This. And this is why I’ve seen people snivel on this “fighting ignorance” board that some people are dooooooomed to gain weight because, like, 100 extra calories a day is too small to even notice, and then five years later you’ve put on (does the math) 57 pounds!!! The point is, of course, that this is like claiming you can’t sail from Bristol to New York because no matter how well you work out your course, no-one can help making a tiny error or drifting a mite off track, and by the time you’ve crossed the ocean you’re miles off your landfall. How you actually sail a ship is that you check your position and make course corrections as you go. How you actually keep weight off is by checking how you’re doing and adjusting your food/exercise balance. Appetite is a shite guide to food intake; it evolved to let you survive when you had to shovel down the food in the fat times to keep from starving in the lean ones.
Max Torque, does eating poorly really save you a lot of time? I think you are giving yourself a false dilemma here. Losing weight is difficult and if you’ve actually convinced yourself that “it’s me or my family”, you’ve come close to making it impossible.
Besides, think it through for God’s sake. “I have to decide whether I’m going to give up time with my family to make myself healthy, or just risk having a heart attack before I’m 40”?? Should you not perhaps be worried about losing 30+ years with your family if you drop dead at 40?
Seriously - WTF was that?? I actually have a ‘glandular problem’ that so many people tout as their reason for bigness and guess what? I’m not fat.
I work at a sedentary job sitting at a desk all day. I have a 45 minute commute both ways. I start work at 7:00 AM and don’t finish until 5:00 PM.
I didn’t not win a genetic lottery. I eat a healthy diet consisting of mostly fruit and vegetables. I walk for an hour at lunch rather than sitting at my desk or going out to eat. On the weekends I’m active with my husband.
I feel for you - I really do - it’s tough to be busy and not be gifted with natural thinness; however, as you point out, this problem is of your making and you’re the one who has to solve it.
I suggest that you quit grousing about ‘thin fuckers’ who can ‘eat anything’ and focus instead on the majority of thin people who actually have to have some involvement in their body shape. Those are the ones to emulate.
(BTW - your daughter is super cute)
Did your body violate the First Law? If not, then are you saying there were no calories in the IV? Where did the energy come from? 11 pounds of non-water weight is about 34,000 calories of fat IIRC. How does your body maintain a base metabolic rate AND add maybe 34,000 calories without food coming in?
That’s very little different from our lives - though at ten and eleven they are more on their own (but there is a LOT more driving and I’ve lost entire weekends to “mom, I have a report on sharks due on Monday”). On the plus side, your day goes from 8:30 to 5:00 - when my kids were that age I worked 7 to 5 and had email to do at home, and my husband worked 8 to sometimes I saw him before the kids went to bed.
That’s the thing I think a lot of people don’t get, myself included for a while. It takes work to stay thin for a lot of people. They’re not just sitting there cramming burgers and not gaining a pound; they’re having a burger (or better yet a sandwich) and then spending an hour at the gym or running each day to minimize the impact of that burger. They’re spending the necessary time to prepare whole foods instead of grabbing fast food each and every day. It really is hard work and something you need to be committed to, and it isn’t as easy these days as it used to be.
If you accept your lifestyle for what it is and recognize that while you could lose weight with some work but you’ve made other choices in life you’re happier with, as you seem to have done Max, then there’s really no problem. You’re doing what makes you happy and owning up to it, not giving in to cravings and wailing about how you just can’t stay thin. (Although I agree with CarnalK that potentially not being around after 40 is pretty detrimental to your family too, but it’s your choice.)
Really now, you’re doing exactly what I said. “Maybe they have a ridiculously slow metabolic rate.” What, are they hibernating bears? Do human bodies violate the First Law?
They goddamn well DO if they post in a factual thread on the SDMB and spout off their nonsense. Otherwise why are they posting? Witnessing?
Twisting my words will not win the argument. I don’t care if people are overweight. It’s not my concern. I love thin people, fat people, in-between people. I DO care if they are delusional and trying to spread their delusions, because delusions and pseudo-science only hurts the folks who are desperately looking for ways to lose weight.
Weight doesn’t make the person, and I know from personal experience how difficult it is to find the will to just stop eating so much. I’m hungry every single day of my life. All day long I’m surrounded by food, or people offering food, or having to watch others eat 2,000 calorie lunches while I have a Diet Coke and nothing else. Every goddamn day it’s “Bagel Day! Donut Day! Pirogie Day! Oh look, I was hungry so I got up at 4:00am and made chocolate chip cookies; come to my cubicle and try some!” Plus the fact I’ve got untold numbers of business breakfasts, lunches, brunches, dinners, and nights out with clients where they are ALWAYS trying to get me to eat something “Go ahead and order the lasagna, Una! Splurge a little! Hey, why not have some cheesecake for dessert - I’m buying! What, you don’t want my hospitality? What’s wrong?” The pressure to eat so the client doesn’t get all weird on me and have a sale be ruined is unfathomable, when losing a sale could mean unemployment.
I feel the urge to eat like how a heroin addict must feel the urge to shoot up. Right this second I want nothing more than to go down to the canteen and gorge on the Chinese buffet. I’d pay $500 cash right now if I could magically do that and not gain weight. DAMN I’m hungry right now.
But I won’t. I am the mistress of my own destiny, and I am in control, and even though I’m that hungry I have faith in myself and I can do it. But I DO understand the temptation, the hunger, the tender trap of “just one bagel won’t hurt” or “well, I save $0.50 if I get a second bean burrito, why not?” And I’ve kept my BMI between 20-22 for nearly 10 years (20.5 right now), being hungry the entire time.
Ten years of hunger; don’t anyone fucking think I don’t know how hard it is to resist eating.
Bolding is mine.
I’m wondering if you’re reading a different thread than I am. I don’t see posts from people saying that they can eat anything they want and make bad choices. What you’re doing is assuming (as I often see on this board) that anyone who is not fat must be a lucky bastard who won a genetic lottery. You fully admit that you made bad choices, so why is it so hard to believe that some people are making good choices to stay at a healthy weight?
There is obesity on both sides of my family. I certainly (like most people) didn’t win any lucky lottery that allows me to eat what I want. I work out one hour a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. For the most part I make healthy food choices. When I do want to eat something bad for me I can because the exercise and the boost to my metabolism that it gives me allows me to do that. I’m not saying that to make you feel bad, I’m saying it because (a) it’s true and (b) it isn’t because I’m lucky.
In another thread about weight someone compared it to her knitting skills. She’s very skilled and makes beautiful things. People say to her “I wish I could knit like that!” as if it is some gift from the heavens that has been bestowed on her. She practiced and practiced and through trial and error she became better all the time. She put in the time where they did not. The same can be said for exercise/eating right. We each have 24 hours a day to use. We all have commitments and responsibilities to juggle.
Now, what frustrates me about the weight thing is that there is a group within the fat acceptance movement that tells people that due to genetics it is nearly impossible to lose weight and keep it off. This gets repeated as if it is fact and people start to believe it. It is BULLSHIT. It angers me because it gives people the idea that they are helpless against their weight and it isn’t true.
My heart breaks for you reading what you’ve written. The last thing I would want you to believe is that you have no hope or that you cannot do it. There is enough garbage thrown at people in regards to diet, exercise and weight loss. The last thing that is needed is even more. The problem is that it is a billion dollar industry and they aren’t going to let up.
When I was an undergrad I made some terrible choices with money. I got into debt and ruined my credit. At 19 I had really screwed myself up for seven years because of bad choices. Bad choices before I could even understand how bad they were and how long I’d pay for them. I had debt and crappy credit but still needed to get my Master’s degree. I moved 2000 miles from home to go to a cheaper school and to get a job at a casino that would allow me to make enough money to survive and pay down my debt. Even after I was done with school I worked two jobs (around 80-90 hours a week) to pay off my debt and save money for a house. I worked those two jobs for two years until I had a huge chunk to put down on a house. Otherwise I doubt I could have gotten the house with my past credit even though I’d paid every penny back.
So the tl;dr summary is that I made bad choices and had to work really, really hard to overcome them. Unfortunately, there is no other way for you either. Yes, it will require you to spend less time with your family and probably juggle responsibilities. It will be hard and it will be frustrating, but you can do it and it will be worth it to be around even longer for your daughter.
For the last two years I’ve changed my nursing focus from emergency medicine to working with bariatric patients and morbidly obese/super obese patients to lose weight. I know the struggles they have and the odds against them thanks to the diet and food industry and just plain old human nature. I get angry when people try to say there is no way they can fight genetics.
Good luck, I mean that sincerely. If you ever need to vent, feel free to PM me.
I actually want to restate this another way, but the edit window timed out:
If, on your list of priorities in life, you’ve put other things above ‘staying thin,’ then that’s cool. But if ‘staying thin’ is at or near the top of your supposed list and yet you just can’t seem to put a strong effort into it, and invent excuses for why you’re not, you’re who this thread is about.
And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suppose that there might be a lot of these people around, given how much traction miracle diets usually gain. They’re just attempts to do an end-run around the hard work staying thin entails, work people can’t or won’t put into it but won’t own up to.
That may be what the annoying part of this whine is to “thin people.” Yeah, maybe when I was seventeen I could “eat anything” - but for the past twenty five years I have had to work and sacrifice to stay within a “normal” weight. I’ve done my share of running on a treadmill or biking or walking, or aerobics or dance. I’ve done my share of diets. I’ve skipped french fries, made due at McDonalds with a small burger - even when I wanted more - because a small burger at McDonalds is indulgent enough. I’ve left my share of meals hungry, been hungry at work because the vending machine is loaded with snickers bars and the cafeteria is closed. Made huge pots of soup and eaten it for days because its convenient, cheap and healthy. Not kept cookies or chips in the house because they are too much of a temptation. Shared desserts for years.
I have a huge sweet tooth and would rather eat dairy, meat, bread and fruit than vegetables (I don’t DISLIKE vegetables, but they aren’t usually my first choice).
Yes, overweight folks, many of us thin people know its hard. We have first hand experience with skipping the donuts someone brought in to work and throwing out the rest of the Halloween candy - even if it means its “going to waste.” We know that sometimes time constraints mean a fast food drive through. We understand that getting up at 5:00 am to run on the treadmill isn’t nearly as nice as staying in bed.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
We definitely don’t want women to start thinking of themselves as hot, let alone “fucking hot.” God alone only knows what kind of dire consequences might ensue.
I have no opinion on Shot From Guns’ attractiveness level, by the way, because anyone who can discern whether a person is attractive on the basis of a single picture taken from a weird angle already made up their mind before they ever saw the picture.
and others…
Using a stationary bike for 15 minutes burns about 200 calories. Eating a banana and a large apple gives you about 200 calories. Exercise really isn’t much of a factor for weight loss. So I am quite skeptical of people talking about not having time to lose weight. Tossing a chicken in the oven and steaming some vegetables really doesn’t take any longer than making a cheesy macaroni and beef casserole.
Why would you ask me such a stupid question? Pointing out that someone has a slow metabolism has nothing to do with violating the laws of thermodynamics. I simply don’t what see what the big frackin’ deal it is to you or anyone if someone offers that as an explanation for why they are fat.
If a thin person attributes their weight to a fast metabolism rate–although it is perfectly plausible that in all actuality their size is due to a 1400-calorie diet–would you see the need to say “OMG! Won’t someone think of the FIRST LAW!!” Of course not. You wouldn’t care. In fact, you’d probably take their statement at face value and not give a second thought to their true caloric intake.
As long as they are talking about their *own, personal, individual *circumstances, it doesn’t matter.
As long as they are talking about their *own, personal, individual *circumstances, it doesn’t matter. You’re caring about stuff that is of zero consequence to you. The opinion of one person who swears up and down they gain weight on a 400-calorie diet not is truly not worth working yourself into a lather.
Very good for you. I’ve never been fat a day in my life. And yeah, my diet and fitness has something to do with it.
Am I looking for a pat on the back for that? Are you? Because everything you wrote how much YOU struggle to not overeat and YOU sacrfice, etc. has nothing to do with other people and their personal problems. If some faceless, nameless “fattie” attributes their weight to *their *genetic disposition or their glands or their atrocious work schedule, it doesn’t take anything from your accomplishment and your willpower. Really it doesn’t. Honest to God it doesn’t. You don’t have to make it your life’s mission to change their minds or even waste energy on being annoyed.
I think most people who work out do at least 20 minutes of something cardio - usually half an hour. But fine. We’ll say that a person who exercises burns 200 more calories a day than someone who doesn’t.
That’s burning a pound every 18 days. That’s 20 pounds a year.
As a former fatty I was overjoyed to discover that it was my fault. I thought I was eating well- brown rice, pasta, veggies and lean proteins, low fat, occasional snacks- and exercising- biking to and from work- but I was still fat and getting fatter. So I was pretty sure that it was not my fault. I was fat and sad.
Then one day I started tracking my food and fitness and went, holy shit, I’m eating too much food! And the biking to and from work was negligible at best. Wow, this is my fault, I’m doing this to myself! So I started to educate myself on nutrition and fitness. And I lost 100 pounds. I still maintain a healthy weight, and still track calories and workouts.
Of course it wasn’t easy, and it’s going to be something I work at for the rest of my life, but I hated being fat. I am so happy that it was my fault because I was able to change.
I don’t have any malice towards fat people. I also didn’t win a “genetic lottery” in regards to weight. I work hard to keep my weight down and be fit. It sucks to have to say “no thank you” when I would rather dive right in to a big plate of food.
You have convinced yourself that it’s either your child or your health, and that is only true in your head. What do you do at lunch? Eat an apple and walk laps around the parking lot? Close your office door and do crunches? Do you have a treadmill in your living room so you can be with your family while you exercise?
Few of us thin people have the luxury of the universe stopping and all responsibilities being suspended so we can exercise and eat right. We make time because it’s a priority to us.
Another thing about time consumption: There are times when I eat fruits and vegetables as a meal, because it takes less time than making something else. I eat healthy food largely in the interest of saving time.
It’s more than the direct calories burned, though. Exercise tones your muscles. Healthy, fit muscles burn more calories per day than lax, atrophied ones, which means your overall metabolic rate increases. That’s not negligible.
Its still 200 calories. And better cardiovascular health. And the ability to bend without pulling something. And - according to some people, an increase in your metabolic rate for a period after you get done.
I eat less than 2000 calories a day normally (more if we go out for a nice dinner, or its a holiday meal, or I accidentally allow a bag of Oreos to enter the house), a half an hour run is easily 10% of my calories burned.
It really has nothing to do with Guns being a woman. The same thing would happen if some dude showed up and told people how much a buffed Adonis they were.
But yeah, let’s make this a woman’s self esteem issue since the victim card always works.