Howdy from Needlehole

Gandalfs Beard

I already lost 25lbs just by not drinking sodas all day and moderating my sweet and crisp consumption. Been eating a lot of fish, fowl, rice and pasta more too.

Perhaps we should have a clothes and beauty products thread next! Diets my arse- eat less, move about a bit more end of problem. And I hope no one is claiming to be 'big-boned'- that's only a valid excuse if your bones are made of fat!

Noom

You preach it Petty, after all no one came out an African famine overweight blaming it on being big boned.

In fairness to them Noom very few people come out of an African famine at all. And even fewer of them go on Oprah afterwards to discuss how good for their figure starvation was.

Eldorion

Some people are physiologically inclined through no fault of their own to be heavy and have a much more difficult time losing weight than others do.

Some people are physiologically inclined to want to eat cakes and not move much more like. No I will save what little sympathy I have left for those with genuine ailments!

Gandalfs Beard

Petty, you're just wrong . Some people ARE physiologically inclined to have lower metabolic rates, or hypo-thyroid disorder which makes them very likely to gain weight even with perfectly healthy eating and exercise habits. Sammo Hung, martial artist and colleague of Jackie Chan is one of those with a low metabolism. Despite his levels of exercise, he has always had a weight problem. Yes, he admits to enjoying his food, but the incredible amounts of exercise it takes to become as skilled a martial artist as him should have easily kept his weight down despite his eating habits.

Bet he eats 2 cows a day, couple of sheep and a hundred eggs. "Its my glands!" What are they hungry all the time too!

"As you know, I'm very fat and need to eat a lot."- Sammo Hung. From the fat mans mouth!

Gandalfs Beard

Yes, I said as much. But the fact is that his exercise should have been more than enough to burn off those extra calories.

Suppose that depends on how much you are eating!

Eldorion

Just a single example of medical/physiological barriers to weight loss is http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17924864:2wvjlmh0]insulin treatment for diabetes ( that is to say, a side-effect for the treatment of the disease is weight gain). You could have found that out, or found about other issues, with just a few minutes of Googling. But hey, why show sympathy to people when you can heap derision and ridicule on them instead? EDIT: And that doesn't touch on the fact that many people don't have the time or energy to excercise regularly because they have to work to support themselves and their family, and that (at least in America) unhealthy, fattening food (which is still better than starving) is far, far cheaper than healthy food.

Obviously Eldo there are a few medical conditions and the like which account for a SMALL percentage of people being overweight- the vast bulk (pun intended) however are lazy and eat junk (there might or might not be reasons of convenience, price involved in that- if that's all the food you can get then I'd suggest trying eating less of it- not that it'll help much, if your living on burgers and fries your a walking dead man anyway). Sorry but I spend my working day helping people who really, really need help and fatties ain't them.

Gandalfs Beard

You could have found that out, or found about other issues, with just a few minutes of Googling. But hey, why show sympathy to people when you can heap derision and ridicule on them instead? EDIT: And that doesn't touch on the fact that many people don't have the time or energy to excercise regularly because they have to work to support themselves and their family, and that (at least in America) unhealthy, fattening food (which is still better than starving) is far, far cheaper than healthy food Eldo is right, and Petty is wrong.

Like I said medical reasons for obesity are not the main factor- they are a small percentage of those who are overweight. A sedentary lifestyle and bad food is much more common a reason. And for THOSE people no I don't have any sympathy. They burden our health care, take resources from people who genuinely cannot help their conditions and they get in my way when I'm walking down the street and they take up a whole pavement. And no good every came of pandering to someone who needs to get off their big arse and do some exercise. You will not help them by telling them its all societies fault.

Odo Banks

I'm amazed: are we having a Big Serious Thread-like discussion on the Howdy thread!? Who would have thought it? :ugeek: I still maintain you are being over-harsh, Mr Tyrant. I wrote a story once (you may have heard of it!?) where one of the characters insists that fat people should just eat less. I think he's right - though it's an obvious point. Yes, that program works well! Adding to that, if one [i:2uadocnx]actually [/i:2uadocnx]moves, one burns up excess energy, and therefore, fat. The trouble is one has both a body and a mind. The mind is the tricky part (non-part :? ) of us. Nothing is simple when the mind is full of contradictory ideas and/or delusional and/or bad habitual thinking. Bad habitual thinking? Mental addiction? Physical addiction? Both? Anyhow, your Martial Arts expert seems to be addicted to food, GB. I'm not sure if what I say next will be all that germane to the conversation, but just this morning I got up and had my breakfast (Vita-bix and rice milk) and while I was standing by the kettle I went to put it on. It was like the kettle was The One Ring luring me into making a cup of coffee (just one)! I resisted, but how long will I be able to? Coffee is nice. (The Power to Rule the World sounds nice too - so long as you use the Power for Good, of course! ) All addictions are hard to beat. Delusions are hard to un-deluse. Contradictory ideas are hard to contradict. Humans and hobbits are weird. But we share our weirdness. Your simplistic put-downs go no way to addressing the problem Mr Tyrant - even if you're right about the causes of fatness!!! (You know, I've just realized I've got an addiction to exclamation marks in my posts! )

Perhaps you are right Odo. Maybe my job working with people with real and demanding needs makes me overly harsh to those who self inflict ailments on themselves at the cost of treatment for the genuinely needy. Who am I to judge?! But really being overweight (unless its purely medical) is something for the individual to overcome- not something that should be draining resources, as it does, from those with needs which are not of their own making. I'd much rather in my work help those who need it and not push around some fat folk who could cure themselves with a bit of mental and physical effort. Fat is not an illness. Its fat. Believe me the one place you will find the least sympathy for the obese is in the caring professions- we know a chancer when we see one waddling towards us demanding free pies! Mind I think I preferred it when I just came here to drink Duckie- now that is a self inflicted illness but so much fun!

Switch to tea Odo- lots of anti-oxidants.

Odo Banks

But what about the caffeine in tea? Actually, there will come a day that I'll go back to my sugar and caffeine and milk products. My goal is to stay disciplined until I'm down to a good fighting weight. By then, I hope I'll have better habits and eat properly, not through habit or boredom - and not to silly excess. Luckilly, I'm not that fat to begin with. I'm not finding losing a few kilos difficult at all, whether physically or mentally. As to Fat Folk demanding Tax Payer Pies as their Cure -- doesn't that just exhibit my general point that the Mind is often out of whack in humans (and some hobbits)? :ugeek:

Eldorion

How could you possibly know the reasons different people lead sedentary lifestyles or eat unhealthy food? Some people probably just don't care, but it seems to me (and perhaps this is my own bias in understanding) that you're painting all overweight people with the same brush, which seems unfair to me. I'm also unconvinced that medical reasons are a cause in a minority of cases.

Eldorion

I must confess that I found myself thinking I was in the Big Bad Serious thread when writing an earlier post. 8-)

Odo Banks

Let's hope seriousness on the Howdy thread does not become an addiction! I agree with you Mr Tyrant is being a little stridently (unfairly?) on this subject, though crabbitiness is his mojo, so we should expect nmothing else.I take solace in the knowledge that he seems to be taking a slightly softer approach as the discussion proceeds - he even suggested I take tea - that irascible duckie scoffer! Tea!

"How could you possibly know the reasons different people lead sedentary lifestyles or eat unhealthy food?" -Eldo I don't. People do though, why they don't want to get off their backsides and go do something I've no idea, but people are more obese now than ever. And yes I am generalizing, when talking about such a large number of fatties you have to. I wasn't planning to invite them all over individually to ask (apart from anything else can you imagine the biscuit bill ) History does not seem to record the sort of obesity levels we currently see and the main factors in modern life compared to the past is an abundance of not very healthy foodstuffs and people sitting in cars/buses to go anywhere and then sitting in offices/colleges etc when they arrive. So I do think obesity is a by-product of modern life and is therefore very unlikely to be largely for medical reasons Eldo. There are medical reasons, particularly if you suffer from some forms of diabetes as you pointed out or simply have problems with mobility which can be due to all sorts of reasons including just age, but that's not who I am talking about. I'm talking about the sort of people who started me off on this rant n the first place- those in shopping queues the western world over complaining about their weight whilst buying junk food- and as I said before I have no sympathy left over for them. But medical reasons do make a handy excuse if you are overweight and simply are too lazy to do something about it. Scotland is now one of the most obese countries in Europe, there are definitely many more fat people (particularly under 30) than then there was when I was in my teens and twenties- we had a fat kid in class- now fat kids are the norm in class. I don't for one minute believe some unknown fatty disease has suddenly sprung up in the younger population Eldo- the majority are just lazy and eat the wrong stuff. Tea Odo is the drink of the Gods and a perfect cure to an evening of Duckie quaffing. (traditionally the Scottish remedy is Irn Bru- Scotland's other national drink. But I can't in all sincerity recommend it to someone watching their weight as its largely made of sugar and glucose).

Eldorion

You act like the two are mutually exclusive. Did it occur to you that perhaps these qualities of modern life simply trigger medical issues that wasn't an issue in past times when people had much less food and it was worse? [quote:3d6enrb4]But medical reasons do make a handy excuse if you are overweight and simply are too lazy to do something about it.[/quote:3d6enrb4] I'm sure some people use it as an excuse not to do anything, but there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That depends if its a fat baby or not.