It’s not always the case that I have the will to lose it, but I have the will to not get my pants size above a 38. Yes, I am the grown macho man with barometer pants. 
Hey, why not. I’m bemoaning the fact that the world has shifted enough that weight is no longer self-maintaining - from the rigidly limited position of refuting the set of people who deny that that has happened by claiming that the measures now necessary to maintain weight are “natural” and not a shift from the habits and instincts developed to deal with a world that no longer exists.
That’s not why I dismiss exercise, though. I dismiss exercise because I have low stamina and am short of wind to an absurd degree. My body stops me from doing any hard exercise before it does me any good becuase I’m literally staggering to a halt gasping for breath long before then. (Which probably would make me real popular with the triathalon crowd, hayup.)
It quite simply is not; obesity is a growing (ha) problem throughout the Western world.
It sounds like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too (lol). You see overeating as a natural behavior of humans, yet exercise is artificial because it isn’t being done in the name of hunting or gathering. What is “natural” about the ease of access to calories that exists today? The “diseases of civilization” result from an “unnatural” modern lifestyle, but nobody is seriously claiming that we should revert to a hunter and gatherer lifestyle. The nutritional paradigm has shifted and we must adapt. The only solution, then, is to try and mimic as “natural” of an existence as possible. If that means running around outside for no reason other than to get your blood flowing, then so be it.
I’ll tell you what’s truly unnatural: never getting off the couch and letting all the physical gifts that evolution has provided atrophy and go to waste.
Please make sure you read that article before you make up your mind. I have seen many overweight people join these training groups where they only walk at first. Eventually they build up stamina and start to shuffle along. Eventually that turns into a jog.
You may be coming up with some preconcieved notions of training groups that aren’t reality. It’s not like those worthless high school PE classes. The coach won’t force you to sprint X miles without giving any guidance. The coach will likely tailor your workout to your ability, whatever that is. Part of the training will be to build up your stamina to where you will be able to work out longer and longer. Your stamina is not a constant value. You can it increase it. Even if you can’t run miles today, you will be able to do it if you keep training.
Here’s the same woman from the above article at a recent race: Lynn Sparks. Look through some of the other pictures. You’ll see all sorts of body types in there.
The only thing holding you back right now is your mind thinking it can’t do it. Break through that negative thinking. Don’t let your physical limitations of today hold you back from what you could be doing 6 months from now. Or for the rest of your life.
Nah - I posit that what is “natural” is to seek the happiness and pleasure - and that it ain’t natural to find chasing imaginary mastadons satisfying. It is, on the other hand, natural to enjoy sitting on your ass watching your favorite TV show scarfing down your favorite food to the degree that your body tells you is satisfying. The addition of TVs don’t make resting and relaxation less natural - but the existence of cars does make choosing to walk two miles each way to the market unnatural.
Succictly, this is not an argument that it’s better for you to sit around eating potato chips. It’s an argument that, first, we shouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised people are doing it, and, second, it’s an criticism of the mischaracterization of an artificially fit lifestyle as “natural”. I choose to criticize that because, first, it’s a lie, and second, it’s a lie that’s said as an insulting attack on persons who are not engaging in the artificially fit lifestyle.
I will note that this sort of attack is a preemptive strike in defense of the fact that the artificially fit lifestyle is artificial and unnatural; if people admit that it’s natural and normal to live a slothful and unhealthy lifestyle, then it’s unnatural and abnormal to be fit, which is presumably a bad thing because it uses the words “unnatural” and “abnormal”, which are bad things because they start with vowels.
I think I’ll make up my mind early, thanks. I had no stamina when I was thin. It ain’t gonna happen now.
And actually there’s another thing holding me back too - I don’t want to run a triatholon. Or a mile. Or an inch. Even putting aside the promised years of humilation and agony, I have better things to do with my time. (And yes, most of them involve sitting on my butt.)
Okay, now you’re just trying to justify laziness. There’s nothing artificial about being physically fit. Fine, we don’t need to be strong and athletic to hunt mastodons anymore. But we do need a modicum of fitness to maintain good health. How do you reconcile the fact that people who don’t exercise experience a host of health problems?
The fact that vedging out in front of the TV is enjoyable doesn’t make it natural; that’s ridiculous. Your implication that exercise and maintaining fitness isn’t enjoyable is nothing more than your opinion. Exercise releases chemical neurotransmitters in the brain (ever hear of a “runner’s high?”).
A natural course of action is not necessarily the healthy one, so no reconciliation is necessary.
And pointing out laziness is natural doesn’t “justify” it. Whatever that means.
If it was that fun, nobody would be watching TV. They would naturally gravitate towards the more enjoyable activity.
Not sure what you’re getting at here.
Many do gravitate towards fitness and find it enjoyable. They tend not to be obese.
Many even find time to mix in a little TV watching or other idle behavior, but not too much because that gets boring.
I’m going to be generous and read this as an attempt at humor.
Do not insult other posters outside the BBQ Pit.
[ /Moderating ]
You asked how I reconcile the fact that not everything natural is healthy. I answered by saying I don’t have to reconcile it - there is no conflict to start with.
I think you just forced me to agree that “natural” must be defined subjectively. Thus, it is natural for a small percentage* of people to pump iron or run marathons for fun - for them, sitting around getting fat would be unnatural. And it’s also natural for a good portion of everybody else to be big fat unhealthy lazy slobs, and would be unnatural for them to exercize. I can concede this.
Should we move on to the subject of “normal” and “abnormal” next?
- In a population of a hundred million, a tenth of a percent is “many”. Many times over!
How do you think people get cardio stamina? You have to start out doing something! I’d never had any stamina at all - got out of breath going up the stairs when I was teeny tiny thin in high school. Never had been able to run a mile to save my life. So a year ago I started Couch to 5K, and I learned to run. Yeah, at the beginning I couldn’t get enough air - that’s why you keep doing it! You think the rest of us have some sort of magical air machine that helps us breathe?
No, I asked you how you could consider exercise to be unnatural when lack of it negatively affects your health.
Forget “natural” and “unnatural.” How about “healthy” and “unhealthy?” Putting aside your misconception that exercise means training for marathons or being a bodybuilder, do the health benefits of being a lazy slob outweigh the detriments?
I certainly think that there is variance in differing people’s ability to gain stamina.
I’d probably worry about this more if I cared about not having stamina. Since I don’t, though, I’m just fine calling the near-vertical cliff “unclimbable”. Close enough.
Yes, and because being unhealthy is completely irrelevent to whether something is natural, I see no reason not to consider sloth unnatural.
Maybe you want to pin down a specific definion of “natural” first. Because the one I’m using sure ain’t “the absolutely most healthy action in every circumstance”.
Of course it’s healthier to be healthy than to be unhealthy. DUH. Good grief, what a stupid question. (And quite the goalpost movement, too!)
And exercise that is sufficient to impact your weight does mean escalating it to a degree sufficient to train for marathons or be a bodybuilder. Casual dicking around isn’t going to cut it. I know, because I’ve been causally dicking around with exercise for the past several years and it hasn’t impacted my weight in the slightest. (Or had any other discernible effect on my health either, for that matter.)
Hehe!
I’m with MOL – good luck and keep at it!
What you are saying is that you are unhealthy because you are lazy.
That is what we are saying, too!
On a personal note, I really encourage you (or anyone) to try Couch-2-5k. Anyone can do it. It only takes half an hour three times a week. And even for (relatively healthy and active) me, I started seeing results in my day to day life after just a few weeks.
I sorta see what you’re getting at, but you’ve chosen to define what behaviors are natural by whether you come by them naturally. I’m sure not exercising comes naturally to you, just as smoking comes naturally to those addicted to nicotine. Speaking for myself, prolonged inactivity can make me feel lethargic and depressed. My point is that exercise does provide health benefits, which makes it worthwhile in and of itself. It’s not unnatural simply because I don’t utilize my fitness to hunt and gather food.
I see that other people have also responded to this in the interim, but I’ll go ahead and throw in my two cents as well.
Prior to June of this year, I had never voluntarily run in my life. And apart from being forced to run a mile during gym class in high school (most of which I walked anyway), the longest I’d ever run was maybe down the block, chasing a toddler, and I felt like death afterward, gasping for air and light-headed. I never played sports, apart from one uninspiring season of 6th-grade softball. I have been overweight for most of my adult life. I was completely and totally out of shape. If you had asked me, I would have said something similar to what you have said, about how some people “just don’t have stamina” and how some people can run, and some people just can’t, full stop, end of story.
I am now running around ten miles per week, hoping soon to bump that up to 15 miles per week. I ran a 5K race in September. I am running a 5-miler in November. When I started running, I weighed 210 pounds and was obese.
Humans are built for distance running. Short of having a physical disability, I think that pretty much anyone can run a mile. Maybe not right this second, but if you work up to it gradually, you can do it. If I can do it, anybody can do it. I’m no athlete.
If you don’t want to, and instead choose to sit on your couch, that’s cool. I certainly don’t think that everyone needs to do the same things that I do. But don’t think that you are somehow innately different from people who can run a mile. You can run a mile too, you’re just not conditioned for it at the current time. 
OK, I’ll step off my “Even a fat and out-of-shape person can learn to run” soapbox now, I promise!
Ditch the rice and celery, and limit yourself to under 100 grams of carbs per day (low, but not crazy) while eating a high fat, high protein diet. You don’t have to be hungry, or run triathlons. Don’t worry about calories. Don’t worry about exercise. Some push-ups and light weight training, if you can manage, and taking walks, would be enough. I promise you will see some weight loss within a few weeks. Keep carbs low and you could be thin, if you wanted to. Your lipid profile will improve as well. Your energy levels will be through the roof. Your skin will glow.
I’ve seen it work, time and time again. It’s hard to ditch sugar and starch, but usually your taste for it decreases over time.
Personally, I exceed my saturated fat allowance per day by about 300%. My blood cholesterol at last check was 154, trigs 54, LDL 71, HDL 74.