of that is said much more eloquently and scientifically in the cites already posted in this thread.
What is your LBM (lean body mass)? If you have xxx pounds of lean body mass, and with the help of the doggone equation, can extrapulate out how much muscle you have, you can figure out how many calories you should be taking in each day to maintain your weight. If you (collective) want to lose, you need to make a deficit between what you burn and what you take in.
Or to put it simply maintenance is …
Calories in= calories out
to lose
Calories in < Calories out (that’s supposed to be a lesser than sign, I hope I faced it the correct way).
The Hussman site I posted has a great equation to help you figure out how many calories you do need.
It’s even easy enough for math phobics like me to figure out
LunaSea and yosemitebabe: y’all aren’t reading SonOfArizona’s argument charitably. Crucial to his argument is that the class of obese people he’s talking about have repeatedly tried and failed their whole lives to lose weight. He, on the other hand, hasn’t been engaged in the same Sisiphyean struggle to, e.g., learn to draw.
I’m tempted to reject that argument because a person’s moral worth is not a function of their willpower. But that’s not necessarily true.
Compare two individuals in parallel universes, each involved in a criminal conspiracy to hijack airliners and crash them into office buildings. Both realize that this is a heinous wrong that they must stop. The only means of stopping it is to run five miles to the nearest telephone to warn the Powers That Be within the next 35 minutes. Imagine that the person in Universe A runs for the telephone but fails because he or she stepped on an unmarked landmine. We think this person is morally praiseworthy even though they failed to prevent the crisis. Imagine that the person in Universe B runs for the telephone but does not make it in time because of a lack of willpower to force him or her on. (Assume that the two individuals are in equal shape.) The person in Universe B is morally blameworthy.
But willpower is only morally relevant, as it was in the example above, when it affects the fulfillment of a moral duty. Imagine our two people in parallel universes. Everything is the same, except that instead of being involved in a terrorist plot, each desires to learn to draw. Person A tries and fails because of an external impediment; Person B tries and fails because of a lack of willpower. I don’t think that either of them are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy, because I don’t believe that either of them have a moral duty to learn to play the piano. (I’m sure we could revise the facts to give them a moral duty to do so, but that’s neither here nor there.)
It’s this kind of ignorance that doesn’t help the fat people at all. Again, it is NOT lack of willpower OR laziness that gets or keeps many people fat. I’m sure that there are exceptions to the rule and that there are a few people who genuinely don’t mind being fat.
I see a lot of people of all sizes in my classes. They are energetic, active people. They do want to be slim and part of what they are doing is to go and workout. But to know the catchwords “eat right and exercise” is NOT a magic pill that will help fat people suddenly succeed because “by golly, the reason that they were fat is that they didn’t KNOW this, and now that they do, well they’ll stop being lazy and start getting some willpower”.
Perhaps you should check into a few of the cites already listed here in this thread.
Most people DO know that they are supposed to eat right and exercise. Most people couldn’t tell you exactly what that means, or, even worse, they think it means to starve and over aerobicize themselves.
Then, when the all the fad diets and muscle killing aerobics fail to work for the thousandth time. Well hell YEAH these people go “nothing works”.
So to say put on some sweats and go jogging, and put down that fork, is NOT helpful to these people. Again, education in a “three-legged stool” approach is the key.
The people don’t turn to magic capsules from laziness, they turn to them after years or decades of “failure” and from desparation. And again, yes, I realize that there are exceptions.
I’m sorry, but that as a fitness trainer I have to say that your above statement is just PURE D WRONG, and is part of the problem, NOT the solution.
