We here at Fatty McBlog occasionally like to embark on pseudo-scientific experiments to see if we can shed some light on living life as a fat girl. Obviously there is much emphasis on the word pseudo...
We posted an ad on New York's Craigslist which asked men to respond about their feelings regarding dating a fat woman.
Our ad, entitled Would You Ever? said: "Would you ever date a fat girl? What if she were "perfect" in every other way except she carries a lot of extra weight? What if she were intelligent and funny and interesting and pretty and had a great job, but she was a bbw (and not just a little chubby)? Would you ever consider dating her? Would you rather date someone really ugly or really fat? If you wouldn't date a fat girl, please include your reasons. I am interested in this topic since an overweight friend of mine recently told me that none of the men she knows treat her like a "woman" aka they don't find her attractive and none of them ever think of her in a romantic way. Please send me your honest responses. Thanks! "
I found that many people will be more honest in this medium because it is sort of anonymous and you can respond with what you really think without any repercussions. I think the answers we received are interesting because I am fascinated with how people think about the overweight in this society. And it's sort of shocking how many people responded to this ad in the first few minutes of it being up...I guess there are a lot of men who want to weigh in on the subject.
These are some of the responses we have received, hope they are enlightening (about how men who read CL ads view fat women) or at least entertaining (I didn't correct any grammer or spelling mistakes):
- because fat girls are ugly?
- to me, it's un-attractive and indicates a hellava lot of selfish,self centered type of behavior.
- well sweetie there are men you are chubby chasers and enjoy a cubby woman , But theres also and its the majority of men who feel cubby/fat women are like a motor scooter they 're fun to ride till your friends see you on one :) horrible I know but come on you did chuckle enjoy and keep smiling !
- I have dated an overweight girl. I have dated an ugly girl. It wasn't that bad. The ugly thing, that's just skin deep. However, the overweight thing is a matter of health.
- Well I would get a nice Blow job from her cause I know that she givesreally good head.....But not date her ........Maybe take her home froma bar and let her do it!!
- maybe b/c when she takes her clothes off and we see all he cellulite dripping from her bod it will make us throw up. and if your desperate enough to put up with that then we would never want her to be seen by our friends and family who might think she is gross too......thats my honest opinion
- uhhmm, I think you know the answer to this one. Why don't you date short guys? There has to be some physical, sexual attraction. I think you're wrong anyway. Some guys see fat girls as an easy score.
- Sexuality and attraction go hand in hand with dating. Someone who is perfect in every way, except for being visually and sexually appealing, would make a wonderful friend. But, since I am not in the least bit attracted to seriously overweight women, I would never date one.
- Attraction is not a choice..
- thats because the men she knows are very chidish,there is nothing wrong with a fat woman is the person inside that matters. life is to short to judge people on the way they look is pretty sad if you ask me.
- i would definitely date a fat girl not as easily as an ugly girl. i think people do give characteristics (non physical) a big role, sometimes the 'big momma' complex, the more cushion for the pushin, yet for being ugly (which is harsh to say) is definitely becoming the 'new' discrimination. deep down inside i think all men have even fantasized about a fat girl...look a the fetish world there is even a fat XXX mag out there...
- Hey there, I love BBW’s if they have a cute face and proportional weight distribution. Tell your friend that there are events exclusively for BBW’s and men that love them all over the city, just search the internet.
- I've dated fat girls but there are some issues.. they are too overweight or out of shape to make love with and that them being fatis not the issue but it's a reflection of themselves (unable to takecare of themselves, etc.) One of the ones I've gone out with had amessy apt, never cleaned the coffee maker... that kind of thing (I rarely see it with thin girls)
- I’ve always looked beyond the exterior and dated the person, not the body.
- It's the friend complex. You want your friends to think yourgirlfriend is hot or cute. Would you date a guy if all your friendstold you he was ugly? You might, but it would definitely put someunwanted strain on things right? I dated a larger girl once and yeahmy friends cracked jokes, but that's not why I ended it.Now, personally I like to work out and take care of myself, so I'd liketo date a girl who does the same. It's a common interest thing. I'dwant to do active things with the girl I date. It's the same reasonwhy I won't date someone who's supermodel-thin but won't do anythingbecause she might break a nail.
- cuz chubby girls stink down there
- hmm all pussy tastes the same i date both
- It's a simple matter of attraction - 98% of guys are not attracted to big women. You can't deny men love hot chicks...
- I'm 23 and for me it doesn't really make much of a difference. I'll date any kind of girl if we get along. For guys in general, they want to keep their image in check. They can't be seen dating a "fat" chick because he'll be abused to no end by his friends. Besides that, the "fat" chick doesn't fit the general stereotype of what kind of girls guys like. Hopefully that helped out. Anything further you'd like to know, feel free to email me.
- they are insecure and they give off that vibe soon as a thin attractive women comes into the room. Fat girls always assume we are comparing looks and shit. We (men)don't compare, that is down right shitty and not cool, no one like to be compared to an one else. most fat girls are warm fun and even attractive when you get past the whole insecurity thing.
- why don't women date short guys? usually, tall is the first thing they mention in their list of qualifications -- tall, dark and handsome. statistically, there just aren't enough tall guys to meet all that demand. women might be able to get slimmer, but guys can never get taller... those are the breaks.
- I would date any type of girl as long as she can stimulate my mind and there has to be chemistry. Looks wise, I’ve dated almost every kind of girl there is. I am really leaning more toward genuine people who can carry a conversation.
- honestly i would not date a fat girleven if she is 23even though im in my late 40sbecause her being fat demonstrates that she doesnt respect herselfand if she doesnt respect herself, i know that down the road that she wont respect meand second, it just isnt attractive from an evolutionary standpoint...the fat people move slower and are more sedentary and more likely to be attacked and injuredwhich is why there is a very natural aversion to fat people..men or women...women might have it harder because men are attracted to the hourglass figure..which gets them turned on..whereas women are more likely to accepta heavier man since they look more for security and power and money which even a fat man can do...my advice is for her to get off her fat ass, dont expect men or quality men to want to walk with her on the street or even in private if she doesnt start to respect herself...its easy..put on her sweats..and do cardio...30 or 40min..once or even twice a day..eat 3 normal meals and 3 snacks...DONT EAT JUNK FOOD DONT EAT JUNK FOOD..the last thing a man or woman can stand is looking at a fat man or woman eat..it is not PRETTY!
- Well I think every man is different and exactly howfat is fat? Some guys think its 130lbs and some thinkits 190lbs. But pretty much if you are over 220 thenthat is defiantly fat!Now most foreign men for the Middle East like theirwomen bigger, some black guys too especially blackguys form Africa, so may be if you know what you arelooking for it will make it easier to find.
- I would so date a big girl. I would rather datesomeone who is big with flesh on their bones and softcurvy corners than date someone who is skinny. Now ifyour are 5 7 and 150 lbs you are skinny for me. I would date someone who is cute and verychubby over someone cute and thin. Infact I have neverdated anyone who is thin or skinny. I am simply notattracted to them. I believe bigger girls have more to offer. Lol..
- I would and have dated girls who are bbw's, above avg, are more well roundedthan most. Though it's hard to find one that can balance sex appeal andconfidence with all the other beautiful traits they possess.Most were intelligent, funny, interesting, pretty, had a great job, greatlovers, and great to be with...but most also lacked confidence, did notcarry themselves as high as they could, always said but made no efforts tobetter themselves even with my help and motivation. In short they lacked sexappeal. A woman is a woman, but unless she feels like a woman most men will nottreat her like one. Do it for yourself first, then when you find someonethat can and will appreciate you for you, be a woman to that man. Theromance will follow.
- I just recently met a woman who responded to my ad on CL. The first time I called her we wound up talking for over three hours.The next day when I met her to go to a dinner party with her I met a very pretty,and cute woman.She is very well rounded,and I've never been with a woman as such.But,to tell you the truth I already like her very much.And her roundness does'nt make me like her any less.In fact I feel it would be very comfortable sleeping with her.
I may not be like most guys,but to me a persons personality is what makes a person beautiful.
Have a wounderful day.
- First, many men may find your friend unattractive...and that's okay. However, she really only needs to find one man (I assume) who will dig her. I'd offer that her perception might be skewed a bit by her own self esteem. Personally, a woman either is sexy and charismatic or she's not.If she's funny and she's good in bed...there are ALWAYS quality guys (not assholes) who will want to get to know her.I am not a physically attractive man. I'm tall with broad shoulders and built like a football lineman. However, I have small chin and my face is, well...I'm no Brad Pitt. Plus a 4.5" dick. However, I REALLY like women. I like everything about them...and it shows. It's all about confidence.Are there women who will stop dating me because I have a small dick? Sure. Just like there are guys who won't date a fat chick. I'm VERY good with my tongue and I'm sure your friend has talent and assets that make her attractive.For a long term relationship...I would have concerns about her health and mobility.
- Because it's repulsive. "Really" ugly is also repulsive. But, there's more latitude as to face than as to obesity. Obese is obese, flab is flab, girth is girth, -- even in the dark it's repulsive.
... and in 99% of the cases, it's voluntary. A woman has little control over her face, but she can take care of her weight -- diet, exercise, etc. So, if she's really fat, she doesn't care about her health or appearance, or pleasing her boyfriend. She stuffs her mouth to satisfy some neurotic desire other than normal hunger for food and nutrition. So. it goes to issues of character too -- the fat girl has a character defect. Of course men are excited by the visual and the svelte woman is more beautiful. But, it's not just that a woman in the normal weight range excites more lust.
- no
So, there it is, the responses we received in a little over 45 minutes on Craigslist. I had to take it down because this post is really really long (our longest ever!). What do you guys think about what they had to say? Were you surprised, amused, saddened, or could you care less?
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439 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 439 Newer› Newest»In answer to the person who asked where all the fat people were during the famines I will tell you:
The fat people were the thin ones that were still alive. The thin ones were long since dead.
In a dating scene where any woman in double digits is considered fat, I don't find many of these replies surprising. However, the lack of any intellect makes them inherently boring and people I would not want to date, anyways.
anon said: "The fat people were the thin ones that were still alive. The thin ones were long since dead."
Uh.. scratching my head here.. isn't that exactly the point we were trying to make?
If you eat less, you lose weight. Our whole point was that if some people kept the same weight regardless of how little they ate, you would see some fat people in every famine.
Sure being fat helps you in a famine, but we haven't had one here in Los Angeles in quite a while now, so it's not real high on the list of things I try to be prepared for..
Oh for the luvva Pete.
Yes, in true famine conditions -- no food, no water, no nutritional input of any kind -- the body will cannibalize itself, starting with lean muscle mass, then going to fat. Most fat people, under those conditions, will wind up thin if it continues long enough (and they don't die from organ failure first).
Yes, if many of us fat chicks dedicated our every spare moment forever to working out hard and obsessing over every single bite of food, we could very well become one of the Privileged Thin.
So what's your point? That we should have to live our lives that way if we want to be respected and loved? That if we don't want people to assume we're lazy, drooling, stupid gluttons, we don't get to have lives that don't involve monomaniacal dedication to the burning of calories?
It is simply NOT TRUE that every fat person who eats a moderate healthy diet and exercises moderately will become permanently thin. It's not even true that every person who faithfully follows a "semistarvation" regimen with increased exercise will become permanently thin. If it worked for you, congratufrickinglations, you win a skinny gold star. But a certain number of people win the lottery too; if you're one of them, it doesn't make you a financial genius, just lucky.
Therefore, people who feel free to dump on and reject us because of an assumption that we're totally sedentary out of control eating machines are simply being obstinate and hateful. It's a little like assuming a guy has a small penis because he doesn't, um, stretch it out enough.
Um, no, don't starve. No one is asking anyone to starve. Drink water, eat fruit and veggies and lean foods.
No one who is a normal weight starves. They just eat normal amounts of food. You act like everyone is fat or anorexic. There are millions of people who enjoy EVERYTHING and are average weight. An average weight for a woman who is 5'3 is 110-145 or so.
Everyone I know enjoys food a LOT. We eat out, drink beer, whatever. Some of us weigh 90, others 150. But no one is obese, no one has tons of extra fat. Quit acting like average people are "starving themselves".
And I have to disagree, every fat person who eats a moderate healthy diet and exercises will become permanently THINNER. They will reach a healthy weight. So they can't go back to the french fries and boxes of goldfish and fast food. They have to eat healthy food and exercise for the rest of their lives, like everyone who IS thin or average. That's the concept that is so hard for you. Your diets don't work because you don't stick to them, there is no other reason. You don't want to give up overeating. It's like alcoholics or any other addiction. You just don't want to give it up forever.
you fat peope must be ALIENS and not even human!
A common misconception apparently embraced by many who have posted here.
Cheers, Littlem. You're a doll.
And anonymous, though it's simply darling to read how much you've missed me, there are two reasons for my silence:-
1) I have a life. I've just spent a very enjoyable four days of it chilling with some friends in Somerset.
and
2) As stated earlier, I'm tired of going round in circles with you.
Couldn't bear to let this one go, mind:-
"I was born fat I will always be born fat"
Say what? We're talking reincarnation now? Oooh-wee! Esoteric...
I just HAVE to respond to one of the Anyonymous's comments fairly far back: "I don't know a single obese person who's kept a detailed log of food intake and exercise and justified their actions"
I am an "obese" person (5'7", 240 lbs, 32-year old female). I gained 30 pounds this past winter because I was in an accident where I sprained both my ankles and fractured my right foot, and was bedridden for weeks and then barely hobbling around for months. Now that I can move around better, I would LIKE to take off those 30 pounds, and a few more to boot if at all possible.
To this end, I have kept a daily log on nutridiary.com for several months. After logging your stats, and how much you want to lose, nutridiary comes up with a number of calories per day it thinks should get you to your goal. Depending on my daily activities (which can be logged in fine detail, such as types of housework, speeds of walking, etc.) my recommended calories to lose 2 pounds a week are usually around 1700-2000.
I followed their recommendations closely for the first month. I lost a grand total of - TADA!! NOTHING!! Absolutely nothing, not even a fraction of a pound.
I was pretty goddamn depressed. I had been walking at least a half hour a day (and sometimes as much as 2) and doing some strength training on the weight machines at the community center. I had been dedicated to reducing portion size (weighing or measuring most everything). I felt that I deserved a "reward" for all that effort. And I felt I had received none. Didn't lose any weight, didn't feel healthier or anything.
I posted about my experience in one of nutridiary's forums, asking if people were losing their target weight following nutridiary's recommendations. People were all over the map on this -- some were losing weight much more quickly than predicted, and some, like me, were not losing weight at all. So apparently, despite the most advanced techniques to determine base metabolic rate, and with the most detailed logging of activities and foods, people still WILDLY differ on how their body reacts to a diet.
I don't have any medical conditions that I am aware of that would contribute to obesity. I did have my thyroid function tested and that was normal.
And I know I was eating more calories and moving way less before I started this diet. I guess I have a very flexible metabolism.
I decided to reduce my calories to about 1500 per day no matter what exercise I did. I am now losing some weight, but it is VERY slow going. I lose a half pound a week on average. It is so hard to keep up this level of effort for such sparse rewards. I wouldn't do it at all if I weren't concerned about the way I will be viewed by employers when I look for a job in several months. I really wanted to at least get below 200, but it is clear at this point that that won't happen.
At 1500 calories per day, it is EXTREMELY difficult to get all of the protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals I need (I do not believe in vitamin supplements, but that is for another post). Many doctors and nutritionists do not believe a person should go below 1500 because you simply cannot get enough nutrition at lower levels.
I can envision a person whose metabolism was even slower than mine, who could not lose weight without compromising their health. Especially someone who was physically disabled or elderly, and could not exercise very heavily.
To all the geniuses who point out that concentration camp victims, et al, are skinny: yes, but they're also diseased. Everyone will lose weight at some level of calories (or by not eating anything, ever), but they will also lose their health and vigor.
The vicious hyenas of Craigslist and some on this board must have lead charmed lives to so blithely judge others and assume that losing weight is easy or even possible for everyone.
I think the cure for these smugly judgemental creeps is to have to walk a mile in my shoes, or in anyone else's shoes who has experienced this.
You folks should not ASSume that everyone else's body works exactly the way yours does.
Shawn says…
Hey- I have a couple of things. One, Buffpuff I am not trying to argue with you. You are clearly more articulate than me and a better writer. Sorry if I come off as an ass, words come across differently when you say them and when you write them. Secondly, “skinny people” stop using the famine argument please. It just gives people who are overweight more fuel to feed the mentality “skinny people must starve themselves to look how they do.” Average weight people are not starving themselves- we all know this…
And here is my biggest thing. THE FACT IS EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY WHO HAS THE CHOICE BETWEEN TWO FOODS IS ON A “DIET”
The simple fact is that if you have more than one type of food available to you and you choose one over the other, then you are on a diet. You made a choice of what to eat and what not to eat. I have been on a constant “diet” for about 8 years now. No it does not involve starving myself. I love food and enjoy it a ton!!! If I could have it my way I would eat rocky road ice cream every day for every meal. That stuff is great. So why don’t I do that? Why doesn’t everyone do that? Because we know that would be bad for us. Most morning this year when I have woken up I have had the urge to eat at McDonalds for breakfast. But usually I eat a cup of oatmeal, 10 egg whites and an apple or banana. Does this mean I am on a diet? No- it means I made a choice! If there are cookies around and I eat one instead of three… does that mean I am on a diet? No! It was a choice. If you are eating one piece of cake for dessert everyday rather than 2 or 3, then you TOO are on a diet. What I am trying to say is that everyone in this country is on a “DIET,” whether or not you choose to think of it like that is up to you.
Let it be known that I am not trying to offend anyone here. I know this for a fact- that all the time I have spent in the gym you guys have been enriching yourself somehow as well. Whether it was spent reading, hanging out with friends, watching tv or anything else there is value in everything. Unfortunately, the society we live in IS shallow. Oh yeah, and let me get this off my chest. GIRLS ARE FUCKING SHALLOW TOO!!!! You all are not little angles. My shirt comes off and all of a sudden the girls unanimously agree “I have such a great sense of humor” and I am so “fun to be around,” “yada yada yada”- fuck that! My sense of humor is god-awful. But girls just don’t like to admit they are shallow. Oh yeah, and liking money…that makes you even more shallow than liking someone for their looks. At least if you like someone for their looks you actually like THEM and not some material object that is not them….shallow, shallow bitches everywhere.
Silly hypocrite girls. AAarrrgggggggggaargsdfgdksfmg!!!!!!
:)
-Shawn
Cynthia, your post is by far the most contradictory in this thread..
You had an injury (which changed your lifestyle) and you gained 30 pounds. Isn't that proof conclusive that your lifestyle has a direct effect on your weight?
Food and exercise logs should be tailored for you. Nutridiary (sic?) can only give you an ESTIMATE of how much you should consume and how much you should burn. If your metabolism is faster or slower you have to adjust accordingly. It sounds like you got back on track, losing half a pound a week. That's nothing to scoff at - in just over a year you'll have lost all 30lbs if that's your goal. MUCH better than taking Hoodia or getting WLS.
That half pound is quite a lot - about 1750 calories. I know it sucks right now, but once you get to where you need to be, maintenance is much easier. By then, you'll probably have more lean muscle mass and will need more calories naturally. In the meantime, just make sure you get enough nutrients from what you're eating - not difficult if you're detail oriented, as you seem to be.
In short, you're doing exactly what those of us who were formerly fat have done.
PS: Don't be too critical of your "slow" metabolism. More than one doctor has told me that the people who can eat huge amounts of food and never gain weight usually wind up with diabetes somewhere down the line. I'd rather have a metabolism that's too slow than one that's too fast.
I agree with the above poster.
I mean, I'm 5'3..I eat between 1800 and 2300 calories every day on average. I walk around a couple times a week for a few hours, I play tennis or swim maybe once a week.
I don't lose any weight either, I linger around 115 pounds or so.
It's a normal amount of food for me, I don't diet, I eat whatever I want. I eat a big dinner of whatever I please and and small lunch and breakfast. Lots of fruit and stuff.
I'm perfectly healthy and get all my vitamins and minerals. You can get everything from 2000 calories no problem.
It also takes lots of time to lose weight. If you have lots of weight to lose it takes more time than a person who only has 5-10 pounds. Just get down there and don't let it climb back up.
Oh, I also broke my leg skiing one year and gained like 5 pounds. I couldn't do much so I ate less food. Not too complicated really. 30 pounds makes no sense unless you are eating a gallon of ice cream every day.
Make wise choices people, that's the only difference between you and me!! :)
Shawn said "We as humans should strive to improve ourselves everyday- mentally, physically, and spiritually… otherwise whats the point." And I agree with that wholeheartedly.
But if I followed the "advice" of some of the people here I would have to make improving my body my number one goal. At the moment, I feel that I do work on improving my body. I read up on the latest health facts, I walk a lot with my dog, I take my kids swimming, and on their bikes, I garden, and I eat a varied healthy diet. This way of life is, I am quite sure, healthy. But it does not make me skinny.
If I wanted to get skinny, I would have to go all out, exercise more, take more care with what I ate. I would probably have to cook seperate meals for me and the family - especially as my husband has to watch out that his weight doesn't drop too low, as he is inclined to be skinny.
All this would mean I would have less time. That lack of time would negatively affect my family, would enable me to spend less time on the voluntary work that I do for the community. I would be worse off mentally and spiritually, and I am not sure that I would be any better of physically, as I seem to be healthy - my blood pressure is low, my cholesterol figure is low, I have a slow heartbeat, (on the occassions it is checked I am usually asked if I am an athlete, as my heart rate is that good). Although I no longer am able to compete as I have a family to take care of, I have been involved in rowing competitively, competing in and even winning numerous races, inlcuing several long distance races, one being over 50 miles.
I was a huge baby - my Mum didn't know how to deal with me. My brother and sister are slim, as are both parents, but I never have been. I can get slim, but it is a monstrous effort, to keep doing exercise beyond the amount that I enjoy, finding and preparing the appropriate slimming food, and coping with the constant hunger. It makes me a miserable person to be around, and I cannot focus on anything else. So, I choose to live another way.
I am thankful that studies are around now that show that fit fat people are as healthy as slim people, healthier than unfit slim people, so I don't worry about my health.
I began reading this blog post from idle curiosity, but have been appalled by the fat hatred shown here. The way I choose to live my life apparently makes me a "failure" to some of you. Well I can live with that, but I think that some of you will find it harder to live with yourselves if you keep this hatred up.
I love fat women. Hell, their bellies are in my opinion, the most attractive part of their bodies.
1. belly
2. personality
3. boobs
4. does she wanna gain? evil, yes i know, but I LOVE gainers
5. everything else
rick
Shawn says...
Jsygurl if everything you are saying is true, as far as your daily activity and nutrition go- then I have no rebuttal. You are right, you should not sacrifice your life just to be thin. But not everyone is in the same boat as you. With kids, and a family. Also I do not mean to discredit anything you are saying. But unless I saw you personally in your day-to-day activities I cannot believe nor disbelieve your health or nutritional habits. I am glad that you are improving yourself mentally and spiritually and spending time with your kids (something too many parents do not do). But the problem occurs (and I think it is the case here) that people neglect improving themselves physically.
-Shawn
Jesus Bleeding Christ, Shawn, why are you here?? Despite your limp little whines about not wanting to offend or discredit anyone, that's exactly what you try to do with all your mewling.
Jsygurl just SAID she COULD "improve" her body (i.e., spend the majority of her waking hours obsessing about carb/calorie count and exercising for 3 hrs. a day until she is "skinny enough"), because her genetics and metabolism dictate that as a necessity for her to be "approved" by people like you...but she would rather spend time with her kids! And you would rather smarmily and indirectly say that she's lying.
Bloody crikey hell, you annoying little pissant, why don't you just SAY what you mean: "Hey, fatties. Do what ever it takes to lose weight cos it bothers me that you don't and the world must live accoring to MY rules."
Quit posing like you give a rat's red arse about offending anyone. Honestly, at least the ignorant arsehole brute who complains about "cubby" chicks not cleaning their coffee pots and smelling bad at least doesn't try to pretend he's an enlightened fellow.
But of course you won't give up until everyone here says they love you and that, oh, gee, you're so right, we should remove our unsightly flesh from your eyesight.
Bugger off, you self-important troll.
A few points ...
First of all, this idea that our culture in general and many individuals here have clearly internalized - that all fat people are lazy, slovenly, sedentary gluttons who stuff their face with greasy, sugary food all day long while they sit on their ass watching TV and are either incapable or unwilling to eat well, exercise and make the "necessary sacrifices" or put in the work required to be thin (which is all too often considered synonymous with healthy) because they simply lack the self-respect to do so - this idea is a fallacy.
Just as much of a fallacy is the idea one commenter here articulated that all people of "normal", "average" weight (i.e. not fat) eat a healthy, nutritious, balanced diet and exercise regularly. This is just blatantly untrue. My brother is a perfect example of this. He's a bartender and he works a lot of late hours, often leaving for work late afternoon and returning from work well after midnight. The vast majority of the meals he consumes are not prepared by him. He typically eats at least one, if not two, of his daily meals at his job because he gets a 50% discount on his food orders, which means bar food: burgers, wings, pizza, pastas and sandwiches prepared without regard for fat and calorie content, ribs, french fries ... you get the picture. He orders pizza at least once every week or 10 days. Worse than that, probably 2 or 3 of his meals every week come from convenience stores because the corner convenience store is the only place open to get something to eat when he gets off work. Yup, those digusting packaged microwavable cheeseburgers and burritos and submarine sandwiches that come in the little plastic pods. Every time I see the wrapper from one of those in the garbage can when I wake up in the morning, my heart breaks a little.
The few meals my brother prepares for himself at home tend to be convenience, pre-packaged, processed type foods that are easy and fast to make such as Kraft Dinner, Ichiban noodles, frozen burgers, etc. He consumes very little fresh fruit and veggies. All the bread and pasta products he consumes are refined, not whole grain. The vast majority of his diet consists of processed carbs and processed meat.
My brother smokes about a pack a day. Though he used to be an avid soccer player, since he started working in the bar industry he's given it up. Team sports depend on regularly scheduled games and practices, and in his line of work it is almost impossible to have the same days and hours off every week. He spends most of the time when he's not working sitting on his ass on the couch, watching TV.
Yes, all this is eventually coming to a point. My point is that the way you would expect my brother to look based on a description of his lifestyle is very different from what he actually looks like. His habits are the habits of a fat person ... right? Wrong. My brother is thin. His BMI is normal, he looks trim and there is no way you'd guess from looking at him just how horrendously unhealthy his lifestyle actually is. So my brother isn't fat. He's not gaining weight. 5000 Calorie Bike Ride Guy's precious Law of Thermodynamics is chugging along nicely, as my brother consumes about the same amount of calories he expends, otherwise he'd be fat, right? Yet those calories are coming from wholly un-nutritious, overprocessed foods full of fat, sodium and sugar. And I'm willing to bet almost everyone here knows someone just like this, someone who exhibits very little regard for the actual healthfulness or nutritiousness of their diets, who consumes junk food constantly, who rarely exercises, yet who defies all the "how to not be fat" logic by remaining thin. But make no mistake about it, just because people like my brother are thin doesn't make them or their lifestyle healthy. Do you honestly believe that someone like my bro, who consumes the right amount of calories from the wrong kind of foods, smokes and doesn't exercise but is of a "healthy" weight actually is healthier than someone who is fat but consumes a balanced diet of healthful, fresh foods and undertakes light exercise regularly (like walking), even if that person is consuming more calories than they are expending or isn't monitoring/restricting their calories?
It really pisses me off when people get on their high horse about health, when it's really about aesthetics. People like my bro, who have horrible diet and exercise habits but are thin, get a free pass just because their terrible habits have not manifested themselves aesthetically, where the rest of the world can see them or presume to judge him for them. There is an automatic assumption that just because he is thin, he must eat right and exercise (or at least eat well enough and exercise enough not to be fat), just like there is an automatic assumption that just because someone is fat, they must eat poorly and never exercise. Or even if the thin person's horrible habits are acknowledged, they are not judged for them. It isn't assumed that a person is a lazy, slovely, gluttonous junk food addict who doesn't respect themselves because they eat this way unless they are fat. It's the fat that's being judged, not the "unhealthiness."
Every time there is negative attention on fast food or processed food in the media, it is always linked to the so-called "obesity crisis," how these foods cause weight gain, how the people eating them are fat and how excess weight adversely affects health, as though it's the weight and not the garbage coursing through you're body that's the root of the problem. Eating fast food makes you fat and fat is bad! Giving fast food to your kids will make them fat and child obesity is bad! There is rarely adequate, if any, attention paid to the real damage the consumption of these foods is doing to the insides and the general health of EVERYONE who consumes them, whether the evidence of that consumption is visible to the outside world in the form of fat or not. The fact is that fast food and processed food and convenience food is bad for EVERYONE who eats it, not just for the fat people who eat it.
And to those who say "I wouldn't date/fuck/have a relationship with a fat chick because the she 'doesn't respect herself/doesn't take care of herself/isn't fit enough to do the activities I enjoy with me/wouldn't share my lifestyle goals,' I'm sick of the euphemisms and the justifications and the rationalizations. Just come out and admit the fact that you don't want to date a fat chick because she's fat. Trying to foist this onto inferences and assumptions about what her character MUST be like or what her selections of leisure activities may be in order to make yourself sound like less of an asshole cuz saying you don't wanna date a fat chick is politically incorrect? Not only is it dishonest, it's also insulting. Whatever your reasons are -- lack of physical attraction, fear of what your friends would think, whatever -- those are your business. But know this - not every woman who respects herself is thin. Not every woman who takes care of herself and cares about what she eats and good nutrition and cares about her physical fitness is thin. Not every woman who enjoys working out, spending time outdoors or playing sports with a man she's dating is thin. Not every woman who eats like crap is fat. Not every woman who sits on her ass all day at work and then sits on her ass all night watching TV at home is fat. There are fat women, thin women, in-between women who are on both sides of the fence.
Fat is a physical characteristic. It doesn't matter how the person got fat. It doesn't matter why the person got fat or stays fat. It doesn't matter if the person is happy being fat. It doesn't matter if the person is trying to be less fat or not fat. It doesn't matter whether the person is or is not "choosing to do something about it." Being fat in and of itself has no link to behavioural characteristics like being messy or disorganized or having poor bodily hygiene or a lack of attention to grooming. Being fat has no link to character flaws like a lack of self respect. So if what you don't want to date a fat chick, fine. Don't date her. But don't pretend you know who she is or what she's like or how she thinks or what she does or what she enjoys or how she spends her time and feel totally justified in dismissing her for these "non-superficial" reasons because you looked at her and noticed she was fat.
canuck: ding-ding-ding, you're the lucky 50th poster who has absolutely no clue what the laws of thermodynamics mean.
Sure, your brother can eat a lot and maintain his weight, his system is not as efficient as other people's. A Hummer can use up more gas going the same distance as a Prius. What neither vehicle can do is go the distance without using ANY gas.
For the love of God, quit posting 5000 word diatribes and read a book on physics in the time you save..
Eh. Lots and lots of people eat junk food, sit on their ass and are thin.
It's the amount of FOOD you eat that makes you fat.
I lived with an overweight vegetarian heath food nut for a while. She was ridiculously preachy about her "healthy" choices and not eating meat.
It was interesting to see her melt entire cubes of cheddar cheese in her vegetarian chili and scoop it up with greasy corn chips. All her food was organic and healthy, but she would go through entire bags of organic low fat cookies in one sitting.
I, on the other hand, would eat my steak and baked veggies and drink my whole milk. I would eat fast food once a week or so. I enjoyed real ice cream and chocolate when I wanted it.
We were the same height (5'3) and she managed to weigh 175 or so while I weighed 110. We were both lazy asses about exercise.
She was delusional about her healthy eating habits if you want to know the truth.
Canuck, that was an impressive, heartfelt and insightful post and I sure as hell hear you. Though, regretably, I fear nothing, no matter how passionate or intelligently phrased, will stem the tide of righteous superiority which continues to lap at these shores like so much effluent.
It must have disappointed Anonymous hugely that the only comeback he could muster, having read what you had to say about health, aesthetics, bigotry and the lengths people will go to justify it, was one about...oooh, what a surprise, his favourite Law of Physics!
Tell you what, Anonymous, me old mucker, here's another idea: why not quit trolling on FattyMcBlog altogether and start posting on a science-related website? - where you can yack on about thermodynamics to your heart's content with people who actually give a shit. Because, frankly, you spend much more time engaging with fat girls and pretty soon folks are going to start talking, y'know?
Just ask Shawn...
To both AnonymousThermo and the other Anonymous.
I never disputed that it's the amount of food and not the type of food eaten that contributes to weight gain. I also never said that my brother eats a lot. He eats the right amount ... of horrible things. My point is that I find it very difficult to believe a fat person who eats a balanced, nutritious diet and exercises moderately but eats more than they need and more than they're burning is inherently less healthy than a thin person who sits on their ass and consistently eats the correct caloric amount of processed, un-nutritous crap packed with fat, sugar, preservatives and additives.
If you want to use a car anology, at least get it right. I'm not talking about how much gas goes into the tank or how far a car can go on a tank of gas. I'm talking about the quality of that gas that goes into the tank -- the difference between regular fuel and premium fuel.
Often when people start getting judgemental about fat, they can't just say "I think fat is ugly" because that would be insensitive and superficial. So this belief that fat is ugly gets wrapped up in all sorts of justifications about fat people's behaviour and their choices and what it says about their character - not having a healthy lifestyle because of what they eat and their lack of exercise, not having enough self respect to treat their body properly. Yet thin people who have horrendously unhealthy eating habits and never exercise do not face the same judgements. They are not told they don't respect themselves because they fuel their body with crap and don't move it. Why? It's the FAT that's offensive, not the food choices or the exercise choices.
I've never claimed to be a physics expert. I'm a writer, which means I WRITE (often lengthily at that), not read physics books. I only cited the Law of Thermodynamics because you insisted on bringing it up yourself several times through the course of this thread to make the point about calories in and calories out, which I WAS NOT DISPUTING. Calories in and calories out is going to work and allow me to maintain my weight whether I eat 5 chocolate bars a day or 1500 cals worth of lean meats, veggies, fruits and whole grains. But maintaining my weight on 5 chocolate bars a day isn't exactly healthy, regardless of what I weigh, fat or thin.
I don't think fat is ugly. I just think it makes it hard to move around, feel really truly good, etc. I don't think extreme anything is attractive. Too much working out and it looks yuck. Too little working out and it looks yuck too.
And as for doctors---I gained 10 extra pounds from sitting around, have headaches and can't sleep. I went to the doctor for sleeping pills or something, and I got an hour long lecture and a prescription for EXERCISE. I was honest about barely leaving my desk or couch and he said this is why I am having so many headaches, weird pains, and sleeplessness.
Wow, go figure, a skinny person being told to exercise because of health reasons!!!
It happens. Get over yourselves.
It's an interesting read, but I think that you really can't go by how the majority of men feel about fat women by asking this question of Craigslist. Craigslist is a whole other animal in and of itself anyway. LOL
Besides, American society and culture has been shaped and minds have been warped by the media portraying the "thin is in" and "lose weight now" messages every single day in magazines, books, television, radio and movies. If being fat were more readily accepted, more men would accept dating, loving and marrying fat women, and thin women would be complaining.
Also, just because a man or woman is fat or considered overweight accordig to the "BMI" chart doesn't mean that he or she is NOT healthy or messy or lazy or nasty. A lot of folks really need to get that stupid stereotype out of their minds. Being thin or even an "average" weight does not necessarily equal success, wealth, health, beauty or perpetual happiness.
Well, I was walking the dog, on one of those walks Shawn thinks I am lying about doing (am I lying about the dog Shawn? How can you believe anything I say again? I must be lying about having kids too. In fact, you probably think I am lying about being fat don't you Shawn ... no of course you don't believe that. It's because you know I'm fat that you think that I am a liar isn't it Shawn?) and I was thinking about the question that started this thread. The question being, "would you ever date a fat girl", even if she was perfect in any other way.
With respect to Lindsay and Emily, the phrase that springs to mind is "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer". Let me explain.
Before I began dating the man wo was to become my husband, I hated facial hair on men. Would I ever date a guy with a beard or moustache? Never! Then I met my husband. He knew a girl in the 4 girl rowing crew that Shawn disbelieves I was ever part of, and came to cox us. You don't wear much rowing, and what you do wear gets wet. It was pretty clear that this new cox, along with his bristly moustache, had a thick pelt of chest hair. Yeugh. He also had cocktail stick white legs, whereas I like a bit of calf muscle. So it wasn't exactly love at first sight.
But then an amazing thing happened. Rowing is very social, and we got to know each other. I admired his honesty, his willingness to help others, his refusal to compromise his morals. I respected his intellect, his wide knowledge on many matters. I like the fact that he "got me", he laughed at my jokes, that he told me he admired the work I had done for charities. We both had gone through the upheaval in our childhoods of an unpleasant parental break-up, and finding that out made up both feel closer to the other.
In short, we fell in love. I grew to love his thick rug of chest hair, as it was part of the man I loved, as I grew fond of his spindly calves, and his scratchy moustache.
The things that make a strong bond between people have nothing whatever to do with the way they look - and I pity anyone who does choose a partner based on their looks, as they are missing out on a trully amazing experience.
canuck and buffpuff: You both go around and around in circles with your ears clamped tightly shut.
Noone is disputing that a lot of thin people are unhealthy. Noone is disputing that you can eat a lot and still be skinny. The whole claim was that weight loss is possible for the vast majority of people by eating a healthy diet, exercising, and balancing calories in and calories out. Both of you can throw all the verbiage you want, but nothing's sticking to the wall because you still haven't come up with any sort of intelligent response to that one statement. Canuck tried the old writer's trick of "I shot a 12 point buck from 1000 yards from behind a tree, and if you want proof, there's the tree right there". I don't need to post a 500 word rebuttal to shoot down the central point.
Do you two even read the rest of this blog? The authors do not have a healthy relationship with food, by their own admission. I hate to break this to you two, but most of the fat people here in the midwest are not "almost-vegans-who-exercise-every-day". They use their cars instead of walking two blocks, eat fast food more often than not, and haven't seen the inside of a gym since high school.
"Fat is ugly" is kind of broad. Are you talking about fat as in 5'5" and 250lbs or 5'5" and 700lbs? And NO, buffpuff, amazingly enough that's not a straw man argument, there really are people that heavy here in the US, maybe not in merry old England. And you have to define "ugly" first, which means you're making the same subjective distinction that people saying "fat is ugly" are.
Shawn: you seem to have stumbled into an unmarked minefield. Welcome to the world of the angry fat woman - if you have ever watched "Married with Children" you should recognize the personality instantly. Her identity is so centered in mistreatment by the big bad world that she will goad you into making rude statements, and then use that as vindication that you're just another hater. Like I said many posts back, you will not win here..
Shawn says…
But Jsygurl - if a person came along, same personality as your husband, but with less hair and more tan & muscular calf, he would easily steal you away. And leave your now husband with nothing. You said it yourself that you were not attracted to him initially….
You fat girls think you are the only ones with good personalities. There are plenty of skinny girls with great personalities. Sure anyone can fall in love with a fat girl. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to fall in love with a skinny one.
-Shawn
Shawn says...
And I am not talking about if he came along now... I am talking about if he had came along when you two had initially started dating...
-Shawn
Blimey, Anonymous, are you still, here?! Admit it. You want me sooooo bad...
In answer to your question, I have obviously read this thread with a lot more care and attention than you. Since, if you'd bothered to read any of my earlier posts, you would have seen that I am in total agreement that weight loss is possible for the vast majority of people by eating a healthy diet, exercising, and balancing calories in and calories out. However, maintaining that loss for life means continuing to subscribe to a rigorous diet and exercise routine for life - and most people per se find that a very tall order. That's why recidivism occurs with such enormous frequency. That's why people yo-yo and/or don't keep up their subscriptions to the gym.
A little cut 'n' paste from one such post: When we diet, we semi-starve our bodies, thus creating a semi-famine situation and our metabolisms slow down accordingly, so the next time semi-famine strikes, our bodies will have learned to store fat more efficiently. That's why 95% of ALL dieters, (and that includes people who only think they're fat), put all their weight back on, with a little bit more for luck, every time they stop dieting. And the more often they diet, the more they put back on every time.
...and every time they do, the whole failure/guilt/self-loathing cycle kicks into touch. Instead of baiting people like me, you should read some of the blogs written by people who have considerably less of a light touch than the women who run this site. Blogs written by those who've resorted to bariatric surgery but remain irrevocably fucked up about food and body image; anorexics offering each other helpful tips on how to diminish themselves to death; people obsessed with their imaginary fat; even fat people who strive daily to lose weight in all the "sensible" ways you approve of. The sheer level of seething self-hatred beggars belief. And moralising, sanctimonious arseholes like you only compound the problem.
What you have consistently chosen to ignore is the matter of your bigotry and your bogus concern for the health of people you don't like the look of.
And Shawn, if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. Just do us all a favour and stop talking drivel.
buffpuff: Ooooh.. you're starting to come around!! Yes, now you're admitting that weight loss is possible, and that maintenance is the problem. Well, yes, maintaining the loss for life DOES involve a fair amount of discipline, no one is disputing that. Again, it's not the failure in the plan that will stop you, it's the failure in your discipline.. If you are disciplined, you will keep the weight off, if you are weak, you will fail..
Get real, it's not a choice between morbid obesity and anorexia. A lot of us are actually in that middle ground where we are athletic. We are not continually starving ourselves, we eat what our bodies need, and only that much. And I don't advocate WLS any more than I advocate Hoodia or Fen Phen, that's just another quick fix for those without the discipline for the slow and steady path.
So maybe YOU'RE too lazy for a "rigorous"" diet and exercise program for life. Tough nuts. Stay fat. Maybe others have a little more motivation.
my long-term partner (an alcoholic, as not quite an aside) recently left me, a very fit, slim (5'5", 55kg) woman, for a woman who weighs around 140kgs. i was stunned and still, a few months down the track, can't wrap my head around it. am i wrong to think that there's something a bit...weird about that? i think a hell of a lot of people in my situation would also think that she'd blown a gasket.
Actually, Anonymous, I haven’t changed my stance or opinion at all. And thus we continue to around in circles.
I am not, for the hundredth time, “too lazy” to pursue your way of life, nor am I weak-willed. I’m simply disinterested. I have better things to do with my time; other life-goals more deserving of my motivation and discipline than espousing your value system. Been there; done it – for over half my life. Experience has taught me that the way I have choosen to live the latter half benefits my physical, mental and spirtual wellbeing a great deal more. I eat a well-balanced diet and exercise as and when I feel like it. Just not with the primary objective of losing weight.
I did not say you advocated weight-loss surgery, championed anorexia or condoned the consumption of quick-fix, life-endangering drugs and you know it. What I suggested was that you cast an eye over some of the disturbing and violently self-loathing outpourings of a cross-section of individuals devoted to the relentless pursuit of thinness at the apparent expense of their mental health. If societal pressure to conform to this one narrow ideal were not so strong, extreme self-hatred and body-dysmorphia would not proliferate to the point people felt desperate enough to take life-endangering measures. I was hoping, (though God alone knows why, when you patently possess all the sensitivity and compassion of plankton), that you might actually learn something about the kind of misery bullying and name-calling perpetuates.
You’re not here seeking converts. You’re here to split hairs, dodge issues and call people you don’t like the look of weak and worthless. Thus far not one single fat person on this blog has claimed you’ve shown them the light and the way, nor does that look very likely to happen. So why don’t you just stop pretending this is a health issue and fuck off back to the weights room or the cycle path or wherever you go to hone that buff little person of yours? This is really getting old.
Recently abandoned anonymous, looks like you'll have to get used to the idea that the thin don't necessarily inherit the earth. But hey, think yourself lucky - at least you ditched the alcoholic.
Is "Married with Children" a TV show? I don't watch much TV. Only when I am sewing or ironing, and I avoid the reality stuff like the plague.
I am not normally an angry fat woman. I am normally a very happy fat women, having a very happy life. But to have some stranger tell me that unless he came to watch me walk my dog, he cannot believe that I do it, well, that got my goat. I mean, I wasn't claiming to run a marathon every weekend, just to walk the damn dog!
Consider this scenario: someone goes to the doctor with a problem, and the doctor advises that there is a cure for that problem. This cure has been prescribed for years, and well studied. Problem is, that 75% or more of people who have tried the "cure" find it too hard to stick to, and end up with a bigger problem. This cure also has side effects, such as reduced body temperature, leading to reduced imunity, cold hands and feet, and the posiblilty of hair loss, that may be permanent. The cure is also known to increase mortality in those people who try it, through increased Cardio-vascular disease, diabetes etc.
The doctor then advises that the problem you came in with is not neccessarily a health problem. He tells you, as long as you eat healthily, exercise regularly, you will be as healthy as anyone who doesn't have the problem, healthier even than some.
So, what decision do you make? Seems like a no-brainer to me, and looking up the Laws of Thermodynamics on the Net, I find even they don't change my mind.
buffpuff, enough with the "big mean society's persecuting me" already..
Yeah, society has ideals. If half your teeth are rotting out and you haven't used a toothbrush in ten years, then you're not going to fit society's ideals. You need to accept that instead of whining about it. If you choose to be fat, fine, but don't expect the whole world to like you for it.
I don't need to win converts - I think 99% of the fat people out there right now are already trying to lose weight. I'm just calling you on the BS you're spouting. As soon as you get your ass on the ropes you abandon all logical debate and go the old ad-hominem route, since no sane person is going to buy the crap you're selling..
I don't need to win converts - I think 99% of the fat people out there right now are already trying to lose weight.
Your point being...what? The remaining 1% will somehow benefit from you insulting them? You're a prick, Anonymous, as well as a bigot.
I don't expect the world to like me for being fat any more than I expect them to like me for being five foot three or having blue eyes. I expect people to relate to me as a three-dimensional human being – and, as previously stated - they generally do. Something which apparently bugs the bejesus out of you, judging by your bizarre response to my last post. Or maybe it's just my lack of victim mentality and unwillingness to internalise your sizist crap.
I didn't say society was persecuting me. I said society demonised fat and that this causes a great deal of needless anguish in people of all sizes. If you bothered to read the kind of blogs I referenced you would realise that many of the people I was referring to are not fat at all but their belief they are and/or fear of becoming so have taken over their lives completely. I never said that I was one of them.
And now you may talk to the hand.
i don't think that the thin inherit the earth. i'm just me, and i like to eat healthy food and am a very physically active person. moving my body makes me feel good.
another thing - there's an interesting dynamic happening with the ex, who i saw recently for the first time in 4 months - she is now what i and most others would describe as a very overweight woman. she was quite slim before. when i saw her, i nearly cried, and not because i felt sorry for her because she is now fat. but because it seemed to me that she got fat because of self-hatred. i know you'll think that what i'm saying is that people are fat because they hate themselves but what i think is that for her it's self-destruction on a grand scale.
and i think that people can be addicted to food just as with other "substances", and addiction is about self-destruction.
whatever. your personality probably sucks and the fat chick is more interesting.
when i am lazy, i am lazy. i feel crappy about myself. that's nice you all want to not feel bad when you stuff your face with junk food, but i prefer to keep feeling bad because it keeps me thin. if i ate poorly every day i would have to feel bad every day (so i can understand why you don't want to). but i don't. i eat too much like ONCE A WEEK. then i feel BAD and eat less the next day.
i can understand why you want to accept your vice so you don't "have to" feel bad. it's gluttony, it's actually a sin. people who cheat on their husbands or rob people justify it as well, people who lie, whatever. who needs to feel bad every day when you can just accept it? now it's convincing the whole REST of the world to agree..because
GLUTTONY IS NOT A SECRET SIN
i'm laughing my ass off at all the stupid comments. these are the same "men", and i use the term as clinically as possible, that try so hard to get trophy women who only use them for money and cheat on them with their friends and relatives anyone else, apparently. that's absolutely perfect, circle of stupid coming back to haunt itself.
it makes me glad i was born with the genes stacked "against" me, in that they only led to the development of polycystic ovaries, and it's made me into a nice large girl who never had to be worried about competing in the neurotic world of the thin. i'm above it, and i'm above them.
i cringe when i think of how my life could have turned out if i'd looked the way so many witless fools wanted me to to look. to be plagued with slack-jawed idiots trying to penetrate me at every turn, and to have skinny catty bitches stabbing me in the back all day, ugh. who wants that?
i'd much rather continue being fat and happy, thanks. because my time was spent developing actual character and not obsessing with pleasing morons with spatial disorders, i'm pretty well off.
and please. stop with the "gluttony is a sin" bullshit. nobody takes that shit seriously. the real sin is stupidity: choosing to be ignorant.
-- nephesh@nephesh.net
http://nephesh.livejournal.com/
gluttony is a sin..one of the seven.
Lust: Greed for Sex, Attention
Gluttony: Greed for Self-Indulgence
Envy: Greed for Possessions, Personal Gain
Sloth: Greed for Avoidance
Pride: Greed for Greatness
Wrath: Greed for Revenge
we all have issues with these sins as humans, of course. one is not worse than the others, but gluttony for food is just not as hidden or "respected" as some of the others.
but the fact is, for every mentally healthy, great personalty fat girl there is a mentally healthy great personality skinny girl.
being fat or skinny has nothing to do with your personality. when fat people say "thank god i'm fat! i was ABLE to develop a personality" it's as retarded as skinny people feeling sorry for the fat people.
both lame, both stupid. lady, if you have a great personality at 269 pounds you will have a great personality at 120 pounds. you will just feel a hell of a lot better.
Im 5'7 and weight 130 pounds. I was 195 at my highest 2 years ago. While loosing the weight I found people around me changing but mostly treating me differently- like i finally gained their respect. My goal weight was 145. At 130, i still think im fat...and now people tell me im perfect like this. Im rambling but now that im no longer terribly fat, im even more insulted by all that fat bashing. This society really f*ucked us all. It's no longer being in control of what you eat, exercice, etc. It's about self-esteem. And whoever feels good in their skin- i envy. Even 300-lbs women, because i- at 130, feels awfull inside my skin.
Hi,
Seven deadly sins guy? You listed 6. You missed out on Greed, which kind of covers all the rest given the definitions you have given to the six you listed.
So, according to you, all fat people stuff their faces with junk food all the time. Do you realise how daft that view is? Do you ever watch the Olympics at all, and notice that there are people who compete for their countries who are on the bulky side. People who would no doubt be classified as fat by the Body Mass Index, such as shot putters, weight lifters, some rowers and javelin throwers? Do you really think that they got to the top of that particular sport by shoveling junk food into their mouths?
Hi anon who feels awful inside their skin.
I feel for you, I have been there. I look at some of my skinny photos and remember, not how good it was to be that light, but how bad I felt.
I don't know why you feel so bad - maybe you dieted because of the pressure of society, and not because of what you wanted, and that will always result in inner conflict. Maybe you have internalised the message that society gives to fat people, that they are lesser, that they are unworthy and even though society no longer sees you as fat, you see yourself as the same person, so feel you must be fat.
On the occasions that I got skinny, I always felt a bit like a fraud - as if I was pretending to be skinny. I can look at photos now and say I was skinny, but at the time, I had lost all sense of my body. Even when my periods stopped because my weight was so low, I kept on dieting, as I hadn't reached the goal weight I had been set.
The only advice I can think of is that you will never be happy whilst you allow yourself to be judged by society. You need to learn to like yourself, whatever society may think. Easily said I know, but it can be done.
It isn't just fat people who suffer from society holding up the perfect body as the highest ideal any of us can aspire to. This is why I am not happy with the thought of "fat acceptance". I prefer "body acceptance", where all sorts of bodies, from the lush to the lean, are accepted.
Just to add to my post above, I think that eating healthily means eating when you are hungry, and eating something satisfying and nutritially beneficial. But not eating when you are not hungry.
I think exercising healthily means doing regularly something active that you enjoy.
I think a healthy weight is the weight you naturally reach when you are eating healthily and exercising healthily.
And I think living healthily is acceping that no-one else can tell you what will satisfy you, what you enjoy, or when you are hungry.
Consequentailly, no-one has the right to be abusive to you, if living this way means that your weight is above, or indeed, even below, that considered "ideal" by society.
But that is just my opinion, you have to make up your own mind.
Speaking of "fat=slovenly," "thin=willpleasemealotwithherhardbuttandcleanupmyshit" assumptions...
I'm 5'5, 100 lbs, trim, muscular, in short, what you'd define in this age as "perfectly built," for any ordinary human purposes. But guess what? I am disastrously and consistently messy, I wash as infrequently as I can, I bite my nails, pick my nose, pick my ears, sometimes fail to wash my hair, have no problem skipping a tooth brushing, I will reuse underwear, socks, towels and dishes, I will not change my sheets for weeks... In short, I am a slob, because this is what I find convenient-- a path of least resistance where I can get away with as little as possible.
There is more, fat-hating boys. I have the same attitude to my work and to my relationships! I am not concerned with pleasing... anyone other than myself. And I will sit on my behind playing video games and eating Doritos if I feel like it, for every bit as long as I feel like it.
Except, if you meet me at a bar (or wherever you pick up your nonfat dates), you would WANT to date me A LOT.
Idiots.
Haha.. me too.
I'm such a slob it's not even funny. I do change my underwear and brush my teeth though.
Guys have always been after me and I've always been open about what a slob I am (can't hide it). I'm an artist and pretty damn messy.
I am not willing to please anyone but myself though, which is what all these fat chicks want too. Seriously, there is nothing more attractive than someone who is living for themselves and confident in themselves. If somebody doesn't want me, skinny and slovenly, I don't want them. I'm not gonna pretend to be something I'm not, and you all shouldn't either.
I know fat girls who get tons of guys. They are happy and confident and could give a shit about what other people think.
My advice to all of you is to do the same thing. Quit whining on these message boards if you are so happy with yourselves. Who gives a shit what others think. Live life.
Oh yeah, and if you aren't happy doing that lose some weight.
Hey Jsygurl (im the 5'7-130 lbs girl who feels awfull). Thank you for your coments. <3 I sense that you understand the weird process of becoming 'thin' after years of being fat. I should not complain about how people treat me now- they are all nice, polite, flirty. asking me on dates etc etc. But that's also what makes me wanna scream. All these people knew me FAT and didnt really give a f*ck about me- my personality, my sense of humor etc.Its like i was not alive for so many people. And now they want to be around me, know me, hang out with me. And in this, all i can see is: rejection. I was rejected because i was fat and because i lost the weight- im suddenly cute and cool.
It makes me angry. I just want to hug my old fat self. Because she's still in me.And she sees all this hyprocrisy. Im probably rambling again. But i wonder how low im going to go. I want to loose anoud 15 lbs. And i dont even think its going to make me feel any better. But thats my only hope.
Hi girl who feels awful. Yes, I have been there. Thing is, you are still you, nothing has changed except the layer of fat under your skin. You are not a different person, and your friends are not different people, so of course it is going to be bizarre that they treat you as if you are different.
When I got skinny, I got more friends. But I never believed that I could really be myself with them. I felt they were only interested in being with me as I was skinny, so I had to act like I thought skinny girls acted. I was 16. I'm older now, and have given up pretending to be anyone else, but I do remember the pain of how it felt. In fact, after reading your post, that feeling haunted me all yesterday.
I have no idea of your body, but 115 pounds when you are 5'7 seems low. Even if it is a okay weight for you, I worry that you are expecting losing weight to make you happy - but it can't do that.
My Mum had me believing that when I got slim, life would be radiant, everything would fall lightly into place for me. But I got slim, and guess what - it was the same old life - I still had massive feet and homework. I still had rows with my parents, and no money.
If you are not happy - and you do not sound happy - losing weight cannot make much difference, especially 15 pounds on someone whose body people describe as "perfect" now. You need to look elsewhere in your life for what is making you miserable.
Are you hoping that by losing 15 more pounds, you will stop feeling fat? Because it doesn't work that way. Anorexia is proof of that. If you dislike yourself, losing weight is not going to bring you a new self, just a thinner body. You will still be you.
You need to find a way to like yourself that does not depend on your weight. You have made a start by recognising that you did not deserve to be rejected when you were fat. Your fat self needs those hugs, and your fat self is you.
Since my teens, I have read how devastating it is to a girl's body to be such a low weight that menstuation stops. Please be careful with your weight loss and do not allow that to happen to you.
If you all don't mind, I would like to give a, hopefully, more intelligent response to the original topic.
I am 5'6" 200lbs with semi-visible abs.
I am classified as overweight, I have been the object of jokes, finger pointing and name calling.
I am friends with many fat people, some have been up to 500+lbs, I don't hate fat people nor do I look down on them.
All this having been said, I would not date a fat girl, I have no problem being friends or hanging out with them, but I would not date one.
Much of the reason, for me, is that I am an avid weightlifter, most people have a difficult time understanding what I do and how I can devote so much time and energy into it. My fat friends and family members understand even less.
I understand that many of you do exercise, and please feel free to prove me wrong when I assume that most exercise that you do is walking and possibly jogging with some moderate weight lifting thrown in a few times a week, but I have never met a truly fat person (some powerlifters and strongmen are quite large but much of that is inner organ growth and distension) who shares my taste for weightlifting, everybody I know who does ends up relatively lean.
Jsygurl- if you don't mind me asking, how old are you now? I just wonder when i'll gain your maturity on the subject ;) !
I know that being at 115 is not going to make me happy or make everything prettier. But honestly, the idea of being almost bony, wearing different layers of clothes on them and feel myself swim in my clothes...it sounds so inviting to me. You know? It's such a weird thing to talk about all this and i know it doesnt make much sense. And that's why all these responds by men upset me so much. They have no idea how it can hurt us. And make us loose weight for all the wrong reasons. (Im sorry btw, im french living in nyc...so my english is still not perfect therefore all the typos and mistakes.)
ShortDave...i can understand your reason. But the thing i don't understand about this whole thing is how men are giving REASONS for not dating fat women. Dating is about chemistry no? Yes theres common interests too but i highly doubt you would not date someone who attracts you just because she's not into weight lifting. Just say you don't think that a fat woman can be attractive to you-and maybe i'll beleive you.
You are right that I don't find most fat women attractive, but as was said earlier when a person carries themselves with confidence they can be quite attractive regardless of size, and I have met a few fat women who I found to be attractive.
But I have broken up with women for the reason that they could not accept the fact that I would be away from her for a minimum 2 hours every weeknight because I was at the gym.
And this isn't the fault of the girl, I couldn't commit to her as much as she wanted at the cost of what I do.
I am off topic now I apologize, but I ask you, would you date a person who seems to accept you as being fat but would then subversively through guilt try to get you to change? probably not, and I have found that in this culture most people try to drag down others who try to achieve in any aspect, be it physically, financially or even emotionally.
There are probably many people who berate fat people for being fat and being okay with it. I am the same only on a different end of the scale.
Shar says...
It's true you can't who you are attracted to. I, Shortdave, would never date you, because I find short men unattractive.
I'm not fat either, I weigh 108 pounds.
I just think fat people need to reaslise they can't force anyone to do anything. If you are happy being fat go have some fun. If you don't like it or feel like people don't respect you tough. No one is going to respect you if you don't respect yourself.
Anonymous, I agree with you, attraction isn't a choice. Oddly I have never been turned down because of my height, only because of "too much muscle", but I do know that there are many women out there who won't date short men.
And I have acepted that and don't try to change it, I don't try to change people, I have dated girls shorter and taller than me.
I am big where it counts.......
my heart you perverts ;)
shortdave: size shouldn't matter ahaha
But yeah it's not like i don't respect myself, now that im 130lbs and (i still did at my highest-) it's the perception of people that changed. That im sure. Maybe they did respect me...and maybe not. Who knows.
In my first comment, i was really just trying to say that society build our 'views' or our 'ideals'. Maybe youre going to end up dating a fat woman, being im going to end up with a short guy with huge muscles-which i hate.
It's the heart that matters. True.
Shar says...
Yeah, just to be completely fair I must say that short, muscular men are the most unattractive to me. I'd much prefer a 6'4 beefy guy or even a skinny 5'6 guy, if it comes down to it.
But what Shortdave says is true, it's the heart that matters the most.
5'3 and 130 is slightly on the chunky or above average side, though. Your friend who weighs less and eats crap probably just needs to up the exercise and eat a little better, then she will be fine.
A person who is average to low weight and eats not very well and seems "weak" is still healthier than someone who weighs 350 pounds and eats well and has some muscle under all that useless flab.
It would take the fat one a year or two to get healthy and the skinny one probably about 3-4 months.
marly said: "Frankly, I'd rather be chubby and healthy than thin and weak. It's just more efficient."
I agree with you 100%, but aren't you leaving out option (c) - thin and healthy?
The choice isn't between being fat-healthy and skinny-weak. If you are healthy to begin with, you'll probably still be healthy when you're thinner.
buffpuff: Sorry for the delay in replying. While realizing your avowed "last post" was about sixteen posts ago, I didn't realize you'd be posting that fast and that furious..
Sizism?! Gimme a break.. here, let me define a new "ism" - odorism! It's the persecution by society of people who refuse to shower! Yes, it's shocking, but the people who reek of BO are actually marginalized by society, ostracized by their peers, and are usually underemployed and shunned in the dating circles!
We need to immediately set up support groups for the odor challenged, and fight odorism to the end!
Oh, and in closing, I'd much rather be a bigot (which I'm not), than an intellectually lazy keyboard jockey such as yourself..
PS: Notice you still haven't responded to any of the actual arguments in my last post.. Problemo? No more NAAFA talking points?
Anon 9:13 -
Not only are you bigoted, you also appear to be glaringly stupid because you don't understand WHY you are perceived as bigoted.
Furthermore, you are not contributing to this discussion in any constructive way.
Please go away.
Anonymous, just a few thoughts to accompany you on your long journey far from here...
Firstly, I think I’ve met most of your blasts of hot air head on. If anything, it is you who have shown yourself disinclined to address many of the issues others have raised – namely anything which veers away from science and/or physical health as you understand it.
Secondly, I hardly think you are in a position to accuse me of going the ad hominem route when you trot out laughable, blame-the-victim nonsense such as, “Her identity is so centered in mistreatment by the big bad world that she will goad you into making rude statements, and then use that as vindication that you're just another hater”. From where I’m sitting, that's precisely what you are. What's more you need no encouragement whatsoever to start throwing insults. The only people you address with any degree of civility are those who espouse your own ‘athleticism is next to godliness’ credo.
Thirdly, I am not a spokesperson for NAAFA nor have I ever been a member of NAAFA, or indeed any similar movement or organisation. Believe it or not, the views which inform my arguments are my own. The last point I tried to make – several times – regarding the pernicious effect fat hatred has on the individual – has been adequately demonstrated here by the poor French lady who professes to feel awful in her own skin. A woman who, from what she says, (“the idea of being almost bony, wearing different layers of clothes on them and feel myself swim in my clothes...it sounds so inviting to me”), sounds suspiciously like she may now be hovering on the outer reaches of anorexia.
And finally, will you kindly stop trying to draw this feeble analogy between weight, (a highly complex issue) and personal hygiene, (a pretty straightforward one). If there is a substantial chunk of society fighting for the right to avoid soap, water and toothpaste, (with the possible exception of 8 year old boys), I personally have yet to make their acquaintance. By likening fat to BO you are merely re-stating your agenda – namely that fat constitutes an unpleasant assault on your senses. You don’t like the way it looks. QED.
maybe someone might want to do a content analysis on these comments - those who are not fat, and/or who aren't attracted to fat people, are described variously as illiterate, moronic, weak, neurotic/suffering from anorexia nervosa, personality-disordered... it seems that a lot of fat people are VERY defensive of their obesity, which is, let's face it, kids, a pathology. methinks the fat ladies (and gents) doth protest too much.
i'm proud of being slim, fit and healthy. and i'm surprisingly literate for a skinny person.
"I was hoping, (though God alone knows why, when you patently possess all the sensitivity and compassion of plankton), that you might actually learn something about the kind of misery bullying and name-calling perpetuates."
I hope you see the irony of this statement.
I hope you see the irony of this statement.
Actually, in this instance, no.
I made it in response to someone who has repeatedly insulted me and numerous others and came here with no other intention than to stir up shit. And, y'know, call me self-deluding (doh! Silly me; you've already done that!) but somehow I just can't picture him crawling back to the gym on his washboard abs, a mere shadow – nay, a broken husk – crippled for life by my stinging words.
The day I start cruising fitness sites, sniggering at the attempts of others to follow a path they feel is right for them; rubbishing folk who refuse to suck up my insults or own my prejudices about them; accusing those who choose not to embrace my views or subscribe to my way of life as aimless failures, lacking in moral fibre...is the day you can call me a bully. But until that day arrives you can shut your patronising, self-congratulatory yap.
Much as I relish a good sparring match with an intellectual equal, I'm officially passing the baton to whoever has the inclination to continue this circular argument.
So, if you want the last word, take it.
I'm bored.
Hi everyone,
I'm 42 Anon, which quite amazes me actually, being 16/17 sometimes seems just a few daya ago ... Life is short, too short to spend acres of time obsessing over our bodies. I believe the body is just the vehicle we travel in through this life. It's much more important what we do with our life, than what we do with our body.
Saying that, if we want to have a busy active life, the vehicle meeds to be taken care of, maintained. And that means eating well and exercising.
I don't know if I am mature about the subject of fat, but being fat since birth, I have had 42 years of being forced to think about it! If I didn't have some maturity by now ...
I get spooked by the spound of you thinking about "swimming" in your clothes, very spooked. You sound to be an intelligent girl (whose English is impeccable) but no-one said you had to be stupid to get anorexia. Please take care.
******************************
I think some of the reason that people writing comments are havng massive disagreements is that they think of different things when they think of "Fat". ShortDave makes this crystal clear, by saying: "I am classified as overweight, I have been the object of jokes, finger pointing and name calling." describing how he spends hours in the gym, then saying "I have never met a truly fat person ... who shares my taste for weightlifting, everybody I know who does ends up relatively lean."
So ShortDave's idea of a fat person is someone bigger than himself. But other people percieve ShortDave himself to be fat.
The Anon (or various Anons) who go head to head with BuffPuff seem to be talking about huge fat people. An 800lb guy was once referred to.
I have to state that I have no experience of anyone massively fat, so cannot speak for them. I belive in live and let live, yet I also believe that it is mentally healthy to take care of yourself physically. If someone actively ignores their physical health, whether they be thin or overweight, then I think they have a problem, a problem of denial at the very least, and maybe a problem of self-hate causing them to self-harm by neglecting themselves. If someone close to me was living like that, I would be concerned.
BUT, as I have said, I do not know anyone massively overweight. My experience is of people feeling fat because they have gained 5 lbs. People thinking life would be so much better if they lost 10lbs. People looking at their 2 year old daughter and saying "I'm worried that she's getting fat". Boys in the playground telling a little girl that her bum is too big for her to use the climbing frame. My slim 7 year old boy refusing to wear a coat in the rain because "it makes me look fat".
And I get angry. I want to say to those boys in the playground (I didn't hear them at the time) "hey, I'm fat, pick on me instead", and to that girl "hey, I'm fat, what's all the fuss about, it's not that bad." (That's what I said to my son).
I want to tell the mother that anyone who regains weight loss also gains more fat cells, so will always be more inclined to be fatter than before they dieted. I want to tell her that the children of anyone who dieted and regained many times will be fatter than children of parents that didn't, and I want to tell her that the body responds to dieting by lowering the body temperature, which shuts off certain chemical reactions, and so reduces the metabolism. One of those chemical reaction controlling the immune system. Hardly a good idea for a 2 year old.
It is paradoxical that by having such a paranoia about fat, people are creating the conditions for the next generation to be even fatter. It isn't healthy.
So, I want to do my bit to end the fat phobia for two reasons - fat people don't deserve the fall out - and it just isn't healthy for society.
kids learn by example.. i don't know ANY families who ride bikes every weekend, go on hikes and eat healthy who have overweight or fat kids.
it's not really that tough, if you're a mommy who is 100 lbs overweight how are you going to swim, ride bikes and go on hikes with your kids?
most fat kids have fat parents.
anon said: "it seems that a lot of fat people are VERY defensive of their obesity, which is, let's face it, kids, a pathology. methinks the fat ladies (and gents) doth protest too much."
Wham - that hit the nail right on the head!
The only excuses littlem and buffpuff can grind out are "you don't fit here". Well, guess what, my larger than life friends, this is NOT a fat acceptance web site. Why don't you waddle off to Big Fat Blog or something where you can wallow in that big pool of communal self-pity? If you can't stand an open discussion, stay off the freaking Internet for God's sake..
Also, I find it amusing that fat is complex and body odor is simple - talk about being self-centered! There are conditions like hypertrichosis that produce bad body odor regardless of how much effort you put into personal hygiene, isn't that just as bad as having a glandular problem that keeps you from losing weight? Why are you special and worthy of acceptance, but they are not?
To jsygurl: I really don't think anyone (at least here in the midwest) would consider 5 or even 20lbs enough to call someone "fat". Heaviest person I know personally is probably about 500lbs, great guy and he doesn't buy into the BS that his weight is too complex for him to handle - he used to be an infantry officer. He just doesn't feel the need to lose the weight, I certainly don't care if he doesn't. Of course, there's no clear dividing line on fat vs non-fat, but I think at a certain point everyone agrees that the shoe fits. I used the 800lb person as an example everyone could agree on, but someone who is 300 or 350 would be a better real example.
anon said:
(buffpuff):"I was hoping, (though God alone knows why, when you patently possess all the sensitivity and compassion of plankton), that you might actually learn something about the kind of misery bullying and name-calling perpetuates."
I hope you see the irony of this statement.
And anon wins this thread hands-down..
Why does our society have tolerance, sympathy and understanding for smokers who are trying to quit, drug addicts who are in and out of rehab, alcoholics who constantly fall off the wagon....yet for people who are addicted to food, there is none? I know, I know - we just need to eat less and exercise more - God, I wish that was all it took to be thin and acceptable.
it seems to me that fat people (ie people who are addicted to food) think that they are somehow special, that they have missed out on acquiring the negative personality traits/defense mechanisms (denial, blaming others for things not going right in their lives)that addicts of other substances universally acquire. can someone tell me, what makes [some] fat people think they're so special?
anon at 10:29pm said: "Why does our society have tolerance, sympathy and understanding for smokers who are trying to quit, drug addicts who are in and out of rehab, alcoholics who constantly fall off the wagon....yet for people who are addicted to food, there is none?"
I have to disagree there. I have found that people are generally sympathetic to fat people who are trying to reduce their weight - just look at the TV show "Biggest Loser" as an example. Or at the recent coverage of the 410 pound guy who walked all the way across the US, losing 100lbs along the way.. the word most used to describe him was probably "hero".
The hostility is aimed more at fat people who claim that weight loss is near impossible, and that accepting your size is the only option. Americans in general don't go for excuses, I can't speak for other countries.
How would you feel about a heroin addict who said that quitting heroin was too difficult and so they're not going to try anymore? Would you have respect for them? How about if they started setting up heroin acceptance groups and telling other addicts that attempting to quit was pointless?
That sums up how I (and many others) feel about fat acceptance..
Jsygurl, I just gotta let you know that after puberty you can't actually make any more fat cells. Your fat cells count will stay the same whether you are fat or lean (unless you get them removed through liposuction).
And I never said I was fat, I said I was classified as overweight, which I am, but I usually sit around 10-12% BF so I am just a heavy boy.
I think my main problem with Fat Acceptance is that there is no room for improvement, I don't hate fat people, but I do dislike it when people don't take responsiblity for themselves, be it blaming genetics for their weight, an employer for not hiring them, a teacher for giving a bad grade. Almost overything in life is controllable if you make the effort.
Now if a person is happy the way they are, then fine, I have no problem with that, but as soon as they complain about something they can change, then I get annoyed.
Along with that is my distaste for stagnation, most people replying to this seem to have a distaste for people who have poor grammar. Sometimes even calling them stupid and moronic. I assume that they are viewed as people who had the ability to become intelligent and then threw that away to become bigoted and sophmoric, yet while insults are hurled at them, no thought is made about the feelings of these individuals, only that they made the first blow so they are open for name-calling without it seeming mean spirited only defensive.
This was kind of ranty and convoluted I apologise.
anon said -- How would you feel about a heroin addict who said that quitting heroin was too difficult and so they're not going to try anymore? Would you have respect for them? How about if they started setting up heroin acceptance groups and telling other addicts that attempting to quit was pointless?
actually, you are not that far off in left field here.. there are pro-anorexia groups, called pro-ana, which encourage people to become anorexic.. kind of a bizzarro world that's the opposite of the fat acceptance world, but just as misguided..
WHAT IS NAAFA?
Founded in 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance is a non-profit human rights organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for fat people. NAAFA works to eliminate discrimination based on body size and provide fat people with the tools for self-empowerment through public education, advocacy, and member support.
I took this right off of the NAAFA website. See, it's a human rights organization. Nowhere does it state that we should give up and just be fat, NAAFA isn't about that at all. We all deserve to be able to live with dignity (regardless of color, race, religion, etc. etc. and yes, even size and weight). Is it so bad that we seek out other like minded people who feel the same? NAAFA isn't anti-weight loss, they merely point out that 98% of dieters eventually gain all of their weight back, even weight loss surgery victims. Hey folks, if diets really worked, would there be fat people? The problem isn't the failure of the dieter, it's the diet itself. They don't work!!!
How would you feel about a heroin addict who said that quitting heroin was too difficult and so they're not going to try anymore? Would you have respect for them? How about if they started setting up heroin acceptance groups and telling other addicts that attempting to quit was pointless?
Hmmm...now that you've brought it up...
Heroin use is a behavior.
Smoking is a behavior.
Drinking is a behavior.
Eating is a behavior.
Weight is not a behavior. Weight is a biological process that is sometimes connected to behavior, but is often complicated by other factors.
If you are a heroin addict (or a cigarette smoker, or fill in the addiction of your choice here), it is physically possible to become a non-user immediately. You may go through absolute bloody hell doing it, but if you never again pick up the substance of choice (light the cigarette, stick in the needle, whatever), you instantly become a non-user. It's not common, but it has been done, and instantaneous health benefits usually result if the attempt is successful.
However, even under the most favorable circumstances, nobody can lose 50 or 100 or more pounds instantly. It's physically impossible. Even under the most favorable circumstances, it will take months or even years to achieve that kind of significant weight loss, and in fact the faster weight is lost the more deleterious it is for a person's health (and the less likely it is that the weight will stay off, yo-yo regaining being in itself very dangerous).
Besides, there's absolutely no scientific proof that weight loss in and of itself lengthens anyone's lifespan or makes them overall healthier; more likely, by losing a significant portion of their body weights, they are merely exchanging one set of health risks for another. A person who must struggle with all her might to be thin does NOT come by the same health benefits associated with thinness as someone who maintains a lower weight relatively effortlessly.
Anyway, I can think of worse ideas than putting a heroin addict on a medically supervised maintenance daily dose of the drug. It would certainly be healthier for them than alcoholism, it would help prevent the possibility of overdose and cut down on drug-related crime, and then there might be a possibility of gradually tapering them down, as is done with morphine. But we'd rather judge people in this world than actually help them, right?
Hi all,
ShortDave - you are wrong. Fat cells do and can multiply after puberty - here is a very pro diet site that explains it.
http://diet.ivillage.com/issues/imetab/0,,1bwx,00.html
If you find a site that disproves it, please let me know.
Also, I know you are not fat ShortDave, but you indicated that you get called fat - that other people percieve you as fat.
I would hope that I have not insulted anyone in any of my posts. I do feel some symathy for fat people who are very angry about the way society treats and has treated them them. Most of us have tried dieting, spending a lot of money, andmaking a huge effort and it has made us fatter, unhealthier and, temparily at least, more fixated on food. It is enough to make someone angry.
Midwest anon - you live in a different society to me. Here, 20lbs is fat,fat,fat, whether the person works out, eats healthily, whatever. I was put on my first diet at 5 months old, and although no-one remembers how many pounds overweight I was considered to be, I doubt it was all that much.
Why do some fat people think they are special? Can you explain what you mean? I am a bit confused.
I don't like the fact that I have chosen to not diet being compared to a drug addict choosing not to stop taking the drugs. Many drug addicts mug people for money (for drugs), break into houses to steal the stolen goods for money (for drugs). I don't mug people or break in houses for money for food. In fact, I have often spent an awful lot of money when dieting, so not dieting saves me from ever having the temptation to rob people.
Drug addicts are not disapproved of purely because they take drugs - there is a huge cost to society from drug taking that I am sure I don't need to spell out. Meths takers can even abandon their kids - horrific. I have yet to hear of a fat person who abandoned their kids to eat.
Basically, what some of you seem to be saying (those of you who think of someone my weight - 200lbs - as fat anyway) is that if I go on a diet you would respect me, but if I choose not to, I deserve all the flack that fat people get.
Personally, knowing what I do now about what diets do, and knowing myself, I think the reverse. If I gave into societies pressure to diet, knowing it would have an adverse effect on my health, and knowing that I would probably regain the weight - I would not respect myself, but if I stop, and stand up saying I that I don't deserve to be treated as lesser than anyone else, just because I am heavier - I do respect myself.
somebody said:
Anyway, I can think of worse ideas than putting a heroin addict on a medically supervised maintenance daily dose of the drug. It would certainly be healthier for them than alcoholism, it would help prevent the possibility of overdose and cut down on drug-related crime, and then there might be a possibility of gradually tapering them down, as is done with morphine. But we'd rather judge people in this world than actually help them, right?
-------------------------------
i say:
ok, so when you are obese you need to go on a diet like this too. you eat enough to MAINTAIN your life, like everyone else, or gradually taper the crap junk food out of your life.
it's really not that different. being obese is actually worse for you physically than being a heroin addict, believe it or not. mentally it's questionable.
when you over do anything your body adjusts and you get addicted. i can't eat more than normal sized portions because i'm not addicted to food. i get full at a normal time and stop.
quitting anything takes will power, food, heroin, it's all the same.
you feel crappy about it because it's OUT OF CONTROL.
someone addicted to eating has a problem that is certainly out of contol. and obese and fat people have a food addiction. there is nothing to argue there.
Hi,
I haven't seen the study that compared health between obese people and heroin addicts. Can you tell me the name so I can look it up online please?
Thanks
My point in bringing up addictions was merely to point out that society generally has more tolerance and sympathy for substance abusers. Drinkers and drug users can hide their addictions, for awhile anyway. Food addicts (unless they purge) can't hide their addiction and quickly become an object of ridicule, they are looked on as weak and out of control. The other abusers usually aren't regarded in this way. And to the person who keeps referring to junk food over and over again, this is another misconception about fat people - they must all be stuffing themselves with junk food. I am very obese, and 90% of my diet consists of salads, fruits, whole grains, veggies, all of the so-called healthy stuff (I can see you rolling your eyes, but I have no reason to lie-you don't know me). I can't remember the last time I ate at a fast food restaurant. I work with a 125 lb. woman who lives on Fritos, Cheez-Its, cheeseburgers, candy and Pepsi. She wouldn't eat a vegetable if she were starving to death. You would look at her and assume she eats "healthy" and you would look at me and assume I don't. So, please don't equate fat people with junk food. Try to develop some measure of tolerance and understanding - you don't know the whole story just by looking at the outside of a person.
do you have a gland problem?
thyroid?
because for the millionth time, obese people DO NOT HAVE HEALTHY DIETS.
i don't believe you for a minute if you claim to eat fruit, veggies, and "healthy stuff", because if you did you wouldn't be fat.
sorry, sorry SORRY SORRY SORRY
BUT
FAT AND OBESE PEOPLE
DO NOT EAT HEALTHY!!!!!!!!!!
unless you have some weird rare gland issue, of course.
or blocks of cheese? if you eat blocks of cheese that may be your problem there.
i am so tired of this argument. yeah, yeah, you eat healthy, exercise and weigh 367 pounds. you're like a miracle, a human like no other.
whatever
Hi Anon above,
I am fat, but I don't consider myself a food addict. I don't really see why you do either. What are you "addicted" to? Salad?
I am no addict, not to food, nor to anything else. I have read accounts of alcohol binges, that remind me of binges that I used to get whilst dieting (not least because an alcoholic is nutritionally starving whilst on a binge, as they don't generally eat. And when I was on a binge, that could be said of me too) but I have never suffered anything like withdrawal, as alcohol and drug addicts do.
I can't agree with you either that society is more accepting of addictions other than food. Drug and alcohol addicts can lose their children, which shows society's opinion of them. The police come and take away the very drunk, and the very stoned - or anyone seen dealing, or using. The police are not likely to come screaming round the corner if I choose to walk down the street eating an ice-cream.
I was born fat as well, was I in your opinion, born addicted?
jsygurl, i'm the "anonymous" who asked why some fat people think they're so special. i wasn't meaning to be rude. what i meant was - it's pretty-well accepted (check the literature on addiction) that addicts of all persuasions, whether it be alcohol, heroin - whatever - acquire some pretty damn negative traits - the most notable one being that ol' defence mechanism called denial. addicts become, pretty universally, self-obsessed and self-absorbed. it's the nature of addiction. it's the brain making sure that the addict does everything he or she possibly can to continue the supply, which the brain is geared to "think" is necessary for survival. what i meant was - why do food addicts (and you can't deny that the overwhelming majority of obese people are addicted - but complicating matters, to a substance which is truly necessary for survival) think that they haven't acquired those same negative personality traits that other addicts ALWAYS end up with? that's what i mean by "why do fat people think they're so special?"
Anon above, where does that opinion come from? Have you gathered a group of 350lb people together, put them on a healthy diet, and observed that they all lost weight? If not, what makes you sure that a large person would not maintain their weight when eating healthily and exercise?
Or when you say eating healthily - do you mean 1,000 calories a day, and when you say exercise, you mean hours on the treadmill. In other words - dieting?
I can't follow the train of logic. Fat people eat, so they must be addicted to food, so, as addict, they must be in denial - in short, fat people are all liars.
I will agree that fat people eat, but that's it. As I eat the same food as my slender husband (but less) does that mean that he is a food addict too? And consequentially a liar?
hi jsygurl. look, i concede that food addiction is different (read my post i left a minute ago, before i saw your latest one). none of us can survive without it. but the brain, and the survival instinct, are weird and wonderful and complicated things, and i truly believe that food can be, and certainly is to a lot of people, the drug of choice.
no, i'm not addicted to salad, but like most people, i get cravings for it if i haven't had any for a while. probably the B vitamins my body is screaming for. i grew up with a father who starved as a prisoner of war for many years and always made sure that there was a lot of food around. he was a very skinny man but quite food-obsessed in his own way. and whilst my parents believed, as did most others in their generation, that the fat-soaked, meat-rich food we ate was good for our bodies (and hey, i loved it), i knew it wasn't. and when i was old enough to work it out for myself, i taught myself to eat a diet that was full of fruit, unprocessed grains, vegetables (a bit slack on them, admittedly, unless someone else cooks) and a small amount of meat. my body told me what was ok for it. and it just came to be that it was my life-long habit to enjoy/prefer moderate amounts of fruit, vegetables and seriously whole grains. i just don't desire much in the way of junk food. it mostly doesn't interest me. i'm no purist/health freak - i eat cake and icecream and drink beer with the best of them- but i know that what i eat or don't eat determines whether i'm overweight/obese or not.
and no, i don't think you were born addicted.
for instance, i just got hungry talking about food, and am now eating a few very grainy, not very processed crackers, with no crap added, and a handful of raw mixed nuts and seeds. it's what i wanted. what would you be looking for in the cupboard/fridge in the same situation? honestly?
jsygurl: If you eat a healthy diet and exercise and don't lose weight, you are the exception, not the typical case. Even then, if you went on something like the Ornish program for a year I'm pretty sure you would lose weight. You can call it a "diet", but any modification to your eating patterns qualifies as that anyway.
Like I said, here in the Midwest fat has gone to a whole different level. And these are people who are definitely NOT eating healthy. I was at a local buffet for lunch a couple of weeks ago and there was a lady who weighed at least 500lbs, she had to keep her legs apart at a 90 degree angle just to accomodate her stomach. I admit I was watching her strictly out of morbid curiousity as to what she would eat. She hit the buffet about three times, each time bringing back a huge pile of pork steaks, fried chicken, and some fried corn and mushrooms. After eating more than I could eat over a whole weekend (I am 6' and male), she seemed to be having trouble getting up.
What does she do? She sends the 5 or 6 year old girl she's eating with to get her MORE food. At this point I'm just trying not to stare, I'm in such shock.
Over here 20lbs doesn't make you fat, it's an average meal for someone who's fat..
Hi Anon,
I feel you want me to justify my diet, and that wearies me. If you don't trust what I say, there is no real point in me saying anything. However, I don't want to be thought of as ignoring your question because I have anything to hide, as I don't.
I try to eat when I am hungry, eat enough to satisfy my hunger, and stop when I am full. I have found that my hunger occurs at predictable times, so my normal routine is: breakfast with the family (always the same, a mix of oats, all bran, 3 diffent raw seeds, nuts fruit, and semi-skimmed), then an early lunch which varies depending on how hungry I am, or if I am meeting someone at a restaurant, then if I have had a light lunch, I have a snack with the kids when I get home from school, nuts, yogurts, or a bagel, depending on hunger, then dinner with the family when my husband comes home from work, unless I ate lunch out. A couple of times a week my hubby and I will share some chocolate in the evening, or another yogurt (low fat by the way).
I rarely drink alcohol - in fact I rarely drink much of anything - I think I get all the liquid I need from the veg and fruit I eat. I do eat ice-cream occassionaly, but I don't like cake - I don't have time to bake, and growing up on home made cake, shop bought is just dreadful.
**********************************
Other Anon,
Hi. The Ornish diet is not for me if the information I have discovered on it is correct. No advocados? No nuts or seeds? 10% fat? As for non-fat processed product - yuk. Most taste like a bunch of chemicals glued together, and have the nutritional benefit of cardboard.
I do lose weight if I go on a diet - but dieting has it's own health problems. Having researched the matter, it seems better to me to take the focus off what I weigh, and put it onto my health. After 42 years of dieting to get healthy - and failing, I am working on being healthy in another way.
The lady that you saw at the buffet sounds as if she has a problem, eating the volumes that you state. Anyone eating so much that they can't move has a problem. But she's just one lady - isn't it a bit of a stretch to say that all fat people eat the same way?
jsygurl, I don't think you should have to justify your diet, I'm just pointing out that among vegans the obesity rate is about 2%, it's just VERY difficult to have a healthy lowfat vegetarian diet and not come down to a normal weight. I don't think you're lying, I just think the occasional ice-cream and so forth might be the culprit. Last time I had ice-cream was when Reagan was president - that stuff is like frozen lard. I apologize for going into personal trainer mode, the motivation is to find the problem and fix it, not ridicule you.
I do eat some nuts (don't really like avocados anyway), but in moderation. Mostly I eat whole grains, fruits, lentils, and vegetables. Ornish is just a personal choice for me, I hate not being able to eat until I'm full, so I'd rather restrict my choices than restrict my volume. Something different might work for you - if you must have your cheesecake once in a while, a different plan is needed. If it's any consolation, after a while you adapt to the low fat and when you do eat anything with a high fat content it's like eating Crisco. If I could eat all the KFC I wanted and not gain weight, I still wouldn't, I'm just turned off to the taste by now.
The lady at the buffet was just one example out of many. You see this ALL the time here in the midwest. If you go to the local steak buffet on any given night, you will see at least 5-7 people who weigh over 400lbs. But on the other hand if you go to the soup and salad buffet there is hardly anyone there who is obese.
Here in the midwest someone's not "fat" unless they're 100-200 lbs over their normal weight. Your perception of fat seems to be different from mine, it is quite possible that over here you might just be considered a bit overweight..
You can call me antipuff, I was the one going up against buffpuff who is no longer in the conversation. I'm just too lazy to actually register an account..
The lady at the buffet was just one example out of many. You see this ALL the time here in the midwest. If you go to the local steak buffet on any given night, you will see at least 5-7 people who weigh over 400lbs. But on the other hand if you go to the soup and salad buffet there is hardly anyone there who is obese.
Hmph. Well, I live in the Northwest currently, but I've also lived on the East Coast and in the Southwest. That's over a period of more than 40 years. And during all that time, I've never, ever been in a "fatty food" place that had no thin people in it, or a "skinny food" place that had no fat people in it. Never. Not once.
I've been in convenience stores multiple times and seen skinny people loaded down with twelve-packs of beer, huge bags of chips, and chocolate bars big enough to give someone a concussion, while the fat people obsequiously lined up with their Diet Cokes and bit their fingernails for sustenance.
I've been to ice cream parlors and seen skinny folks getting double and triple full-fat scoops with multiple sugary/fatty toppings, and fat people who could barely bring themselves to order a single scoop of nonfat yogurt with nothing on it.
I've been to "old school" Italian restaurants featuring cheese-heavy Sicilian entrees and observed skinny people chowing down unapologetically on pitchers of beer, veal parmigiana, salad with bleu cheese dressing, and cannolis, and fat people who looked around with obvious paranoia while they shook the tiniest amounts of oil and vinegar onto their salad, drank only water with lemon and awaited the delivery of their minuscule pasta-free diet plates.
I've been to food fairs where fat and skinny people alike were raving about the New England clam chowder and fried dough, followed by the skinny people polishing off not only their servings but the leftovers of their fat friends as well.
But then again, I count as "fat" anyone whose BMI is officially in the "obese" range. That includes me, even though if you saw me, you'd think I wasn't "officially obese." Most people are shocked when I tell them I weigh 200 pounds; they think of me as "strong and hefty," not "obese." But that's why labels like that are so damn stupid. Hell, Arnold Schwarzenegger is "obese" too.
OTOH if your idea of "fat" means 350 pounds or more, that's a very tiny percentage of Americans. You may claim to see them everywhere you go, and perhaps there is a larger concentration of them where you live. But believe me, most people, even "officially fat" ones, couldn't weigh 400 pounds if they tried (well, okay, maybe if they went on the sumo wrestler diet for a few years, but not otherwise).
And by the same token, the ones who do weigh 350 pounds-plus probably couldn't weigh 125 or 150 if they tried, unless they cut out their stomachs or got a malignant brain tumor or something like that (and maybe not even then). Maybe the 400-pound buffet lady could get down to 350 or a little less if she adopted a "healthy" diet and exercise regime, but that's still a long way from slender. If you saw her at the soup and salad place at her new weight, you'd probably still think, "What a pig," as you watched her put a little too much tomato vinaigrette on her baby lettuce mix.
EXERCISE IS THE KEY YOU DUMB SHITS!!!!
You will be looked down at by society as long as you live! You have done this to yourself. Are skinny people more liked and perceived as “better” than you? YES! That is the way it is and always will be in your lifetime.
So you have two choices,
1) Accept it, and accept the ridicule that comes with it.
2) Change yourself.
Do some goddamn exercise. Don’t list the things you eat. Humans were meant to be active not sedentary!
If you are too lazy to exercise, which is the case for the majority of fat people than don’t bitch and whine when you are 300lbs.
I eat everything and anything I want. This is because I exercise. My body is in the top 1% of the top 1% in the world.
Stop trying to say “that’s the way I am.”
Fat people are sad and pathetic.
Losers- Complete losers who lack mental drive.
Our whole society is fat.
Fat is the most attractive person in the world.
"I eat everything and anything I want. This is because I exercise. My body is in the top 1% of the top 1% in the world"
Well whoopee-do and whipsy-wah for you. The question is why are you so obsessed with what a bunch of strangers choose to do with their bodies?
And if you're not a bigot, explain
"Fat people are sad and pathetic.
Losers- Complete losers who lack mental drive".
anon said: "Hmph. Well, I live in the Northwest currently, but I've also lived on the East Coast and in the Southwest. That's over a period of more than 40 years. And during all that time, I've never, ever been in a "fatty food" place that had no thin people in it, or a "skinny food" place that had no fat people in it. Never. Not once."
If you'd actually read my post I never claimed that skinny food places had no fat people or that fatty places had no thin people. Of course there are thin people at the steak buffet. But my point is that you can consistently find 5-6 of the super-obese at the steak place, whereas you find very few even moderately obese people at the salad place. This correlation is so obvious that if you lived here you wouldn't even think twice about it.
Anonymous will you please give 2 straight answers to my very simple questions instead of looking for holes to pick in other people's posts?
1) Why are you so obsessed with what a bunch of strangers choose to do with their bodies?
2) If you don't consider yourself to be a bigot, explain the rationale behind saying "Fat people are sad and pathetic. Losers- Complete losers who lack mental drive"?
Enquiring minds really want to know.
hi jsygurl. all these "anonymous" ones can be confusing...
i'm not asking you to justify your diet - just maybe to say to you that there are lots of people in the world who think that the food that they eat is good and healthy when it's quite simply not. if you eat moderate amounts of unprocessed, grainy food, with reasonably low levels of fat in it, and eat unadorned vegetables (ie without fat added) and a smaller amount of fresh fruit, and small (and i mean small!) amounts of lean meat cooked without too much fat apart from a bit of virgin olive oil, and you exercise (for instance, walk as fast as you can do comfortably) for say 40 minutes a day, you WILL lose weight, and it WILL stay off, as long as you keep doing the right things for your body. bagels are great but bagels are not good for you - eat seriously grainy bread (no butter)instead. chocolate is great, but learn to love dark chocolate instead, without the creamy fillings. and only eat it once a week, and in small amounts, and don't eat it at night when you're sitting around watching TV. learn to love food like that. it's not about "diets", it's about a radical shift in your eating/lifestyle habits.
i wish you the best. i did not intend to insult you in any way.
'strewth, is this still going on?
it's not about "diets", it's about a radical shift in your eating/lifestyle habits
You can call it whatever you want. Personally, I'd call the joyless, spartan, monotonous eating regime you describe a diet. I certainly wouldn't want to inflict it on my friends and family and somehow, I very much doubt jsygurl does either.
There is, y'know, such a thing as a culinary middle way between pigging out on half a ton of pork rinds and a bucket of Ben and Jerry's, (as assumed, despite numerous assurances to the contrary that the majority of fat people posting here do), and a lifetime of leaden, butter-less pumpernickel, dressingless salad and chocolate with such a high proportion of cocoa solids it tastes as bitter as gall.
If I feel like a nice salad sprinkled with lemon juice, some toasted pine nuts and a slug of extra virgin accompanied by a couple of low fat oat cakes, I'll eat it. Ditto a dish of roasted peppers, aubergines and courgettes, (that's eggplants and zucchini to most of you), drizzled with some good balsamic vinegar and another slug of extra virgin. Similarly, if I feel like a fried egg - olive oil again and yolk intact, thanks Shawn - in a toasted white - or grainy, multiseed – bagel I'll eat that, thanks. The same goes for a chocolate brownie or a handful of raw brazil nuts or chilled green grapes fresh from the fridge; a couple of celery sticks spread with home-made houmus or a Walls Magnum, (that's a big-arsed, chocolate coated, fuck-off icecream on a stick to us Brits); a marinaded tofu stir-fry; a bowl of wine-infused risotto Milanese or non-wholegrain pasta (because the whole grain stuff, with the exception of soba noodles, generally tastes like cardboard), with some freshly grated parmesan on it. (Please note, I'm thinking a piece of cheese maybe the size of one of my surprisingly dainty little thumbs). And you know what? My weight's been stable for years.
Life is for fucking living, people! It's too damn short and way too harsh to spend obsessing over this austere Mediaeval martyrdom, saints-versus-sinners, hair shirt crap. Food isn't just about fuelling the body, it's also about the soul. In many cultures, it's about expressing love and friendship, that's why people who have next to nothing still insist on breaking bread with strangers.
Oh bugger, I'm not supposed to be here...
Buffpuff, most of the stoners I know would not want a joyless, spartan existence away from the weed - they all say: you only live once.
Most of the hardcore boozers would not want a joyless, spartan existence away from Jack Daniels - they all say: you only live once.
And here you are with the "big-arsed, chocolate coated, fuck-off icecream on a stick"..
Seeing a pattern here?
anon said: "1) Why are you so obsessed with what a bunch of strangers choose to do with their bodies? "
I'm not the obvious troll who called fat people pathetic - but I can take this first point.
When your body is lapping over into my seat on a 4 hour flight and you can't get the armrest down, and expect me to sacrifice my space, it becomes my concern.
When hospitals have to spend $1700 a pop on beds that will support 600lb people and that's jacking up my insurance rates, that's my concern.
And when people are shoving "big-arsed, chocolate coated, fuck-off icecream on a stick" into their faces while food pantries are running low, that's just plain out annoying..
Oh dear, I'm beginning to remember why this got so very tedious the last time around.
I used the example of the icecream to make the point that I eat a balanced diet of varied and, for the most part, healthy food, inclusive of treats when I feel like them. Tell me, if you have a couple of beers on a weekend, does that make you an alcoholic? The text book definition of an alcoholic is someone for whom one drink is never enough and always too many. Personally I eat about 3 or 4 of these icecreams a year but you had to seize on that one item - rather than, say, the celery sticks or the grapes or the nuts – to infer I must be addicted to icecream because you're going to hang on to those fat stereotypes if it kills you. Or, as in this case, makes you look like an ass.
As for the person above who answered Anonymous's first question, bellyaching about their jacked-up health insurance etc: My taxes go towards paying for the UK state school system but I don't have children and never attended a state school myself. I also pay towards a National Health service I rarely have recourse to use but which supports plenty of people who come a cropper through personal habits and lifestyles which don't happen to be mine. My local council tax is astronomical yet the council can barely see their way to lighting my street or collecting my refuse. Life's full of this kind of petty injustice but if you want to blame my fat arse for it, go for it.
I notice Antipuff, (great I've inspired my own official, arch nemesis!), hasn't answered either of Enquiring Mind's questions yet. What's the matter, slim? Lost for simple, straighforward words or too busy looking for chinks in people's arguments to find them?
buffpuff: I'm not the anon who said "fat people are pathetic and losers", so I don't feel any particular need to defend the statement. But you're stretching "bigot" a bit here in any case - f.e. I vigorously dislike child molesters and favor people like myself who prefer sex with adults, that would technically constitute bigotry under your definition.
The point about the "big-arsed, chocolate coated, fuck-off icecream on a stick" (which I will hereby abbreviate BBACS for Buffpuff's Big-Arsed Chocolate Stick) is not trivial. I picked that arbitrarily, but your whole post reads like food porn. It sounds as if you're getting off on talking about aubergines and wine-infused risotto, I definitely sense deeper issues here.
BigFood, which is MUCH bigger than both BigPharma and BigDiet that you love to deride, divides consumers into two classes:
First are the foodies, who enjoy food for its own sake. They are the ones who enjoy BBACS and the Hardees gazillion calorie burgers. Homer Simpson is a foodie.
The others are the fuelers, I am using the industry terms here, not making anything up.. The fuelers eat what their body needs, not for entertainment value. Protein bars, organic food, etc, are mainly marketed to fuelers. Most marathoners are fuelers.
Yes, there is overlap between the two groups.
The conflicts are when a fueler is trying to understand a foodie. I have no idea why you would want to eat a BBACS a few times a year any more than why you would want to shoot up with heroin a few times a year. Both are bad for your body, do you really need the cheap 5 minute enjoyment of a candy bar that much?
Goes the other way too - jsygurl cannot imagine being on the Ornish diet for a prolonged period, but a fueler would see it as a perfectly logical option.
And regarding tax rates, your point seems to be that a lot of other taxes are unfair, so I should accept one more unfair one. I think not. Health care is different in the US, here a lot of companies won't even hire you if you're that overweight, since the insurance is so expensive.
- antipuff
Hi all,
Antipuff, I used to be vegetarian, and lean that way - but my husband is a confirmed meat eater. Even if I could convince him to try veganism, I have a very picky daughter and limited time. I could switch us all to a vegan diet, but I would need to be convinced that there would clear health benefits for us all first.
Incidentally, the Ornish diet is a no-no because from what I learned about it, it wouldn't fit in with family eating. 10% fat? Not for kids.
I had a delicious ice-cream on Sunday. A Solero. The coating is pureed mango, and the inside is very lovely low fat ice-cream. The whole thing is 30% fat (2% the wrapper proclaims, but that must be by volume) - a lot less than some, and certainly not lard. Not Ornish either. I know I said I don't eat low fat stuff, that was an exception.
I hate cheesecake, and KFC - that stuff is foul - pardon the pun.
I don't understand your point about the BBACS, and you say that the point is not trivial, but how does eating an ice-cream affect anyone's food stores? Is this more you being angry that in the West we spend time and money creating, making and selling ice-creams that have no nutritionl benefit, rather than sending the money to the starving nations? You could make that argument about anything non essential made in the west, what about designer label clothing?
And to Anon - I don't insult easy, don't worry. However, you make some assumptions don't you! I rarely watch tv, and when I do, it is when sewing or ironing, and neither time can I eat chocolate. I LOVE dark chocolate (the fair trade stuff, as I don't want to eat anthing that might have inolved child slaves in it's manufacture). I hate butter on my veg as well, or chocolate with any kind of fillings, although I cannot eat lettuce without any dressing. But that's 'cos I hate lettuce, so I just omit it from salads. I hate pupmernickel "bread", yuk, but all the sliced bread hubby and I eat has grains and is normally wholemeal, although there is not a huge choice of grained bread where I live. I am not a fan of meat, so don't each much, I would prefer a bean or lentil based meal - but I live with a carnivore, and we all eat together, so I make a proportion of the meals to suit him.
People ARE confused about healthy eating - that's because there are so many people telling us so many different things about what is healthy. A food is good one day - bad the next. I just read that for health it would be good to swap a smoked mackrel fillet for a similar szed portion of deep fried fish in batter with chips, because there is marginally less calories and fat in the deep fried stuff. Oh yeah! 'cos that fat they fry stuff in is so healthy when you compare it with fish oils.
The other thing is that I shop and cook for 4, not for one, and all our health needs have to be considered in a meal that we can all share. It's hard. Any I don't shop every day, I shop on discount days, that way I can afford to get the lean mince, and the organic carrots.
I do wish though that life were as you say it is. Who needs to diet if anyone who eats a healthy diet and exercises regularly will lose weight? (By the way, I walk the dog at least 40 minutes, 5 or 6 days a week, as well as other activities.)
Oh wow, I see we are still comparing fat people to alcoholics and drug addicts. I bet if you rounded up a bunch of kids who had either an alcoholic parent, a drug addict parent, or a fat parent together (for clarity, think 200-250lbs), you would find that the fat kids would NOT identify with the other kids at all. If we are going to continue with this addict thing, can someone please round up some evidence for this food addiction thing, as I do think it is complete nonsense.
"irst are the foodies, who enjoy food for its own sake. They are the ones who enjoy BBACS and the Hardees gazillion calorie burgers. Homer Simpson is a foodie.
Um, no.
Calling Homer Simpson a foodie is like calling a McDonald’s grill worker a chef. The last thing a foodie would touch is a bland, fake monstrosity from Hardee’s or any other fast food place. We focus on the taste of REFINED food (and I mean refined as in “classy,” not “processed”) and some of us make a pretty penny buying and selling upscale goods to rich folk who want the latest and greatest culinary adventures. It’s part art, part science, and we generally don’t have “issues” beyond curiosity and enjoyment.
Also, you might also be interested to know that a hallmark of bigotry is irrationality. It is rational to dislike people because they cause harm or hurt others. It is completely senseless to dislike and/or discriminate against people because of a physical characteristic that causes no harm you whatsoever. Hence, your comparing fat people to child molesters…well, it’s pretty clear who has the “issues.”
your whole post reads like food porn. It sounds as if you're getting off on talking about aubergines and wine-infused risotto. I definitely sense deeper issues here.
That's exactly why I wote it that way, antipuff! To provide a counterpoint to your dour, ascetic, dreary fuelspeak. To underline my point that life is for living; food is for eating, sharing, enjoying, pleasing the senses God gave us! The only deeper issue you're sensing are that I happen to be a shit hot cook, as any of my friends will tell you. Though I must admit I also find the process of chopping vegetables rather meditative and deeply relaxing.
It might interest you to know that in the UK, the term 'foodie' is usually applied to the food snob or purist - the total antithesis of Homer Simpson – who wouldn't soil their palate with pre-prepared or junk food of any sort and drivels on about only eating certain brands of polenta "in season". (Dried cornmeal has a season? Go figure). I'm not one of those either, though I do draw the line at that godawful dried parmesan which smells of sick and tastes like sawdust. I also buy organic free range eggs and veggies, drink mainly water, sugarless herbal tea and fruit juices, have semi-skimmed milk on my cereal, don't add salt to anything I cook, (except, oddly enough, polenta), and avoid transfats. I really don't think an icecream is going to kill me.
I neglected to mention in my last post that I found your insinuation that eating said icecream was morally bankrupt when people are starving quite amusing - not least since, when I was a child, the plight of starving Third World kiddies was generally invoked to guilt-trip you into eating stuff. I could never see the logic of that either. If you really give a rat's arse, go do some relief work.
And while we're on the subject of your bleeding heart tendencies, I'd have thought you'd approve of socialism! Personally, I do – which is why I don't waste time moaning about the fact I pay for state schooling etc. My friends have children who attend state schools; I don't mind paying towards their education in the least. However, if my government started telling me my BMI renders me inelligible to take advantage of a system I've paid into all my working life I'd certainly have no compunction in reminding them of it.
If you seriously equate eating the odd icecream to shooting up heroin, I genuinely feel sorry for you.
And I'm not saying that to wind you up; I'm in deadly earnest. And that paedophilia analogy was lame. Paedophilia is universally reviled by everyone on the face of the planet apart from paedophiles. It ruin's lives and warps psyches It's also against the law. Perhaps you would do me the favour and tell me what your personal definition of bigotry is?
jsygurl, I get the feeling that there is little fundamental difference between our concepts of diet, just different thresholds for fat. For you, 30% lowfat icecream is acceptable. For me, 10% is the (admittedly arbitrary) number. And for a lot of people, they have no problem with full fat icecream - which is what I refer to as frozen lard.
From my viewpoint, I already have to eat a lot to get all the iron, zinc, various vitamins, protein etc. that you need on a near vegan diet - you've been there so you know the drill. Why on earth would I want to eat a BBACS just because it tastes good? The BBACS for me is what the KFC would be for you, 5 minutes of pleasure for no longterm gain.
Also, please keep in mind that I'm not comparing heroin use to unhealthy eating from a moral viewpoint, I'm just using the comparison to say: if something's unhealthy and has no good side effects, why not just cut it out completely instead of reducing to 4 or 5 times a year?
You don't have to have your whole family be vegan for you to be vegan. My girlfriend eats meat but controls her portion sizes, I have no problem with that - like I said, different diets work for different people. I am very detail oriented and don't mind crunching the nutritional numbers, therefore I can be healthy with the Ornish system.
anon above: I'll accept that irrationality is a necessary condition for bigotry. Well, I already posted about how fat people have crowded me on airplane flights, run up my healthcare costs, and gorged themselves while food pantries right here in town (not in a third world country) are running empty. Those seem to be valid enough reasons.
And foodie vs. fueler are food industry concepts, not my own. Sure, you can break the foodies down into upper class and lowbrow, and the fuelers into athletes and medical necessity, but at the top level those two categories work really well. I think the colloquial lingo would be "eat to live" vs. "live to eat".
Surely buffpuff's previous post about the BBACS etc seemed a little bit like food porn to you too?
- antipuff
"Well, I already posted about how fat people have crowded me on airplane flights, run up my healthcare costs, and gorged themselves while food pantries right here in town (not in a third world country) are running empty. Those seem to be valid enough reasons."
Well, they certainly seem to be your justification, though I wouldn't exactly call them rational. I don't like my space crowded either, but you'd be amazed how much space a skinny guy with a laptop, sportcoat, and extreme fidgety nature can take. I don't like high health care costs, either, but if you happen to need knee surgery after years of marathoning, that's coming out of my pocket, too. Oh, and I think we've seen plenty of examples of skinny folk who gorge themselves, so why limit your disgust/bigotry to fat people when there are plenty more souls of all shapes and sizes who you could dislike? You're missing out on a hefty opportunity for some wild, crazy, irrational hatin', don't you think? :)
Oh, and if BuffPuff's description of food is pornographic, then someone better start putting XXX ratings on most cookbooks and gourmet cooking magazines, as well as on all the recipes in womens' mags out there...because they have positively scandalous descriptions of dripping, moist, succulent, rich, dense fudge cake covered in swirls and peaks of snow white sugar spun vanilla frosting that clings to the fork like a damsel, awaiting the hot, dark mouth...
*needs cold shower*
*hopes it was good for you, too*
*but knows it probably sent you marathoning right into Confession*
Happy trails to you.
scandalous descriptions of dripping, moist, succulent, rich, dense fudge cake covered in swirls and peaks of snow white sugar spun vanilla frosting that clings to the fork like a damsel, awaiting the hot, dark mouth...
Heeeeeee!
I don't like my space crowded either, but you'd be amazed how much space a skinny guy with a laptop, sportcoat, and extreme fidgety nature can take.
...and let's not forget guys who sit with their legs waaaaay wide apart because they're a MAN damnit and their wedding tackle is so big and important it has to breath!
Or blokes who come and sit next to me on a hot crowded tube train wearing nothing but skimpy shorts, flipflops, a layer of sweat and copious body hair. Eeeuw.
Mmm..I LOVE full fat ice cream. In the summer a farm down the street makes their own. It's SOOOO good.
But I probably have it 7 or 8 times a year as well, in the summer months.
I also weigh 108 pounds. I can eat whatever I want when I want because I didn't over do it.
Just like an alcoholic needs to refrain completely from drinking, a big fat person needs to refrain from yummy, fatty foods.
They pretty much ruined eating for themselves!
I can eat whatever I want because I simply crave and eat healthy foods most of the time. When I want to be indulgent I am, without feeling ONE BIT OF GUILT.
My friend can't even drink at her own wedding because she ruined alcohol for herself by being indulgent all the time.
It's not really that different. YOU DON'T GET TO ENJOY LIFE's PLEASURES 24 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK.
It's just selfish and piggy and gluttony. No question. That's why it's so yucky.
anon said: "I also weigh 108 pounds. I can eat whatever I want when I want because I didn't over do it."
Umm.. actually you might not have the whole picture here. Is the farm organic or do they use BGH (bovine growth hormone) like everyone else? BGH increases the levels of IGF-1 (insulin growth factor) by a LOT. IGF-1 has pretty strong statistical links to prostate cancer as well as breast cancer. In fact, Monsanto's rBGH product Posilac has been banned in most industrialized countries, but not in the US.
Sorry, but being thin doesn't mean you can eat whatever you want, unless you don't mind parts of your body rotting off..
- antipuff
buffpuff said: "That's exactly why I wote it that way, antipuff! To provide a counterpoint to your dour, ascetic, dreary fuelspeak. To underline my point that life is for living; food is for eating, sharing, enjoying, pleasing the senses God gave us! The only deeper issue you're sensing are that I happen to be a shit hot cook, as any of my friends will tell you. Though I must admit I also find the process of chopping vegetables rather meditative and deeply relaxing."
Ok, now you've got me confused. You're an excellent chef, and you believe that enjoying good food is worth being a bit overweight. Fair enough.
So why are you monkeying around with multiseed bagels and salads sprinkled with lemon juice? Most gourmet chefs in the US would laugh hysterically if they saw that defined as "good" food. What about creme brulee, lobster ommelettes, Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, and lamb medallions in madeira sauce? It sounds that if you're really a gourmand, you're depriving yourself quite a bit.
"Mmm..I LOVE full fat ice cream. In the summer a farm down the street makes their own. It's SOOOO good."
Uh-oh, if all this food porn keeps up, this site is going to go "adult only" pretty soon.
Haven't you read anything here, 108? The fact that you'd even WANT a full fat ice cream clearly indicates that you have issues around food. Your body, if it's healthy, isn't even supposed to want something so vile as ice cream/frozen lard. Get thee to a therapist before you develop more symptoms of Maladaptive Nourishment Syndrome(I'm sure that's in the DSM-IV somewhere).
So don't go lording your "right" to eat ice cream in front of any fatties just yet, sweetie. Gluttony's one of the seven deadlies, but so is pride. A therapist can probably help you with that, too.
"So why are you monkeying around with multiseed bagels and salads sprinkled with lemon juice? Most gourmet chefs in the US would laugh hysterically if they saw that defined as "good" food. What about creme brulee, lobster ommelettes, Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, and lamb medallions in madeira sauce? It sounds that if you're really a gourmand, you're depriving yourself quite a bit."
Uh......
This is what's commonly referred to as a VARIED diet. Lobster omelet one day, steamed brown rice the next, maybe a Milky Way dipped in mustard the next.
Eating doesn't have to be either a completely angelic act or a demonic possession. Crikey, I can't believe how many food police have come crawling around here to dissect one person's list of what she might or might not eat. That's just sad.
Food is one of life's great pleasures. Primative societies whenever and wherever they were/are spend most of their day with the simple act of finding/preserving/cooking food. Once we were able to better and more efficiently deal with this process, society developed. Read Jack Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" for more.
Food, drink (such as pure, fresh water), sex and all other natural human needs derive a great deal of pleasure because they are needs that have to be met for the survival of individuals and the species at large. Just as good, long, lingering and frequent sex is better than a quick grope every now and again; so a fabulous meal and fairly frequent lovely food is better than a quick energy bar every now and again.
Oooh, so many comments to respond to! So little time before this week's episode of 'Lost' kicks off...
Let's start with this:-
I also weigh 108 pounds...I can eat whatever I want because I simply crave and eat healthy foods most of the time. When I want to be indulgent I am, without feeling ONE BIT OF GUILT.
You're new here, aren't you, petal?
I'm big into self-acceptance, (or, if you listen to some of the orthorexic, exercise-junkie faction currently goose-stepping about on this thread, "failure acceptance") and believe self-acceptance benefits people of every size.In my own case, self-acceptance means I'm done with dieting and beating myself up for weighing more than you do or more than somebody else thinks I should. It also means I don't need anyone else's permission or approval to eat what I want when I want - whether it's a carrot stick or a choclate ̩clair, (sorry, antipuff, smelling salts are on the top shelf of my bathroom cabinet, just to the right), both of which I do Рgasp! РWITHOUT FEELING A BIT OF GUILT.
My friend can't even drink at her own wedding because she ruined alcohol for herself by being indulgent all the time.
It's not really that different. YOU DON'T GET TO ENJOY LIFE's PLEASURES 24 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK.
It's just selfish and piggy and gluttony. No question..
Alcoholism is a disease, which owes nothing to indulgence. Yes, alcoholics generally drink to excess. Alcoholism is, however, a predisposition to crave something that is in effect highly toxic to that individual's body. Not everyone who drinks alcohol, even to excess, is an alcoholic. There are, as has been documented endlessly on this thread, many, many contributors to fat. Yes, some fat people may have eating disorders and/or may eat a hell of a lot more than you do. But to blithely assume all fat people do nothing but eat unhealthy food in gargantuan amounts is prejudiced and simplistic. Please educate yourself by reading some of the individual accounts here.
But just in case you can't be arsed, just ask yourself how you feel when someone like antipuff, who doesn't know you - or your local farm, from whence cometh those yummy icecreams - hits you with a po-faced diatribe like this:-
Is the farm organic or do they use BGH (bovine growth hormone) like everyone else? BGH increases the levels of IGF-1 (insulin growth factor) by a LOT. IGF-1 has pretty strong statistical links to prostate cancer as well as breast cancer. In fact, Monsanto's rBGH product Posilac has been banned in most industrialized countries, but not in the US .
Grates, doesn't it? Especially since you were under the impression you were doing the right thing by your socially approved little bod.
And for godsake, antipuff, much as I agree with you on this point, lighten up already!
And now, to yet another anonymous:-
You're an excellent chef, and you believe that enjoying good food is worth being a bit overweight. Fair enough,.
As you say, fair enough - only I didn't use the word "chef", I used the word "cook".
So why are you monkeying around with multiseed bagels and salads sprinkled with lemon juice?
Um – because they taste good?
Most gourmet chefs in the US would laugh hysterically if they saw that defined as "good" food.
Most gourmet chefs in the UK will tell you they personally prefer quite simple food made with good ingredients. And – hello! – still not a chef, gourmet or otherwise.
What about creme brulee, lobster ommelettes, Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, and lamb medallions in madeira sauce? It sounds that if you're really a gourmand, you're depriving yourself quite a bit.
Creme brulée is one of my most favourite treats in the whole world but it's a bugger to make. It's also the only thing on your list I'd actually want to eat, given as I don't eat meat. It's nice of you to be so concerned but, I assure you, I don't go short.
Finally, to another, more pleasant and infinitely more amusing anonymous:-
maybe a Milky Way dipped in mustard
LOL
Are you the person who wrote the food porn with the "hot, dark mouth"? I think I love you. Please tell me you're a guy and you want to go steady with me?
I like this buffpuff person, I completely agree that if you are happy the way you are, good. self acceptance is a great thing.
jsygurl: Fat cell hyperplasia is a new one to me, and after researching a bit I found mixed results
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=687898&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_DocSum
And it also seems that according to the research (that supports hyperplasia) that it is mainly limited to overeaters.
But thanks for the new info, I like learning.
And to clarify, people have never made fun of me for being fat (other than my roommate) they make fun of me for having extra muscle. most people need to pick on something to feel better about themselves, fat people, short people, tall people, everybody gets made fun of at some point in time, you either let it bother you or you don't.
SDave
most people need to pick on something to feel better about themselves
My point entirely, shortdave – and one which begs the question why-oh-why-oh-why, if the athletic contributors to this thread are truly happy with their lot, are they driven to hanging around blogs like this one with the sole intent of baiting, discrediting, insulting, patronising and asserting moral superiority over the vast majority of people who post on it?
I would therefore posit the theory that they are not all that happy.
buffpuff, I hope I have not fallen into the category of athletic contributor who is insulting and discrediting people, for that is not my intention.
I was just curious, and honestly I like this blog, its hilarious.
-SDave
"Are you the person who wrote the food porn with the "hot, dark mouth"? I think I love you. Please tell me you're a guy and you want to go steady with me?"
Why yes, I am the same bawdy and shameless "foodie." And I'd love to offer you my class ring and my locker combination, but Cupid is a twisted little elf and I do not sport a Y chromosome...just a pair of Xs.
However, please come to my slumber party! I'm making baklava. Um...what I mean is...
*covers Anti-Puff's eyes as the next passage is not appropriate for children under 17*
...a golden prince, hot and steaming, will lie patiently, exposed, waiting for a maiden to oh so gently slip a taste of his buttery drenched layers, his rich spice, his honeyed morsels that only the most desirous and eager tongue can caress and fork into her deep, pink hunger...
Mustard optional.
Oh, how I love having issues!
Come sit at my lunch table anytime, Buff. You rock!
Short Dave:
I think you've said in your other posts that you won't date a fat girl because she can't understand how much time you take for your workouts.
Now, what if a girl is fat but totally understands your gym commitment AND has just as much of a time commitment as you do?
I ask because I lift, too (and not the 3 sets of 15 with Barbie pink dumbbells, either) and I commit 4 days a week to lifting/cardio or a sport like basketball or swimming. I love lifting and I try to eat so that I have more energy and power during my workouts, BUT...I don't focus on losing body fat or weight.
And I have dated guys who say they think it's "great that I'm so active," but I can tell they're disappointed that I'm not skinnier, or getting skinnier. And they've also assumed (wrongly) that because I'm fat, I'm not committed to the gym and of course I'd drop a workout for them.
Anyway, I'm really curious (and I mean it...I'm not trying to attack you)as to why it's so difficult for some guys to admit they hate fat women and insist on saying it's about health or something else? I mean...it's perfectly acceptable to hate fat women (just look at some of the responses here). It just seems to me that some people really do feel badly about not liking fat women but still want that dislike to be OK.
I probably made no sense, but unlike a few a-holes around here, you seem open to questions, so I thought I'd ask.
Oh, and anyone who wants to start asking me what I eat and telling me that I don't really work out or understand how to exercise can save their fingers the typing...
Mmmmm. Baklava......
buffpuff: So you worship good food, but don't eat meat or lobster? How about scallops thermidor, sweet and sour shrimp, chicken cordon bleu, or even a fettucine alfredo made with real cream?
So the list of foods you deprive yourself of grows and grows. Perhaps the only difference is that Shawn eats only the egg white, and you actually (gasp) eat the yolk?
Also, many people in the midwest tend to use chef and cook pretty much interchangeably - the only real difference is that the chef makes more money.
buffpuff: "My point entirely, shortdave – and one which begs the question why-oh-why-oh-why, if the athletic contributors to this thread are truly happy with their lot, are they driven to hanging around blogs like this one with the sole intent of baiting, discrediting, insulting, patronising and asserting moral superiority over the vast majority of people who post on it? "
Again, you very conveniently try to hypnotize yourself into believing this is a fat acceptance blog.
How about if we take the very first line of the latest blog post?
fatty mcgee: "I think I'm finally getting this whole, "I'm eating too much" thing and I've decided to focus my blame, not on me of course, but on America!"
Hmm.. the author doesn't really seem to share your world view, does she? Yes, absolutely astounding as this is to you, most fat people are fat because they eat too much. I find it hard to believe you missed this since you actually posted a comment! Maybe YOU are the one that's out of place here, preaching a culture of defeat and refusing to accept that change is possible..
- antipuff
shortdave: I am afraid you insult buffpuff and others by your very existence. Anyone who maxes out at 12% body fat is the natural enemy of the angry fat woman, because you are the benchmark by which society measures her failure. Come on, I get down to about 15% at peak training right before a long run, and you make ME feel fat.. just joking..
Sorry to make these consecutive posts, but once the conversation strayed from weightlifting to creme brulee and Milky Ways dipped in mustard (vomited into my mouth a little bit when I read that one), the number of posts has exploded. I am trying to answer as many points as I can.
xxl lifter: You're in a pretty unique position. I don't know anyone who would skip a date for the gym and is still overweight. A lot of people use "healthy" and "not fat" as synonyms - I don't think it's a matter of political correctness per se, but more the result of a strong correlation. There is overlap, but you just can't be really fat (say 800lbs) and really healthy. In all honesty I've never known a fat person who would want to come and run a 10K with me Sunday morning.
- antipuff
"xxl lifter: You're in a pretty unique position. I don't know anyone who would skip a date for the gym and is still overweight."
Well, ya know someone now! Hi!
"A lot of people use "healthy" and "not fat" as synonyms - I don't think it's a matter of political correctness per se, but more the result of a strong correlation."
Yah, I know "healthy" translates to "thin" for the majority of folks. So I know that some of these dudes would never see me as "healthy" until I dieted down to a size (insert acceptable number here). I've just always found it interesting that some guys seem to feel badly about dissing my body when it's perfectly acceptable to do so in today's society. I'm just wondering where that guilt comes from, or if it is guilt.
"but you just can't be really fat (say 800lbs) and really healthy. In all honesty I've never known a fat person who would want to come and run a 10K with me Sunday morning"
Well, maybe, but you're using an extreme example here. A lot of us fall into an in-between zone. For example, I am not 800 pounds. I am, for the record, built like Queen Latifah, except a smidge smaller the waist and heavier in the chest. So...way too heavy for most guys' acceptable boner ranges, but not an extreme case you'd see featured on Jerry Springer. I'm like Jsygurl....sure, I could follow a rigid diet and probably, with any luck, get down to, oh, I don't know...a 12 maybe? But I choose not to. And apparently that just bothers the crap out of people.
Also, I wouldn't run a 10K with you because I suck at running and I hate it. But I'd meet you at the pool, in the weight room, in a kickboxing class, or on broomball ice any day.
Hi all,
Goodness, what a lot of comments from a lot of people.
I have only eaten once at a posh gourmet chef restaurant (Maze, London. Gordon Ramsay). I speculated after the meal that for the whole night of two sittings the restaurant probably used about 3 carrots, 1 1/2 cucumbers, 10 beetroot, and lots of curly lettuce. The veg order must have been outweighed by the foie grass order - a herd of geese must have been force fed and denied movement to provide the garnish that seemed to accompany each tiny dish.
I would prefer a good cook to a gormet chef any day.
Antipuff, being vegan isn't just not eating meat is it? It's not eating milk, cheese, yogurt, honey eggs, anything of animal origin. You probably eat tofu don't you? I have tried tofu - but oh my god, it was revolting. That dinner went in the bin.
Like I said, if the health benefits were large enough, I would try a different diet, but I feel I feed a family of 4 okay now. Somehow, all eating at the same table just isn't the same if we are all eating different food - maybe because I'm in such a bad mood after having to prepare so many different dinners! Hubby works late - he walks in the door and sits down, so it's me doing it, along with homework, and the phone going, and kids fighting ... well, you know what family life is like.
Best go, the dog is behind me whining for his dinner, and I had better get on with ours.
xl lift: I probably should be more exact about the whole synonym issue:
Here's a better statement - the probability of being healthy decreases asymptotically to zero as weight increases.
So if you are REALLY fat, then you have about a 0% chance of being healthy. If you are in the mid range, then there is a better chance. If you are marginally fat, as both you and jsygurl present yourselves, then there is a even better chance of being healthy.
Loosely speaking, these are all continuous variables we are talking about, but the unavoidable bottom line is that starting at some point of x lbs for any given individual, increased weight correlates to decreased health.
What is utterly execrable to me is that NAAFA and other groups state in no uncertain terms that even someone who weighs 800lbs should NOT focus on weight loss. If it happens as part of exercise and balanced diet (wink-wink) then of course it's OK. But weight loss for is own sake is evil incarnate.
- antipuff
Hi Antipuff,
Still trying to work out if I am a foodie or a fueler, according to the defenitions you gave. I think some days I am a definite foodie, others a definite fueler, and some days are in between. Is it being foodie if I relish the salad that fuels my body? What about when I cook and eat lamb, because it's one of my husband's favourites, but I don't really like lamb? That doesn't sound foodie, or fueler.
There's been a whole lot of comments on this site, too many for me to go back and read them all, but didn't you say once that it wasn't possible for someone fat (800lbs) to eat healthy and exercise, and remain fat. I'm sure the theory was that someone that big who ate healthy and exercised would lose weight.
So aren't you and the NAAFA (not sure who they are) both saying the same thing?
***********************************
ShortDave,
Sorry mate - I must have misunderstood you in one of your earlier posts.
I'll read your sites, get back to you. Thanks for sharing them.
One study I was reading about was talking about finding a hormone, or gene, that stopped the fat cells from increasing. They were speculating that one day children could be innoculated with this thing when they were young to ensure society would henceforth be slim. I had to flee that site - I was getting chills.
jsygurl: As I warned earlier, foodie and fueler are industry terms. They are not meant to be used for introspection or analysis of your individual lifestyle, they are large scale demographic classifications so that industry can sell you more food. You might fit both categories, you might fit neither.
Fuelers still relish their food. I prefer adzuki beans to small red beans, and nutritionally there's not a whole lot of difference, so of course I'm going to go with the adzukis. A fueler is not going to eat something that is totally disgusting to them. But they're probably not going to eat something just for the taste if it's bad for them.
The biggest difference is in IMPORTANCE of food in your life. To a fueler, eating is akin to taking a hot shower, yes it feels great, but we're not going to buy "Showers Today" magazine or start a blog about showering. If we're hungry, we eat. It's not a religious ritual.
On the other hand, if you're bringing yourself to orgasm thinking of wine-infused risotto and BBACS, then food definitely plays a bigger part in your life than just satisfying your hunger. You are probably a foodie.
Again, there is no clear line or definition. If someone who is 6'2" loses their legs in an accident, are they then considered tall or short?
- antipuff
Anonymous
Last time I checked, chicken was meat. You just want me to write some more food porn again, don'cha, you little rascal.
Antipuff
you very conveniently try to hypnotize yourself into believing this is a fat acceptance blog.
As previously mentioned by one of the athletic contingent this is a “fat ambivalent” blog. You, on the other hand seem to be firmly entrenched in the belief it’s a fat bashing blog, which is something altogether different.
the author doesn't really seem to share your world view, does she?
Your point being that because one individual says she’s fat because she eats too much every other fat person in the world does too? Tell me, did you have a logic bypass done at the same time you had your sense of humour removed?
shortdave: I am afraid you insult buffpuff and others by your very existence. Anyone who maxes out at 12% body fat is the natural enemy of the angry fat woman, because you are the benchmark by which society measures her failure.
Hey you leave my mate ShortDave out of it! ShortDave’s alright. I don’t care if he wants to spend every night in the gym any more than I imagine he cares if I put the same amount of time and effort into writing my next novel. It’s apples and oranges, antipuff. ShortDave’s a bodybuilder; I’m a writer. If Dave wrote a novel and it happened to be better book than mine, that would be down to him being a better writer not having 12% body fat. Of course I’m sure you think differently.
What is utterly execrable to me is that NAAFA and other groups state in no uncertain terms that even someone who weighs 800lbs should NOT focus on weight loss
So why aren't you venting your spleen on NAAFA instead? After all, this is not a fat acceptance website. Oh. And here’s an idea. Next time you fancy schlepping the 800lb man into the argument, (again), why don’t you ask ShortDave to give you a hand? I wouldn’t want you to slip a disc.
Pssst! Baudy Foodie Anonymous! Try this: take a small tub of mascarpone cheese, crumble into it a generous handful of amaretti biscuits in the form of chunky crumbs, add a slug of whatever booze floats your boat – a combo of amaretto and brandy is particularly good – then gently fork in a container of fresh raspberries so they're gently bruised rather than pulped. You can do a lower fat version using fromage frais but believe me, you won't want to...
buffpuff said: "Your point being that because one individual says she’s fat because she eats too much every other fat person in the world does too? Tell me, did you have a logic bypass done at the same time you had your sense of humour removed?"
Umm.. nice try, but if you're actually reading the thread you're posting to it's not just her, it's a LOT of people. To refresh your memory, this is where you come to the US and order a starter big enough for 6 people? Is your obesity causing early onset Alzheimer's? (Journal of Alzheimer's Disease - Vol 8 #3)
"Next time you fancy schlepping the 800lb man into the argument, (again), why don’t you ask ShortDave to give you a hand? I wouldn’t want you to slip a disc."
Not the way we do it here in the US. We have a team of 8-10 paramedics come by, take out the entire wall of the house, and try to remove them. Only costs a gazillion of our tax dollars each time. Then again you have the extreme cases like Gayle Grinds who had to be removed from her house along with her couch because she had grafted onto it after being on it for four years straight.
"If Dave wrote a novel and it happened to be better book than mine,..."
You mean a better book than yours? You might want to put more effort into proofreading and less into the risotto..
- antipuff
buffpuff: "Last time I checked, chicken was meat. You just want me to write some more food porn again, don'cha, you little rascal."
For the love of God, the whole world doesn't speak the Queen mum's version of English. The British empire collapsed a few years back, get over it. In the US when people say meat they often mean red meat, as opposed to chicken and fish..
Nice evasion on this though. So are shrimp, lobster, crab, and scallops all considered meat too in the UK? Or you just don't happen to like those either? Or is there actually some sort of deeper reason you are a (gasp) vegetarian?
Getting a strong whiff of BS - what exactly are you hiding about your own dietary motivations?
- antipuff
Oh, I see, , antipuff, "a lot of people" equates to every fat person in the world. Sorry. Glad we've got that particular sweeping generalisation cleared up.
And I do apologise about dropping the "a" though I notice you didn't try to disprove me on that particular point. Feel free to try though.
Yes, as you so rightly observe, the British Empire died on its arse a long time ago. Which to my mind is the main reason our government, regardless of which party is in power, persists in attaching themselves to America's political coat-tails in the sad belief we enjoy a "special relationship" and are therefore a superpower by extension. I rather wish my benighted nation would get over that, but I digress.
When I say meat, I mean red and white meat. In short I mean meat, period. Sorry if that's confusing. And I'm actually a pescatarian, not a full-blown vegetarian, (which is to say I eat fish a couple of times a week). And yes, I'm fully aware that fish are people too. But when those suckers are dead and under my grill, I tend to call 'em fish. As opposed to meat. Oh, and I adore shellfish by the way.
I'd dearly love to know what you think I'm hiding about my "dietary motivations". Do tell!
My reasons for phasing meat out of my diet are varied, numerous, complex and oftentimes even a little contradictory, though dislike doesn't happen to be one of them. Among other things, I was exposed to good vegetarian food at a very young and impresionable age and simply find it more interesting. Well over half my friends and family are vegetarian or pescatarian and, of the remaining half, about half of those have been vegetarian at one time. I've grown attuned to cooking and eating that way.
I'm not keen on factory farming or ingesting growth hormones, antibiotics etc, and free range organic meat isn't always an option. It's also very expensive. Meat also used to make me feel rather sluggish. I simply feel better without it in my diet. If I get a carnivorous craving, which I very rarely do, I find a fresh tuna steak does me just fine.
Satisfied?
Meat is meat. Red, white, purple or green.
buffpuff: "My reasons for phasing meat out of my diet are varied, numerous, complex and oftentimes even a little contradictory, though dislike doesn't happen to be one of them."
Oh.. let me get this straight.. you like meat but don't eat it for other mysterious reasons..
"Meat also used to make me feel rather sluggish."
And again, you like it but you don't eat it because it affects your performance. Duh! Why do you think the rest of us abstain from things we like but know aren't good for us? You think Shawn takes the egg yolks out because they taste bad or something? Or that people actually follow the Ornish diet because anything over 10% fat tastes disgusting to them?
So the truth finally comes out - you restrict your diet, albeit for different reasons than we do, you just don't restrict it enough to not be fat anymore. And your numerous, complex (and undisclosed) reasons are perfectly good enough for you to deny your cravings for meat, but when someone else fights off their craving for ice cream because they don't want to gain weight, that's Spartan. Did I miss anything?
Back to other stuff. I never said "a lot" meant "all". If you want to split hairs, let's say there's a strong correlation between overeating and being fat, similar to smoking and getting sick.
As far as the post about Dave being your natural enemy, it's not complicated. For you to be considered over "normal" weight, someone has to be classified as normal. If everyone was fat this blog wouldn't exist. Please refer to the post where the author talks about feeling better when someone fatter is around her.
- antipuff
"Pssst! Baudy Foodie Anonymous! Try this: take a small tub of mascarpone cheese, crumble into it a generous handful of amaretti biscuits in the form of chunky crumbs, add a slug of whatever booze floats your boat – a combo of amaretto and brandy is particularly good – then gently fork in a container of fresh raspberries so they're gently bruised rather than pulped. You can do a lower fat version using fromage frais but believe me, you won't want to..."
Oh, now that's just a CRUEL tease! :) Raspberries aren't in season over here yet and the frozen variety couldn't possibly make this scrumptious-sounding dish live up to its flirtation.
However, I suddenly have a craving for tiramisu...
Meanwhile, any ideas for fuddy duddy parsnips would be most welcome. Some foods just can't transform their dowdy image, no matter what spicy negligee they may don.
And, wow, I didn't realize that including chicken as meat was a form of the Queen mum's English. Also, why is that poster so darn interested in whether you eat lobster? You've been queried about that several times.
You're right...someone's looking for some hot and dirty shellfish action. Bivalves gone wild. Wet red and wild crustaceans. Add clarified butter and a lemon slice and poor old Anti will never recover.
Cheers!
xxl lifter-
honestly just meeting a girl who understands what I do would be a huge step forward, skinny girls and fat girls alike seem to have a problem with the time I put into myself, they like the results, just not the process. And I surely do not train for health either, I train for strength and for personal aesthetics, I eat pizza, hamburgers, copious amounts of steak, its wonderful.
I have also found myself attracted to women who I would have considered 'fat' a few short years ago ( I dated size 1's and 2's) now I am more attracted to size 4-8's still not considered fat, but much larger than my older preferences.
It is difficult for me to say I hate fat women because I don't hate people, sometimes I hate their decisions but never them. At this moment in time, I just am not attracted to fat women, I also trained with a very nice women, incredibly funny, much more dedicated to the gym that I have ever been, just an all around cool chick. She is a professional bodybuilder, at 5'4 she was weighing in at around 170lbs, very , very lean. I had a blast hanging out wiht her, but she was just not attractive to me.
Plus I think her penis was bigger than mine, it made me insecure.
Like I said before, for me it is mainly about whether the person is happy with themselves or not. I personally am not happy with myself, so I strive to transform me into what I want to be. It will never happen, I will always want more. But I truly enjoy the journey, so it is all worth it to me.
(and no I don't hate m body or myself, I just think I could be better.)
SDave
"So the truth finally comes out - you restrict your diet, albeit for different reasons than we do, you just don't restrict it enough to not be fat anymore. And your numerous, complex (and undisclosed) reasons are perfectly good enough for you to deny your cravings for meat, but when someone else fights off their craving for ice cream because they don't want to gain weight, that's Spartan. Did I miss anything?"
Yes, I think you did. There's a universe of difference between not eating something because it makes you ill or squeamish or you just don't like it and not eating something because you're ashamed of your body size. I've had an eating disorder, so trust me, I've had to fight long and hard to understand the difference.
And maybe I missed it, but I never saw a post where Buff Puff or any of the SA advocates said that people who tried to lose weight were idiots or somehow inferior, as your post implies.
I don't know...I get sick to my stomach when I hear my six-year-old neighbor tell me she shouldn't eat cake because she'll get fat. Now, duh, I know cake isn't healthy. But she's not thinking about health. She's acting out of fear. And there's a HUGE difference between not eating something because it doesn't agree with you and because you are utterly terrified of what it would mean to you if you became fat.
That's why SA and Health at Any Size are so threatening to a lot of people. Despite all of your charts and tables and studies and chi square distribution or whatever else you want to throw in there...people think that if we say fat is OK that suddenly people will go ballistic and eat and eat and eat and eat until they're all 125875 pounds and we're all one big liability to insurance companies and nobody can ever ride on a roller coaster again.
Well, that's just a bogeyman theory. Won't happen.
I don't know, Anti. There's obviously no arguing with you, as you've been posting here with the sole intent of defaming Buff and others who support Health at Any Size or other SA efforts.
I'll just say that if it weren't for SA and others who have worked so hard to try to be a voice of reason against fat hatred, I would still be very sick. And very unhealthy, even at a "healthy" weight.
Good night and good luck.
I've read up about Gayle Grinds. How desperately sad. That poor lady must have spent her last few years in tremendous pain.
She was a giver too - adopting her orphaned niece and nephew, helping out her neighbours ...
I can't help thinking about all those people who were happy for her to mind their kids when she was well, and who stopped taking their kids there when she became incapacitated, people who saw the state she was in. Why didn't they do something? Get some help for her? Seems everyone turned a blind eye.
The Anon that said it's all about fear is right. There have been people posting that they wouldn't date a fat person, for fear of what their friends would say, and Antipuff, your posts about food read as if you have a fear of eating, you react so angrily to "food porn" and you visualise ice-creams as blocks of lard, wich reminds me of a diet where I was encouraged to think of chocolate as hardened poo.
I still don't understand the anger at people for eating ice-cream when food stores are low. If you don't think ice-cream is of any use nutritionally, then why would you be bothered about people eating it? Eating it makes them less hungry, so they will eat less from the food stores, surely?
These "food stores" make it sound as if you are living in Egypt at the time of the famine. I always thought of America of the land of unlimited food.
oh my god, the story about the lady fused to her couch was the saddest thing i ever read. :(
SDave:
Thanks for your thoughts. I do understand that chemistry/attraction is partly hard-wired, partly spontaneous, and you can't make yourself be attracted to someone, even if they're the greatest person in the world (and even with a stud-threatening set of cajones! LOL)
I think what you said about not liking some aspects of yourself, or improving some aspects of yourself, makes a lot of sense and helps me understand a bit. There have been situations where I've felt that I "should" be attracted to someone (because they were great, had a lot in common, etc.), but the reason I felt GUILTY about not liking them was because they really echoed the aspects of my personality that I want to improve---for example, I'm really prone to see myself as "less than" others and as a Charlie Brown kind of person. I hate that about myself, so if someone else has those traits, I shrink away from them, all the while feeling terribly guilty.
Nobody wants to be with someone who reminds them of their most feared and loathed attributes...and I think maybe if someone sees their own body as a weak or loathsome attribute, they're going to get in a bad, bad head space if they try to date someone whose size reminds them of that weakness.
Oh, and I thought Gayle Grinds was an urban myth (thanks, JsyGurl, for specifying her name). That is indeed a tragic story. I agree with the anon who said fear is at the root of so much of this debate...the articles I read about Grinds were came awfully close to Schadenfruede...playing on people's fears not only of fat, but of loneliness and abandonment and alienation. Seems that's one of the primary fears about fat: the loneliness and abandonment you'd presumably face if you get "too big."
But they also mentioned depression in a lot of those articles, and, while I'm not going to say her physical limitations didn't play a key part in her demise, I wonder what the reaction would have been if the articles had focused on depression as the main cause.
Well, I'll stop thinking aloud here, but thanks again, SDave, and good luck with lifting!
Here's my .02 about attraction (since that was the original point of this entire thread).
In the first place, how can you know in advance, without having met someone or knowing anything substantive about them, whether you'll find them appealing or not? Even pictures don't always tell the truth; they can be made "too flattering" or be taken in such a way that they don't do the subject justice at all. Doesn't chemistry ultimately have to be determined live, and in person?
Secondly, I don't think it's such a terrible thing to have physical preferences, as long as they're judgment neutral. That is, it's absolutely fine if you prefer, say, brunettes to blondes just because you like that look better. However, I don't think it's OK if you refuse to date blondes because you think they're all nitwits. See the distinction?
jsygurl: "I still don't understand the anger at people for eating ice-cream when food stores are low. If you don't think ice-cream is of any use nutritionally, then why would you be bothered about people eating it? Eating it makes them less hungry, so they will eat less from the food stores, surely?"
Because producing ice-cream requires cows, which require massive amounts of water and produce massive amounts of air and water pollution.
This isn't about the farm down the street with 6 cows. It's about industrialized factory farms which produce tons of manure per day, manure diverted into huge lagoons of waste. Factory farms are some of the most egregious polluters in the entire United States, and the culprits are the consumers who MUST have their ice-cream, MUST have their steak, the rest of the planet be damned..
The US is a nation of consumption run amok - and gluttony is just one side of it. Sure, my eating a $50 steak doesn't mean less steak for rural Chinese children. But the western lifestyle is what everyone aspires to. If India and China alone switched to the same diet the US or UK has, we're in for tough times. We've already shown them what to emulate in cars (vs walking or biking), the lesson for the new millenium is veal and tenderloin instead of bok choy and rice.
The anger directed at the foei gras snobs is the same directed at people who use a metric buttload of water during a drought so their lawns can look nice and pretty..
anon said: There's a universe of difference between not eating something because it makes you ill or squeamish or you just don't like it and not eating something because you're ashamed of your body size.
Uhh.. nice looking straw man you got yourself there.. Buffpuff didn't say she disliked meat, much less that it made her ill or squeamish - in fact she said she had "carnivorous cravings" now and then. She said she had other reasons besides not liking the taste. Well, body size is another reason too, why is that any less valid than hers?
"Well, body size is another reason too, why is that any less valid than hers?"
Mmmmmmmkay....
So if something is classified as a "reason," it is automatically valid and beyond reproach? All reasons are equal? When a child asks a parent why she needs to behave and the parent says "Because otherwise Santa won't leave you any presents," that's a reason, and apparently just as legit as saying "because I don't want you to end up in jail or hurt."
Anyway, Anti (assuming it's you...I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong), I know you're doing your darndest to disprove SA and HAES as though they're logic puzzles instead of social movements, but, even if the International Committee of Validity and Accuracy awards you a gold star, it won't change the fact that people who diet to lose weight *because they hate themselves and believe they can only be happy/accepted/OK when they are thin* will not likely be mentally healthy, even if they are thinner, and even if their reason is "valid."
Anyway, I'm sure you're chomping at the bit at some hole in my logic, so have at it, trooper...
Antipuff, what is eating your gusset? I gave you no less than seven reasons why I choose not to eat meat! For such an abstemious individual you’re exceptionally greedy. Well, okay. How about this one: I don’t much like the idea of eating animals. I prefer my furry friends bouncing around in the wild or grazing happily in meadows. There is, as I’m quite sure you know, a point where you consciously make the connection between the two – where you look at the wee, baby lambkin frisking about in the field and you look at the lamb chop on your plate and something in your brain says whoa. There’s a difference between making that connection in your head and recognising it at a soul and gut-deep level. I wanted to give up meat before I made that deeper connection, because I knew how upset I’d be when I did. However, I resolved to keep fish in my diet, partly because I knew I’d be less likely to lapse if I did and partly because my hyper-mobile joints would miss the benefits of fish oil a couple of times a week. Even though fish are critters too; that’s where I decided to draw the line. Except, oddly enough for lobster. Now I love lobster. It’s one of my very favourite things to eat, but a couple of years back I made a pact with God to forgo it. He knows why. You don’t have to. But you may be sure it has nothing to do with my weight or my health.
If Shawn chooses to throw 70 – count ‘em – perfectly good, highly nutritious egg yolks down his kitchen sink every week, that’s his affair. He’s obviously got a whole lot more money than me plus some bizarre obsession with cholesterol that’s gotten way out of control. (Currently, I believe most nutritionists consider 2 or 3 egg yolks a week to be perfectly acceptable in the context of a balanced diet. In fact, if the eggs come from organically fed, free range hens, they have significantly less cholesterol, so Shawn could probably eat even more). However, Shawn also claims to wake up every day craving Macdonalds for breakfast and says he wishes he could eat rocky road icecream every day. (Neither of which, incidentally, I can relate to either). If you wanted living proof that being on a severely restrictive diet does weird things to the human mind, you need look no further than Shawn. Perhaps, given the dwindling pantry situation in your country you should consider redistributing Shawn’s spurned egg yolks to the poor and needy?
Foxy Foodie Anonymous...
Ah, the parsnip, she is hesitant - a little backward in coming forward – but douse her in butter, sprinkle her with brown sugar and bake her and she will reveal her inner vixen to your rampant, unstoppable tastebuds... (can't remember if you're s'posed to cover the 'nips to stop the sugar burning, mind).
anon above: yes, it's me, forgot to sign.
Well, I'd rather hear from buffpuff since it's her diet we're talking about after all. Not trying to ridicule her for being vegetarian (I'm one too), but I think this validates the idea that there ARE reasons for not eating a particular food that you like.
First, SA and HAES are not "social movements" - they are self-delusional farces. Let's not put them up there with civil rights and women's suffrage but rather where they belong - with Scientology and people who claim that cigarettes are harmless, it's the additives that cause cancer. About 80 gazillion doctors, nutritionists, physiologists, and epidemiologists think you guys are full of the brown gooey stuff - why don't you get a clue already?
Let's look at the "every" in HAES (Healthy at Every Size). Are you claiming that it is possible to be healthy at 800lbs? I mean, come on, last time I checked "every" didn't have a maximum cut off point..
Second, I think you're arguing AGAINST buffpuff at this point. I was saying that staying thin is A reason for avoiding certain foods - I never claimed that it was the best reason or even a superior reason. Without even knowing buffpuff's reason(s), you have automatically determined that those are more valid than mine. How about someone in the army who has to stay within a certain height/weight or body fat index? Is that a good enough reason to diet?
And finally, if you don't know logic, don't try to bring it up. When I try to couch something in lay terms, all of you immediately trot out the old "causation vs. correlation" or some such undergrad statistics nonsense. When I rephrase it and you get your asses handed to you, I get this - "Despite all of your charts and tables and studies and chi square distribution or whatever else you want to throw in there..." Well, make up your minds, do you want it in lay terms or slightly more rigorous?
I like debating buffpuff because while her viewpoints are totally different from mine, she is intelligent and responds to the points I make, not to imaginary ones. You on the other hand are apparently a logic-phobic newbie who should be banned from the Internet immediately. Learn to read before you continue to post..
- antipuff
buffpuff: oops, you posted right before me.
You're misunderstanding my point completely. I am not saying your decision to forgo meat is misguided, on the other hand, it's commendable. My point is that you have found a higher reason to avoid a food that you like, and would eat otherwise.
Well, same here! I would probably eat a lot more things than I eat now - but I like my body the way it is. I like being able to run a mile in under 6 minutes without passing out, or being able to run up a few flights of stairs with a backpack on without breaking a sweat. When I go running with guys 10 years younger than me, and they want me to slow down because they're hurting, that's better than any lobster omelette out there. For me, that's worth restricting my diet, the same way that animal suffering or spirituality is a reason for you to restrict yours. So what about all the other reasons - being able to find work, or getting medical insurance, or even fitting on a rollercoaster? Do you have a list of the ones you consider worthy of dieting, or is yours the only one?
Bottom line - for you to criticize someone's diet as Spartan because they pursue athleticism is ludicrous when the vast majority of people could criticize your own as Spartan compared to their own.
- antipuff
"Foxy Foodie Anonymous...
Ah, the parsnip, she is hesitant - a little backward in coming forward – but douse her in butter, sprinkle her with brown sugar and bake her and she will reveal her inner vixen to your rampant, unstoppable tastebuds... (can't remember if you're s'posed to cover the 'nips to stop the sugar burning, mind)."
Oh, you saucy minx...not even the demure parsnip escapes the breathless kiss of sugar...how tantalizingly wicked! Burned sugar can be as delectable as cripsy burned cheese.
My only regret from this captivating dalliance is that I lack sweet nothings for you to take back to your kitchen. Ah well, perhaps one day...
And now, the parsnips are mine, the little lovelies...
"First, SA and HAES are not "social movements" - they are self-delusional farces. Let's not put them up there with civil rights and women's suffrage but rather where they belong - with Scientology and people who claim that cigarettes are harmless, it's the additives that cause cancer."
Ah, well, SA and HAES might belong with Scientology if they were religions/cults, but they're not. They're also not unorganized individuals who make unsubstantiated claims, so they have more in common with social movements than they do with either of the two groups you mentioned.
"About 80 gazillion doctors, nutritionists, physiologists, and epidemiologists think you guys are full of the brown gooey stuff - why don't you get a clue already?"
Oh, my, now you're really bringing in the logic, aren't you? Here's a clue for you: it's not how full we may be of the "gooey stuff," but exactly how much this "gooey stuff" should affect how we're treated is what's in question.
"Let's look at the "every" in HAES (Healthy at Every Size). Are you claiming that it is possible to be healthy at 800lbs? I mean, come on, last time I checked "every" didn't have a maximum cut off point.."
Yes, let's look, shall we? But first, let's get the name right.It's not "Healthy at Every Size" it's "Health at Every Size," and the idea is to promote self-acceptance AND physical activity AND healthy relationships with food, REGARDLESS of current size.
"Without even knowing buffpuff's reason(s), you have automatically determined that those are more valid than mine."
I actually said that validity was a moot point and I made no comment whatsoever about "good" and "bad." You should take a lesson from yourself and learn to read, too.
"And finally, if you don't know logic, don't try to bring it up. When I try to couch something in lay terms, all of you immediately trot out the old "causation vs. correlation" or some such undergrad statistics nonsense. When I rephrase it and you get your asses handed to you, I get this - "Despite all of your charts and tables and studies and chi square distribution or whatever else you want to throw in there..." Well, make up your minds, do you want it in lay terms or slightly more rigorous?"
Um...yeah, I don't remember you handing anyone's arse to them. Last I checked, there was nobody blowing a whistle and announcing the score. This is not the debate club, junior.
You can be as rigorous as you please, sweetheart. We can take it, even if you don't like our responses.
"I like debating buffpuff because while her viewpoints are totally different from mine, she is intelligent and responds to the points I make, not to imaginary ones. You on the other hand are apparently a logic-phobic newbie who should be banned from the Internet immediately. Learn to read before you continue to post.."
Well, I'm not banned yet and I'll bring up logic any time I please, thank you. I'm not as well-versed as BuffPuff, but I still enjoy rankling self-righteous and pious goody-goodies like you who really make the world a very unpleasant place sometimes.
Toodles!
anon said: "Yes, let's look, shall we? But first, let's get the name right.It's not "Healthy at Every Size" it's "Health at Every Size," and the idea is to promote self-acceptance AND physical activity AND healthy relationships with food, REGARDLESS of current size."
And? You seem to have left your paragraph hanging, not to mention you haven't answered my question. Are you claiming that an 800lb man (actually exists here in the US) can have self-acceptance and physical activity? Without losing weight first? That weight loss should not be a priority for him?
"I actually said that validity was a moot point ..."
Wow.. that's just beautiful! Validity is moot! I can vomit forth all the questionable logic and ad hoc arguments I wish to, no need for epistemological rigor any more! Must be wonderful being in SA and not having to use your brain any more..
I see we have an 800-pound gorilla in the room. Hi gorilla, how's tricks? Someone always seems to want to drag you wherever there's a bunch of nonskinny people who have the temerity not to be ashamed of their body habiti. Not your fault, gorilla, I'm sure you don't mean to be used as a club to beat us all over the head with, but...ahem.
Point one. Do you imagine it would be any easier for someone who is 800 pounds to attain "normal" size than it would be for someone 150 or 200 or 250 pounds to do so?
No, logic should tell you it would be about a kazillion times more difficult. In fact, if you can show me ONE instance of a person that size who ever got and stayed thin (without dropping dead immediately afterwards), I will personally lick ketchup off your toes. And believe me, it's NOT because they didn't try (and try and try and try). So if you tell that person he or she only has a reason to live if he or she is thin, you're basically digging their grave for them while they're still breathing.
Point two. How do you imagine a human being becomes that size? Just by sitting around the couch and snarfing chips? Nah, if it were that easy, 800-pound humans would be far more common than they are. One of two things has to take place for a person to attain that weight: either they've got a monster mofo of a metabolic disorder, or (more likely) they've been dieting since they were old enough to hold a fork.
Yes, grasshopper, I said dieting. Know how sumo wrestlers intentionally attain fighting weights of 500 pounds and up? They skip meals for a couple of days, and then eat everything that isn't nailed down, and then start the whole cycle again. This accomplishes two things. One, it ensures that they'll be as hungry as possible when they do eat, so they'll shovel it in as fast as they can. And two, it slows down the metabolism so that the caloric binge will have maximal impact.
Many inveterate dieters unintentionally wind up on the "sumo wrestler diet," by being put on strict diets from the time they were very small. What better way to make a person binge than by starving them? And that's all many of these people have ever known. Starve, binge, starve, binge, starve, binge. All because someone thought they were too fat even as little kids. Funny thing in this world, the more we hate fat, the more of it we manage to create.
Jeez Anon above - that's my childhood you're describing!
I was trying to work out Antipuff just what is ths fixation you have with 800lb people. So I snooped around a bit, and found this site: http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm
It's called the 900 club, and has brief stories about any the website owners can find out about people who were over 900lbs. Unfortunately 900lbs is not your prefered weight, which we all know is 800lbs, but you have to agree, there seem to not have been that many people since the 1800's who reached 900lbs. I don't think people of such large weight are really representative of the average "fat" person.
The thing I found completely shocking about these people is the fact that despite finding that some of these people were very healthy - in terms of their hearts, and cholestorol levels, a lot of these people were persuaded onto diets (mostly by diet centres wanting the publicity) and a lot of these people seem to have died form complications of dieting, or of weight loss surgery.
The last person, Joselina da Silva, is desperately sad. She may well have died of starvation whilst trying to lose weight. in 1996. Joselina da Silva should not be forgotten.
And yes, some of these people eat hugely, they are described as having a ravenous hunger. It is also quite clear that whatever causes someone to be destined to be as large as 900lbs, they are born with it.
For light relief, I did like the story about Santiago Garcia, who couldn't be sent to prison, as he didn't fit in the cell, the showers, and couldn't be got into the police van, so his sentance was changed to a years probation. Rock on Santiago!
hi buffpuff. i'm the "anonymous" you say has a spartan, monotonous "diet"! er...i don't think so...i eat the best goddamn bread on the planet, full-fat fine cheeses, organic fresh fruit and vegetables, seriously good meat and i drink seriously good beer and wine. i'm a goddamn foodie! i just don't eat crap. and i eat a lot - and i also exercise a lot - because i enjoy it.
jsygurl: "I was trying to work out Antipuff just what is ths fixation you have with 800lb people."
Never heard of the 900 lb club, had no idea there were that many people who weighed that much. Here's why I use a large number:
If for any particular individual, a very large weight is definitely unhealthy, there is some intermediate weight which is a "maximum" to maintain health. This outright invalides Healthy at EVERY size. If you believe you can be healthy and happy at 800lbs, just up the number to 1100 and continue the argument..
If I am arguing for a maximum speed limit and you say "well, it should be ok to go 75", I'm not going to come back and say "what about the people who do 76"? I'm going to say "what about the people who do 150?" As soon as you agree that there is SOME speed people shouldn't be allowed to drive, I've made my case for a maximum.
So if you only speak for the "average" fat person, what's the cutoff point at which you no longer qualify for the club?
Antipuff,
My handy little MS Word Thesaurus defines the word ‘spartan’ thusly: austere, harsh, hard, frugal, stringent, rigorous, strict, stern, severe; ascetic, abstemious; bleak, joyless, grim, bare, stark, plain – which pretty much sums up how I regard your eating regime. I expressed this opinion because compared to my diet, it is. Yes, there probably are many who would consider mine restrictive in comparison to theirs, but, unlike you, I’m not standing on a soapbox telling them that my way is better or slagging them off for not subscribing to it, (thus inviting their opinions and/or judgement). Unless someone makes it an issue, I don’t give a rat’s patootie what anybody chooses to eat or why – though frankly, unless there was a bear chasing me, (admittedly not terribly likely in Covent Garden, where I work), I can’t imagine needing to run a mile in under 6 minutes, and besides, all the tourists would keep getting in my way.
I also think there’s something very telling in this sentence:-
When I go running with guys 10 years younger than me, and they want me to slow down because they're hurting, that's better than any lobster omelette out there. For me, that's worth restricting my diet, the same way that animal suffering or spirituality is a reason for you to restrict yours.
Again, apples and oranges – and talk about hoist by your own petard! What we have here is conclusive proof it does your shrivelled little walnut of a heart good to lord it over other people and your athleticism is the means by which you do so. Life is all about winning and being seen to be a winner and there's only one way in life to win and that's by physical endeavour. Well – newsflash! – this is a blog, not a running track. In the words of our Scandinavian cousins, your herring will not cook here. Stop assuming you’re king of the heap in every walk of life because you can run up a flight of stairs quicker than I can.
Oh, and Anonymous who initially wrote this:-
...moderate amounts of unprocessed, grainy food, with reasonably low levels of fat in it...unadorned vegetables (ie without fat added) and a smaller amount of fresh fruit, and small (and i mean small!) amounts of lean meat cooked without too much fat apart from a bit of virgin olive oil... eat seriously grainy bread (no butter) instead. chocolate is great, but learn to love dark chocolate instead, without the creamy fillings. and only eat it once a week, and in small amounts
I’m confused. I assumed you were following this diet yourself but the one you lately describe also includes fine full fat cheeses and various similarly fine alcoholic beverages. I think that puts a slightly different complexion on the matter, don’t you? If not, how come butter on your bread is verboten when a nice chunk of brie or dolcelatte is not? How come a delicious imported beer is permissable but a dollop of dressing on your salad is a no-no? Would you consider a dessert of panna cotta topped with fresh organic berries to be acceptable within your parameters? Are you just trying to balance things out so you can still get your foodie rocks off? Or is it just one rule for you and another for me? (What am I saying? Of course it is! Otherwise Antipuff would be criticising your debauched penchant for "fattening" foodstuffs like beer and proper cheese). If you're ever in England, by the way, I'd like to recommend Keen's unpasteurised cheddar. There is no finer path to hell in a handbag.
On a final note, the story about Santiago Garcia, who couldn't be sent to prison, as he didn't fit in the cell, the showers, and couldn't be got into the police van, so his sentence was changed to a years probation
Excellent wheeze jsygurl! Perhaps, since Antipuff is determined to turn this into some kind of pissing contest, we can put forth “automatic get out of jail free card” as a reason to become or stay fat. Can anybody think of any others? Let’s have ‘em. It should make for pretty entertaining reading.
buffpuff - again, an 8000 word treatise and you still haven't answered the question. I'm going to take a wild stab here and guess you're in the "aspiring" stage of your writing career..
My question is simple - if you have reasons for denying yourself certain foods you like, why are your reasons better than mine? Your diet would certainly be seen as Spartan by most people here, even by your own definition of Spartan. Why is my level of sacrifice Spartan but yours is not? I certainly enjoy the food I eat, I just limit what I eat, same as you. Is olive oil the magic ingredient whereby I too can become an official foodie?
I think you're threatened immensely by the very idea that you're on a (gasp) diet the same as the rest of us...
- antipuff
Regarding the anti-NAAFA, anti-ISAA, anti-Fat Acceptance comments:
Extremism reigns wherever humans gather. Sure, we could take the position that fat is the ONLY option. Or we could take the position that thin is the ONLY option. Then we could fight and argue over the whys and wherefores.
We can rationalize and pontificate, excuse and defend, rant or rave. But, why?
On both sides of the adipose, the minimal standard is to respect each other's humanity.
Doesn't matter if I'm fat or thin. Or why I'm fat or thin. Doesn't matter who is fat or thin, American or French. Doesn't matter what constitutes fatness or thinness (XX lbs or YY lbs).
There are more and more fat acceptance proponents who focus on acceptance, of who you are now. Be you now. Because life is all change all the time. Ideas change, beliefs change, preferences change, weight changes - even the color of your skin/hair/eyes change (wait until you're in your 50s and 60s to notice the dramatic natural changes).
Be humane. Be respectful. Enjoy your life now. As you are, not as you were, or how you might be later. At the same time, allow others to enjoy their lives.
Nedra
"And? You seem to have left your paragraph hanging, not to mention you haven't answered my question. Are you claiming that an 800lb man (actually exists here in the US) can have self-acceptance and physical activity? Without losing weight first? That weight loss should not be a priority for him?"
So sorry to leave you hanging, Anti. Let's see...
As far as Mr. 800's priorities...well, last I checked, he hadn't handed over control of his life to me, so I don't get to set his priorites. Does he have a job? A partner? Disease? Because he *is* still a whole person, so, while his weight is certainly noticeable because of its extremity, I wouldn't presume that he had no other really pressing issues.
Just for sport, though...let's say his weight is a priority and he feels terrible physically. I don't tell him there's a magical number on the scale he has to attain before he can feel OK about himself. I ask what he wants to DO. Does he want to walk? Run? Bike? Swim? Play baseball? No, he won't be able to try out for the Yankees, but I'm sure his doc would clear some form of physical activity, and that's where we'd start.
Is he a binger? What's his relationship with food like? What does he like to eat? You can rest assured that very few fat people haven't heard basic nutrition yammering, so he probably knows the basics. If he feels terrible about his relationship with food, the last thing you do is demonize certain foods and wag your finger in his face like a stern parent and say "no, no, no." You teach him about hunger, about listening to his body, about how to trust himself.
So...I guess I don't see Mr. 800 as the lost cause you make him out to be because of that number on the scale and I would wager that he sure could make improvements in health regardless of what he weighs.
"Validity is moot! I can vomit forth all the questionable logic and ad hoc arguments I wish to, no need for epistemological rigor any more!"
Whoo, boy, let's try some context before we decide that the pristine altar of logic has been defaced by chaos and vomit, OK?
Please follow along carefully:
You were busy crowing about labelling weight loss as a VALID reason for dietary restriction.
I said validity is not the POINT...the POINT is that dieting BECAUSE you hate yourself and your body will generally be pretty darn HARMFUL to your esteem. So, I suppose, if you must put it in simplistic and broad "good/bad" terms, yes, I think it's a bad idea to diet because you think self-esteem lies within your "goal weight."
Now, moving on to the more interesting topic of psychology:
I just read through these entries again to refresh my memory for why you're here. If I have this right, you're the one who lost weight once you hooked up with a bodybuilder and journaled your food/exercise, right? And before that you were a somewhat happy guy who took his heaviness as something he had no control over because he subscribed to the NAAFA line of thought.
And you are here as the oracle of reason, to be a beacon to other poor fat failures who can't count or use our brains because we're pigging out on the sweet, but delusional and illogical tripe of HAES and SA?
You will not rest until our fat arses are handed back to us and the lurkers out there who are befuddled by the choice between SA and following your path will eventually see the light and run, as fast as their poor fat legs can carry them, to your side?
Is that accurate, or is my SA-addled brain all stupid again?
Your message is no different from the message with which people are already inundated: If you're fat, you're a failure. You're kind of a drier, more academic version of Carnie Wilson...whose insecurity is more noticeable and obnoxious than her weight ever was.
So, because you'll never agree with HAES/SA and a lot of us here will never agree with your viewpoint and we really have no control over which side the poor, lost sheep will eventually choose, it's a matter of who has the last word, then, isn't it?
I may be stupid, but I'm pretty stubborn. I can vomit posts as long as you can, stud :)
Game on.
Must be wonderful being in SA and not having to use your brain any more..
anon above: "As far as Mr. 800's priorities...well, last I checked, he hadn't handed over control of his life to me, so I don't get to set his priorites. Does he have a job? A partner? Disease?"
I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read that. I pictured an 800lb man driving around in his Lexus and contemplating his priorities - "let's see, between my high powered job on Wall Street and all the overseas volunteer work with Médecins Sans Frontières, do I really have time to lose four or five hundred pounds?"
I don't know what you're smoking, but it's probably something too unhealthy for me..
Priorities? Do you realize that when you hit that kind of weight you can't even support your own mass to walk to the bathroom, let alone fit through the doors in your house? You eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate in your bed, and your partner is whoever cleans out your bedpans and brings you food. It's hard to imagine a more wretched and humiliating existence, so I really think weight loss would be pretty high on the priority list at that point.
At first when I read your post I thought you were joking. Then it was kind of creepy that you had convinced yourself that someone who weighed 800lbs could be happy and healthy. That's exactly what I meant when I claimed SA people were mind-bogglingly delusional. An 800 lb man riding a bicycle for exercise?! And you expect anyone to take your "movement" seriously for over half a second?
Also, I think you have me confused with the other anon who left about the time Shawn came in. I've never had a bodybuilder for a roommate, in fact the last time I even had a roommate was in the 80s, and he drank over a fifth of vodka a night - not a real gym-rat type. I haven't bothered to go back through the thread since it's about twenty pages long at this point, but I think I remember who you are talking about.
buffpuff said: "Excellent wheeze jsygurl! Perhaps, since Antipuff is determined to turn this into some kind of pissing contest, we can put forth “automatic get out of jail free card” as a reason to become or stay fat. Can anybody think of any others?"
Oh, I can come up with a few, buffpuff, since no one else seems to be playing..
1. If you get fat enough, they'll have to take you to the zoo to give you an MRI since you don't fit in a normal scanner. Yay - a free trip to the zoo!!
2. If you get fat enough, you'll have to be driven through the truck weigh-in lane to be weighed. How many non-truckers ever get to see that?!
3. Small children will be more respectful to you since they will be in mortal fear of you eating them.
4. If your family is ever stranded on a desert island, all 6 of you can make a comfortable tent out of your dress.
5. When you go to the carnival and play "guess my weight", you win because the carny can't count that high..
I could go all night.. anyone else want to take a turn? Anyone?
Also, what the heck is a "wheeze"? You Brits sure talk funny. Heading over to Edinburgh next month (why can't they ever send me to London or Paris?). At least I'll be able to have beans on toast for breakfast again without everyone thinking I'm a total whackjob..
- antipuff
antipuff, I laughed until i almost passed out after reading that. I will most likely wind up in hell just like you
Okay, Antipuff,
I’ve got work to do, friends to see and fun stuff to be doing with ‘em. This is what I have to say in response to your last two posts:-
1) Sorry to disappoint you but I’m not at the “aspiring stage” of my writing career. My first job after graduation, working for a major London design consultancy, involved copywriting. I have written several articles for magazines and websites relating to art and design, and currently edit and contribute to a publication produced by a well-respected professional body within that field. For the past ten years I’ve also been a regular contributor to the source book, ‘The Writers’ And Artists’ Yearbook’ – which serves as the UK publishing industry bible. I’m currently looking for an agent for my recently completed first novel. I’d ideally like to write fiction full time. But hey, you probably think I do already...
2) With regard to your “simple” question, I never said my reasons for “denying” myself certain foods were better than yours. I said they were entirely different. My reasons could be regarded as spititually and ethically sound or, given my fish-eating, hypocritical. Your reasons, which centre around the constant perfection of your physical body – might be regarded as narcissistic or admirable – depending on who is passing judgement. I'm refraining from passing judgement because comparison in this instance is, in my view, a pointless exercise.
3) You may think in terms of denial and sacrifice where my dietary intake is concerned, but I don’t. I’ve always found meat-and-two-veg type cooking deathly dull, hence my fondeness for pasta and rice dishes, stir-fries etc, all of which traditionally involve quite small amounts of meat or fish in any case, if at all.
4)I think you're threatened immensely by the very idea that you're on a (gasp) diet the same as the rest of us...
And I think you’re totally befuddled that you can’t typecast me. If you want to believe I’m on a diet because I frequently choose to eat things you consider to be virtuous fueler’s nosh, go right ahead. I eat exactly what I want when I want to eat it.
5) With regard to your last post. A “wheeze” is an archaic, upper-crust English word for “joke”. Judging by the main content of your latest post, I’ll probably have to explain the meaning of that word to you too. Don’t quit the day-job for stand-up; you’re at least 60 years out of date.
6) Finally, since I was good enough to address your question head on. Perhaps you would do me the return favour of answering mine, which I have asked on several occasions: What is your personal definition of a bigot?
Anti:
Let's say Mr. 800's weight makes him as completely helpless as your bleak picture paints him...people who suffer physically can and do feel joy, happiness and all the other warm fuzzies of emotion. So, his weight can indeed be irrelevant to his emotional state, nothing delusional about that.
As to changing his weight...and, again, let's go with your worst case scenario...if he's immobile, then it's between Mr. 800 and his doctor/physical therapist to get him mobile. And, shiver me timbers, if they actually decide that WLS is, in fact, the only way for him to get mobile, then best wishes and good luck to him. If they decide on another protocol, again, good luck and best wishes.
Yes, Anti, I said WLS. Again, the focus is on every individual's CHOICE to do what h/she CHOOSES to do with h/her body. That's the main tenet of SA that I just don't think will ever penetrate that bigoted and hateful, if logical, brain of yours.
And, just curious, why don't you play doctor for a second and tell me just what you would do if Mr. 800 came to you and said he wanted to become mobile? (That's AFTER you get done sniggering with your pals and belittling him to a pulp, of course).
So, you're not the anon who feels fooled and duped by NAFFA and wants to save other misguided souls. Then you're here because...???
You may have answered that query before, but this thread has indeed become supersized and difficult to search.
You are here to...debate with SA proponents until you have the last word? Until we are all saved from our delusions?
Here's another fun game: guess why Anti is here.
1. Intense, bordering on creepy, obsession with BuffPuff.
2. He (she? Sorry, can't remember correct gender offhand...all that smoking....) actually IS the 800 pound theoretical.
Shawn said…
Hey all- I was gone for some time. Seems like you guys are going for each other throats now!
A couple of things- I’ll try and keep it brief cuz I know the more I talk the more I get bashed : )
I liked Nedra’s post saying we should all respect each other- However the point of this blog was a couple of fat girls wondering why they were not seen as attractive. You can do whatever you want… but then know & accept the consequences. (Whether you agree with them or not, being fat has consequences in our society) And yes, everyone should be respected.
As far as diets go. Once again I stick to my guns when I said every one of us who has the choice of what to eat is on a diet! Diets are not bad things. I think many people here don’t know how to diet correctly. When I got my body fat checked just recently it was 5%. You should not starve yourself but graze. I eat several times throughout the day. If you starve yourself your body will store more fat as it thinks there are food shortages and prepares for it. I am not going to preach about this because everyone here is probably more knowledgeable about this than I am. But at the end of the day I know what works & what doesn’t.
I like the foodie and fueler labels. I am definitely a fueler.
And as far as the food goes: When I am alone I never eat “bad food.” I save that for when I go out. The food I cook for myself is probably nowhere near as flavorful as what some fatter people here may eat. But when I go out on a date or with friends, I eat whatever I like at the restaurants and it is 10x better than what I make for myself. This makes the outing that much better and I really enjoy the food instead of taking it for granted. Every restaurant I go to I leave saying “what great food they had!”
My thoughts about exercise is this: If anyone were to go exercise consistently for 6-weeks (And I mean real exercise- whatever you like, but a little more intense than walking around with your dog) you would probably continue for life. Why? because I know myself and many of my other friends feel SICK now if we don’t do exercise. I start getting fidgety and stressed. So I am addicted to exercise- but I trained myself to be. (Plus after 6 weeks of real exercise I think you would like how you were beginning to look and feel)
And as far as being wasteful: The silly argument came up about fat people eating all the food and leave nothing for the rest of us. Haha. Not many people I know seriously think like that. But as far as the egg yolks go- yes I do waste them. Yes possibly 70+ a week sometimes. And if I ate that many whole eggs…I would probably be in danger of dying from high cholesterol.
…I never claimed to be morally superior to anyone, but I am sure as hell claiming to be physically superior.
-Shawn
anon said: "and, again, let's go with your worst case scenario...if [800 lb man is] immobile..."
Holy mother of God, you cannot be this dense.
Look outside. You see any 800lb people strolling by outside your window? This isn't a "worst case scenario", it's reality. You really think human legs can support that much weight? You're talking about someone walking around carrying well over a third of a ton. If anyone ever needs any proof of how out of touch with reality SA is, you, dear writer, are a shining example..
Also, choice of body size is NOT what SA preaches. Go to the NAAFA web site sometime. They claim ad nauseum that 95% of people (95%! 95%! 95%!) fail at diets, and therefore diets don't work. Their whole message is that you do NOT have a choice in what kind of body you have, it is genetically determined for you at birth. If you try you will fail, so why not just join the rest of us and accept failure?
I've already stated why I was here, but I agree, the thread has become bloated. I am not out to convert any SA people. Buffpuff mentioned that this is a "fat ambivalent" blog, I'm here to debate the side that fat is wasteful, unhealthy, and completely avoidable. You want to talk about self-hatred? How about taking 2 minutes and reading the "Marble and Watermelon" posting on this blog?
Shawn: I don't think the argument is that fat people eat all the food and leave none for the rest of us (ok, I'm talking in general, probably doesn't apply at the local Chinese buffet). I think it's a bit more complex than that, more to do with minimizing your ecological footprint. Meat just costs a lot more to produce, in terms of pollution, fuel, etc. The less you consume, the more you help your environment.
- antipuff
buffpuff: "Finally, since I was good enough to address your question head on. Perhaps you would do me the return favour of answering mine, which I have asked on several occasions: What is your personal definition of a bigot?"
Fair enough..
Bigot (n) 'bi-g&t: Perjorative qualifier used by those trying to camouflage the irrationality in their arguments under the umbrella of unjust persecution. Also see: Godwin's law. Also see: race card.
No joking here. You probably think my pedophilia argument was out in left field. But members of NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association) claim that society is showing bigotry by marginalizing them.
Go to slashdot.org, the term "open source bigot" or "Mac bigot" comes up about once a week.
The millions of Americans against illegal immigration? Bigots. Every last one. At least if you listen to the open borders crowd.
I have a vendor who jokingly refers to me as a "brand name bigot" because when he sends me a case of generic network cards I'll send them back and request 3Com ones at triple the price.
I just don't use the term bigot - it's been co-opted by too many fringe groups trying to equate themselves to Rosa Parks or the Holocaust victims. Where appropriate, I would say racist, or misogynist, or even jingoist. Using bigot is so sloppy it's pointless.
anon said: "In fact, if you can show me ONE instance of a person that size [800 lbs] who ever got and stayed thin (without dropping dead immediately afterwards), I will personally lick ketchup off your toes."
Sorry I haven't gotten back to you. I was trying to respond to the intelligent posts first, and by that criterion, you were pretty low on the list.
http://www.answers.com/topic/rosalie-bradford
and also
http://www.rosaliebradford.com/
Yes, she lost a total of 799 lbs. Currently holds the Guinness record for most weight lost by a human being. Hasn't dropped dead yet as far as I know. From a mirror.co.uk article:
"And I lost weight the old-fashioned way - with diet and exercise." - Rosalie Bradford
So you want me to buy Heinz or will a generic do?
- antipuff
"If anyone ever needs any proof of how out of touch with reality SA is, you, dear writer, are a shining example.."
Well, I think most people (before their brains are forever clouded with delusional SA brainwashing tactics, of course) realize that one person usually doesn't represent an entire movement. I'm just one lone smoking confused whacko who subscribes to a lot of what SA believes because it helped me overcome a good deal of the self-hatred that is on this blog. Doesn't mean the entire movement is out of touch.
"Buffpuff mentioned that this is a "fat ambivalent" blog, I'm here to debate the side that fat is wasteful, unhealthy, and completely avoidable.You want to talk about self-hatred? How about taking 2 minutes and reading the "Marble and Watermelon" posting on this blog?"
Aha. Thank you for clarifying.
I did read the "Marble and Watermelon" posting, and many, many other postings on this blog. Indeed, the self-hatred is striking and horrible.
Now, your argument is that they only way the two bloggers will ever get rid of that self-hatred is if they lose weight and reach some "acceptable" weight. Or, at least, weight loss is the main method they should employ to feel some degree of relief from the heat of their own scorn.
Correct? Or am I few ants short of a picnic again?
I think that line of thought is extremely harmful to esteem. I don't doubt that the two bloggers are physically capable of losing weight.
However...with that much self-hatred, you know what can happen to someone if h/she does buy into the notion that h/she is a fat waste who doesn't deserve a darn thing until h/she weighs X pounds?
She'll lose weight. People will compliment her, people will notice her, people will talk differently to her, friends will act differently...it's all very heady and thrilling.
At first.
Then, a tiny little discomfort. A few disturbing questions like, "Wait. I'm the same person I was before...why have my relationships changed? Why do I feel more insecure instead of happy? What happens if I gain weight? Am I really skinny enough? Am I really good enough? Really?"
And the cacaphony in her head gets awfully loud and now all that fear, self-loathing, insecurity, etc. are now...well, about 800 pounds heavier than they used to be.
On the other hand, if she had developed a strong sense of self and a more stable belief that her body was her business and her size is her business and that, even if people treat her like a second-class citizen because of her weight, it doesn't mean she *is* one or has to treat herself like one...
Well, she would have realized that changing size was *her* decision...not something that she *had* to do in order to be at peace with herself.
I don't argue that it's physically impossible for people to lose weight. I do argue that weight loss is not a magic elixir for someone who feels horribly about herself, and certainly not a solution to be pursued at any cost.
Now, when it comes to the "health vs. asthetic" argument, you always insist that we talk about Mr. 800. Let me get this straight:
Your hypothesis: There is a maximum weight at which point health is indisputably in crisis and lowering weight is the only resolution to the crisis.
(Assumption: weight is an accurate and precise measure of health).
Your corollary: There is also, then, a minimum weight for health and weight at which health becomes at risk.
If your hypothesis proves true, then it's open season on anyone who weighs more than the established "risk" weight, right? If someone weighs more than X pounds, it is weight loss, at any cost, that should become the focus of their lives and if she does not endeavor to diet down to below X, it absolutely within reason to ridicule, hate, demonize and demoralize her as much as possible.
Because few people like to admit to hating someone based on aesthetics, people instead focus desperately on "proving" fat as an objective, scientific (because god knows science has never been subjective) "truth" that entitles the fat hater to h/her haughty and pious and hateful position.
Have you ever been fat, Anti? I know that sometimes when a person loses weight, s/he becomes positively vitriolic toward other fat people. That's why I thought you were the other poster.
If not, you do realize, don't you, that your point of view ("diet and lose weight, ya dumb fatties") is *readily* available for the bloggers? There's no shortage of people telling them that their self-hatred is justified because of their weight. So do you want to be the "voice of reason" that tries to prove that justification beyond all doubt?
Crikey, but this pipe I'm smoking makes me awfully yakkity and I hear alien voices (or is that Jesus?) in my toaster, so I'd better go see what's going on.
Antipuff, thank you for answering my question. Though in point of fact, you gave me the dictionary definition rather than your own. Still, it’ll suffice.
In my view, paedophilia is quite irrelevant to this discussion – though your reintroducing the subject is typical of your penchant for using extremes as hypotheses to discredit people with differing views from yours. Neither the 800lb man nor the 799lb weight loss, while more relevant to the discussion, are common occurrences, nor, as far as I know, reflective of the personal experience of anyone posting on this thread. I'd rather you address any points I make to you directly, without resorting to diversionary tactics.
However, since you mention it...
Having sex with children is immoral and against the law. Being fat is neither. Of course both paedophilia and fat are reviled by society – though I'd suggest the former are reviled with more vehemence and in significantly greater numbers. By invoking the self-perceived plight of a bunch of social deviants are you trying to draw some kind of grossly offensive parallel? Are you implying that the grievances of fat people regarding the discrimination they face are equally pitiful and self-deluding as NAMBLA’s?
You're not here because you care or because you want to present a reasoned debate about health. If you were, you'd be supportive of HAES, (and don't start. Along with NAAFA, we don't have that movement - oops, sorry, "self delusional farce" – in England yet either). You're here with the intention of calling into question the intelligence, achievements, willpower, morality and ability to tell the truth of a diverse group of individuals - based solely on their physical appearance. I'd suggest you are a bigot by anybody's definition.
Or sizist. Which ever you prefer.
Oops! Before Antipuff starts criticising my spurious writing skills again; a corrective. That should have read "the former is reviled with more vehemence and in significantly greater numbers".
I thank you.
logic challenged anon: "Your hypothesis: There is a maximum weight at which point health is indisputably in crisis and lowering weight is the only resolution to the crisis.
(Assumption: weight is an accurate and precise measure of health).
Your corollary: There is also, then, a minimum weight for health and weight at which health becomes at risk."
Hypothesis matches what I am saying. The assumption is unnecessary for the hypothesis and something I never claimed. Just because I claim that weight correlates to health above a certain point doesn't mean it automatically correlates for the general case.
Corollary is fairly trivial. It is not possible to weigh 1 lb and be a healthy adult. Therefore for any given person, there is some number x such that x > 1 and going below x is unhealthy. I'm certainly not pro-anorexic, just pro-normal size.
Bear in mind too that I'm claiming that at some point for that particular individual, increasing weight becomes inextricably linked to worsening health.
I don't see the jump from there to "open season". There are many other behaviors people indulge in that damage their health. You probably accept that smoking is bad, do you automatically accept that it is within reason to ridicule, hate, demonize and demoralize smokers? Same thing with fat.
Also, I've never been fat by common standards. I was about 20lbs overweight at my heaviest but I don't think that's enough to qualify.
- antipuff
You probably accept that smoking is bad, do you automatically accept that it is within reason to ridicule, hate, demonize and demoralize smokers?
Ah, smokers. the lepers of society. The latest hapless victims of the UK Nanny State. Amazing how many doctors smoke too...
I know your question wasn't aimed at me, an avowed non-smoker, but, considering the habit killed both my father and his, I think I qualify to throw in my 10 cents worth here.
In a word: NO.
Voice concern for a loved one's health if they're hacking up tar from their boots maybe. Encourage a friend who says they would like to kick the habit. Ban smoking in enclosed public spaces where it's likely to cause health problems for others. Tell someone you find smoke highly unpleasant and you'd rather they didn't do it in your living room while they're visiting even, if that happens to be the case. (Or just open a window, run the ioniser and enjoy the visit. That usually works for me, though in truth the few smokers I know tend to pop out into the garden for a fag. I'm presuming you're cosmopolitan enough to know that's the late Queen Mother's slang for a ciggie, Antipuff).
Otherwise just leave them to it. It's their lungs, their money and their business. Yep, my NHS contributions might well go towards paying for their emphysema treatment but, equally, I might have to subsidise someone who comes a cropper climbing up Ben Nevis and breaks half the bones in their admirably athletic body.
buffpuff: That's exactly the point I was trying to make. You think smoking is unhealthy, but you don't go around tarring and feathering smokers. I think fat is unhealthy, but I don't go around trying to run fat people over with my car. If anything, I try to convince them not to be fat, in the same way you would convince smokers to give up the habit. You want to talk about apples and oranges, how much money is spent treating smoking related disease versus mountain climbing accidents?
I didn't have time to address the matter of extremes in my last post. You still haven't answered whether you think health is possible at every size. The 600 and 700 lb bedridden people are the ones that SA folks wish were invisible: HAES proponents face an impossible task in trying to convince the public that someone that heavy can be healthy. I notice you don't call the movement "Health at a reasonable size", it's always every. Even Paul Campos, who I am sure you know about, has argued that the SA movement is shooting itself in the foot by aligning itself with 350 and 400 lb individuals rather than those who are 50 lbs overweight.
Yes, I know that statistically there are very few people that heavy. But they expose a gaping hole in your philosophy. Either you have to admit that at a certain level, fat is unhealthy, or you have to strike that word "every".
And finally, if you don't want to argue, why are you here? Go to the cloistered forums of NAAFA or Big Fat Blog, they don't allow anyone to post who disagrees with them, which should make life a lot easier for you..
Anti, has anyone said that an 800lb person is as healthy as a slim person who exercises and eats healthily? I think not. That 600 plus of extra weight causes physical limitations, and isn't very good to the skeleton.
You didn’t read that 900 club website very well did you? Or did you miss Rosalie Bradford in there? I understood the Health at every size movement to be encouraging people of every size to move towards a healthier lifestyle, and all though I don’t know the full details of how Rosalie lost all that weight (how long she took, whether the surgery she had was to remove fat as well as skin, whether she put herself on a sensible healthy diet), it seems that once she got the support and encouragement of someone believing she was worth the effort to encourage, she began making an attempt to fit exercise in her day. Her first exercise was to clap along to an exercise video, and she increased it as and when she was able.
What got Rosalie motivated? – Someone believing in her and encouraging her. Which is exactly what I understand the Heath at Every Size movement is about.
Anti you don’t much care about fat people do you? That’s not why you’re here.
I believed that, argumentative as you were, you had put thought into the arguments that you were putting forward, which is why I chose to engage with them. Then when an Anon asked: "Why are you so obsessed with what a bunch of strangers choose to do with their bodies?" You replied in part “when people are shoving "big-arsed, chocolate coated, fuck-off icecream on a stick" into their faces while food pantries are running low, that's just plain out annoying..”
It took some doing to find out exactly what you meant by this, and it turns out that you are very anti the meat and dairy industry and what you are really concerned about is “minimizing your ecological footprint”.
Is that why you are on this site? To promote veganism? You already said somewhere that you have rarely seen a fat vegan, so I suppose you thought fat people would be more likely to think about veganism if it was sold to them as a way to loose weight.
Isn’t there a pro-vegan site somewhere that may get anti-vegan posts that you can attack?
ShortDave,
I live on an island, in a rough sea. And I used to row, competitively. I was in a coxed 4 girl crew rowing a fixed seater. We rowed in races from bay to bay, from our island to France, and from a neighbouring island to our own. That last was the hardest, 19 miles against a strong current. We rowed 3 or 4 times a week in the season, and trained in the gym all winter, and kept up the training once or twice a week in the season. I have a box full of tropies I could show you. Yes, it was great, although the best thing about it was the tang of the salt spray, the thrill of winning, spending time with people I cared for, and the spectacular views of the island I love.
Then I got ill. I had a mystery illness, that affected my balance, and made me as sick as a parrot on the sea. I was exhausted. I tried to keep up the rowing - I didn't want to let down the crew, but we were not doing well in races, and I had to leave. It took me two years to recover from that illness, and I never stopped missing the rowing. When I felt some energy returning, I would go out for a run, to try to build my energy up. And then I would get worse. By the time I was feeling pretty much recovered, I was married. I soon got pregnant, and had two kids quite close. Pregnancy left me with some back damage.
I can walk the dog, I can do yoga, but anything high impact is out. I can even go to the gym, if I choose my exercise machine carefully. But the gym was always the means to an end, to rowing better, to winning. I find the gym a sad and miserable place to go for exercise. I'd rather be out in the wind, in the rain, keeping up with the dog. The dog is a Flat Coated Retriever by the way. The breed need 1 to 2 hours of walking a day. It's not like I walk to the end of the street and back.
Anyway, best take him out, on this lovely windy, wet day.
jsygurl: "Anti, has anyone said that an 800lb person is as healthy as a slim person who exercises and eats healthily? I think not. That 600 plus of extra weight causes physical limitations, and isn't very good to the skeleton."
Ok, so you agree with me that 800lbs is definitely unhealthy.
So how about 700lbs? Or 600? Or even 350?
I'll just throw out a really old joke to underscore my point:
This man walks up to a really pretty woman and asks her "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"
She thinks it over, and is torn, but finally agrees.
Then he asks "So would you do it for fifty dollars?"
She is indignant and screams "What kind of woman do you take me for?!"
He looks at her calmly and replies "I think we already established that ma'am; now we're just haggling over the price."
As I said earlier, as soon as you admit that being 800 lbs is definitely unhealthy, you are conceding that at some level, fat is unhealthy. So your arguments all pertain to people who are fat, but not "too fat". Let's talk about how much fat is "too fat" then..
- antipuff
Re Rosalie Bradford:
I decided to RTFP (Read the Fine Print) regarding this shining example of Better Living Through Extreme Weight Loss.
And guess what? After having surgery to remove all the excess skin that didn't just go away all by itself, she developed a problem with her lymphatic system that essentially rendered her immobile all over again.
But hey, at least she "looks nicer" when holed up in bed or scrunched up in a wheelchair, and that's what counts, right?
P.S. Health At Every Size refers to the emphasis being put on the first word rather than the last. It does NOT assume that every fat person is healthy or fully mobile. However, it does state that there is no magic scale number at which a person becomes "healthy" or "mobile" or not.
And it's rather amazing how low people think that number actually is. Marilyn Wann reported a couple of years ago that a film producer approached her about playing the role of a woman "bedridden by her great weight" of 200 pounds! Incidentally, Marilyn weighs 270 and has no health or mobility problems at all.
anon said: "But hey, at least she "looks nicer" when holed up in bed or scrunched up in a wheelchair, and that's what counts, right?"
Whoa there.. I thought happiness and self-acceptance were the goals of size acceptance. Apparently Rosalie is happy enough with her weight loss that she's created a web site chronicling it, compared to attempting suicide when she was fat, so why all the bitterness?
(Closing eyes tightly) I'm thinking of a phrase that begins with "sour" and rhymes with "grapes".. see if you can guess it..
Oh, and if you would read the BIG print on her web page it says: "the surgeon accidentally severed the majority of the lymphatic system in her legs." I think the word "accidentally" might be your first clue that maybe this wasn't a result of her weight loss.
- antipuff
PS: Are you the one scheduled to lick ketchup off my feet? Because you still haven't told me what brand you like..
**sigh** Yes, I'm the ketchup girl. Fine, fine, you got me. I really want to trade places with Rosalie. She weighs 200 pounds, I weigh 200 pounds. She's in a wheelchair, I'm not. I can see why you'd think I'd envy her so much. :-P
Tell me, though, what do you want? Do you really want to plan my entire life for me? Do you want to make a diet and exercise program for me and check in with you every day until I'm the weight you think I should be? Would that really ring your chimes?
If so, why? I mean, I'm not running around telling you you should eat a buffalo burger and take a three-hour nap, am I? (Although I do suspect it would do wonders for your disposition, especially the nap part.) How much control over my life would be enough for you?
You're vegan, right? So does that mean I don't get to watch baseball because the ball is made of leather? Can I keep my Birkenstocks? Do I have to feed my cats crunchies made out of tofu or make them go out and catch their own meat? Do I have to throw out my fish oil supplements? How about my freshwater pearls?
Golly gee. I can't wait to be under your house arrest!
anon said: "Tell me, though, what do you want? Do you really want to plan my entire life for me? "
No, I just want to you to take responsibility for your own destiny and realize that you can be as fat or thin as you choose to be.
As soon as you acknowledge that the weight of your body is something you alone control, you have no need for SA or HAES or WeightWatchers.
What annoys me is the "God made me a fat victim" mentality. It might surprise you to know that I actually have close friends who are fat (and I mean 200lbs and more overweight, not just a little plump). They realize that they are fat because they choose to be. They don't whine incessantly that even if they only ate a slice of rye bread a day and exercised 4 hours, they would still be fat..
- antipuff
PS: Over in my neck of the woods, 200lbs is "slightly overweight" unless you are under 5 feet tall.. lol..
I think fat is unhealthy, but I don't go around trying to run fat people over with my car. If anything, I try to convince them not to be fat, in the same way you would convince smokers to give up the habit
Antipuff, there is nothing remotely caring, supportive or concerned about your posts. I imagine the only thing that actually stops you from trying to run fat folk down with your car is because you're worried one of us might leave a dent in it.
As I told you, HAES is not something I have had any personal exposure to or involvement in. So kindly let it drop or slug it out with somebody who has. Let's get back to our own discussion, shall we?
Can you actually refute that you've called into question the intelligence, achievements, willpower, morality and ability to tell the truth of a diverse group of individuals based solely on their physical appearance?
Thus far, you've accused me – either directly or indirectly – of being: a liar, lazy, illogical, "mindbogglingly delusional", lacking in discipline and motivation, championing failure and spouting bullshit. On the way you've also drawn analogies, (or supported those drawn by others), between fat people and junkies, paedophiles, alcoholics, people who stink or have rotting teeth and gums. What would you call somebody who did that?
You say you admire the authors of this blog for their brutal honesty, for which read self-hatred, self-mockery and self-denigration.Yet they personify the fat victim mentality you find so irritating. Meanwhile, those of us who refuse to take your shit are tarred with the same brush. Make up your tiny mind, won't you?
Anti, you said: "As I said earlier, as soon as you admit that being 800 lbs is definitely unhealthy, you are conceding that at some level, fat is unhealthy. So your arguments all pertain to people who are fat, but not "too fat". Let's talk about how much fat is "too fat" then.."
Huh? All this effort and argument are to persuade us that there is some magic weight over which everyone can be labelled "unhealthy" and under which everyone can be labelled "healthy"? Welcome to the BMI charts mate, that is exactly what they promulgate. But loads of people whose BMI is in the "bloody hell, you're perfect" category are not healthy whether that's because they smoke, drink, eat unhealthily, live unhealthily, or don't exercise.
The only time in my life I have been slim was at age 16 after a parentally imposed diet. I looked great - but my periods had ceased, indicating that my body had decided I was too underweight to menstruate. My periods only began again once I gained some weight, causing me to be a failure in the eyes of all those people who had heavily pressured me into the diet. When I was slim, my BMI rating was probably bloody fantastic, yet, I was not healthy.
So, is this all this has been about for you? Labelling people?
I will tell you what it is about for me. It is about getting fat people accepted into society, so that they can practice heathful behavious without ridicule. It is about destroying this notion that a fat person on a weight reducing diet is practicing good health, and a fat person off a diet is not, as it leads to people only trying to care for their health whilst they are on a diet, and being negligent towards their health when they come off it.
I want the medically known dangers of dieting to be looked into and properly quantified, rather than for the rather wishy washy advice now, that the safest way to diet is to do it once, keep the weight off, and not have to do it again, because that is not what happens when most people actually diet. Most people regain, and repeat, and we need to know how this affects health.
I want it to be studied whether dieting actually does give a fat person the health advantages of a thinner person, or if that is so much mumbo jumbo. No-one knows at the moment. I want it to be found out if there is any way of reducing the increased mortality rate that dieting causes. In fact, I have a very personal interest in that knowledge being discovered, given the many and various diets I have been on.
Since dieting itself is not very successful at getting people to permanently reduce weight, other methods have to be investigated. Gaining fat is a symptom of an underlying condition. The underlying condition may simply be having the wrong lifestyle through college, and easily dealt with after leaving college. But the underlying condition may be depression, long known to cause comfort eating, and that needs to be addressed. It is no good treating the symptom (weight gain) and leavng the condition untreated, and expecting the weight to remain off, and actually, given what we know about the increased mortality of people who have dieted, it is criminal to be so negligent with someones health. Cheap though. Much easier for a doctor to say to his patient - you are too fat, I recommend that you diet - than for him to say, I notice you are gaining weight, we need to evaluate your health - and start what may be a costly and lengthy proceedure.
Above all, I want this prevalent idea that a fat person is someone lesser, and other, than thinner people in society to end. Fat people are just people who are fat.
Some people on this blog think they know all about fat people. You've seen people on this blog assume that I sit around on my fat bum eating chocolate and watching tv. People turning into dieting experts and giving lists of what I should eat, with no knowledge whatsoever of my dieting or health history, no attempt to offer support, or follow up.
I want to change all that.
It's to big for me to change it all, by myself, but I may change someones mind. That perosn may change someone elses. As Hawkeye said on M.A.S.H. - I may not be able to chage the world, but I can sure try to change my little corner of it.
buffpuff said: "Can you actually refute that you've called into question the intelligence, achievements, willpower, morality and ability to tell the truth of a diverse group of individuals based solely on their physical appearance?
Thus far, you've accused me – either directly or indirectly – of being: a liar, lazy, illogical, "mindbogglingly delusional", lacking in discipline and motivation, championing failure and spouting bullshit."
Ok, let me spell this out in excruciatingly simplified terms: no, I am not calling you all those things because you are fat. I am calling you all those things because you are stupid.
There are lots of smart fat people. You, unfortunately, are not one of them. I have friends who are smokers, just none who believe that additives in the cigarettes are what make them unhealthy. Yes, I will cheerfully admit that I discriminate against dumbasses. (I guess I am stupidist?)
- antipuff
"Logically-impaired anon" here.
Goodness, o' empathy-challenged one, not ten posts or so back you touted BuffPuff as the lone intelligent poster. You said you responded to her specifically because of her intelligence and now you're calling her a dumbarse?
Split personality much? Or is stupidity your insult of last resort when all of your inner hatred is spelled out in black and white?
So, now that you've decided BuffPuff, too, is stupid, let's see what your main arguments are again:
1. Logical and scientifically proven X weight that determines healthy vs. unhealthy.
2. "Victim" mentality: "god made me fat so I can't help it."
To point one: As Jsygurl said so well, the X is already in play in the form of BMI charts. However, it really does very little to determine health except in your favorite extreme cases. For those of us in the middle, things get a lot more...well, complex from a health perspective.
To point two: When you hear people "whining" about how they can't lose weight, I'd purport that what they're saying is, "Dieting down to a socially acceptable size 4 is unrealistic for me. Why am I subjected to so much prejudice and hatred just because I choose not to do so?"
I realize "victim mentality" is reviled state, but you know, calling people out on their abusive and patronizing behavior is hardly being a victim.
*Waves at BuffPuff*
Hi, BuffPuff! So, you're "mindbogglingly delusional," too? Nice to meet you. I'm dense, logically-impaired and nutso!
*Supersized thumbs up to JsyGurl*
logic challenged anon: My last post is a complete surprise to me too, especially since I didn't make it.. whoever made it apparently didn't read very far up the thread..
Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but you'll have to come up with your own pithy handle. I have a feeling that this is just someone looking to degenerate the thread into an all out flame war.
Will reply properly from my other computer where I can sign things.
- (the real) antipuff
Hi, BuffPuff! So, you're "mindbogglingly delusional," too? Nice to meet you. I'm dense, logically-impaired and nutso!
Hey, Anonymous! What say you we get those orderlies to loosen up our straightjackets for a spell while we wait on Antipuff to outdo his imposter?
*wriggles loose from straighjacket*
Ah, much better! Good suggestion.
And remember, if you have a choice between taking a red pill or a blue pill, take the red pill. Unless you haven't seen "the Matrix," in which case, take any color that suits you! :)
Do we get to skip occupational therapy if Anti returns to remedy our delusions via logic puzzles?
Aww, I hope not, 'cos I kinda like the basket-weaving...
Hey, there appears to be tumbleweed blowing through the ol' corral. Anyone care to write some more food porn?
Best I can do in the fifteen minutes I have here at work...
(Plus, the red pill hasn't fully taken effect).
The Plucking of the Edible Flower
Once, there lived a dark purple violet. In the mornings, her petals went soft with silvery dew. In the afternoons, she spread lush and full under the heat of the sun. By night, she curled into herself ever so slightly, to hold in her delicate and pristine flavor.
One day, a man clambered up the mountainside and found her there. He knew he had to have her---her coloring of the palest and fair lavender, her petals bursting with bloom, her center threads just ripe, and yet untouched.
He knelt down beside her and, caressing her in her fingers, carefully pulled her free of the Earth. Naked and exposed in his palm, she trembled as she felt his blood, his need pulse through her very roots. What would he do with her?
He brought her back to his bakery, where she saw a towering, glistening chocolate cake, already scalloped with white icing. Then she saw a bowl of whipped egg whites and a bowl of sparkling sugar next to it and, before she could protest, the baker had lowered her in into the eggwhites. Their warm wetness thrilled her, made her open her petals as hard as she could. His fingers turned her over and over, soaking her completely.
Then, the bowl of sugar…the white crystals sweetened her dampened flesh. When she was so covered in sugar she sparkled, he picked her up and perched her on top of the cake. She sank into the supple whip of dense chocolate. Sugar and cocoa perfumed the air. His fingers spread her folds open further, so she lay there, open and sweet….waiting, waiting….
Anyone else? Bonus points if you make Anti throw up a little in his mouth (just mention hot relish topping smeared mercilessly on top of a gooey S'More or some such...).
It is funny, I can easily live with someone not being attracted to me. It is hardly the end of the world.
But I hate the idea that a guy would feign attraction to get a blow job, and then dump me. That is an awful thing to do.
--I certainly thought one post was interesting. Do you think the social stigma of being fat for a girl is the same as having a small penis for a boy?
Hard to answer that one Haystacks, unles you can find a person who was once a man with a small penis, but who became a fat girl!
Is this site becoming bizarre, or did I take the wrong pill? I mean, who would feel the need to pretend to be Anti, when they can post comments as Anon?
"--I certainly thought one post was interesting. Do you think the social stigma of being fat for a girl is the same as having a small penis for a boy?"
Yes, I am a male. And yes. the only difference is that you cannot see our penis when we are walking down the street :)
Honey, as long as I can see it when you take your clothes off, you've got nothing to worry about.
I'm a guy and it amazes me how other guys think on this issue. All the skinny girls I've known or had a relationship have been annoying and self-centered in the end. The few chubby girls I've been with were wonderful women. What attracted me most was their bubly laughter, honest smile and heart.
Never mind the misguided men, big girls rule! Don't make a single date your goal. Looks for someone who wants you and is into it for the long haul. A guy wants sex from you on your first or second date doesn't give a damn about you. He just wants to get off. That goes for any woman, big or small.
weyedvbeAnonymous Guy above,
You are a giant among pygmies, a prince among men; and most wise.
Consider yourself virtually hugged.
Most of the negative comments were just amusing -- particularly the spelling/grammar mistakes.
I’m a confident fat woman in a loving relationship with a stereotypically attractive man (tall, handsome, strong). All of the responses that claim that all men need to be with a “hot” girl to satisfy their need to impress their friends were clearly written by insecure men. Reminds me of straight men who won’t be friends with or associate with gay men for fear of being perceived as gay themselves. Perhaps if they spent less time concerned about what others think of them, they might actually choose to lead a life worth living.
I am bothered by the stereotypes about fat people being lazy, messy, smelly (where did that even come from???), and over-eaters.
Truly, the assumption that a fat person eats more than an average person really disgusts me the most. Perhaps there are some people out there (a small minority) who have issues with healthy eating habits, but most of the fat women I know eat normal portions. For me, personally, I eat the same portions as my slender friends and I eat less than my “fit” partner. In fact, compared to some of my svelte friends, I make healthier choices (more veggies, less sweets and salt – mostly because I hate the taste of salt, but I digress).
"So, if she's really fat, she doesn't care about her health or appearance, or pleasing her boyfriend. She stuffs her mouth to satisfy some neurotic desire other than normal hunger for food and nutrition. So. it goes to issues of character too -- the fat girl has a character defect."
Fat doesn’t mean unhealthy or “neurotic” over-eater. And it certainly isn’t a “character flaw.”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000E5065-2345-128A-9E1583414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2
In response to Kiss My Formerly Fat Ass:
You know, I always thought that it was impossible to tell how much someone ate based on what they weigh. I really did. But KMFFA's posts got me thinking. So I did some long & hard research. And I discovered that I could ACTUALLY TELL what KMFFA eats JUST FROM HER POSTS!!!! It's amazing!!!
Know what she eats?
Cock.
LOLZ!!
To the Biker/Thermodynamics guy:
You're a piece of shit.
Why are you a bigot? Nobody knows. But you are. And it's kind of amusing.
Also, you eat
COCK!
w00t
Wow, this was a great thread. It had everything! Drama, passion, suspense, bad grammar, good and evil...it had me on the edge of my seat. Thanks to you all, I had a smoking good time reading it.
But one more comment.
BuffPuff: You are a goddess.
Antipuff: You eat cock.
Thank you, and goodnight.
This made me laugh. A lot. Yeah, I'm fat, I'm messy, I'm kinda slow, I suppose I would be attacked easier. I have a friend who is just like me, only she is 100 lbs! And guess who has the husband who adores her more than anything in the world and would die for her in a heart beat??? Me. Men can be really stupid sometimes, but at least I'm proof that there are men out there who actually care about the person, and not the rolls. Don't take the opinions of a few thickheaded males too seriously, apparently the shallow end of the gene pool answered this ad.
To Formerly Fatass,
Those of us with a terminal illness don't need you to garner sympathy for us while using us to belittle obese people by pointing out how their lives should be so much better than those of us on our way out.
I find your lack of understanding about what alot of people, who are terminally ill, really think about life while they are facing their own deaths and your lack here is just as great as your lack of understanding about all people.
Just because you felt you didn't deserve respect as a mere human being all because of your being fat at one time doesn't mean that no one else deserves repect and your ideas that just because a person is dying deserves more respect or understanding than a fat person is equally disturbing.
Life is what deserves respect and those in possession of it for however long we may have it, yours, or anyone else's for that matter, ignorance and prejudice and belief that a fat person doesn't deserve the same respect or compassion as a dying person just doesn't come any more ignorant and this terminally ill person doesn't need ignorance to denfend us and neither do fat people.
The majority of the comments from those guys above are perfectly fine, balanced, and natural ways of thinking.
Personally, I wouldn't date a huge girl. I would date a chunky girl. There are many reasons. Health, hygiene, long term stability and sexual performance are high on my background factors for chosing a woman. Put simply, there's more chance that a fat girl would cause you pain in the future ... either through losing her young to cancer/heart failure, having a poor sex life, uncleanliness etc ....
The reason why most athletes are good looking, is because their ancestors had the "pick" of the gene pool. Strong bred with strong. Health bred with health.
Anyway, it's already been proven that men are naturally attracted to women who have a certain hip to waist ratio anyway. It's an inbuilt quality/selection control. Just like people examine, and pick out the best fruit from a shop counter. You are never going to know what each fruit tastes like inside, so you make a judgement depending on it's size, shape, look, and health. If a fruit is bruised, you won't buy it ... that is the EXACT same principle that is used throughout life. No use bitching about it, it's the way of life !!!
Anyway, the same is true of women. You naturally gravitate towards a man that would make a strong, adaptable, provider. Hence the reason why drug addicts, unintelligent men, and mentally instable men are not high on your list of turn ons.
It's an old phrase I know, but a very true one ... "Survival of the fittest."
Societies will always have a hierarchy, and the alpha males, and alpha females will always get the first share. Then the next prettiest, or successful, or adaptable people will get the next share ... and so on ... and so on.
Those who are last in the game of life should either work harder to become more a attractive prospect, or accept what people will think of them, or finally, totally reject what people think of them. That final choice won't change how they are perceived, or remove the problems that they have, it will just make them feel better in some way. The preffered option is always choice number 1 though.
One final thought. Success is created by failing, changing something, and trying again. In other words constant change and improvement.
Those that truly succeed in life, have just failed more times than most.
You can only ever truly fail if you stop making changes, and trying to improve.
Love and Peace.
Mart
Well said, I 100% agree.
Er - guys - hate to break it to y'all but the party's kinda over? Like everyone's gone home now; the beer's all flat and there's nobody left to care what you think. Try another thread or, better still, another blog.
I was fat when I met my husband. I didn't really think that much about it. This is me: I'm smart, beautiful, sexy and sensual, I have a wide variety of interests (most of which we share), and I'm a very interesting, kind person. That's what I thought about -- the person I was putting out there. NOt, oh, yeh, by the way, I'm fat. *THIS* is me. And I met this wonderful man, who saw ME. Every day, he sees ME. He doesn't see a size, he doesn't see a number on a scale....he sees the woman he adores; the mother of his children, his partner and his match.
THAT is sooooo enlightening.
These guys, most of them....disgust me. They must be pigs whose mothers just didn't hug them enough.
Gurlfriend, there are men out there worthy of your time and attention. Then there are those who are not. Choose the ones who are worth your time and attention.
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