A weighty issue

[midwestyankee]

<snip>

Should we only discuss cats? Frankly, I'm cool with that. Just let me know.

You start a thread about cats and you can count on this one certainty: I will be absent. I despise cats but I do not hold cat ownership against anyone.

 

[Keroin]

You start a thread about cats and you can count on this one certainty: I will be absent. I despise cats but I do not hold cat ownership against anyone.

Well, since a thread without MWY is like a thread without...um, sunshine(?), I will hold off on the big cat thread I had planned for next week.

 

[midwestyankee]

Well, since a thread without MWY is like a thread without...um, sunshine(?), I will hold off on the big cat thread I had planned for next week.

Bullcoughshit. Go ahead and enjoy your cat thread. Seriously.

 

[nh23]

When I see toddlers in the grocery store sucking back a bottle of coke for breakfast and their parents eating a dozen donuts, I think there's probably more wrong here than the introduction of corn products. No one in the world is going to stay fit and healthy with that diet. No one.

We've done this one before too. Are you a parent? A lot of the times people say things like this they aren't. It's not fair to judge someone by an encounter in the store. Unless of course you see the same kids sucking back coke everyday.

Sometimes I give my kids something they can't normally have to calm them in the store. Sometimes it's a rare treat. Someone can look at me and judge, but have no clue that this is a once a month thing.

Yes some people do this everyday, and that isn't a good thing. I don't disagree there. Sometimes people make judgements without knowing the facts. We're all guilty of it.

Yes, but right now, in the US, weight related health issues are the number one problem. It only makes sense to look at the biggest problem and think about ways to solve it.

Mental health issues rank way up there too. So does cancer. Yet we never see threads about these. Mostly because everyone assumes that all people are fat because of their own bad choices. A lot are, but not all.

And yes, being fit and healthy has made me happy. It is hard work but I love how it makes me feel emotionally and physically. The confidence being strong and healthy has given me has helped me find love. As for the purpose of life, I never worried about that much anyway.

That wasn't directed at you I was asking WD. However I'm glad that it makes you happy. We should all have the choice to feel that way about our bodies and choices without constantly being bombarded by everyone else.

 

[intothewoods]

When I see toddlers in the grocery store sucking back a bottle of coke for breakfast and their parents eating a dozen donuts, I think there's probably more wrong here than the introduction of corn products. No one in the world is going to stay fit and healthy with that diet. No one.

I eat lots of food that are not native to my ancestor's diet.

Corn is in everything. Corn syrup is in that coke and the donuts.

 

[Netzach]

When I see toddlers in the grocery store sucking back a bottle of coke for breakfast and their parents eating a dozen donuts, I think there's probably more wrong here than the introduction of corn products. No one in the world is going to stay fit and healthy with that diet. No one.

That's insane. It's widespread and insane.
If you think that has nothing to do with corn, though, you're not checking what's IN coke. We've had sugary bevvies at our beck and call for millenia, and somehow didn't pack on the pounds like this. Many factors, but honestly, failing to look at the metabolic properties of corn syrup is missing as much of the picture as "wow, we sit on our ass a lot."

I eat lots of food that are not native to my ancestor's diet.

So do most people. The question is, which, how much, and how bad are they for you in actuality, and are they the cornerstone of your diet, and how new are they to human beings? Also how functional is your gut and other parts?

Huh? I don't smoke. I'm a happy person with healthy personal relationships. I don't overindulge with booze. I have no desire to kick anyone, especially not because of my own problems.

I do, however, find it alarming that the global rate of obesity is climbing so high, so fast. I do wonder why this is and what can be done about it because I don't believe it's healthy. Please show me where I've gone after anyone in a mean spirited way?

I don't care how someone looks, I care about the effects obesity has on society in terms of physical and psychological health and what that means in regard to things like medical costs.

Did I address you personally in this post? I'm talking about my own experience with a lot of people who are critical of weight in others. If the shoe doesn't fit, you know? The topic is weight. This is just one of my thoughts and observations, or is that too much of a hijack?

I realize you're coming at this from a health/panedmic angle, and I offered some of my thoughts. If you want the short, wingnut version it's basically this:

Grain and complex sugars= un needed poison.

If that's too weird for you, I respect that. And continue eating wild caught swordfish and salad with a handful of pecans as dessert.

Just like WD and you notice who's eating a doughnut, I tend to notice the lifestyles of the people I know to be foaming at the mouth critical of anyone they have decided is too fat. I've met a number of them. I've only been the brunt of the insanity once unless we're counting family. I'm more an *observer* assumed to agree when I've been thinner than the target.

And they tend to smoke, be their OWN trainwreck, and have plenty of addictions of their own, which are simply easier to hide.

Yes, but right now, in the US, weight related health issues are the number one problem. It only makes sense to look at the biggest problem and think about ways to solve it.

Sorry, I'd say access is the number one problem. And an aging population whatever shape they're in maybe 2. Our collective fat ass, is gaining, but I'd say getting everyone covered starting with babies, is the priority.

And yes, being fit and healthy has made me happy. It is hard work but I love how it makes me feel emotionally and physically. The confidence being strong and healthy has given me has helped me find love. As for the purpose of life, I never worried about that much anyway.

I've felt accomplished when I've changed habits and somewhat bad when lapsing, and mostly uninterested in beating myself up and interested in seizing the day. I can control what I decide to control and I've proven that to myself. I'm as happy at one size as the other, because you know, fuck, if I can eat solid food, am ambulatory, and can make art, I'm ahead of the game.

In every "issue" thread I see a version of the "Worry about yourself and leave everyone else the fuck alone" argument. Fair enough. So, tell me what topics are acceptable for me to start? Under what circumstances, and within what parameters, may I discuss which groups of people and what exactly may I say or not say about them?

Should we only discuss cats? Frankly, I'm cool with that. Just let me know.

Are we only allowed to agree, or should I just discuss my cat?

 

[Netzach]

We've done this one before too. Are you a parent? A lot of the times people say things like this they aren't. It's not fair to judge someone by an encounter in the store. Unless of course you see the same kids sucking back coke everyday.

Sometimes I give my kids something they can't normally have to calm them in the store. Sometimes it's a rare treat. Someone can look at me and judge, but have no clue that this is a once a month thing.

Yes some people do this everyday, and that isn't a good thing. I don't disagree there. Sometimes people make judgements without knowing the facts. We're all guilty of it.






Mental health issues rank way up there too. So does cancer. Yet we never see threads about these. Mostly because everyone assumes that all people are fat because of their own bad choices. A lot are, but not all.



That wasn't directed at you I was asking WD. However I'm glad that it makes you happy. We should all have the choice to feel that way about our bodies and choices without constantly being bombarded by everyone else.

Coke is, imo, never the right indulgence for a bottle-aged kid. There are sugary treat things, but for some reason the liquid delivery just sends the message that fluids should taste like that, plus omg caffeine.

 

[nh23]

Coke is, imo, never the right indulgence for a bottle-aged kid. There are sugary treat things, but for some reason the liquid delivery just sends the message that fluids should taste like that, plus omg caffeine.

*nods* I was making an example. I myself don't give my kids coke. They have ADHD and the last freaking thing I want them to have is caffeine. However sometimes I get them a sprite. My kids are older too.

 

[Netzach]

*nods* I was making an example. I myself don't give my kids coke. They have ADHD and the last freaking thing I want them to have is caffeine. However sometimes I get them a sprite. My kids are older too.

M is adult ADHD and caffeine chills him out up to a crazy amount. YMMV, but he remebers using Dr Pepper as a sleep aid in college when feeling wired. Aren't brains cool?

 

[nh23]

M is adult ADHD and caffeine chills him out up to a crazy amount. YMMV, but he remebers using Dr Pepper as a sleep aid in college when feeling wired. Aren't brains cool?

I've actually had parents of ADHD'ers tell me that they give their child coffee. My little girl takes Adderall, which is just a big stimulant. It would make you and I crazy hyper. It mellows her out. I myself never tried it with mine though. (coffee)

Their brains are so much different than ours. It's basically like the link between the two sides is cut. They have a hard time getting information from one side to the other. The stimulant opens up that link. It's fascinating stuff.

 

[BiBunny]

I'm fat. I'm also broke. I do the best I can, but at the moment, keeping the water and the lights and the phone/Internet on so I can work have top priority.

Good news, though. I can't afford insurance, either, so I'm not a drain on anyone. Nor can I afford to pay out of pocket to go to the doctor to get my metabolic issues straightened out so that I can lose weight, so it's a double-edged sword.

I won't go there, though. I have no desire to be told I'm making excuses. I'm fat, and if you wanna hold it against me, go right ahead. It damn sure won't be the first time it's happened, as any fat person will tell you.

 

[Netzach]

I'm fat. I'm also broke. I do the best I can, but at the moment, keeping the water and the lights and the phone/Internet on so I can work have top priority.

Good news, though. I can't afford insurance, either, so I'm not a drain on anyone. Nor can I afford to pay out of pocket to go to the doctor to get my metabolic issues straightened out so that I can lose weight, so it's a double-edged sword.

I won't go there, though. I have no desire to be told I'm making excuses. I'm fat, and if you wanna hold it against me, go right ahead. It damn sure won't be the first time it's happened, as any fat person will tell you.

I wish T were posting here. Man.

MD's don't even *look* at the possibility of endocrine/metabolic/other issues which are actually pretty widespread if they're working with a poor population. It's just assumed that they had coke from a bottle, what can you expect, screw it. The gap increases across race even more.

 

[BiBunny]

I wish T were posting here. Man.

MD's don't even *look* at the possibility of endocrine/metabolic/other issues which are actually pretty widespread if they're working with a poor population. It's just assumed that they had coke from a bottle, what can you expect, screw it. The gap increases across race even more.

I don't doubt that in the least.

Mistress is 5'2" and weighs 180-something pounds. Yes, she's overweight for her height, but not tremendously so. But she wears a dress size 24-26. Sure, she weighs more than she should, but there's no way she should be that big around at 5'2" and 180. Her endocrine system is so fucked with something that the doctors don't even know what it is that her body stores every calorie she eats as layers of fat, even while her muscles atrophy, not from lack of use, but from sheer muscle starvation.

Then there's me. I'm somewhere between 5'9" and 5'10", and I weigh two hundred and none-of-your-goddamned-business. I wear a smaller dress size than she does. WTF? I have PCOS that I can't afford to treat and an extremely sedentary lifestyle to blame for mine, though. Poor Mistress doesn't even know what the hell is wrong with her.

Shit, I said I wasn't going to go there. Oh, well, whatever. Yay for Bunny's making excuses!

 

[FurryFury]

You start a thread about cats and you can count on this one certainty: I will be absent. I despise cats but I do not hold cat ownership against anyone.

Wow. How can anyone despise cats?



Have you seen my av? I'm a big kitty at my core damn it! Part of me is sub, a tiny part isn't and the core is black kitty see?

*lip quivers*

Anyway, weight wise, it's not going well folks. Not for me. People still think I'm skinny. It's just getting worse in my reality though. None of the usual measures are working but at least I feel I've had a pretty decent run of things.

Now if I had a fitness Dom, well, things might be different. Right now I'm on the knife's edge of giving up on looking good anymore and it's not just weight that this is about. I either have to work much, much harder or try to find a way not to hate my body and face the way they are.

I've been mostly regarded as a sexual creature for a long time now. I hated it for a while, then I was grateful people still saw me that way. Lord knows I saw me that way. LOL.


*sigh*

I have to say I know my mother is big mostly due to drugs. I've seen her go from her normal and beautiful size 13 to size 6 due to drugs and up to 20+. I feel for her and anyone else going through that.

When I go to any public amusement it seems to me that at least 85% of the people there are way overweight these days. Honestly, my darling husband is also starting to grow a "shelf" and it's not what I want to see when I look at my lover. Of course I can overlook that but it makes me sad that we are getting into such states. But what really saddens me is when I see small kids who are very overweight.

I absolutely think a great deal of this is happening in the name of profit. The drugs that are pushed on just about every American household don't help. The corn syrup in just about every single affordable food or drink product doesn't help. No company cares if their product kills as long as it makes them money. I personally think we will see soft drink (and many other) companies start to get sued just like cigarette companies and for good cause, IMO, n our life times.

 

[kiss_of_sin]

ahhhh... fuck it. lol. how about this.

i buy what i want. i eat what i feel like eating. i work out becuase its a damn fun activity to do. and i'm happy with the way i look yay!

 

[FurryFury]

ahhhh... fuck it. lol. how about this.

i buy what i want. i eat what i feel like eating. i work out becuase its a damn fun activity to do. and i'm happy with the way i look yay!

You are amazing! If you could bottle that and sell it, you'd make a fortune!

 

[kiss_of_sin]

I've actually had parents of ADHD'ers tell me that they give their child coffee. My little girl takes Adderall, which is just a big stimulant. It would make you and I crazy hyper. It mellows her out. I myself never tried it with mine though. (coffee)

Their brains are so much different than ours. It's basically like the link between the two sides is cut. They have a hard time getting information from one side to the other. The stimulant opens up that link. It's fascinating stuff.

i was diagnosed with ADHD. i remember the first time i had starbucks, i practically passed out. lol.

i took Rid and it mellowed me out so much, i hardly did anything but read, so the doc lowered my dosage, and i was still crazy hyper, but able to focus.

adhd is crazy fascinating.

 

[JMohegan]

There may be a few hundred thousand crack addicts out there. If over 50% of our population is overweight or obese, then that's 150 million people. Please explain how the health of over half the national population can not have a deleterious effect on the overall costs of health care in this country?

Every study I've read sounds a lot like this one......

"Obesity has roughly the same association with chronic health conditions as does twenty years’ aging; this greatly exceeds the associations of smoking or problem drinking. Utilization effects mirrors the health effects.

Obesity is associated with a 36 percent increase in inpatient and outpatient spending and a 77 percent increase in medications, compared with a 21 percent increase in inpatient and outpatient spending and a 28 percent increase in medications for current smokers and smaller effects for problem drinkers."


And this one......

"We use a regression framework and nationally representative data to compute aggregate overweight- and obesity-attributable medical spending for the United States and for select payers. Combined, such expenditures account for 9.1 percent of total annual U.S. medical expenditures in 1998 and may be as high as $78.5 billion ($92.6 billion in 2002 dollars). Medicare and Medicaid finance approximately half of these costs."

 

[JMohegan]

If it's so freaking important to people that everyone else be thin, point some of your damn outrage off the nearest big ass and onto the nearest funding cut for phy ed.

Or Big Agriculture, the American food industry, urban/suburban planners, large office buildings & factories built without gyms & showers, and so on.

There's plenty of systemic blame to go around.

 

[AngelicAssassin]

And "being happy" has nothing to do with "being normal".

Not when we have an overabundance of jagoffs telling us what normal is.

 

[AngelicAssassin]

If I don't pay attention and spend 30 minutes going "nom nom nom mmmm Chipotle" until I eat the whole damn thing in one sitting - that's my own damn fault.

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc191/wtm442/Humor/Motivational%20Signs/DeliciousCake.jpg

Please tell me you don't do the above at weddings.

 

[CutieMouse]

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc191/wtm442/Humor/Motivational%20Signs/DeliciousCake.jpg

Please tell me you don't do the above at weddings.

No dear, I don't.

*chuckling*

 

[Cattypuss]

Is it just me?

There seems to be so much discussion of sedentary lifestyles and greed and sugar addiction and junk food and metabolic issues......

I can't be the only person who's fat because of compulsive eating, surely?

I was brought up on dreadful junk and was always a fat child/teen. When I got to my mid-teens I started cooking for myself and discovered how much I like fresh, real food. So no problem there.

The problem is that I had a rotten upbringing that has left me with atrocious, deep-rooted, low self-estem, AND that my mum was a compulsive eater who taught me that whe you feel down you should stuff your face with crap and you'll feel better. Rubbish of course, but these childhood things run deep.

I'm 5'4" and have rarely been as low as 140 pounds. Right now I'm around 185 and - thankfully - shrinking. I have a borderline underactive thyroid that is not being treated (although I take kelp supplements). I don't lose weight as easy as others but hey - just means I have to try harder - specifically, eat only whole foods and only small quantities of "good" fats, and I am currently exercising by walking briskly up and down hills for over two hours a day.

I can lose weight with diet and exercise. Hell, most people can if they stick at it.

But my achilles heel is my compulsive eating. I can go for weeks on end, losing a half-pound to a pound a week, doing really well, watching those lost pounds stack up, and then something will trigger me emotionally and I can eat a good 8,000 calories in a two-hour sitting... and then my emotions tell me I'll always be fat so what's the point in trying, and I'll eat and eat and eat (stuff I don't even enjoy - I'm eating it purely cos I know it's fattening) for days or weeks on end, thus ending up fatter than when I started. And I can't even begin to describe the vicious-circle, complex layers of self-loathing that come with all that.

It's not just me, is it? I think it's a hard thing to admit to but a lot of people have this problem.

And in case anyone dismisses that as pure greed/weakness, let me illustrate something -

I smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years. Often two packs. I would keep a pack and an ashtray and lighter by my bed cos I couldn't even get out of bed in the morning until I'd had a cigarette. I was the most addicted smoker I knew.

I gave up smoking, cold-turkey, five years ago an haven't had a single puff since then.

That was bloody hard. BLOODY hard. But compared to managing to resist the binge-demon, it was a walk in the park.

 

[Netzach]

Is it just me?

There seems to be so much discussion of sedentary lifestyles and greed and sugar addiction and junk food and metabolic issues......

I can't be the only person who's fat because of compulsive eating, surely?

I was brought up on dreadful junk and was always a fat child/teen. When I got to my mid-teens I started cooking for myself and discovered how much I like fresh, real food. So no problem there.

The problem is that I had a rotten upbringing that has left me with atrocious, deep-rooted, low self-estem, AND that my mum was a compulsive eater who taught me that whe you feel down you should stuff your face with crap and you'll feel better. Rubbish of course, but these childhood things run deep.

I'm 5'4" and have rarely been as low as 140 pounds. Right now I'm around 185 and - thankfully - shrinking. I have a borderline underactive thyroid that is not being treated (although I take kelp supplements). I don't lose weight as easy as others but hey - just means I have to try harder - specifically, eat only whole foods and only small quantities of "good" fats, and I am currently exercising by walking briskly up and down hills for over two hours a day.

I can lose weight with diet and exercise. Hell, most people can if they stick at it.

But my achilles heel is my compulsive eating. I can go for weeks on end, losing a half-pound to a pound a week, doing really well, watching those lost pounds stack up, and then something will trigger me emotionally and I can eat a good 8,000 calories in a two-hour sitting... and then my emotions tell me I'll always be fat so what's the point in trying, and I'll eat and eat and eat (stuff I don't even enjoy - I'm eating it purely cos I know it's fattening) for days or weeks on end, thus ending up fatter than when I started. And I can't even begin to describe the vicious-circle, complex layers of self-loathing that come with all that.

It's not just me, is it? I think it's a hard thing to admit to but a lot of people have this problem.

And in case anyone dismisses that as pure greed/weakness, let me illustrate something -

I smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years. Often two packs. I would keep a pack and an ashtray and lighter by my bed cos I couldn't even get out of bed in the morning until I'd had a cigarette. I was the most addicted smoker I knew.

I gave up smoking, cold-turkey, five years ago an haven't had a single puff since then.

That was bloody hard. BLOODY hard. But compared to managing to resist the binge-demon, it was a walk in the park.

I don't know if you've done OA, but I had a good friend who got a lot of mileage out of it. When you quit smoking, you're done. You quit. You don't smoke ever again and that's good.

With food, you can't stop eating. You have to have a *little* smoke every day, but never more than 3 cigs. Your addiction isn't something you put down and walk away from, you have to have *some* of it all the time.

I wonder how many smokers could do that?

 

[Cattypuss]

What is OA, please?