Why is this hard?

Fat girls have it much worse then males do usually. Not to say it's excusable to decide stay obese because you don't know anything else, but in general it's much harder growing up. You can't really compare the decision not to change to what you know in this situation I think. It won’t matter if you've only known violence growing up; it's still not really an excuse to kill someone for no reason. You always have a choice and saying that you haven't known anything else means that you've never seen or met anyone that's not also obese.

Not meant to be mean and I don't think that made any sense to anyone but me, sorry! :)
 
Ignorance was not something I intended to show off in that post. There is a difference between accurate generalizations and opinions too by the way. I'm not saying every obese female has it worse or takes it worse I'm saying that in general because of a poorly conditioned society they have more challenges. Sadly, the female has been skewed into being whatever is on the cover of cosmo and people have stopped seeing people for their natural beauty. If I’m wrong here pose a legit argument, but a subtle insult does more than an innocent generalization in my opinion.
 
I wish I knew exactly why education doesn't seem to be enough. I think any behavior change is just a massively daunting process to look forward to and if there are other things in a person's life that demand a ton of time and attention immediately, it always seems to be our heath that gets pushed to the back burner for some reason.

For me, personally, exercise and diet are both incredibly difficult. Exercise is hard simply because I've lead a sedentiary lifestyle for so long. Food is sort of an insane topic for me because my food issues go back to childhood. Wouldn't it be great if I lived in a family where health was important!? So as an adult, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to try to change those life-long behaviors that we've become so accustomed to. And we don't always have the energy to put in.

I think sometimes we have to reach rock bottom before we really wake up and start to make changes. I wish we could have just all been taught how to be healthy from the beginning so we wouldn't have to be going through this...

So I guess basically I have no answers, I just wanted to contribute something to the conversation. :)
 
KeeseeD said:
Ignorance was not something I intended to show off in that post. There is a difference between accurate generalizations and opinions too by the way. I'm not saying every obese female has it worse or takes it worse I'm saying that in general because of a poorly conditioned society they have more challenges. Sadly, the female has been skewed into being whatever is on the cover of cosmo and people have stopped seeing people for their natural beauty. If I’m wrong here pose a legit argument, but a subtle insult does more than an innocent generalization in my opinion.
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You misunderstood me. I wasn't even refeering to that quote; I just put it there as an "inside joke" between me and Steve.

I was refeering to the post as a whole. And it wasn't meant as an insult.

I will go more into depth. Your post was a little hard to read, but I think I got most of it. Change, even subtle change, is undesirable. Most people hate change; even if its for the best.

Fat girls have it much worse then males do usually.
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I do agree with you here (even though I hate using the term fat )...(and it does explain why women are flooded on this server and so little men). Sorry about the confusion I made quoting it, just thought I'll give Steve a little bit of a hard time. Also explains why women are more prone to eating disorders then men.

Not to say it's excusable to decide stay obese because you don't know anything else, but in general it's much harder growing up.
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I am having a difficult time understanding this sentence. Most children who are obese are born in a poor life style environment. I think its accurate to say that their parents did not give them the best meal plan nor did they give them the opportunity to be as active as they should (and hence, the children tend to develop this kind of life style until adulthood). But many may try to change because of social norms (only one I can think of is being harassed by others); and many that do change may develop eating disorders (because, once again, we do not have this "education" component). Others may not be so apt to change, and may find comfort in their brownie (or X-BOX 360, etc) ,and may compensate for their internal struggling.

You can't really compare the decision not to change to what you know in this situation I think.
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I am really confused by this, but I think I get an idea. If you don't base your decision to change off your current situation, what else are you going to base it on? We encounter changes (choices) everyday in our lives, from which pair of shoes to put on, or to which route to go on, or from choosing which pill to take, the red or the blue. Many of us measure the pros and cons of these changes, based on our life style, to figure out which changes are most desirable. If you tell little Susie, who is used to playing XBox 360 every night for 2 hours, that she has to go outside and play, how do you think she would react? If you also tell Billy that, instead of getting his usual, after dinner cookie, he will be recieving carrot sticks instead, how do you think he would react?

It won’t matter if you've only known violence growing up; it's still not really an excuse to kill someone for no reason.
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I disagree with you with this. If you are born only knowing violence, how would you know anything else?

You always have a choice and saying that you haven't known anything else means that you've never seen or met anyone that's not also obese.
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You are also assuming everyone made the choice to be skinny or fat. Being obese is the only thing that person knows, and they may percieve that lifestyle as being tolerable. Simply meeting someone who is not obese doesn't give you full insight into their life style. If one life is adequate, why change it to unknown uncertainities. Losing weight will bring many changes, psychogical, sociological and physical. It will change how people see you. Your your body will change in shape and physique when you lose weight (and some may be comfortable with the way they currently look, and why change that? dropping the weight may leave them with an uncomfortable appearance). Also, you will have changes in your behaviors and daily life, from what you eat and it may even affect your relationship with your friends.

To conclude, losing weight may not bring about desirable changes. I think what best sums it up is M2M's quote in her sig,

The future is no place To put your better days
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I feel like we are taking away from this thread with our discussion but I do want to clarify what I mean. Just know that I'm not upset at anything and there are no hard feelings here. I don't really like the term "fat" either, but I wanted to relate to the person who originally posted right before me. I could have worded things differently but my main point is that after realizing that your lifestyle is poor and unhealthy the excuse that you've always eaten poorly and have not been active isn't a good enough excuse for me not to change. I'm not sure how we involved children here, but I'm assuming that the people we are talking about are adults who are consciously deciding about their physical health.

About the decision not to change what I meant is that people are where they are in life (financially, physically, etc) based on what they currently know. So you can’t (generally) assess all of your knowledge about health and wellness if you’re obese and expect to make the best decision. Of course there are unhealthy dieticians out there and crooked cops, but that’s just life.

On the violence topic, I was just trying to use an analogy but what I meant was if you grow up around lots of violence then of course all you will know is violence but when your convicted for murder it’s still not an excuse. I’m not saying that people immersed in that kind of atmosphere have a choice, but regardless it’s inexcusable.

About the last issue, it just goes back to the original poster. I should have prefaced my entire post with the fact that I have a low tolerance for people who let their fear control their actions and in almost every scenario it leads to excuses. I took that statement about not knowing anything else as an excuse not to change.

If you have questions feel free to PM me!
 
I believe I have a very good grasp of nutrition and what it takes to lose weight. My barrier is this : I love eating and snacking, and it became recreational. I would be at work thinking about all the nice things I could eat in the evening, and I would always go to bed full and pretty content. I also used food for comfort. Also, once it becomes an ingrained habit it is almost impossible to break, you get up, go to work, come home, snack. I would get anxious if there wasn't something to snack on at night.

How I have broken out of this is something I am not entirely sure of, but it seems if I can get away from sugar and snacks for about a week, I stop craving them, and I've managed it again at this time.

I believe that at a basic level, your brain wants to have you keep eating because in a natural environment, adding some extra fat is desirable. Living in a society where high calorie and very appealing snacks are always available plays against this basic urge and requires some will to avoid, and the urge for these sorts of foods vary from person to person.
 
I know people who really do love food - fattening food - and since they don't like fruit and aren't keen on most vegetables, there's not much else but meat and potato, peas and corn and steamed carrot, if they want it healthy. They feel hunger pangs if they don't eat quite a bit of food (not that I don't believe they are snacking more than they should, only that they could in no way survive on my ordinary diet without hunger pains). Not only this, but the mix of sweat rash and a love of all things sedentary, means that exercise can only ever be a chore - and sometimes a painful one at that.

I think that sorta case is true for many people - though perhaps not for most of those who are on this forum. I mean, some people hate watching sport, or reading books, or getting their fingers dirty in the garden, it's unsurprising that a lot aren't keen on exercise - especially how just getting active isn't actually enough.
 
Its all in the head steve. Everyone who is fat, obese, overweight has their own personal reasons for being that way. They may want to lose weight but something is obviously keeping them from doing so. Each person must examine themselves, find out why, change their bad habbits, and stay commited.
 
I've struggled with my weight since puberty. I "dieted" on and off for years. The reason I was unsuccessful was b/c I wasn't very educated about weight loss and nutrition. I hated exercising. I made excuses for not exercising and eating bad things.

One day I had enough. I decided that I wanted to be thin and healthy more than I wanted to eat whatever I wanted and to not exercise. To me, that is the biggest problem for most people--they'd rather take the easy road and eat what they want and not exercise, rather than do the hard work that it takes to lose the weight.
 
Hi Steve

what do you do if you feel thirsty? You drink. Some people describe the eating as always feeling hungry. Hence, they eat. They either really are hungry, because they are so overweight that they need much more to be satisfied, or they do not know what this satisfaction that most people get from eating normal amounts is. And that is not just about discipline.

Is there absolutely nothing you do that you know is not so good for you? Drink? Work too much? Buy something you can't afford? Do you never "fly off the handle"? People are not always self-controlled, and the same goes for an active and healthy lifestyle.

In psychology it can be called a self-fulfilling prophecy, or cognitive dissonance. The former: you think you're fat, therefore you eat, therefore you stay fat, the latter you do something bad and then start finding reasons why it wasn't that bad, ie "i haven't drunk in ages", "3 beers is not being an alcoholic", "I need to work because of money", "I really enjoy my work", "I needed a Plasma TV as my old one was getting too old" etc. etc.

Also, we want quick fixes, so if we're fat, and loose 10kg, nobody's gonna notice so we might as well loose it.

I know all of these aren't real explanation, just excuses, but that's how most people work. It's a lot of psychology, and if you hear often enough that you'll always be fat (and some kids have terrible parents) you'll make the "the you" in adult life.
 
Bump worthy...

I've somehow floated back into the "it's hard again" because my original goal -one that I was so focused on... I've come to realize -just isn't going ot happen -and there's no other goal right now that is getting me over the hump - yeah I'll find one again because I haven't stopped looking... and I'm sure as hell not satisfied with where I am... but this funk/slump/neurosis has been going on to long...

my original goal got me here... but I'm not sure where here is... I know where I want to get to -but the why I don't have anymore because...
 
Thanks for the bump.

I just read this entire thread again and it was enlightening. I forgot about it up until now....

Twas fun!
 
Hi,

I find it hard because of my parents. They always made me "clear my plate" growing up. If I couldn't finish my food I got the "There are children starving in Africa" speech and was made to sit until I had finished. They didn't like to waste food even if it meant eating too much. I think they got that from their own parents who lived in a time of food rationing. Anyway, even now I will always try to clear my plate, even if I feel full and have to struggle. It's just how I was raised, not to waste food.
 
Steve said:
What if you work on putting less on your plate or using smaller plates?
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I do that when I prepare my own food, but when others make the dinner it isn't so easy. For example, the other night I was told we were having pizza, so I said to just put one slice on a small plate for me. I came down to dinner and found not only that one slice but also a load of garlic bread and a huge salad with white pasta and mayo. I ate it, and felt like a stuffed pig after.

Luckily, this is only a weekend thing now. I usually make my own food during the week.
 
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