I don’t know why I bother because I know I will never change any of your minds, but…
Cite? Give me something that says that overweight always equals unhealthy. And give me something scientifically grounded.
No one is claiming that people who stuff their faces with junk food and sit on the couch all day are healthy, but a whole heck of a lot of those people are thin. Further, someone can have a good diet and exercise and still be overweight. The way a person looks on the outside has very little correlation to health. And in striving for health, we should not confuse weight loss with healthfulness in all instances.
For all of you who insist that, in your experience, all fat people eat like pigs, I have one thing to tell you: the plural of anecdote is not data.
How dare you tell me that I’m not beautiful! Who the hell do you think you are?!?
You don’t know me–you have no idea of who I am or what I’m about. Beauty is more than weight; it’s even more than looks.
My weight has nothing to do with “scarfing Little Debbies;” I can’t even remember the last time I had one. It’s been several years at least. Don’t assume you understand why someone is the way they are, because you don’t. You have no idea.
I am a beautiful person. I know it. If you don’t, well, then you’re less of a person for it.
If that’s all i was allowed to eat on a diet, I wouldn’t be able to stick with it. It’s not satisfying and I would end up hungrier than I started. If someone has a perception that they would have to never have the things that really fill them up, yes, that would discourage wanting to change to that diet.
So yes, I eat salad, but with grilled chicken, olives, hard-boiled eggs, other non-processed food that will actually fill me up. It’s been going OK so far but only because I realized after ~30 years that it won’t work if I am too strict.
Okay, I will retract it when you can show me the peer-reviewed journal articles where the claim has been thoroughly debunked. In the mean time I will amend it to “only a weak correlation”
Also, it seems that you do not know my doctor.
Finally: how did you read that whole post and completely miss the part where I ask you to help me understand the source of your hostility towards fat people, but manage to find one thing to nitpick? It seems like you are not approaching this discussion in good faith.
Slight hijack-I’m currently trying to eat better, lose a couple of pounds, and has anyone tried Fiber One Bars? They’re like Quaker Oat granola bars, and they’re sooooo good. My gramma used to get us the chocolate chip granola bars when we were little, and these things are even better.
Or Yoplait Whips? Yummy!
I’ve found they’re better than pudding and candy bars.
(Now, if I could just dump my pop habit. Not much luck, though)
Yep, it’s clear that he likes 'em big. But I am always interested in proof for these oft-cited claims of things everybody knows. It’s not easy being a slave to knowledge …
a) you genuinely are unaware that there’s a strong correlation between weight and health
b) you want to read medical journals
c) you’re using a request for a cite as a “battering ram” mechanism for “winning” the debate, as is often seen on this message board?
For the cite, click here (University of Oxford, based on study “E Calle et al. Body-mass index and mortality in a prospective cohort of US adults. The New England Journal of Medicine 1999 341: 1097-1105”).
I LOVE FiberOne Bars, but because they have so freakin much fiber in them, it’s like eating Colon Blow. On the upside, though, they really fill you up.
There are a lot of varying degrees in effort for the same people. I can pick at the meat in a burger + fries platter and stop there, because I’d be full by the time I finished eating the meat. That’s how most thin people I know operate, and I don’t consider myself (or them) particularly virtuous. I’ve known fat people who were fat because they ate normal diets, and I’ve known fat people who were fat because they had some sort of obsession with food that we’ll never have, and I don’t hold judgment against either type because they go through struggles I’ll never know.
The way you speak makes you either an exaggerator of your virtues and your struggles, or make you sound like you have some kind of latent COE disorder. I’m more inclined towards the former. And frankly the way you’re speaking makes me feel lower than cat piss, simply because I’m not killing myself to be at my current weight-- can’t imagine what you’re doing to people who are overweight.
I love them too! I eat them practically every day for breakfast with a piece of fruit or yogurt. They have almost singlehandedly remedied the severe IBS I used to have. I can’t eat more than one in a day, though, because they are crazy with fiber.
Have you tried the new Apple Streudel Flavor? So yummy.
I had a really long post like three pages ago that died along with my frozen computer. So I’ll be back after my run to get down to business here.
I am sympathetic to this view, but I would like to make some clarifying points (just on the off chance that there are people in this thread who are interested in clarity). These points are based on 3 years of amateur study of nutrition, weight loss and weight maintenance, which was part of the process of my own loss of 150 pounds or so, of which I am maintaining at about -125 pounds (i.e. I have re-gained 25 of the 150 pounds I lost). The three years of study includes frequent consultation with professionals in the field. I mention the weight loss not to prove my virtue, but only as a kind of credential.
Each person’s normal weight, ability to lose weight and ability to keep weight off can only be judged against his/her own body’s standards. No two people are the same in this regard.
1a. Of course, one’s weight is no-one’s business but one’s own. A number of people upthread have said they don’t care what you or I think about their weight, and I support that 100%. If you don’t like to look at me or them, don’t look. Or think what you like, but keep your opinions to yourself. (This item is not supported by research, it is only my opinion).
Statistically, weight comparison charts and BMI charts reveal a significant relationship between weight and some health risk factors. However, these charts are not infallible. For example, at my heaviest I had normal blood pressure and only borderline bad cholesterol.
2a. Where your fat is stored makes a difference to those health risk factors. Fat stored around the middle (as distinct from the buttocks, for example) is more dangerous statistically. So pear shaped is less risky than apple shaped.
For the vast majority of people, how much they weight, and especially how much of that is fat, is a factor of things they do (what they eat and how much exercise they take). This does not negate #1, it only clarifies it. If you weigh more than you used to, it is because you are taking in more calories than you are burning. “Healthy” diet vs. “unhealthy” diet is less relevant here than total calories.
This one is very important, because it speaks to why diets mostly don’t work: once you have been fat, if you lose weight it is much harder to keep it off than it would have been not to put on the weight in the first place. Reason: by getting fat you add a lot of fat cells to your body. When you lose weight you do not lose fat cells*, they only get smaller. And after getting smaller, every one of those fat cells is screaming to be fed (by means of chemicals in your bloodstream) and they grab every available possible extra bit of unused nutrition in hopes of replenishing themselves to their former size. There is abundant research to support this. If you and I are the same size, but I was once fat and you were never fat, and if we eat the same amount, where you will maintain the same weight I will put on weight. I have to do more exercise or eat less to maintain than you do.
Generally, it is easier for men to lose weight and maintain weight loss than for women to do the same. I’m not sure why this is so, but I imagine it has to do with the different way that men’s and women’s bodies treat the storage of body fat.
Generally, it is easier for younger people to lose weight and maintain weight loss than it will be for the same people when they get older. This is because for most people, metabolism tends to slow down with age (although it does not have to do so, this can be fought by increasing the amount of some types of exercise).
One conclusion I draw from all this is that I have no right to open my yap about your weight, unless you invite me to. This includes remarking on how much some thinner person can eat that I can’t; it also includes not making a fuss about what a martyr I am to trying to keep my weight down.
*Eventually you can lose fat cells, if you keep weight off for several years. However, by the time you have kept that weight off for several years you probably have the discipline that it takes to keep doing it, regardless of the presence or absence of those fat cells.
Prediction: this post will either kill this thread cold (from boredom, mostly) or 93.7% of potential readers will skip right past it.
Roddy
Edited to clarify #3.
You are aware that it is not necessary to share every single intimate detail of your life, right? Some things are best left unsaid. This is Exhibit A, right up there with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and menstruation.
