And, among my many other sins, I can’t get my coding right today either.
You don’t need insurance to walk a few miles a day. I noticed in Europe that nearly everyone walks or bikes to go places, Americans get in their cars to go a few blocks - no shit we’re fatter.
For myself, I can diet until the cows come home and still seem to maintain my weight. If I cut out the car trips and walk/bike instead, the weight comes off. Simple. Take a walk after dinner instead of turning on the TV or getting on the computer, and the weight will come off.
I never said laziness I said lack of will power, lack of self control, and lack of desire to make a difficult sacrifice.
Please show me a cite that shows that the growing trend of obesity in America is due primarily to factors beyond one’s personal control.
My post was directed to Mockingbird
I suspect some of that vitrol is exasperation because for as many solutions people offer, there are a plethora of excuses as to why it won’t work. It’s like that with a lot of situations where people are unhappy with themselves or their lives who are surrounded by peole who wish to help in some way. Whether it’s to make the sufferer feel better or just so you don’t have to listen to them complain anymore is up for debate. But when people start scraping for excuses as to why they can’t lose weight, or why they can’t change any number of unhappy circumstances intheir lives when the answers seem so obvious, it’s very frustrating.
Wrong.
Colas and many other sodas have extra caffeine added(which comes from the process of decaffinating coffee).
Soda is one of the largest sources of empty calories.
In the most obese people I have known(and I’ve seen the flocks of gamers at DragonCon to see them en masse), one of the largest sources of calories is the massive intake of Coke, Pepsi, or Mountain Dew.
From http://spurious.biz/~pkremer/dev_zero/caffeine.html:
Soft drinks have become the favorite caffeine containing beverage in the United States: 12 oz. can of soft drink may contain 30-72 mg of caffeine. Less than 5% of this caffeine is from the kola nut; manufacturers add the other 95%, using the extract obtained from the decaffeination process. The level of caffeine found in a particular brand is consistent from can to can because of strict manufacturing controls. Only those soft drinks containing caffeine will show it as an ingredient on the product label. To compare brand names, see the chart below. You may be surprised at how many soft drinks contain caffeine and the amount in your favorite beverage. *
After this, different sodas and their caffeine contents are listed.
http://www.montana.edu/wwwfood/nutrit/caffeine.html
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2000/AUGUST/000814.HTM
My weight loss began after I gave up drinking soda and changed to coffee.
That was 450 empty calories removed from my diet(3 sodas a day).
Apologies accepted but not necessary 
However, as for your coding issues, inexcusable. 
I’ll extend your table.
Take drugs---------Become a junkie ----------- Stay healthy
Drink Heavily ------Become alcoholic -----------Stay healthy
In both these cases, society crowds around, patting the poor “victim” on the back while screaming to the detractors about how this is a disease. Insurance & public assistance comes to your aid.
In the food case, everybody spits on you and tells you to take a hike, literally.
As a end to my participation in these threads - because I’ve become weary of the argument - I’ll admit once again that I could eat & excercise & be better off for it. I just don’t want all this judgement for either not doing it, not doing it well enough, or not doing it to the satisfaction of the height/weight chart. I don’t want to be referred to as having “blubber”, being “gelatinous”, or as “fatty” in the meantime.
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40% body fat doesn’t mean so big you need two seats. I was at 40% just this January, and I was by no means so big that I would bother anyone in the next seat with my weight.
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Move your ass is great advice. I’ve done that 6 hours a week for 7 years. I walked, ran, used a stairclimber, elliptical, incline trainer and weight machine. And I gained almost 70 lbs in that time. The answers aren’t always as simple as that.
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Contrary to popular belief, you do not in any way, shape or form have to go hungry to lose weight. You do not have to eat fat-free this and that to lose weight. And you can reach a point where you actually don’t crave food and only want to eat enough to be not hungry and then go about your life.
I’ll ammend my statement to change “illegal” to “immoral”.
Well, is caffeine addictive? Some say no, like OTHER QUESTIONS ABOUT COFFEE AND HEALTH which says "Is caffeine addictive?
A: Addiction is a strong dependence on a drug characterized by three elements: 1) severe withdrawal symptoms; 2) tolerance to a given dose, or the need for more and more of the substance; and 3) the loss of control, or the need to consume the substance at all costs. Addicts may exhibit anti-social behavior or even commit crimes to perpetuate the abuse. Evidence shows that coffee drinkers do not exhibit these symptoms of addiction. "
while some say yes, like Caffeine Addiction which says “Caffeine is highly addictive. Quitting coffee can cause withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, sleepiness and irritability.”
Given the ease which people can and do stop caffeine cold turkey without anti-social behavior, I say it isn’t addictive.
Mockingbird…everyone in my family is overweight or obese except for me and my kids. EVERYONE. So the “food is love” and all that isn’t going to wash with me. I’m not fat. My kids aren’t fat. They(my family) don’t have to be fat either. And they DO just sit around on their asses. It’s their own fault they are the way they are. It doesn’t mean I love them any less, but we all come from the same upbringing and experiences, and the pyscho-babble angle is crap, at least in this case.
And don’t get me wrong, I know there are people that have medically valid reasons for their weight problems, but such people are in the minority.
I’ve been overweight. I’ve gone up and down my whole life. I’ve been anywhere from 130 to 200 pounds. But for the past 7 years, I’ve managed to maintain a stable heathly weight.
You know how?
I stopped making excuses. I stopped blaming it on our culture. I stopped blaming it on my family and my genes. I stopped talking about it. I stopped bemoaning the fact I couldn’t afford WW. I stopped WHINING and I got off my ass and I DID something about it.
And Boscibo hit the nail on the head…I lost all that weight by walking. didn’t cost me a cent.
No more excuses.
Beautifully stated. That is a wonderfully honest and entirely reasonable response. No excuses, just an expectation of respect and I will honor it happily.
As for your additions, I think it is bullshit that society pampers the poor “victims”. However, the threads were not saying “I can’t believe this person was so fat”, it was “I can’t believe this fat person invaded my personal space.” I would have been equally supportive (as I’m sure most of the people would) if it was “I can’t believe this alcoholic kept spilling his drink on me” or “I can’t believe this druggie kept spilling his coke lines on me”.
Now I have read all the post with accuracy but I don’t remember anybody referring to you as having blubber, being gelatinous, or as a fatty.
OOPS!! I have NOT read all the posts with accuracy. Sorry.
And as for what DeskMonkey said, I second that. I will treat you with respect (and I believe I have) and I hope you will do the same. However, if somebody (large or otherwise) fails to respect my personal space, they should beware.
The problem is that the answers are not obvious to you or the person who needs to see them.
Often, it is little different than dealing with an alcoholic who needs to see that they are destroying themselves but cannot see the forest for the trees.
While the tools surround all of us, it is the act of admitting that one has a problem and getting the necessary tools that makes the change.
And they still come up a fraction of the amount of caffine in coffee. Even “Jolt” cola doesn’t come close.
DeadlyAccurate, I said 40% or more which is cited as an unhealthy level. And true, you don’t have to go hungry to lose weight, but for at for me, celery and air popped corn just don’t satisfy a hankering.
Belrix, this is the last time I’ll say it drugs and alchol are physically addictive, food (that hasn’t been doped with caffeine as Mockingbird mentions) are not.
No one is judging you for being fat. We are judging you for saying your weight is mostly beyond your control and that the government or your job should have to pay to help you do something you are perfectly capable of doing yourself. It’s about personal responsibility.
However, I do agree that hurtful names are uneccessary.
At the risk of being sucked back into this mire that I was going to leave…
While not referring directly to me, these are all terms for fat people from posters in the original thread. I detail them here.
Never mind. I see your later retraction.
Peace.