Fatties and their Haters

[powerboy]

No, and no it's not, alot of the time people try and protect poeple from reality, it doesn't help them it hurts them, and alot of the time coddling doesn't help, people need to be told the truth and face reality, and sometimes a harsh wakeup call is what they need.

Exactly. I agree with you on this. Everyone needs the harsh wakeup of reality. But nooooo, we can't do that. It might hurt someone. If more people were straight forward, everyone would be better off. Just come out and say, hey when you do that, you are a jerk. Make them realize it.

[AFPheonix]

Exactly. I agree with you on this. Everyone needs the harsh wakeup of reality. But nooooo, we can't do that. It might hurt someone. If more people were straight forward, everyone would be better off. Just come out and say, hey when you do that, you are a jerk. Make them realize it.

What you are failing to realize is that people who have a mental illness aren't just going to all of a sudden go "well gee there, Powerboy, I guess you were right. I'll just stop this here silly destructive behavior. What on earth was I thinking?"
They are not operating on the same level at that point as a rational human. They need help from a professional to work through their issues.

[ladyneeva]

Normally, I prefer to link to articles/blogs and I like to think that anyone actually involved in a debate would go read the sources. In this instance, I'm going to quote a few paragraphs directly because I'm fairly sure those parties advocating diet and restricted intake as a panacea for the 'obesity epidemic' are not willing to read an article it took me almost 45 minutes to get through just to see these paragraphs that I feel are important to the discussion.

Restricting food for decades to extend life by a couple of years might be more acceptable if it weren’t accompanied by perpetual hunger, said professors Speakman and Hambly. Their research, however, found that hunger never really goes away. Even after 50 days of {calorie restriction} in mice (about 5 people years), hunger had not diminished and when the mice were taken off the restrictive diet, they were hyperphagic (gorged).

Nourishment is one of life’s greatest pleasures, as well as one of its most basic necessities. Advising people to live their lives obsessed with counting calories and restrained eating, where the pleasures of eating are replaced by punitive dietary regimens and chronic hunger, and where avoiding death becomes the main preoccupation of living, takes on more of a religious ideology, than sound science.

“One can say {calorie restriction} might add some years to your life but it will not be a life worth living,” wrote professor Magalhães. There’s the mental stress of being hungry all the time, he said, which can lead to depression and anxiety behaviors, as have been observed in {calorie restriction} studies. “{calorie restriction} also makes people feel less energetic, less alive. And finally there are the sexual problems: diminished libido is a common side-effect in people under {calorie restriction} and infertility is also possible.” {calorie restriction} has also been reported to reduce the ability to fight infection and research has suggested it might even leave motor neurons more vulnerable to degeneration.

The bolded sections are the parts I want to particularly emphasize, and were added by me. I also replaced all the instances of CR with {calorie restriction} because I was unsure if everyone would make the connection without having read the full article. Which, by the by, is located here: http://tinyurl.com/m6n8vn

The whole quoted section sums up my feeling on this... which is that even if I bought into your moral outrage that fat is bad... SO WHAT? By being the arbitrary weight that it has been decided I can be, I might at best add a couple years to my life... but they'll be years wasted obsessed over every little thing I eat or drink, performing meaningless repetitive and BORING actions just because they burn off the little calories I do allow myself, and trying to convince myself that plain water or bitter herbal brews really do taste better than lemonade.

Again, a life of perpetual hunger, obsession, boredom, and a complete lack of enjoyment would not, to me, be a life worth living. It might very well be longer... and it would definitely FEEL longer... but it would not be any better.

This whole thing is just another example of the perpetual mind-fuck we inflict on ourselves. Everyone is told to just be yourself, that it's ok to believe different things and as long as you're not hurting anyone nobody has the right to discriminate against you for it. But if part of 'being yourself' is enjoying your life instead of having to constantly count calories and eat things you hate, you are fair game to be discriminated against. Be yourself, as long as that means being exactly the same as everyone around you basically.

[Boozy]

Ladyneeva, the article you have quoted from is not about basic dieting, and it's certainly not about eating a healthy diet based on fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. It is about Calorie Restriction, an intensely restrictive dietary plan supposedly meant to increase longevity. The goal of CR is hunger.

For those who are not familiar with Calorie Restriction, here's the wiki article.

The vast majority of people who are watching their weight are not restricting themselves to the point of perpetual hunger. CR enthusiats are a fringe group, and they shouldn't be presented as the norm.

[Nyoibo]

Most of what is in that couple of paragraphs are also the side effects of being overweight, I'm starting a diet on Wednesday, our neighbours have been on it for 9 weeks and lost 16kg each, they had us over for dinner last night and I had the same thing that they had, part of the diet, I didn't feel hungry, I was completely full, it was extremely tasty, and it was also healthy for me. Most of the meals in this diet are reasonably simple, nutritious and tasty, once the diet's been taken to completion it'd be a fairly simple thing to modify the meals to others to keep a healthy eating plan, and as I've been trying to say, it's not a matter of starving yourself, or counting calories, but changing your lifestyle to one that is healthier.

But if a life of hedonism and not taking responsibility is what you want because doing something good for you is "not nice" then fine, but I will give no sympathy if and when you develop or have to live with problems caused by being overweight like type 2 diabetes, joint problems and degeneration, compressed discs and other spinal problems, having to buy 2 seats on a plane to fly, having to go to specialty shops for clothing and a host of other things. And you know what, people will ridicule you for being overweight, just like we ridicule people on CS who make their lives difficult for being a dick, people who are overweight make lives difficult for themselves by being overweight.



I have all the time in the world for people who want to help themselves, I do not however have time for, nor give a shit about people who are unwilling to change or help themselves.

[blas87]

I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of being scrutinized for having a nice, healthy body and shape.

When I'm at work debating what I want to eat, and one of the whales on my shift says "You can eat whatever you want, it's not like there's anything to you anyway!" it really irks me. And yes, I said whale. Sue me.

What, am I supposed to apologize because I exercise 6 days a week and try to watch what I eat? Am I supposed to apologize because all that exercise does me good and I stay at a healthy weight and keep a good looking shape?

I'm not going to apologize because I make good food choices and because of all the exercise I do, I keep my metabolism good and going so that if I do stray and have an upside down food pyramid day, it doesn't affect me.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

I don't think anyone here or most people there want you to apologize. If they want to make a funny comment so be it, it's funny. Are they jealous? maybe. Do they think being skinny is a bad thing? probably not.

I don't see where you get that from, really, unless the tone implied that they are jealous to the point of despising your success.

I don't think you should apologize, nor do I think they should apologize for seeking a little humor out of the situation.

[BroomJockey]

I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of being scrutinized for having a nice, healthy body and shape.
<snip>
What, am I supposed to apologize <snip>
Am I supposed to apologize <snip>

I'm not going to apologize <snip>

A fat person being offended by being called a hippo, or a whale is an attack on you and your body? No one's asking you to apologize. Not that I've seen anyway. What we're asking for is that you DO stop calling people whales. After all, if we want to get in to appearance based insults, you've already indicated that you hate when people generalize about people sharing your appearance. You hate when people say "Some blond, overtanned bimbo" came in. So why do you have a problem with that, but not saying "that whale"? You feel attacked when someone makes the bimbo comment, every overweight person feels attacked when you say "whale." Have whatever bloody body shape you want, just stop insulting other people for having theirs.

In the end, their weight may or may not be their fault, it may or may not be something they want to fix if they can. But insulting another human for how they look isn't a class move, no matter what.

[Lace Neil Singer]

What you are failing to realize is that people who have a mental illness aren't just going to all of a sudden go "well gee there, Powerboy, I guess you were right. I'll just stop this here silly destructive behavior. What on earth was I thinking?"
They are not operating on the same level at that point as a rational human. They need help from a professional to work through their issues.

This is exactly what I was saying. I had an eating disorder, that was just as difficult to work thru as anyone with bulimia or anorexia, and that I still have to watch in case I fall back into it. Someone saying to me "Just eat less, fatso" would have just driven me back inside myself, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to seek help for my eating disorder ever again.

Tho it's true that there are people who are greedy and are fat just cuz they ate all the pies, it's prejudiced to assume that all people who are overweight are so cuz of that. Also, if you've never been in the grip of a mental illness, you're not going to understand it. I also had clinical depression at one point and nope, being told "Cheer up!" wouldn't have done the slightest good when I was struggling with it.

[violetyoshi]

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes


I have all the time in the world for people who want to help themselves, I do not however have time for, nor give a shit about people who are unwilling to change or help themselves.

This is the same position people have about drug addicts, except you do not need to take drugs to live. You do need to eat to live, and that's what makes losing weight difficult.

*MOD EDIT due to excessive quoting~Please edit quotes

I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of being scrutinized for having a nice, healthy body and shape.

When I'm at work debating what I want to eat, and one of the whales on my shift says "You can eat whatever you want, it's not like there's anything to you anyway!" it really irks me. And yes, I said whale. Sue me.

It seems you need to work on empathizing with others. I'm sorry, if you having a perfect body, and having to deal with the occasional off comment, doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. You don't know what it's like to never see yourself represented properly in the media. To only be able to buy clothing from certain stores, and have no choice in personal style. As well as people perpetually being "concerned about your health" becaue the news is always acting like people like you will drop dead in a matter of minutes. Or that you always eat junk, when you're eating healthy and it's just that due to genetics you'll never have a model's body.

What I'm seeing here, is a person who's dealt with little to no prejudice in their life, and doesn't see how arrogant they sound when they're complaining about someone making a stereotype of them. Only then, to go ahead and make a stereotype of someone else. So you keep patting yourself on the back, and talking about fat people as if they're beneath you.

Someone hands you a compliment, saying you can eat anything you want, and you call them a whale. That sounds plain b***y to me.

[protege]

Thought I'd chime in here about something...

I have no problem with people who are overweight. I'm not exactly skinny either. In fact, I have a slight spare tire. Mainly, because I sit on my ass all day at work, and my metabolism has slowed a bit since turning 30. Also, working full-time, plus taking care of the house, putting the MG back together, etc. means that I don't have time to be constantly exercising. Would I like to do more? Of course I would. With that said, I don't give others shit about their weight.

I do though, have a problem if they (and I apologize for sounding like an elitist asshole) weigh more than both of my cars, and they're giving *me* shit about *my* weight. My feeling is, that unless they're perfect, they have *no right* to say anything. If they do anyway, they're *inviting* some rather nasty comments from me, usually "fuck off" or the Pittsburgh Salute.

Right now, I've had to deal with some nasty comments from my brother about my "spare tire." He's unemployed, sponging off my mother, so has plenty of time to work out. I can't bust his chops about *his* weight (apparently bullshit weighs more than fat ), but I *can* bust his balls about not having a job. Usually, that's enough to shut him up

Thought I'd mention this too--when I do work out, there's one woman there...who I have to give mad props to. She's actually one of my mother's friends, and she's usually the first person to make fun of her weight. Usually, she says something like "I ate a VW Bug for lunch." If she's secure enough to say things like that, more power to her. Oh, and within the past year...she's lost enough weight...that she's literally about half her size!

[violetyoshi]

I think it's ridiculous for people who are bigger than most others, to act as if somehow they're an authority on health. They might be, but it's ignorant to assume someone will take them seriously at their size, that's just how it is. I also don't know what a Pittsburgh Salute is, I looked on Urban Dictionary and it's not defined yet. So if you want to head over there and define it, that'd be cool. Or you could explain it here, and I will go over and define it.

[BroomJockey]

I also don't know what a Pittsburgh Salute is, I looked on Urban Dictionary and it's not defined yet. So if you want to head over there and define it, that'd be cool. Or you could explain it here, and I will go over and define it.

I don't think it's really worth putting on UD. It's simply "giving someone the bird," "a one-finger salute," or "extending your middle digit on your hand to indicate a high level of displeasure with an individual or their actions."

[ladyneeva]

That is not an example of a healthy attitude, it's thinly veiled self hatred. I make digs about myself all the time, and it hurts the people around me. You know, the ones that actually love me and care about my well being, not the so-called friends who are secretly repulsed by me and view me as an object of disgust like you do your mother's friend. If you actually care about someone, you aren't happy, you don't find it FUNNY that they talk down about themselves.

As for the difference between calorie restriction the "radical lifestyle" and calorie restriction the diet plan... I fail to see the difference between the two. A "CR" lifestyle or whatever you call it advocates eating 30% fewer calories than recommended. Most "diet plans" in the US at least advocate eating no more than 1500 calories.

Care to guess what 30% fewer calories than recommended for a 40 year old 150lb female who exercises 30 to 60 minutes a day is?

1540

Tomayto/Tomahto

[DesignFox]

Well, when I said I counted calories, I meant nothing about a restrictive diet. I simply made myself more aware of what I was stuffing my face with.

Now that I'm not pounding back more food than my body can handle, I'm not gaining weight. AND my body doesn't feel hungry all the time like it did at first.

I don't starve myself. Never claimed that as a solution. You can be aware of your caloric intake without calculators and scales. Just read the nutrition information on the box, or check out the information on the website of your favorite fast food places.

I've also discovered 100 calorie snack packs. Fantastic way to solve cravings for cookies and the like, without going overboard.

If anything, I feel a lot less lethargic than I did a year ago. And I have never had issues with my libido.

Everyone is different. The problem I can see with the calorie restrictive diet being described in the links, is that it doesn't allow you to figure out how many calories your body *needs* for the day. You have to meet your needs. You can't starve yourself. But neither can you indulge too much- else your body just stores it up.

The 2,000 calorie diet isn't for every person! It's an average estimate. Each individual needs to figure out what balance works best for them, and use it.

Ever since I've taken on sedentary jobs, I've discovered that I really don't need to eat 2,000 calories in a day. I certainly don't need to be eating MORE than that. So I estimate and keep myself around 1,500-2,000. On a more active day, I might eat a little extra if I feel hungry.

I'll never be a supermodel. I'm too short, and there are certain flaws that will never go away. But I do what I can to feel good about myself and my appearance.

If anyone is unhappy, then they should do something about it. And no, it won't always be easy. That's where your true friends tend to distinguish themselves from other people.