Why are so many fat?

_Dara_

castletownman wrote: »

The other day I was on a break from lunch and there was a glam gran-young mammy-toddler combo nearby. The toddler was crying out for a drink so mammy fills its bottle with a sizeable portion of mi wadi. But then the gran and young mammy were both overweight themselves so it's a generational thing. The poor toddler probably won't see any other way. Bad parenting is passed down, and I assume healthy eating isn't high on the priority list either.

Mi Wadi and other cordials tend to be generally sugar-substitute sweetened these days. They have hardly any calories. It’s not exactly ideal but I don’t see that as a big issue really. Better very dilute low-calorie cordial to a very sugary soft drink or orange juice. The cordial drink is basically all water. There’s only a splash of the stuff in it. If the child won’t drink water on its own, you could do much worse.

_Dara_

Salthillprom wrote: »

Fatness = laziness

Fat people eat too much and/or don’t exercise enough.

It’s RARE that people are fat for medical reasons. Yes, it happens. But the majority of fatties walking around are lazy people who stuff their cakeholes.

Well, we all have our flaws. Fat people wear their flaw on their person though which is nice of them. Makes judging them so much easier. Thanks, fat people!

Realt Dearg Sec

Has anyone here ever eaten swedish food? It's rank. You'd be skinny too if that was the ****e you were expected to eat every day.

Just go easy with the butter on your spuds, give yourself a decent bit of veg with your dinner, and take the stairs or whatever.

And try not to judge people who are overweight all the time. It reveals you to be a bollocks.

How Soon Is Now

Bloody bitter begrudging drunk fat ugly bastard Paddys!!!


:pac: we love ourselves really.

juneg

Very good post from ginandtonicsky

I was in Paris recently and it really struck me that most people I saw in the city, on the metro etc were thin. I felt like an elephant! It was hot though, too hot to be eating. You'd be drinking lots of water too. Chocolate melts in the heat so that's out too.

I did not see chippers on every corner like you have here. I don't know what they do for fast food or do they bother with it at all.

I never gain weight on holidays because of the heat, less chocolate, more water, fewer hot drinks like cappuccino, lovely salads, just eating less.

I'm now trying to keep my teenagers slim and prevent them making the nutritional mistakes I did especially the girls who seem to be laying down fat with puberty at a fierce rate. I have to do this Without messing up their body image and self esteem. Not an easy tightrope to walk and I often fail.

The battle with sugar and junk food is unreal. I love listening to Dr. Donal o Shea. He's so wise.

Oh and taytos. Nobody has blamed taytos and tayto sandwiches yet. !!!

whisky_galore

juneg wrote: »

Very good post from ginandtonicsky

I was in Paris recently and it really struck me that most people I saw in the city, on the metro etc were thin. I felt like an elephant! It was hot though, too hot to be eating. You'd be drinking lots of water too. Chocolate melts in the heat so that's out too.

I did not see chippers on every corner like you have here. I don't know what they do for fast food or do they bother with it at all.

I never gain weight on holidays because of the heat, less chocolate, more water, fewer hot drinks like cappuccino, lovely salads, just eating less.

I'm now trying to keep my teenagers slim and prevent them making the nutritional mistakes I did especially the girls who seem to be laying down fat with puberty at a fierce rate. I have to do this Without messing up their body image and self esteem. Not an easy tightrope to walk and I often fail.

The battle with sugar and junk food is unreal. I love listening to Dr. Donal o Shea. He's so wise.

Oh and taytos. Nobody has blamed taytos and tayto sandwiches yet. !!!

More and better quality fruit as well. Here fresh fruit is like an afterthought slapped into a buffet.

Noticed people walk a lot more, walking to take public transport to get to work rather than driving from door to door. Here we drive everywhere and drive kids everywhere as if they have no legs of their own.

valoren

Because of this.



It's all about insulin and it's presence in your blood becoming the key to both weight gain and weight loss.

In the early 80's a connection was discovered between HDL cholesterol and heart disease.
Saturated fats raised HDL and thus the connection was made that eating saturated fat caused heart disease.
So it became vilified. Fat made you fat. Makes sense.
Yet, food manufacturers then looked to remove fat from food to prevent heart disease.
This resulted in food tasting like crap and so sugars and salts needed to be added to make 'food' palatable.
It was subsequently discovered that sugars (of which there are 40+ varieties/trade names) also raised HDL.

The kicker was that subsequently it was discovered that there were two forms of HDL.
To use a crude analogy, one was like a beachball filled with air and didn't accumulate as arterial plaque.
The other was akin to a snooker ball, small and dangerously dense. This did accumulate as plaque.
It was the sugar(s) which increased the bad form of HDL not the saturated fat which merely increased the good form.

So many are fat because they continuously eat foods which raises insulin. Insulin's primary role is to reduce blood sugars, elevated levels of which can cause us the inconvenience of dying. That's insulin's role; to stop us from dying due to too much sugar in our blood. A bouncer for our blood so to speak.

Just like how we get an adrenaline hit when confronted with a danger, insulin is triggered when we eat foods which spike blood sugars.

Common sense tells us that the likes of biscuits, bread, chocolate are not healthy.
Keep eating such processed rubbish and your pancreas will keep producing insulin trying to lower the blood sugars they are broken down to.
The presence of insulin in our blood inhibits lipolysis which is the bodies ability to breakdown stored fat for fuel as fatty acids. Saying that, we actually need some sugar (i.e. glucose) but only a quantity of about a tea spoon is all that's needed. A can of Coke for example contains the metabolic equivalent of 39 spoons of sugar. That's not good clearly.

Lipolysis just can't happen when insulin is secreted so continuously, it becomes inhibited, and the consumed energy by virtue of thermodynamics needs to go somewhere and ends up being stored as body fat or more accurately our fat cells become enlarged, new ones get created to meet the energy demands.

The rub here is that say you decided to cut out the classic rubbish i.e. the chocolate, the cakes, the biscuits, sweets and decide to replace those unhealthy foods with established staple 'healthy' ones like wholegrain bread, bagels etc. You're classic 'dieting'.

The problem is that, metabolically, bread and staple carbohydrates such as pasta and rice are the same thing as the sweets, candy etc and the insulin will be there doing it's job regardless. You believe you're being healthy but you become more and more exasperated as to why you're not losing weight and then ultimately give up and eat the rubbish again.

Over time either (a) your pancreas gives you the middle finger and gives up - type 1 diabetes (b) the insulin it is continuously secreting no longer works at the cellular level and you need medication - type 2 diabetes or (c) you suffer cardiac arrest and either die or become severely debilitated - heart disease. Diabetes is really 'processed food disease'.

Bread and processed foods don't satiate at a cellular level. You end up eating more to feel full but metabolically you are starving. You need to eat more and more to trigger sufficient Leptin - the "I've had enough, stop eating will ya!" hormone. Thus more calories are consumed and you get fatter. Ever remember having a Big Mac meal (circa 1,000 calories) and feeling hungry 20 minutes later? Classic example where you get lots of insulin but little leptin. Try eating 1,000 calories of veggies, salmon, olive oil and eggs and you're done eating for probably half the day. Little to no insulin, lot's of leptin.

The crux to this is to cut the processed carbs, to eat proper ones with natural fiber but another problem is convenience. It's just quicker to buy a sandwich than to eat say a salad with veggies and olive oil. So by giving a focus on insulin and seeking to consume foods which don't cause it's release (ironically the vilified fats) will enable you to become fat-adapted i.e. where you are using fat for fuel, you reach a point where you could go a day or even two with nothing but water and not feel the slightest bit hungry.

You are after all literally covered in calories for such situations. An additional bonus is that it causes you to also become lean and SEXY :pac:.

facehugger99

Humans are sugar and fat junkies.

We are genetically programmed to crave them.

In the past this wasn't so much a problem as the vast majority of people simply didn't have access to enough of it for it to be an issue.

That has flipped in the past number of decades, you only have to walk down a supermarket aisle or high street to see the proliferation of high-fat, high sugar cheap food that is currently available to everyone.

You combine that with poor self-control, a sedentary lifestyle, lack of time, poor education, lazy parenting and a lack of a food-culture and you have a toxic combination.

It's not a surprise that we are the fattest people in Europe and we're becoming fatter. I know so many people my own age (early 40-s) who either can't or don't cook properly. Everyday it's ready meals or takeaways. These bad eating habits are being passed onto their kids.

Not sure what can be done about it.

Education in schools would be a start.

I'm generally against governments sticking their noses into people's free-choices but more regulation of the high fat and high-sugar food industry might be an idea. It's been shown for sugar-taxes to work, they need to be set high enough to hurt people in the pocket and the current levels are just not doing that enough to affect food choices.

Lux23

1. People have to rely on their cars too much, particularly in rural areas,
2. We don't make enough of sitting down to eat and enjoy our meals,
3. No cycling infrastructure so people are taking a bus/Luas for short journeys that would take ten minutes on a bike,
4. Too much convenience foods for kids - we shouldn't be giving them taste for this when they're babies - Ella baby food - WTF,
5. Booze, takeaways and watching too much TV,
6. Our weather - this is the first summer in years when I could plan outdoor activities like hiking and I've toned up lots over the last few weeks. Lots of people don't want to go out in the rain.

Steve F

Daughter "Daddy I came first in (insert achievement here) in my class"
Me " Thats brilliant,what was your reward?"
Daughter "Chocolate"
True story,and until the whole attitude of what denotes reward and treats obesity will continue
Just imagine if some fruit had have been the reward instead(provided the child was checked for allergy first)

What do visitors take to homes when they visit? Fruit? Buns? Biscuits?. It's not the first one on the list usually

I know I sound like a grouch but its the whole mentality of the way we deal with treats and rewards that is part of the problem
That and the food manufacturers getting us all hooked on sugar and Salt from an early age

RonanP77

It's sheer laziness as far as I can tell. Too lazy to cook healthy food, too lazy to exercise. What was considered fat 20 years ago is barely tubby now. There's so much crap about "big is beautiful" girls being "thick" instead of realising they just have chunky legs and a fat ass, criticism over "fat shaming".

If you see fat adults, that's their choice, when you see them cart around a beach ball shaped kid with them it really pisses me off.

Beechwoodspark

I think another factor in this is pints of beer cider etc that ppl consume without a thought about the calorie content.

ginandtonicsky

ginandtonicsky wrote: »

..........

The slim people I know eat whatever the fcuk they want, in moderate quantities, and are active enough to never accrue a significant calorie surplus.

Indeed.

I'm not slim but for the last 2 months I'm eating 2000 kcals a day as opposed to the 3000 kcals I was munching previously.

I still have a Magnum or two a week, eat out once a week (starter and main, usually no desert) and am not hungry. I've seen the chipper every now and then and would have the very odd breakfast role etc

I'm losing 2 lbs a week, I'm not doing any more training than previously but as the weight falls off I'm having to add some more weights to my bodyweight exercises. I'm not losing any strength either so I reckon it's more or less all fat that's dropping off, the fit of my clothes agree.

Weight loss and investing / money management are both conceptually simple but you won't see too many trim, wealthy folk about :pac:

Balanadan

Augeo wrote: »

Indeed.

I'm not slim but for the last 2 months I'm eating 2000 kcals a day as opposed to the 3000 kcals I was munching previously.

I still have a Magnum or two a week, eat out once a week (starter and main, usually no desert) and am not hungry. I've seen the chipper every now and then and would have the very odd breakfast role etc

I'm losing 2 lbs a week, I'm not doing any more training than previously but as the weight falls off I'm having to add some more weights to my bodyweight exercises. I'm not losing any strength either so I reckon it's more or less all fat that's dropping off, the fit of my clothes agree.

Weight loss and investing / money management are both conceptually simple but you won't see too many trim, wealthy folk about :pac:

A magnum or two is quite a lot of champagne to be quaffing every week. You must be quite adept at the money management.

Boom_Bap

I believe it's something to do with the metric system and that our planet's axis of rotation is tilted at an angle

Lux23

RonanP77 wrote: »

If you see fat adults, that's their choice, when you see them cart around a beach ball shaped kid with them it really pisses me off.

So you fat shame children? That's cruel.

topper75

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Healthy eating = leaves?

Right. OK.

I think I know where you are going wrong.

As regards fun - what would you choose over whizzing on two wheels at 60kph down a straight open hill that you have just climbed on the strength of your own legs? Perhaps sitting on a couch for 2 hours straight watching some nonsense drama that somebody in American just imagined? Different strokes I suppose.

Balanadan

Balanadan wrote: »

A magnum or two is quite a lot of champagne to be quaffing every week. You must be quite adept at the money management.

I'm more or less a 7th Dan at it without the actual belts :pac:

Ush1

Lux23 wrote: »

So you fat shame children? That's cruel.

That's not what was said.

topper75

shakeitoff wrote: »

No man I know is obese, some girls seem to be because our society has done a bad job at encouraging girls to keep up sports. The amount of girls I know who stopped playing sport for their LC was astounding.

Is society to blame here? Or is it, dare I say it, the girls themselves?

I'm a member of society and never told a girl to stop exercising. In fact, I don't know any other member of our society who did.

Dakota Dan

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Has anyone here ever eaten swedish food? It's rank. You'd be skinny too if that was the ****e you were expected to eat every day.

Just go easy with the butter on your spuds, give yourself a decent bit of veg with your dinner, and take the stairs or whatever.

And try not to judge people who are overweight all the time. It reveals you to be a bollocks.

Word has it that the op is actually a fat slob that's testing the waters to see what people think of him.

JupiterKid

If you look at old photos from the 1950s/1960s very few Irish people were fat or obese. Many more people cycled to get around.

It's down to bone idle laziness, massive over-reliance on the car, sedentary lifestyles, lack of exercise, consumption of too much junk food, over consumption of alcohol and a combination of all the above.

eagle eye

If I eat burgers and ice cream and you eat leaves and fat free yogurt and live five years longer than me then I win imo.

wakka12

Dunno where you were looking OP, but you must have been blinkered to all the swedish fatties, because theres plenty to look at

Intercountry comparable overweight and obesity estimates from 2008 (1) show that 53.3% of the adult population (> 20 years old) in Sweden were overweight and 18.6% were obese. The prevalence of overweight was higher among men (60.2%) than women (46.6%).

So nearly 1 in every 2 women in sweden is fat, and more men have beer bellies than not, were you staying in a student town or something?

Chaos Tourist

Intermittent fasting + low carb diet + HIIT. Boom. Does that sound extreme? I imagine the weight falling off there.

pickarooney

Patww79 wrote: »

You could be run over by a bus tomorrow. Imagine you'd wasted your life eating leaves and exercising?

Then you could have jumped out of the way of the bus?

eagle eye

eagle eye wrote: »

If I eat burgers and ice cream and you eat leaves and fat free yogurt and live five years longer than me then I win imo.

You can eat burgers and ice cream weekly as part of a calorie controlled diet, no problem at all
A lash of greek style, fat free yoghurt with a few hazelnuts and a squeeze of honey is delicious, filling and nutricious btw.
Everything in moderation.

jiltloop

_Dara_ wrote: »

I think many people who say they don’t like it haven’t ever tried it. Lots of people exercise outdoors throughout the year. If you truly want to exercise, the season won’t stop you. I’m inclined to think that those who cite the weather as a reason not to exercise are not very committed to it because a good few people of my acquaintance would seriously side-eye anyone who gave that as a reason.

The weather isn’t even that bad in winter generally. As someone who used to cycle throughout the winter, it doesn’t even rain that much. Continuous rain is rare. It’s mostly showers. There was rarely a day that the weather stopped me cycling. I could count the days per winter on one hand.

This is true! I cycle to work most days and usually you're actually more inclined to get soaked in Summer (this Summer excepted!) as the showers can be far worse and less predictable.

silverharp

eagle eye wrote: »

If I eat burgers and ice cream and you eat leaves and fat free yogurt and live five years longer than me then I win imo.

if it were so but if you spend 40 years of your life not sleeping well, not being able to tie your shoelaces then you lose

ford2600

ginandtonicsky wrote: »

The slim people I know eat whatever the fcuk they want, in moderate quantities, and are active enough to never accrue a significant calorie surplus.

Slim people like me and it seems you can eat whatever we want and stay lean; the reason being that people respond very differently to the same calorie surplus.

Go on google scholar and look at overfeeding studies. Lean people will primarily increase their NEAT and thereby resist fat gain. All it means is you are lucky, not another thing.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/283/5399/212

Levine also did a study where the only information he had was the sitting patterns of 100 people or so in an office during their work day; no other information on diet, gym membership, sex, age etc etc. Just how often and for how long they sat/got up. From that one piece of information he was able to accurately identify fat level.

If you are lean and smug, you might like to know that not looking fat isn't a guarantee of metabolic health.

AndrewJRenko

topper75 wrote: »

As regards fun - what would you choose over whizzing on two wheels at 60kph down a straight open hill that you have just climbed on the strength of your own legs? Perhaps sitting on a couch for 2 hours straight watching some nonsense drama that somebody in American just imagined? Different strokes I suppose.

Wrong. Different Strokes was a nonsense comedy, not a nonsense drama.

juneg

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Wrong. Different Strokes was a nonsense comedy, not a nonsense drama.

What you talking about Willis?

We're showing our age here renko Lol!!

Pogue eile

Zipppy wrote: »

Why are so many Irish people fat?
I'm just back from Sweden where all the ladies are slim and trim incl older ladies and the men don't sport huge beer bellies..
Back to Ireland and its fat fat fat everywhere?
Laziness? Genes? Alcohol? What?

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Spent a fair bit of time in Sweden over the years and I wouldnt agree at all, plenty of overweight people and we all have this image of the postcard blonde bombshell, reality is very differnet and Swedish women age very badly and in general look very old before their time.

Victor

I wonder if posts 1 and 3 are related.

rizzee

Victor wrote: »

I wonder if posts 1 and 3 are related.

Should give penalty points for being fat. Problem solved.

LirW

I can tell you something frustrating: had to start medication over a year ago for some ongoing health issue that will need medication for the next couple of decades. Now I gained an amazing quality of life, I feel a lot better and am experiencing almost no pain, the pay-off is that I gained 15 kg and they are bloody hard to shed! I cook at home every day, have a pretty good portion control and never any issue but now the weight isn't really shifting, which is not unusual for the issue I have. Now I'm not fat, I just got chunkier and it bothers me and I try to change it but body says "f off". Doctor's advice is to keep going with a healthy lifestyle, you might not shed the weight or just a little bit but it's still good for you.

And the worst thing about it, now that I'm having more weight on, people throw me into the same pool where people with horrendous lifestyles are. I don't get chipper food, I don't overeat, I'm spending the whole day on my feet doing things. I have a healthy and good looking partner and 2 healthy looking and fit kids. It's really unfair.

Salthillprom

Lux23 wrote: »

So you fat shame children? That's cruel.

Parents allowing their kids to get fat is a form of child abuse

Sal Butamol

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

this is what i mean, Not attractive at all.

How Soon Is Now wrote: »

Wouldnt say no.....

...to Cake

Cleopatra_

Sal Butamol wrote: »

...to Cake

Yawn.

Pass the cake please.

Realt Dearg Sec

LirW wrote: »

I have a healthy and good looking partner and 2 healthy looking and fit kids. It's really unfair.

Jesus yeah, you poor thing.

Deise Vu

meeeeh wrote: »

While religion and Irish are used as an excuse for everything I think the ridiculous insurance and lawsuit culture affects schools a lot more.

Lawsuit culture is certainly an excuse to push physical activity down the list but it isn't the full picture. At the risk of upsetting a small proportion of our female better half, a bigger issue is the lack of men teaching in Primary schools. It is an unfortunate fact of life that, although there are plenty of women with an interest in sports, there aren't enough of them with the result that my kids PE is a hotch potch of dancing,stupid stuff like throwing polyurethane darts, rounders (where the kids might get 2 go's at bat in all of PE and often, it is skipped entirely. My kids are all into sport but I never ask them what they do in PE because all I get is an 'ugh' face as they detail the latest waste of an hour out of their lives.

Secondly I think kids are way too smart for the 'we are all winners' BS. Instead they lose interest quickly if there isn't some point to the whole thing. Every kid can walk and run or ride a bicycle if they can't play team sports. Find something they can do.

Thirdly, lose the vending machines!

Finally, the above points are for schools but it is 95% up to parents to get kids interested in sports and to eat the right foods. If you never watch or attend sporting events and couldn't be arsed to give up your Saturday morning lie in to take your kid to an academy of some sort (there a lots of sports to try before your give up), it is entirely your fault if your kid has no interest in sports or in keeping fit.

juneg

juneg wrote: »

I'm now trying to keep my teenagers slim and prevent them making the nutritional mistakes I did especially the girls who seem to be laying down fat with puberty at a fierce rate. I have to do this Without messing up their body image and self esteem. Not an easy tightrope to walk and I often fail.

The battle with sugar and junk food is unreal. I love listening to Dr. Donal o Shea. He's so wise.

Oh and taytos. Nobody has blamed taytos and tayto sandwiches yet. !!!

There are studies done into girls giving up sports far more than boys so i would suggest encouraging them into team sports, or dare i say it something like teen crossfit, they also have the benefit of being social with a good atmosphere. well hopefully a good atmosphere anyway. then they'll be more into a healthier lifestyle and the rest will follow

_Dara_

jiltloop wrote: »

This is true! I cycle to work most days and usually you're actually more inclined to get soaked in Summer (this Summer excepted!) as the showers can be far worse and less predictable.

Yeah, in Ireland it just looks like it’s going to rain more than it actually rains.

topper75

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Wrong. Different Strokes was a nonsense comedy, not a nonsense drama.

juneg wrote: »

What you talking about Willis?

We're showing our age here renko Lol!!

Maybe if the lovely Kimberly rode her bike more she wouldn't have messed up like she did.

_Dara_

ginandtonicsky wrote: »

We're obsessed with dieting and food fads and "clean eating" and gluten-free and dairy-free and veganism and "juice cleansing". I see a fair amount of orthorexia in the people around me every day. Total demonisation of perfectly normal foods because of their "high sugar/fat content" and a real black-or-white approach to food and nutrition that excludes the age-old notion of everything in moderation.

Funnily enough I found an old magazine from ten years ago recently and it featured a piece on that pop band The Saturdays doing one of those "what I eat in a typical day" interviews. Their diets were so...normal. Non-fussy and non-neurotic. Bowl of special K for breakfast, chicken sandwich for lunch. Spaghetti bolognese or meat, spuds and vegetables for dinner. And they were all slim as can be. I remember thinking jesus it's a long time since I've seen someone let alone a celebrity admitting to eating in such a non-specialised, non-complicated, non-elitist green smoothie with magic pixie fairy dust kinda way.

And that's the thing. All of this over-complication of the basic function of eating and obsession over macros and fixation on eliminating entire food groups means we actually know fcuk all about nutrition when it comes down to it. And everything you put in your mouth that's not a carrot stick is a potential grenade.

Most of the people I know with weight problems are constantly going on and off unrealistic diets that wouldn't be sustainable for a toddler let alone a grown man/woman and have gotten their self esteem wrapped up in that effort to lose weight that ultimately fails every time. And they just wind up fatter and more hopeless.

I was eating a cereal bar this morning when a colleague said "I don't know how you eat that stuff and stay tiny!" A fcuking cereal bar! Seriously like. I'll eat chocolate most days, proper addicted to those kinder fingers at the moment the things are like crack cocaine, I just don't deprive myself and wind up in a closet ramming 40 of the things down my throat with my face covered in chocolate because I've cut out three food groups and have replaced meals with shakes and finally the urge got the better of me.

The slim people I know eat whatever the fcuk they want, in moderate quantities, and are active enough to never accrue a significant calorie surplus.

Great post, ginandtonicsky. You’ve much more eloquently put into words one of the points I was trying to make - the orthorexia thing. The absolute obsessing over healthy eating.

And as a cancer patient, it simultaneously amuses me AND boils my piss to hear people make definitive statements about health-eating and health: “this diet prevents cancer”. No, it might reduce your risk, but that’s it. What, did we cancer patients bring it on ourselves? Something like 60% of cancer cases are not related to lifestyle.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t eat well and exercise. It does help reduce risk of various health problems occurring. But no diet is a complete forcefield against ill health and people who obsess about superfoods and macros and micros and clean-eating are both smug and deluded. And the more obsessive among them can actually do themselves harm with their restrictive diets.

downtheroad

Salthillprom wrote: »

Parents allowing their kids to get fat is a form of child abuse

Completely agree. If a parent doesn't feed their child there would be uproar and serious ramifications but nothing said about over feeding them to the point where they are obese.

_Dara_

LirW wrote: »

I can tell you something frustrating: had to start medication over a year ago for some ongoing health issue that will need medication for the next couple of decades. Now I gained an amazing quality of life, I feel a lot better and am experiencing almost no pain, the pay-off is that I gained 15 kg and they are bloody hard to shed! I cook at home every day, have a pretty good portion control and never any issue but now the weight isn't really shifting, which is not unusual for the issue I have. Now I'm not fat, I just got chunkier and it bothers me and I try to change it but body says "f off". Doctor's advice is to keep going with a healthy lifestyle, you might not shed the weight or just a little bit but it's still good for you.

And the worst thing about it, now that I'm having more weight on, people throw me into the same pool where people with horrendous lifestyles are. I don't get chipper food, I don't overeat, I'm spending the whole day on my feet doing things. I have a healthy and good looking partner and 2 healthy looking and fit kids. It's really unfair.

People are very dismissive of medical issues, I find, when it comes to weight problems. They are roundly treated as an excuse. People don’t take into account that medical issues can have knock-on effects like making a person much less physically active, for example. I was on a medication in the last few years that seriously stymied my ability to keep weight off even when I was eating really well. AND my physical activity was severely curtailed. Health problems are messy and their influence can be far-reaching.

aroundthehouse

Beasty wrote: »

Simple

Not enough cyclists. Join us and you'll be skinny before you know it.....

you lot are everywhere

downtheroad

Lux23 wrote: »

So you fat shame children? That's cruel.

Their parents should be ashamed for being bad parents. Over feeding a child to the point of obesity is child abuse. Not to mention the social impact it will have on our already creaking health service.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Slightly, but perhaps not totally off topic...

when people say they can't lose weight - either due to medication or some other circumstance, is this nonsense?

Distilling it down to its most basic form,
Food = Fuel, and if you burn more than you take in, you lose weight, either from fat or muscle.

otherwise, how exactly are you hanging onto the weight? Are people just deluded as to how much they actually eat? If you weigh out a 'recommended serving size' of breakfast cereal, its hardly enough to cover the bottom of the bowl.