Physical Fitness, Health & Weight ManagementStaying fit and physically healthy is essential! Remember, we aren't subsitutes for your physician! As always, talk to your doctor before following any suggestions or advice!
But for the most part these days the public seems to be more and more understanding and open about drug problems, and all sorts of other darknesses..But yet obesity is still something to be ridiculed and still makes a person a "loser" if they do carry those extra pounds (which is not easy in itself by the way).
That is what James was talking about in his post. Although I have never been able to say it so succinctly and elegantly.
Quoting just part of your post...which is well said and comes from experience. And I think you did quite well.
__________________ "Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, the other is to let her have it." --LBJ
I think you mis-read my point, I was responding to JamesM, that said, sometimes obesity has to do with people not being genetically able to eat the same things as thinner people and maintain the same weight. I simply stated that obesity is not often genetic.
I also stated that I thought food was as devious as alchohol when it comes to addiction.
I'm not naturally slender- I clarified that in my post as well.
I did not mean you are naturally slender as in you don't have to work for it. You made it clear that you do in fact work very very hard for it, and that's great and good for you. What I meant was simply that my ideal weight for me was 10 pounds heavier (when I WAS working out every day and eating much healthier) than what you find ideal for you even though I am a couple inches shorter. I simply meant that perhaps you have a certain body structure that is petite (as in slenderness-not height) and some of us have a slightly more curvy natural default (I did not mean either to imply that you do not have breasts or hips, can't tell in you're pic and that is beside the point anyway..but just that some women are just a little "thicker" over their whole body at the weight they are not only most comfortable at but are most healthy at-not underweight or overweight, not too much fat and just enough muscle for their particular lifestyle)...That's all I mean...like if you look at celebrities like Sarah Michelle Gellar..
She is very slender (don't know what her height is-seems kind of average maybe on the short side, but that is not my point) but she usually looks very healthy as well...not skeleton like, she has a little flesh, and she has a healthy glow (assuming it's not just make-up-don't think so). Then look at Jennifer Lopez with the famous booty, and she is more curvy, just a little bit thicker but still very svelte and thin, just has a little more lean muscle and a little more of those latin curves..which is natural for a woman...but all women are different...They both probably have access to the best trainers, workout several days a week, and seem like the kind of women who are very driven and probably stick to a healthy diet and exercise pretty consistently and faithfully. regardless of ethnicity some women are just more petite and others are more curvy. and some kind of in the middle..again not necessarily in the boob area or bum area, some slender girls still have nice moderate sized breasts (I personally like smaller breasts anyway), but over the whole body....it's all beautiful to me, I'm not making any judgements on anyone. It's just like eye color and skin and hair color...It would be totally boring if there were only one kind.....woman of all colors can be beautiful...same with body shapes (I'm not including obese shapes in that or underweight malnutritioned women, but that's a whole other subject).
I guess my point is that for me to get down to your weight or even less if I was going by the fact that I am a few inches shorter than you...I WOULD probably have to work a whole lot harder than you (I'm not trying to diminish how very hard you DO work)...because everyone's bodies work a little differently, and the reality is that would not be right for me or what I want for my body anyway. It's going to be incredibly hard work to lose all the weight I need to to get to MY ideal weight already.
It IS absolutely true that I got this way mostly by eating too much and the wrong things and not exercising enough. However even if I trained like an Olympic athlete and was on a strict diet it would probably be difficult for me to get down to 120 or below, and it would not be right for my particular body anyway.
So essentially I agree with you about the genetic thing however I do think it has SOME role to play in most obese people....even if the main causes are psychological which leads to overeating, and a sedate lifestyle etc. I think basically that a lot of 300 pound people may have lead the exact same life, bite for bite, movement for movement and if their genetics had been different they may have just weighed 250 or even 275, they would still be fat, and probably "obese"...every pound though is an extra burden and unfortunately for some people the more weight they put on the more they want to give up instead of it motivating them even more to lose weight.
I'm not a doctor or a scientist so I have no way to know if this is correct..just a theory...It's not so important though because no one can change their genetics anyway.
Last edited by EarthGirl; 6th October 2009 at 12:23 AM..
I haven't read the book you mentioned James, so forgive me, but I do find it really really hard to believe what you say above when obesity is very uncommon in many populations around the globe, and was relatively uncommon globally until about 50 years ago.
Read the review I linked below. It will give you an idea of what the book proposes. And since a fat gene was discovered, it makes sense. It does NOT mean that all obesity is genetic, but it certainly does give a basis for why many obese people can eat little and not lose weight.
Read the review I linked below. It will give you an idea of what the book proposes. And since a fat gene was discovered, it makes sense. It does NOT mean that all obesity is genetic, but it certainly does give a basis for why many obese people can eat little and not lose weight.
But does this really explain why such a high percentage of the population is obese, many morbidly so? It seems to me that there is a fairly simple equation that applies to most overweight people - less food intake, more exercise. The vast majority of them don't have thyroid problems...
If you drink a mocha from Starbucks every day with whole milk in it, have a burrito for breakfast smothered in cheese, eat hot wings for lunch, Cheetos for a snack, pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert, you can gain weight pretty quickly.
As compared to, black coffee, oatmeal, sandwich, edamame, grilled chicken, fruit. You get the picture.
(w/ plan B, every couple of days you could maybe splurge on some Cheetos *or* some ice cream, "or" being the key word.)
That makes sense to me. And if you are living somewhere where food isn't that plentiful I guess you would have to live with it.
If you lived somewhere where food was cheap and easily accessible, the scenario you outlined SR could understandably make you more prone to being obese.
That makes sense to me. And if you are living somewhere where food isn't that plentiful I guess you would have to live with it.
If you lived somewhere where food was cheap and easily accessible, the scenario you outlined SR could understandably make you more prone to being obese.
If you drink a mocha from Starbucks every day with whole milk in it, have a burrito for breakfast smothered in cheese, eat hot wings for lunch, Cheetos for a snack, pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert, you can gain weight pretty quickly.
As compared to, black coffee, oatmeal, sandwich, edamame, grilled chicken, fruit. You get the picture.
(w/ plan B, every couple of days you could maybe splurge on some Cheetos *or* some ice cream, "or" being the key word.)
This is absolutely true. I'm big... to big. I cut back from 4000+ calories a day, 2-3 donuts, Burger King or Taco Bell lunch (2k cal) big dinner and snacks, snacks snacks to 1000-1200 cal's. Eating very carefully. I'm losing 4+ pounds a week and will be down far enough soon to start "real" excercise.
I'm old... this will have to be a life change. I'm working on it hard.
I'll be the first one to pipe up about staying healthy. My only problem is that there seems to be an unreasonable phobia and bias, to the point of ostracization, in the current societal environment.
Sure, the average overweight and obese person could lose their weight and I would highly encourage anyone to do so, if for nothing more than staying alive longer and also, for quality of life.
But obese people aren't obese because they want to be that way. They already know they're obese and don't really need it hammered into their brain.
What I will say is that some people don't have the response to overeating that makes most of us feel overfull and sick so that we naturally stop.
For some, I think, they either never feel full, or they feel sick and the compulsion to keep on eating is stronger.
Imagine if you simply felt hunger all the time. That aspect I do believe is either deeply habituated or genetic.
storyrider,
I do believe that that is what it is like for some obese people. But me myself although sometimes I still feel hungry after eating a good sized meal and I am hungry a good portion of my life and when I AM hungry it drives me crazy it's a horrible horrible feeling...which is also part of the problem. But anyway I DO eventually get full...so much that I can't stand to eat anymore. Problem is it is usually after I've eaten way too much already.
And then another problem is after I have overeaten and get so full I actually DO get "sick of" food...and I tend to go hours without eating because I'm so tired of it (not really being tired of the fat problem or overeating problem itself, or feeling "guilty" because I know I overate..but simply a feeling of fullness in my stomach and getting tired of food so that I am not really that in love with food anymore ...just bored of it for once...wish that could last)...And THEN I go so many hours without eating anything, and since I am hypoglycemic by then I get faint and super hungry and since not only my mind and depression and taste buds again are screaming find something yummy to eat, but my stomach is too...So I tend then to overeat AGAIN. Not all the time, like I said most of the time I don't overeat a horrible amount, but just steadily eat a little too much for my body every day of very unhealthy but tasty food...But there is also a cycle every once in a while of this that I described above.
I find it really hard to stick to routine..sleeping schedule (up now at 2:30 am here)..anything really... I just do not function naturally that way and that is also part of the problem.
Anyway I do get full....I've also heard that stomachs actually are kind of elastic, the stomach muscle expands if you eat too much so logically then it takes more to fill it and make you feel that full feeling. I don't know if that's true, if anyone is in the medical field you can fill me in...But that is kind of sucky if it is true. Maybe it shrinks if you start eating more appropriate smaller portions but then you have to be sure not to eat too much or get too full to stretch it out again...like a catch 22 or something like that (I never understand what those kind of sayings mean, but you know what I mean).. My sister is a personal trainer and she has a friend who's a nutritionist and she has always told me it's good to fill your tummy but never to get too full...in fact it's good to be just a little bit hungry most of the time.
There is a horrible disease I've heard of too with a horrible disgusting name (can't remember right now) where people don't ever ever feel full, that don't have the ability to feel full so they always feel hungry. That is such a horrible thing. Kinda crazy weird disease like kids who can't feel any physical pain.
But most obese people don't technically have this disease probably. But yes it is much much more complicated than a lot of people think unfortunately.
This is absolutely true. I'm big... to big. I cut back from 4000+ calories a day, 2-3 donuts, Burger King or Taco Bell lunch (2k cal) big dinner and snacks, snacks snacks to 1000-1200 cal's. Eating very carefully. I'm losing 4+ pounds a week and will be down far enough soon to start "real" excercise.
I'm old... this will have to be a life change. I'm working on it hard.
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