Excuses for Being Overweight

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I think my grandmother and grandma have said most of those on the list. I feel like I'm the only one in the house really trying to lose weight and it's really hard to lose weight when you have little support and when grandma keeps making fatty foods that I have a hard time saying no to. I have lost 50 pounds since August 2010 sooo hopefully I'll keep going. I want to lose another 50. I unsubscribed from Weight Watchers as I could no longer afford the premium since losing my job last month. I now use a free calorie counter "MyfitnessPal" and hopefully it works for me too.

Well the issue is that they only have a control over ''consume'' part but not the ''eliminate'' part. So if their body is designed to eliminate twice less then they consume, then they will gain weight no matter how little they eat. Even if they eat 1 gramm a day they would eliminate ''only'' half a gramm, which means that they GAIN 1-0.5=0.5 a gram a day, which is not good enough since they want to LOSE 100 pounds. Or if they don't eat at all then they won't eliminate anything at all so they neither gain or lose. Still not good enough since they won't lose 100 pounds that they want to lose; plus on top of it they would die out of starvation.

However this raises an interesting question: how come weight gain and constepation are considered to be completely separate issues? In fact, I suffer from constipation but NOT the weight gain; I can eat as much as I want and stay stable at 140 pounds for several years, despite only going to the bathroom like once in 3 days. On the other hand there are ppl who are overweight who go to the bathroom every day. Plus these said overweight people don't necesserely eat a lot, while I can eat quite a lot and still stay at 140 pounds while these other ppl who eat little AND go to the bathroom regularly stay overweight. This makes it sound like in some cases physics doesn't work for some weird reason.

... they're full of excrement.

Honestly, that's not the case. I'm not trying to pretend to be the world's expert, and I'm not expecting anyone to believe what I say when they don't personally know what I have gone thorough with this hormone stuff, but I would urge anyone to do their own reading, and the facts are out there. Dieticians, and PARTICULARLY FITNESS COACHES and other judgmental people will make fun of fat people, and will tell lies about all of it being discipline, and of course SOME of it is, but the real issue is hormones and what (not how much) you eat. You could literally starve do death while being fat. It's that dramatic! It is proven that a person can and will actually increase body fat while starving. That is because lean muscle tissue, and even blood proteins, are converted to fat and stored. It's part of the body's preservation system, whereby if we really were starving, the body would build up a reserve of fat to protect us from going without eating for a period of time. This is all controlled by hormones; largely cortisol and T3/T4 thyroid. Insulin is also a big part of it. If ANYTHING is off-balance, your body might THINK you're about to starve, and will build fat while burning lean muscle.

Think of it like personal finances properly managed (normal hormones and normal body): You earn $2,500/month, so your savings account should be about $10,000 in case you lose your job, or you have an emergency. So you get your pay check, and you verify that the amount in savings is enough, and if not, you put some of your pay in there FIRST, then you pay your bills, and then if any is left over, you can do what you want with it or put it savings too. Your body takes in a certain amount of food every day, or so it expects. You use a certain average number of calories per day, or so your body expects. Your body should have a body fat storage account of about 15-20% average, so if you're a bit lean, your body will store a little of those calories as fat first, and then supply your energy needs, and the rest if any, will be eliminated.

A person with poor finance skills in one way, like a body with poor hormone balance, will get their pay check, compulsively put most of it in the bank for later, and will struggle to go without turning extra lights on, and buy a tiny unsafe car that barely uses any gas, and will live in a bad neighborhood for low rent or mortgage. So they have a huge savings account, and live like someone who doesn't have a decent income.

BALANCE is the answer to many things in life, including hormones, money, and activities in general.

Charles

I have a very overweight friend who says she can't lose because she has an "eating disorder" and she "can't help the stress eating". As long as anything and everything is out of her control, she's happy with the status quo.

Lots of people with binge eating disorder and some people with bulimia and endos can't lose weight. Also lots of ex anorexics are so scared to even attempt to diet in case it is a trigger to relapse.

For many people, it would be enough to pass on sugary drinks and snacks between the meals, and wait four or five hours after the last meal before going to bed.

Hers is and always was compulsive overeating and binge eating disorder. The problem is that when she goes to the store she loads up on high calorie snacks for her and the kids. She could get fruit or something healthier for her and them to eat, but she won't. I'm not saying that it's not a real disorder, I'm saying that my friend uses the disorder as an excuse to not try to lose weight. Also, it's not an instant thing to lose over 100 lbs, so she gets impatient and quits any diet she ever starts.

I applaud your friend. The hardest step is to come out and admit you have an eating disorder. I don't know if she is working with professionals or even if she isn't ready to give the eating disorder away. I applaud her for taking the hardest step.

I think what really sucks for people who've become obese is just how much work it takes to drill back down. I know that right now I'm somewhere in the low to mid 20's on BMI (which I look pretty thin at 190 lbs and at worst have a slight spare tire), I'm trying to get rid of my own gut which should really only take 5 or 10 pounds of fat loss, and even as a guy to make it happen expediently I've gotta watch and select what I eat like a hawk. I work with a guy who can eat anything and stay skinny, albeit he has other problems where I wouldn't trade places with him, but I think for most of my life to stay thin or keep my hiatal hernia under control I'll be reading a lot of women's articles on diet - even at the times when I do build quite a bit of muscle from working out it won't change that much.

I know people who are close to 300 lbs (roughly 135 kg) and for as much as I see them they don't hoss down. They're weight is stabilized around that range, they seem to eat no better or worse than anyone else. If it were purely an impulse control problem shouldn't they keep gaining and gaining? I get that they'd need to cut into their eating habits significantly for a LONG time to lose that much weight and I wonder what happens at the times where they've given it a go, dropped from 300 down to 250, and then end up regaining it - did they just congratulate themselves too early? IMHO its clearly a more complex picture than simply exercise and self-control.

I quit smoking 3 years ago and put on 42lbs as a result. I smoked for 20 years.
Now that I'm happy that I'll never smoke again I've joined a new gym last Saturday and I'm eating a high protein, low fat and low white carbs diet and it's amazing, I feel results already. I'm trying to lose fat and make lean gains.

She's admitted that for years. Honestly, the weight is the least of her problems. She is recently divorced and has sfive school age kids, all with a different physical disability, she's got self esteem problems, and she's a bigtime perfectionist. She goes overboard in anything she does, so that may be one reason that dieting doesn't work for her. She goes to the extreme with it and it's almost impossible to stick to. She's also very much into medical diagnosis. She's actually said that since it's a medical condition, she can't help it. I disagree with her there. I've had panic disorder and agoraphobia for years and while it's very, very hard to treat that and get over it, it is possible and it takes a great deal of work and determination.

Honestly, with all that she's got going on right now, the jerk of an ex, the kids and their problems, financial struggles, her parents failing health, I say if stress eating helps her deal with it, go for it. It's not good for her at all, but it's better than drugs or booze.

I get the opinion that for some calories in/ calories out and exercise more is helpful for dropping a few pounds. But for many others those simple idea causes frustration, resulting in little weight loss success. Sadly recall too that around 95% of people put the weight back on with in a short period of time.

Liked Jimmy Moore's write up last month about weight loss, with his mention on the different causes for weight gain, along with different strategies for dropping a few pounds.

"When Does Being Fat Become Your Fault?"

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/when ... ault/13385

"Trying to lose weight is frustrating" ... that's a new one ... lame, but new.


Evidence, please? This seems to be used most by people who are looking for an excuse to never even try to lose weight. It ranks up there with "95% of the people who enroll in college drop out" and "95% of the people who look for love never find it" and "95% of the people who look for a job will eventually get fired" - these are merely excuses to avoid the work involved in earning a college degree, forming and maintaining a relationship, and getting a job, respectively.

[quote][b]Jojoba[/b]Sadly recall too that around 95% of people put the weight back on with in a short period of time.[/quote]

[quote][b]Fnord[/b]Evidence, please? This seems to be used most by people who are looking for an excuse to never even [i]try[/i] to lose weight. It ranks up there with "95% of the people who enroll in college drop out" and "95% of the people who look for love never find it" and "95% of the people who look for a job will eventually get fired" - these are merely excuses to avoid the [i]work[/i] involved in earning a college degree, forming and maintaining a relationship, and getting a job, respectively.[/quote]

I've encountered this figure a lot but was unable to google original research on it. I don't know if it's apocryphal or comes from poor track records of patients enrolled in clinic programs. This linked NY Times article tries to get to the bottom of it but doesn't entirely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magaz ... wanted=all

There seem to be two main problems that lead to weight regain. Behavioral: people resume their old habits. Hormonal: the body fights to restore itself to its' former weight because the diet was hormonally "perceived" as starvation.

In my own weight loss journey (via Paleo), I followed the advice of succesful people to avoid those two most common pitfalls.

To avoid the behavioral pitfall, don't think of it as a diet. Think of it as the way you live now and forever.

To avoid the hormonal pitfall, lose the weight very slowly and embrace plateus so that the body never goes into "ohmigod...starvation!!" mode and thus doesn't try to restore homeostasis.

It's easy to get caught up in evangelizing once you are on a succesful road. You just can't imagine why so many other people aren't following you immediately. I am quite guilty of evangelizing about Paleo in threads here and in PPR. But remember where you were before you started down this path. There were probably thin people who looked at you and rolled their eyes (metaphorically) wondering why you didn't just diet. Don't join their annoying ranks. Instead, think of other currently fat people as being where you were right before you started down this path. You got to a tipping point. So did I. So did everybody who succesfully lost weight. So will they.

Off topic question: what country does the above refer to? I know it is not true in USA because I went to school there and that wasn't the case.

On the plane, however, I met someone from France who told me it happens over there -- the reason being is that any college in France is required to automatically let you in if you happen to live within its district; thus within the subsequent semesters, it has to ''get rid'' of a lot of people that would have never entered college in any other country to begin with. But still, this was the only person who told me that, and when I was asking others about France I was told that wasn't the case.

Regardless, even if that was true for France, I never heard of it being true elsewhere. So are you saying it is true in some other countries too and I just didn't know about it? Or are you just bringing up hypotheticals?