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You gotta love how despite all the people saying, "cut the counting calories talk, there are other designated places for that" people insisted on putting their two cents in because their argument is somehow special and will totally end the discussion  Might as well chip in my fat story. I got fat by being a sedentary gently caress and eating too much, because honestly food is tasty and I never learned to portion right. I had some pretty bad depression when I really ballooned up too, and that just exaggerated both of those characteristics. I wound up at something around 250-260ish at 5'10" at some point and I was honestly so sedentary I couldn't see any impact from that whatsoever. I knew I was a fat out of shape lardbucket, but the lack of impact on my daily life meant that I didn't know just how bad I'd let myself go. Hell, I didn't really care tbh. Around January this year I decided to try swimming at the school gym to try and get myself into shape where I could go do fun things outside that I had dropped from my life. I had trouble swimming a 300(yds) and even swimming breast stroke for half of it left my overheated and out of breath. As a guy that used to swim a mile with no issues as a kid of half my current size the experience was, well horrifying really. It was also all the inspiration I'll ever need. I'm on the path to turning around at this point, and have dropped down to 209lbs by alternating biking and swimming for an hour each day and within the past month a half hour of lifting to go with each. One weird thing I've noticed that I don't think has come up in the thread that I've encountered through this is that enough people have told me that I don't/didn't look fat to the point at which I have to conclude one of two things: either America is just as fat as everyone says we are, we've just lost track of what fat is, or that we're so afraid of hurting someone's feelings that we'll tell obvious falsities to peoples faces in an attempt to make them feel better. I'm not really sure which possibility is scarier.
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Jul 16, 2014 05:06
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I find this thread fascinating and have a deep appreciation of everyone who's posted their story. I won't get into the details myself but right now I'm 29, 5'5-6" and 150lbs. In middle school I was ~200 (puberty was a bitch, made worse with onset of narcolepsy w/o cataplexy), in high school I looked awesome at 155-165 thanks to weight lifting+walking, and I felt my best at my lowest of 140 when I was 22 and picked up running. My goal is to get back to 140 via running and lifting because I felt incredible at that weight and loved that my thighs didn't rub against each other when I walked. One thing that popped out at me while reading this thread is the note on how to deal with hunger. About every 2-3 months I'll get a hunger pain or stomach growl that isn't painful and goes away after a minute. Those are fine and I actually like getting them because the rest of the time hunger pains either feel like someone's punched me in the gut or like an intense muscle cramp that won't go away for 10+ min. Drinking room-temp water rarely does anything to help, but drinking ice water has a better chance of 'breaking' the cramp so my gut can finally grumble then relax. Has anyone felt this before, or have any tips? It's been like this throughout the weight changes, and I don't skip meals if that wasn't already obvious.
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Jul 16, 2014 10:18
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Something I've been wondering about people [not on medication or suffering from a medical condition] who say they suffer from really huge hunger pangs and have difficulty controlling themselves when they happen: Have you ever tried fasting? I'm being serious here. Ever since I was a young boy, I've fasted semi-regularly (and I still do, as recently as this week). Some of it was for religious reasons (whether personal or enforced externally), sometimes for health reason and sometimes due to poverty and literally having no food to eat in the first place. Could it be that the hunger pangs are so bad because you're simply not used to feeling hunger, and the more you learn to live (and ignore) those feelings, the easier it gets and eventually it just becomes a mild annoyance that is easy to ignore? Maybe if once a week you decided 'ok on Tuesdays, I'm not gonna eat or drink anything other than water until it's noon (provided you wake up at like 6 or 7 in the morning) and gradually get it up to a few more hours with like half hours increments until you're able to spend 12 hours without eating anything, maybe it's something that could help? Now obviously that would also require you not to binge like crazy the second you can eat and end up overeating but stick with your number of daily allowed calories. You might have to start by just not eating for two or three hours after you wake up until you build it up to like 4 or 5, then 6 or 7, etc... Having a meal ready to break the fast so you don't cook yourself way more food than you would usually or something. Maybe just straight up to do intermittent fasting at some point (A system where you eat all of your daily calories during a period of 8 hours and the rest of the 16 hours you of the day you only drink water). I know that for me, it's not until I reach the 23th hour without eating or drinking anything that I start getting hungry to the point where it actually bothers me, but I think that's because I never really fast for more than 24 hours in the first place. It only starts to get bad until 10-15 minutes before when I'm going to allow myself to eat. If I fasted for say, 30 hours I imagine I would probably start getting bothered around the 29th hour because that would be the point where my body would go 'ok i'm about to start eating soon'. I mean I still get the occasional hunger pang during the day but I basically just go 'welp, can't eat' and my body shuts the gently caress up about it after a couple of minutes. I'm not advocating full-on or even intermittent fasting as a way to lose weight, because it's not a weight loss method. It's stupid to let yourself starve (not because of 'starvation mode', because that only kicks in when you've got 4% of body fat) because you want to lose weight and shows you don't know what you are doing. What I'm wondering is that for those who really suffer from hunger pangs they have a hard time to control, could it be because you've never actually experienced hunger for long periods of time without doing anything about it that you can't control yourself? It's kind of like someone who's never been in any kind of physical pain and will overreact to something that wouldn't make others who are used to being hurt to even blink because they know how to deal with the pain. Just (calorie-free) food for thought. Twee as Fuck fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 14:38
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Zhentar posted:Posting on the behalf of my wife. I've always been twig thin, but she's been varying levels of overweight most of her adult life.  5
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Jul 16, 2014 15:04
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". Aside from it not in fact being easy at all with all of the emotional issues that invariably surround food and eating, the basic message is objectively wrong. The calories you think you're getting from your food aren't irrefutable scientific fact. They're inaccurate estimates (nutrition facts labels can be off by as much as 20%, usually understating) of approximations built upon naïve assumptions. "A gram of protein = 4 calories" isn't fact, it's a rough average (from experiments performed over 100 years ago!). Different proteins contain different amounts of energy, and are absorbed & digested at different levels of efficiency. And those efficiencies likely vary from person to person (or even for a single person in different conditions). And they can go on to affect how many calories you burn, too.
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You can add me to the list of people that have started down the road to weight loss thanks to this and the fat shame thread. I was wondering how much people who have lost weight or are currently doing so like having a hard goal? Does having a 'when I'm this weight I win' attitude motivate you or maybe smaller incremental goals? I suppose it will be a different answer for different people; just curious what mental rewards you like to give yourselves.
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Jul 16, 2014 16:29
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Twee as gently caress posted:Something I've been wondering about people [not on medication or suffering from a medical condition] who say they suffer from really huge hunger pangs and have difficulty controlling themselves when they happen: I get that you're being serious and trying to help but fasting is something my doctor does not recommend and therefore something I'm not going to do. Unfortunately he also didn't have any idea outside of drinking water which is why I figured I'd ask. While I can't fault you for your asking, I do resent that the first suggestion opens with doubting whether or not I've truly felt hunger. I have when I was 9 due to poverty and it (bonus common theme) gave me a lot of anxiety. I remember hiding food in my bedroom "just in case" I needed it later. Edit: Thinking about it, I never ended up eating the food I hid. I always threw it out when it went bad and I stopped hiding food when I was 10. It was way for me to have a sense of security, so that no matter what happened I always had the option to grab the food and run if I needed to. Massive overeating didn't happen till I was 11 for other stuff that I've since worked hard on via therapy. Zantie fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 16:37
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sether01 posted:I've heard that it's common for both men and women who have been sexually abused to overeat as a way to become unattractive to the abuser so as to not be abused anymore, is there any truth to that? If that is true, than the people that are preaching that fat is beautiful are doing much more harm then they realize. I can't speak directly to abuse, but I once had a girlfriend who was rather attractive with very very long hair. She got tired of being catcalled in our college town and cut all her hair off (from her low back to a pixie cut) in response to a particularly horrible experience with a group of guys in a Jeep harassing her while she was just walking down the street. Similar sort of deal. I'm sure it happens, the world is real lovely to all kinds of people.
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Jul 16, 2014 16:52
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I definitely think when I started to gain weight rapidly my biggest problem was being hungry all the time and trying to deal with hunger pains. For me, if I don't eat regularly (every 4hrs at the most) I get terribly nauseous and will eventually get to the point where I just puke stomach acid and bile. Which is both gross and painful and should be avoided. The answer? Eat small meals regularly. I know this gets mentioned all the time as a method for weight loss but I think its really only helpful in keeping hunger at bay (it wont magically jump start your metabolism for instance.) I eat breakfast at 8, lunch at 12, and dinner at 7. I also eat a smaller snack at 10am, 2pm, and 4pm. I think this really is the best method for preventing you from getting hunger pains or feeling sick. However in my experience, being hugry is just a regular part of life. Sometimes you're hungry and its not time to eat yet and you just have to deal with it. I keep my eating schedule really structured to prevent me from wandering into the kitchen and overeating as much as I keep it to make sure I don't end up puking. It's 3pm and you're hungry? Tough poo poo sister snack times in an hour. Also Zantie I'm going to suggest you see a therapist. A lot of people who were food insecure when they were younger have a hard time managing their weight when they finally do have access to food. I think seeing a therapist might really help you deal with this. edit: sether01 posted:I've heard that it's common for both men and women who have been sexually abused to overeat as a way to become unattractive to the abuser so as to not be abused anymore, is there any truth to that? JibbaJabberwocky fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 16:52
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JibbaJabberwocky posted:Also Zantie I'm going to suggest you see a therapist. A lot of people who were food insecure when they were younger have a hard time managing their weight when they finally do have access to food. I think seeing a therapist might really help you deal with this. Just edited my post above to reflect on this. I get that hunger is a daily part of life, that's why I'd like a constructive way to make it more frequently the comfortable kind of grumble rather than the cramp. I don't always have access to ice water when it hits. Zantie fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 16:56
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shipwrek posted:You can add me to the list of people that have started down the road to weight loss thanks to this and the fat shame thread. I was wondering how much people who have lost weight or are currently doing so like having a hard goal? Does having a 'when I'm this weight I win' attitude motivate you or maybe smaller incremental goals? I suppose it will be a different answer for different people; just curious what mental rewards you like to give yourselves. Set the goal of "losing a shitload of weight and looking awesome". Forget about the number. Body fat percentage is the only number that really matters. I see people hit their "goal weight" and get all excited then celebrate/relax, gaining back 10 pounds in the process. Fitness is a lifelong commitment, not something you do until you are satisfied and then lose it again. Zantie posted:I get that you're being serious and trying to help but fasting is something my doctor does not recommend and therefore something I'm not going to do. Unfortunately he also didn't have any idea outside of drinking water which is why I figured I'd ask. Your body is designed to go long periods of time without eating. Unless you are a diabetic or something you'll be fine to intermittently fast. If you don't have a medical condition that requires you eat every 6 hours, your doctor is full of poo poo.
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Jul 16, 2014 16:57
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shipwrek posted:You can add me to the list of people that have started down the road to weight loss thanks to this and the fat shame thread. I was wondering how much people who have lost weight or are currently doing so like having a hard goal? Does having a 'when I'm this weight I win' attitude motivate you or maybe smaller incremental goals? I suppose it will be a different answer for different people; just curious what mental rewards you like to give yourselves. I have a final goal of 175 lbs. That's when I'll go back to a maintenance intake instead of a calorie deficit. It's a nice convenient number for setting goals in 25-lb increments. Screw mental rewards, I've set up a cash reward volcano for hitting those goals. It hasn't turned out to be the motivator I thought it would be, though. The positive changes in my body have become the biggest motivator. So far, I've reinvested those rewards into more exercise stuff... weights, good sneakers, etc. I'm no longer looking forward to getting a better computer, I'm looking forward to a bike and more weights.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:04
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Zantie posted:I get that you're being serious and trying to help but fasting is something my doctor does not recommend and therefore something I'm not going to do. Unfortunately he also didn't have any idea outside of drinking water which is why I figured I'd ask. That's why I did not recommend fasting in any way and specifically said so multiple times. The only type of fasting I endorsed is intermittent fasting where you still eat just as many calories as you would on a normal day, only within a shorter time period. Fasting for weight loss is a terrible idea. Zantie posted:While I can't fault you for your asking, I do resent that the first suggestion opens with doubting whether or not I've truly felt hunger. I have when I was 9 due to poverty and it (bonus common theme) gave me a lot of anxiety. I remember hiding food in my bedroom "just in case" I needed it later. For starters, you shouldn't take things too personal. I didn't made that post directed to you, I made this post for everyone in this thread (and reading it) who talked about having difficulty controlling their hunger. It's a common thread through almost all of the posts so far, much like untreated mental illness. Also your own experience doesn't answer what I asked earlier either. You felt forced hunger when you were 9. Which is obviously something you hated and apparently led you to later start overeating in reaction to it. This is obviously a terrible situation but this is not at all what I was talking about, or the people I was addressing. I'm asking about feeling voluntary hunger. Feeling your stomach grumble and then not eat for a few hours afterwards because you don't want to. I think it's a fair question to people who complain of hunger pangs they can't really control but do not have a medical condition or are not on medication. Sorry you felt attacked, but I wasn't even addressing you in particular and your issues are outside of my question.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:12
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Mud Shark posted:Set the goal of "losing a shitload of weight and looking awesome". Forget about the number. This is kind of why I asked. I am inputting numbers into my fitness app and double checking them with various cal-counter sites and they usually want a goal weight. My thoughts were "losing a shitload of weight" as you so eloquently put it. Made me wonder what forms of goal posts people use if any and what they may be. My personal motivation is that being a guy who makes geeky replica props and paints and sculpts and does other seated at a work bench type things I would like to remove the loving beach ball that is steadily making it harder to reach my work.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:18
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shipwrek posted:This is kind of why I asked. I am inputting numbers into my fitness app and double checking them with various cal-counter sites and they usually want a goal weight. My thoughts were "losing a shitload of weight" as you so eloquently put it. Made me wonder what forms of goal posts people use if any and what they may be. healthy bmi for a man is between 18.5 and 25, so aim for like 22-23 unless you plan on putting on a lot of muscle. So if you're 6'0 aim between 150 and 170 roughly, when you get sub-200s you'll be able to gauge it better
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Jul 16, 2014 17:31
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shipwrek posted:This is kind of why I asked. I am inputting numbers into my fitness app and double checking them with various cal-counter sites and they usually want a goal weight. My thoughts were "losing a shitload of weight" as you so eloquently put it. Made me wonder what forms of goal posts people use if any and what they may be. Where are you starting from? How tall are you? That should help you figure out where you want to be, ballpark
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Jul 16, 2014 17:34
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messagemode1 posted:Where are you starting from? How tall are you? That should help you figure out where you want to be, ballpark I'm currently 6' and 239lbs. I've chosen 200 as where I'd like to be as thats where I was most of my life. Was 210 or more when I was Mr. Manly sports guy but I had a fair amount of muscle and I'm not looking to get swole though who knows!
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Jul 16, 2014 17:40
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shipwrek posted:You can add me to the list of people that have started down the road to weight loss thanks to this and the fat shame thread. I was wondering how much people who have lost weight or are currently doing so like having a hard goal? Does having a 'when I'm this weight I win' attitude motivate you or maybe smaller incremental goals? I suppose it will be a different answer for different people; just curious what mental rewards you like to give yourselves. I set two goals. A long term and a short term. Being 500 lbs it was hard to visualize weighing 250 lbs (which is the lowest I would have ever weighed that I could remember) so I went in 25 pound increments. Every time I hit 25 lbs I would give myself a non-food reward. This was either clothes, or a massage, or something to help me workout with, or a video game. It was important to not reward myself with food early on because I wanted to develop a pavlov response that was positive rather than negative when I hit a goal. Also, be sure to take health measurements (blood pressure/cholesterol/heart rate) before you start. There's nothing quite as rewarding as seeing your actual health vital signs go into a normal place. Because at the end of the day you're doing this to increase your vitality and there's no better indicators you're doing that then actual medical measurements.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:50
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One common way to think about goals is to shoot for losing 20% of your current weight and then recalculating for another 20% when you get there, going on like that until you hit the ideal for your height and age.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:51
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shipwrek posted:I'm currently 6' and 239lbs. I've chosen 200 as where I'd like to be as thats where I was most of my life. Was 210 or more when I was Mr. Manly sports guy but I had a fair amount of muscle and I'm not looking to get swole though who knows! Yeah at 6'0 210 pounds you were most likely overweight unless you were really really swole. A lot of people who are firmly overweight don't realize that they are in fact overweight because they haven't really known any better. As I said, try to aim between 150 to 170 but once you make it under 200 it'll be easier to gauge.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:51
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vyst posted:Also, be sure to take health measurements (blood pressure/cholesterol/heart rate) before you start. There's nothing quite as rewarding as seeing your actual health vital signs go into a normal place. Because at the end of the day you're doing this to increase your vitality and there's no better indicators you're doing that then actual medical measurements. This. See, I never would have thought of that. Great advice. Thanks!
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Jul 16, 2014 17:52
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Bifner McDoogle posted:The last thing is attitude, specifically overcoming the sense that being healthy just isn't something you can do. For us, this is something which was relatively minor for us (we're gay men, we're supposed to go against the grain a bit). I bring it up mostly because it's so bewildering and important to anyone trying to understand part of how people come to accept being fat. Many of us are familiar with the attitude that health at any size advocates have where they view being fat as normal. But the HAES people are just a fringe on the internet, like MRA groups. However, both groups reflect very hosed up attitudes that are way more subtle but significantly more widespread. This is sort of ingrained attitude/culture around food and eating and health that I find most baffling and fascinating about obesity. It's like, anything that isn't solid grease or sugar is unpalatable diet food for rabbits, fast food is the only cheap way to eat, and zero concept of a middle ground where food tastes good, is good for you, and isn't overly difficult, inconvenient, or expensive to prepare. I caught a few episodes of My 600-lb Life a while back, and what stood out to me was some of the participants' utter inability to grasp how food worked and therefore adjust their eating habits, and how pervasive the culture of bad food and bad health was in their environments and how hard a time they had breaking out of it. My grandma grew up in the rural south and helped cook huge lunches for all the farmers and laborers from the time she was nine or ten. The food they cooked would put Paula Deen to shame. Yet NO ONE was fat back then because they were all out doing backbreaking work in the fields all day. I can understand where the cuisine and the huge portions come from, but once you replace the physically demanding agrarian lifestyle that necessitated that sort of food with a sedentary air-conditioned one, all that food does is make everyone fat and stuck in a food culture that doesn't work anymore. That's my pet theory, at least. I'd be really interested in hearing about how/if your cultural environment/upbringing has affected your weight, eating habits, and/or understanding/knowledge of cooking and health, and how/if it played into your efforts to lose weight and get healthy.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:24
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Authentic You posted:This is sort of ingrained attitude/culture around food and eating and health that I find most baffling and fascinating about obesity. It's like, anything that isn't solid grease or sugar is unpalatable diet food for rabbits, fast food is the only cheap way to eat, and zero concept of a middle ground where food tastes good, is good for you, and isn't overly difficult, inconvenient, or expensive to prepare. I caught a few episodes of My 600-lb Life a while back, and what stood out to me was some of the participants' utter inability to grasp how food worked and therefore adjust their eating habits, and how pervasive the culture of bad food and bad health was in their environments and how hard a time they had breaking out of it. I don't find it baffling at all, basically it's the food that people grew up eating and being cooked by their relatives. Then they grew up and were cooking it for their children, who grew up and cooked it for their own children, and so on. The difference is that great-grandpa used to do backbreaking labor from dawn till dusk, grandpa got it easier by adding a tractor in the mix, dad said 'gently caress that' and got a blue collar job (but still played lots of sports while he was young so really only started getting fat around his thirties, and his son is now playing DOTA all day doing gently caress all. That's exactly what is happening in Mexico and why they are even fatter than we are.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:36
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Twee as gently caress posted:I don't find it baffling at all, basically it's the food that people grew up eating and being cooked by their relatives. Then they grew up and were cooking it for their children, who grew up and cooked it for their own children, and so on. This part makes perfect sense - so I guess the baffling part for me is more the fatalistic "oh it's genetics" attitude that seems to have come about in the overweight communities that Bifner described, that so many people assume being fat and diabetic is a fact of life that they can't do anything about when it wasn't the case at all just a few decades ago. I guess it's just easy for someone like me to see the disconnect from the outside, so I guess it's harder for me to imagine having that sort of attitude about health and food when it's affecting your well being so deeply.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:01
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Fatkraken posted:I'd really prefer if we let the obese and ex obese people actually answer the question instead of arguing about weight loss Hi there, I can field this one. As my spiffy title notes, I've failed several times at cutting weight. I could make a lot of excuses why, but the actual reasons are pretty simple and can be listed under mental health issues. I was pushing 380 a couple years ago, although not looking near that heavy because I'm six and a half feet tall. I haven't been below 300 since high school, and even then it was 280's. I was a pretty normal kid back in the day, grew up in the country helping my granddad and uncles do farm work. Then we moved to the city, and I took up computers. There's pictures in my post history from 2011, if someone with archives wants to dig. I always tried to make myself feel better about it because I could still get out and do stuff. I was involved in sports in high school. I hike, I hunt, I fish, I play paintball, I can't be that fat, right? I have friends and family who are a lot heavier than me, so clearly I couldn't be that bad off. Over the last few years I've slowly dropped 60lbs of that weight, then put it back on when depression got worse. While I'm still a horrible fatass, I'm continually amazed at how much difference that made in my ability to get out and do stuff. I could play a game of paintball and not be too winded to call out shots to my team. I could work my physically demanding job and not come home every day with my knees and ankles swollen and aching from supporting me. I can't run worth a drat, and having to shop at the store for incredible fatasses is depressing and expensive all at the same time. To the thread in general, I can't overstate how seductively easy it is to get fat and stay fat, once you've gotten there. Food becomes comfort, and exercise an abject misery. 'Go out and run, fatty!' isn't a useful thing to tell someone at these kinds of weights, because often their joints can't handle it at all. They'll try once, be sore and barely able to walk for a few days, and just double down on self-imposed helplessness to avoid that discomfort again. While at the same time being miserable because you feel like getting out of where you've gotten yourself is clearly impossible. I'm dreading the consequences I know I've forced onto my body from this. They wanted to pull my gallbladder two years ago. I'm insulin resistant, if not borderline diabetic. I've had surgery to repair one knee already, need the other one done in the next few years because the body's not made to carry this much weight this long. I have a physical scheduled next week (thanks to a new job that got me health insurance for the first time this century), and it's going to be a nightmare that I've dreaded for years. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 21:37
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Liquid Communism posted:I'm dreading the consequences I know I've forced onto my body from this. They wanted to pull my gallbladder two years ago. I'm insulin resistant, if not borderline diabetic. I've had surgery to repair one knee already, need the other one done in the next few years because the body's not made to carry this much weight this long. I have a physical scheduled next week (thanks to a new job that got me health insurance for the first time this century), and it's going to be a nightmare that I've dreaded for years. Massive hugs to you dude. The absolutely good news is you can lose the weight again and it will make a huge difference in your quality of life regardless of knee surgeries/whatever else needs to be done. I think something that gets glossed over a LOT in the discussion about "what do we do about obesity" is the link between mental health and obesity. When everything in your life is poo poo (or you just think it is), food is often the ONLY thing that evokes a positive, happy feeling- not even trying to go down the road of "Oh sugar releases the same chemicals as heroin!" or whatever. Food tastes GOOD. Often times it's the only tangible, real GOOD thing that you can identify as happening to you in a given day. As a fit/thin/non-depressed person it's very easy to say "Well stop eating then ya fatty!" but reality is that's about as useful as telling someone with a sprained ankle to just walk it off. It was only after I started working on my mental health and specifically working on my self-esteem and sense of self worth that I was able to start looking at food solely as fuel and not as a source of potential happiness. God one of the most hosed up things I remember doing on a regular basis is eating and eating and eating, trying to chase the feeling that I got from the first bite of a really good food. The first bite was SO GOOD- like with ice cream, it was so cold and sweet and creamy and would just explode with flavor and oftentimes it was the only really amazingly pleasant experience I would have in a day. So I would take another bite, and another, and another, and another, hoping that each subsequent bite would taste as good as the first, but it never would, but I'd keep eating and keep hoping until I would feel sick. Repeat over and over, every day, and eventually you wind up fat. Then someone suggests hey, maybe you shouldn't eat so much ice cream and it feels like they're trying to take away the one thing that makes you really happy, that makes you really be able to feel feelings- and hopefully y'all can see why fatties react with the kind of vitriol that they do to the suggestion. Goddamn talking about it makes me all kinds of upset. When I think about the poo poo I was putting myself through, mentally and physically, I want to just start shaking and crying. It's so amazingly hosed up that I put myself through 20 years of that hell because I was loving lonely. What a stupid reason to eat myself to death. BRB gonna go look at puppy videos for a while and try not to cry.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:00
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Are you a picky eater? How do you take to new foods? What kinds of foods can you not stand?
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Jul 16, 2014 23:13
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30 Goddamned Dicks posted:As a fit/thin/non-depressed person it's very easy to say "Well stop eating then ya fatty!" but reality is that's about as useful as telling someone with a sprained ankle to just walk it off. This really hits home. "That thing you do sometimes that makes you miserable, physically pains you, reminds you of how fat, out of shape, and inferior you are? Do more of that! Do that alllllll the time! That other thing you do that makes you happy? Stop that immediately! Despite giving up what makes you happy and partaking in things that don't, we promise you'll actually be more happy without that one thing that currently makes you happy!" The mathematics of it are easy. The psychological blockades are the pain in the rear end.
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Jul 16, 2014 23:34
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I'm kind of laughing at all the self-hating fat posters here. I'm not saying don't get in shape or that it doesn't matter, but the fat people I know who seem the happiest don't go around feeling like "god i'm such a piece of poo poo" all the time. Or maybe they do, but they don't complain about it and come off as self-pitying. They have chronic health problems and probably don't get laid as much as they would in better shape but they still seem confident and happy. Maybe there's more of an emotional burden than I know, but I'm pretty sure a fat person with a good attitude is gonna have a better time in life than a fat sad-sack.Bifner McDoogle posted:My husband comes from a rural baptist town, the sort of place where everything is a sin - except gluttony. That's a good point and way more pervasive than some tumblr poo poo
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Jul 16, 2014 23:42
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swamp waste posted:I'm kind of laughing at all the self-hating fat posters here. I'm not saying don't get in shape or that it doesn't matter, but the fat people I know who seem the happiest don't go around feeling like "god i'm such a piece of poo poo" all the time. Or maybe they do, but they don't complain about it and come off as self-pitying. They have chronic health problems and probably don't get laid as much as they would in better shape but they still seem confident and happy. Maybe there's more of an emotional burden than I know, but I'm pretty sure a fat person with a good attitude is gonna have a better time in life than a fat sad-sack. A lot of people wracked with self-hatred, guilt and insecurity will project a facade of happiness to the rest of the world so they don't come off as whiny and get judged, but once the door is closed that's when they stop smiling and acting like everything's alright. Maybe you should try and have a bit of empathy with people going through all of this instead of pointing at people who hate themselves and say 'Ahaha you hate yourself'. That's a pretty lovely thing to kick someone who's already down, you know.
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Jul 16, 2014 23:46
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shipwrek posted:You can add me to the list of people that have started down the road to weight loss thanks to this and the fat shame thread. I was wondering how much people who have lost weight or are currently doing so like having a hard goal? Does having a 'when I'm this weight I win' attitude motivate you or maybe smaller incremental goals? I suppose it will be a different answer for different people; just curious what mental rewards you like to give yourselves. I'm not morbidly overweight (BMI just dropped below 30, woop!), but I'm losing at the moment and I do have a goal weight. First weigh in was 217, my ultimate goal is 154. Why not a round number? 154 is 11 stone and that is itself a nice round number, and it is almost exactly in the middle of the "healthy weight" BMI range for my height (21.4). Obviously once I hit that point I'l reassess, see how I feel and how I look and go from there. I might stop a little early if I feel and look great and have a medically healthy weight, I might go a bit further if I look and feel OK but am finding the calorie control and exercise sustainable and think I could go even further and that going further would make me look and feel better. It'll depend on muscle mass and poo poo too, obviously, but "no more than 11 stone" is a good solid long term maintenance goal, easy to communicate and work with, and easy to remember. Having 154 as a number in my mind gives me a clear goal, which is something I've always found motivating. It gives me something to aim to get below, but also something to aim to AVOID going above, and to act as an indicator that I might be slipping back into bad habits later on.
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Jul 17, 2014 00:00
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Yeah - kudos to anyone who this doesn't apply to - I am certain there are folks who exist that managed to keep themselves in good health despite incredibly pervasive self hatred - I don't think some of you realize how powerful self hatred is. You obviously care about yourself if you are fit. Body dysmorphia aside - you take care of your body because you care. If you've gone your entire life mired in self-hatred it is drat near impossible to climb out of. Especially if you have limited access to medical resources and no support in your life. There are 'economical' options available, but like all things, quality tends to descend along with price. I floated the idea that I was sexually abused to one of my therapists and she actually replied "So?". I could have gone to alcoholism instead, but the only abundant source of distraction in my home growing up was food. If my parents drank it very well could've been alcohol and I would actually be dead by now. So please, recognize the fact that mental illness is legitimate and will drive you to do impossibly stupid things to drown it out. Finding adequate care for your 'brand' of crazy is not as easy as say, finding an ENT doctor. Also don't mistake me, I am not saying it's an excuse for being obese. My decisions were still my decisions, but when you wish you were dead, your longevity is not high up on the list of priorities. If you can't find a single redeeming quality in yourself, and then you get fat, you hate yourself more because of the weakness it displays. meataidstheft fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 02:06
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Twee as gently caress posted:That's why I did not recommend fasting in any way and specifically said so multiple times. The only type of fasting I endorsed is intermittent fasting where you still eat just as many calories as you would on a normal day, only within a shorter time period. Fasting for weight loss is a terrible idea. Hm, I'd have to ask him to clarify exactly because neither of us used the word intermittent. The whole thing started out as the usual weight-loss conversation, but it went a bit weird after I said I wouldn't reliably stop eating after 8pm because if I went to bed hungry I literally wouldn't be able to fall asleep due to the discomfort. He then reversed his point about not eating after 8pm, just that I make sure it's really small and not purely carbs. He then made the point to not fast or doing something like skipping a meal. I didn't think to ask why. Twee as gently caress posted:For starters, you shouldn't take things too personal. I didn't made that post directed to you, I made this post for everyone in this thread (and reading it) who talked about having difficulty controlling their hunger. It's a common thread through almost all of the posts so far, much like untreated mental illness. Yeah, my bad. Weight isn't a topic I'm usually sensitive about, but the hunger thing is. Again I can't fault you for asking or for the train of thought. Twee as gently caress posted:Also your own experience doesn't answer what I asked earlier either. You felt forced hunger when you were 9. Which is obviously something you hated and apparently led you to later start overeating in reaction to it. This is obviously a terrible situation but this is not at all what I was talking about, or the people I was addressing. I'm asking about feeling voluntary hunger. Feeling your stomach grumble and then not eat for a few hours afterwards because you don't want to. The hunger I've normally felt my whole life mirrors forced hunger, despite my not having truly experienced it in 20 years. It was like that throughout childhood, didn't change when I developed narcolepsy, nor since I've been on medication to treat the narcolepsy, which is why I assume the hunger pain is independent of medical issues. I rarely get the kind of voluntary hunger you describe; light grumble that goes away within a minute and never hurts to begin with. The voluntary hunger is totally fine and I actually like that feeling. I was hoping for tips on a more reliable way to get that kind of hunger instead of the other.
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Jul 17, 2014 02:17
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swamp waste posted:I'm kind of laughing at all the self-hating fat posters here. I'm not saying don't get in shape or that it doesn't matter, but the fat people I know who seem the happiest don't go around feeling like "god i'm such a piece of poo poo" all the time. Or maybe they do, but they don't complain about it and come off as self-pitying. They have chronic health problems and probably don't get laid as much as they would in better shape but they still seem confident and happy. Maybe there's more of an emotional burden than I know, but I'm pretty sure a fat person with a good attitude is gonna have a better time in life than a fat sad-sack. You should try it from the inside. There's no honest way that a person who's not bed-bound gets to be drat near four hundred pounds without either a psychological problem driving their eating habits or something in the way of an absurdly rare physical problem like thyroid cancer, an extreme metabolic disorder, or gigantism. The sheer physical discomfort of being that heavy is huge, not to mention the social stigma and straight out difficulty of being that big and trying to live normally. Ever break a chair? I have. It's embarrassing as poo poo. Flying is torturous, both because I'm tall enough that my bad knees spend the whole flight jammed into a seat back in front of me and because I'm so wide that there's no way to avoid being all up in the personal space of whoever's sitting next to me. Hell, little things that people take for granted, like being able to find clothing in your size at normal stores are bad enough. You have any idea how embarrassing it is to have to flag down an employee at loving Walmart to ask 'Hey, don't suppose you've got this in 4xl, do you?' every time you need something as simple as some t-shirts? I get a bunch of my clothing from these guys, but go look at the prices. The same cheap-rear end Hanes polo you'd grab off the shelf at Walmart for $8 is $28 in 4xl. It's crushing, yet I'm not here to whine about this, just answer questions. The fact is, that poo poo just reinforces the same mental health and self-esteem issues that lead to getting this fat in the first place. It's a self-reinforcing cycle, and it's vicious as gently caress from the inside no matter how well someone presents otherwise on the outside. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 03:06
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At high school I was around 115kg/215lbs or so which while not massive on a guy 1.89m/6'2 dude but it was still very much noticeable. The fat was on my face and sadly I had man breasts. I grew up fat, my mother is obese with umpteen health problems and moving from one country to another didn't really help. I massively packed on those kg's when I got a job though because then I could buy as much lovely food as I wanted. When I left school and started uni I got a gym membership and through working out lost about 5 or so kg but I put it all back on again once I stopped. I then started smoking tonnes of pot and that didn't help with moderation. Around 2003 I started to work out again and in 2004 got pretty serious about it and managed to get down to 100kg. Then in 2005 I started going to the gym everyday and doing an hour of cardio in the morning and an hour of weights at night, started eating less and got down to 90kg. In the middle of 2005 I met a woman who was massively into running and eating clean and I managed to maintain that weight but over time bad eating habits became normal. I was a lazy vegetarian at this stage. Flash forward to October 2010 and I was dumped and weighed 105kg. I went vegan not for health reasons and as a reaction to the dumping started running the next day. I had not worked out at all in 2 years. I was hosed after that first run, I could only manage about 2km. Over summer I dropped down to 98kg. In 2011 my goal was to reach 95kg which I did and then focussed on getting lower. I have found it very hard to get below 90 and I'm 87kg now. I would like to be 8kg but being a skinny 80kg would suit me too. What was it like being overweight well at the time there weren't many obese or overweight kids at my school. Everyone was pretty much normal. I had zero female attention although that was due to being a sperg who played Magic at the youth centre all weekend and downed 2 litres of coke like it was nothing. At uni I found it easy to make friends with women but my self confidence was so low I just couldn't. Never had problems with mobility or health issues but I couldn't buy what I thought were 'cool' clothes. Seems like ages ago but most of the shops I wanted stuff from went up to size 36 max. Shirts were XL max. I guess that made me pretty stink. I would put my weight gain and now weight loss down to two things. I was very sedentary as a teenager/young adult and now I am active and my skills and abilities to control my portions were non-existent. Now I know how to eat and what to eat and critically how much to eat.
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Jul 17, 2014 05:59
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sether01 posted:I've heard that it's common for both men and women who have been sexually abused to overeat as a way to become unattractive to the abuser so as to not be abused anymore, is there any truth to that? If that is true, than the people that are preaching that fat is beautiful are doing much more harm then they realize. Hey, I know this post was a page back but I'd like to comment on it. The first part of your post is definitely true in my case. After I was 5 years old (I was sexually assaulted for about a month) I gained and gained and gained until I was obese, and then as an adult I became morbidly obese (or maybe at 17. I don't remember). It's not a genetic thing; no one in my family is obese, so it was entirely through my own power. My mother suggested I go outside more but didn't know how to help my weight gain- I was active in sports until junior year of high school, so she couldn't say, "join a sport". When I was told by anyone to just "buck up" or "try harder" or that I was "stronger than this", I shut down mentally. (Only now do I realize this was also due to my sexual assault; when I told someone what was going on, their response was, "Why did you let him do that?") However, I disagree with the second part of your post. I've found the FA movement to be very helpful for me. When I was eighteen, I went to a study abroad program. While there, everybody called me beautiful. It was surprising; my weight wasn't even a consideration. They would comment on my eyes or my face but never my weight. For the first time, I thought maybe I could be happy, that I deserved to be energetic. Until this experience, I had thought I never deserved to be happy, and that I should be miserable, because happiness was for those beautiful, skinny women on TV. For me, the FA movement isn't so much about "FAT IS BEAUTIFUL" but more "Fat people should be accepted as fellow human beings". Many people need that self-esteem boost in order to begin losing weight. When the media portrays fat people as either lazy or as the butt of a joke, when women are being photoshopped to be thinner than normal, when you meet people who off the bat assume you never try hard or just sit around and do nothing all day, it tears you down. You see yourself as less than human. It's not just a relationship between you and the media, either- other people pick up on it and decide your worth. And I think, since you've internalized that you aren't worthy as a fat person, you begin to project and see it on people who aren't reacting to your weight at all. So when the FA movement says, "Fat people, you are beautiful", I hear "everyone is beautiful, no matter what their body shape" or "everyone is worthy". That means the world to me, because I haven't found many people in real life who both believe that everyone is worthy of being loved and/or speak on that belief. There are definitely parts of the FA movement that I don't agree with- I don't believe my current weight (or my old one) are the weight my body wants me to be. I believe my brain has formed a habit into eating large amounts of food. I believe that I am not currently healthy. I also think there are cases where bloggers will say, "fat prejudice" when no, FA blogger, you've admitted in your blog you were acting like a dick. Though I am certainly not a healthy obese person, it was great to hear that people thought I was worthy. I had to change my image about myself before I could keep weight off. I think for my case, a lot of my weight is binge eating as a learned response to stress and difficult situations. It's one of the disorders I picked up from that time. It took for me to change my self-image (IE: I am a beautiful person, and my size is not what makes me beautiful), and the FA movement helped that. It's as 30 Goddamned Dicks said*. With that said, it's been a long road of trying to find my identity. I've been struggling with thinking of myself as a skinny person (only recently have I realized that skinny person is still me), but also because I'm afraid at becoming someone who hates fat people or resents them. I've had an ex-fat (ex)friend who flat up told me that I deserved to be cheated on because I was fat. So I've never wanted to be that person. Combining that fear with identity and my doubts of self-worth and my entire life being big it's been difficult losing weight because I feel I'm not just losing weight, I feel I'm changing my very being. Hearing the FA movement say "Fat people are beautiful" helps me realize that I'm not actually changing myself- I've always been beautiful and wonderful, but now I'm going to show my body the love and respect I deserve. (It's possible that I've missed something about the second sentence in your post. My reaction to your sentence was: Why would the FA movement be harming someone who has lived through sexual assault by telling them they are beautiful, no matter what their weight is or what they look like?) *edit: post was far too long for a response post, cut out unnecessary stuff* 10dishOkiku fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 06:14
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Twee as gently caress posted:Please share your stories, your struggle, how you got there, why you got there, why you think you're still there. Share anything you think is relevant and that thin/fit people have no idea what your life is like. never realized that so many of you lurked in the fat-shaming thread in GBS, so I wanted to ask as well: How do you feel about the it? Is it a thread you read at all/often? Do you use it as a source of motivation, does it make you feel actual shame? Is it a positive tool for you or anger-inducing or both? I went from a fat 265lbs(125kg) to a slimish 180lbs(83kg) then to a muscular 210lbs(95kg), which is what I've been at for the past 2 years. Strangers treat you differently, they are more likely to talk to you and hear what you have to say and not be dismissive. The point is that I'm not getting mocked/abused for my former weight, something that hasn't happened since high school but people treat you a lot better when you in good physical form. It probably has something to do with the halo effect. Of course this creates a positive feedback loop and improves your self esteem and how you present yourself to others. The most unusual thing thing I notice is when women who are partners of my friends friends, they openly hit on me with their partners in the same room or start feeling me up as if they were passing me in a bar. If you haven't worked it out women start grabbing at you in bars if you are muscular. Socially speaking there aren't many downsides and most of them are only in specific situations. Since I've been muscular bouncers are somewhat hesitant about letting me into clubs, it's now a running joke with my friends. Also drunks and some bouncers with a chip on the shoulder try to start fights with me. Not many people think that I'm a dumbass meathead when first meeting me and those that do change their opinions quickly when they realise that I'm not a dickhead. I read the GBS thread cause it's funny, not really motivating though. I do exercise for myself, not for God, my country or a sports team or some sort of ideal.
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Jul 17, 2014 06:34
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swamp waste posted:I'm kind of laughing at all the self-hating fat posters here. I'm not saying don't get in shape or that it doesn't matter, but the fat people I know who seem the happiest don't go around feeling like "god i'm such a piece of poo poo" all the time. Or maybe they do, but they don't complain about it and come off as self-pitying. They have chronic health problems and probably don't get laid as much as they would in better shape but they still seem confident and happy. Maybe there's more of an emotional burden than I know, but I'm pretty sure a fat person with a good attitude is gonna have a better time in life than a fat sad-sack. Even if this is true; so what? Unless you are trying to beat around the bush and just want to tell depressed people 'just be happy dude' what does it matter if 1% or 10% or 90% of fat people really are jolly and content? That does not take away the self-loathing from the rest. potentiallycool posted:At high school I was around 115kg/215lbs or so which while not massive on a guy 1.89m/6'2 dude 115kg is about 250 lbs.
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Jul 17, 2014 08:52
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I think the best thing that ever helped me with losing weight was being laid off from a lovely, high stressful, long hours job and getting hired at a much less stressful almost half the hours at the job site, able to get out of my seat whenever I want type of job. I dropped 40 pounds in about half a year with the same eating habits and exercise routines.
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Jul 17, 2014 13:08
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swamp waste posted:I'm kind of laughing at all the self-hating fat posters here. I'm not saying don't get in shape or that it doesn't matter, but the fat people I know who seem the happiest don't go around feeling like "god i'm such a piece of poo poo" all the time. Or maybe they do, but they don't complain about it and come off as self-pitying. They have chronic health problems and probably don't get laid as much as they would in better shape but they still seem confident and happy. Maybe there's more of an emotional burden than I know, but I'm pretty sure a fat person with a good attitude is gonna have a better time in life than a fat sad-sack. You can hate what you've done to yourself without hating yourself. Depressed people also have a pretty common tick where a good number of them don't want anyone to know they're hurting and will fake happiness to the world around them.
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Jul 17, 2014 15:48
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FoolyCharged posted:You can hate what you've done to yourself without hating yourself. Depressed people also have a pretty common tick where a good number of them don't want anyone to know they're hurting and will fake happiness to the world around them. Yep. I am fat, but I am not the fat. I hate the fat. I do get down on myself because I am depressed. But I try to use whatever anger I feel as motivation. One thing I noticed this week is that I have a lot of emotion surrounding food, and this seems to be a theme with us. Luckily I've had enough therapy to use different coping skills for these emotions. But since I've cut out so many calories, I really have to work hard addressing whatever weird rear end emotions pop up. For me it's been a lot of anxiety, depression and some anger. I wouldn't be surprised if most fats have underlying mental issues. It's really important to address both the mental health and weight loss at the same time.
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Jul 17, 2014 17:49
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