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Naafa And Fat!so?

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The reason I ask is because I can not understand any physiological reason for such a thing.

If she's never tried a moderate diet, then there are certainly physiological possibilities... read this chapter. If Jennifer has extremely unfavorable genetics, it would produce that effect. But with a bit of cleverness, it can be overcome.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/chapt...000000000000000

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If not, then I know in my area there are at least 12 gyms within 10 miles and you can get a membership for under $20 a month if you don't buy the "add-ons" they try to sell you.

I find $20 hard to beleive, unless they are limiting you to an X-amout of days per month (although if it's for real, I'm jealous). 24 hour fitness, one of the largest fitness corporations in the U.S., charges around $30/month+intiation fee of $75+dolloars. Most private gyms won't be able to beat that since they aren't as large and commercial.

Then you have the stupid gyms that are built on tax money and STILL charge you for entering (although usually I just walk in, saying I have to pick up my little sister :D ). And, even though they are built/funded on taxes, they usually charge more than private/corporate gyms.

Put a keyboard and a monitor on an exercise bike so I can work while I'm working out and we'll talk.

LOL!!

A quick side note, not directed at anyone, but there are some people who put money over health, when in reality, being healthy is saving money (last time I checked, a trip to the cardiologist was quite expensive).

Nonetheless, I have compassion (for women more so than men) for fat people who have given up on trying to loose weight. It's a bitch to work all day and then come home and try to work out. It's also a bitch to work out when you have just eaten, so everything has to be planned accordingly...which is tough when you are at work and don't necessarily have the liberty to eat when you ought to. And if your standing on your feet all day while you work, which means your feet are sore as *hit (regardless of how much you weigh) the last thing you want to do is run, or lift weights, which requires you to add more pressure to the bottom of your feet. Being in shape I still agree with this, but I can't imagine what it must be like to be fat and try to do this...that's why I try to permanently keep off unnecessary weight, since I know it will be 20times harder if I get fat.

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I find $20 hard to beleive, unless they are limiting you to an X-amout of days per month (although if it's for real, I'm jealous).

Be jealous. :D

It's actually $19/Month for FitnessOne. And there are no limits. They do try to upsell you on nutrition and personal trainers, though. But you only HAVE to pay $19/month.

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Disagree. There are a number of physiological and practical reasons why a vigorous exercise program is not where to start for Megan. Just grab 135 pounds and walk around for a while and you'll understand one big reason.

What she needs now (if weigh loss is the goal) is calorie restriction and not much more. Walking a little extra maybe, but even that's optional. Exercise = GOOD, Calorie Restriction = NECESSARY. Eating less takes LESS time and costs LESS.

I agree completely. I think you just misunderstood my post. Exercise, of course, becomes more of a choice when the weight is already down. With a lot of weight on your hips you are constantly carrying weights with you all day anyway, which is like additional training for your existing muscles already.

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I imagine that there are some people out there who cannot help being fat; they may have a hormonal imbalance or syndrome (Praeder-Willie for example). And I am no statistician, but I reckon these people must make up for a very small percentage of the overweight people in the world.

America is now the second fatest country on Earth (Australia has managed to eat its way to the top now), and it looks like us here in Britain are going to catch up soon.

It is not expensive to eat healthily. I understand the fast-food is a lot cheaper in the States than here (for example, a MacDonalds meal here costs around four pounds, which is about six dollars), so I can see the temptation to eat fast food rather than real food. But I believe the entire problem is part of a quick-fix malaise from which we all suffer. People do not want to make their own food - twenty years ago the average British housewife spent an hour preparing her family's evening meal. Nowadays, there are hardly any houswives and the average evening meal is prepared in just under forty minutes.

And exercise costs nothing. I am pretty sure that although there is a tax on driving your car, there is not one yet on walking to the bus-stop or walking to the shops or walking up the stairs instead of talking the lift. Or how about jogging?

People want the pleasure without the pay-back. A nice big cream cake - yum! - but it is also full of calories. And people are not willing to accept that. It may be because we are surrounded by images of beautifully thin people tucking quite happily into their morning pop-tarts, so we assume it must be ok for us too.

And portion sizes have massively increased. When food was homecooked, whoever was serving could sensibly allot the right amount to the right person(I remember my little brother complaining when I was little that my Dad's plate always had the most food, then my Mum's, and then mine and his always had the least). Nowadays, we assume that the portion alloted to us is right for all of us to eat.

Another factor I believe is that people believe any discomfort must immediately be remedied. Hungry at three? Rather than wait until dinner time, they snack.

At the end of the day - if you want to lose weight (and any sensible diet always boils down to this mind-numbingly simple rule) - you need to eat less and do more.

People who complain that society does not accept because the detritus of their gluttony hangs from their idle limbs might like to imagine how they can explain their plight to someone who is dying because they do not have enough food to stand up.

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... I believe the entire problem is part of a quick-fix malaise from which we all suffer. People do not want to make their own food - twenty years ago the average British housewife spent an hour preparing her family's evening meal. Nowadays, there are hardly any housewives and the average evening meal is prepared in just under forty minutes.
This is really an aside to the topic, but I just had to comment.

What you speak of is not a 'malaise', it is called 'division of labor'. As an economy gets more developed it makes more sense for people to specialize and trade their output. A lawyer, for instance, might be better off spending an extra hour a day working as a lawyer and using that extra cash to buy services:gardening or cooking or dry-cleaning. If he cooks, he should do so for fun, or profit. If he derives neither, I would not call his refusal to cook a 'malaise'.

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What you speak of is not a 'malaise', it is called 'division of labor'.

It is a malaise. People are not consciously thinking "Tonight, I will work an extra hour, and instead of preparing my own food, I shall pay someone else to do it for me". I do not know how (nor do I have the skills or the machinery) to dry-clean my suit, so yes I do pay someone else to do that for me. But until we all can afford to pay skilled and professional chefs then the "division of labour" idea will remain a euphamism for laziness.

People just think "I can't be bothered cooking - I'll get a pizza for four quid instead".

Every action has a reaction - eat too much and do too little and you will weigh too much.

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Dan, I do not dispute that there is a 'malaise'. However, it is not caused primarily by an incorrect 'make vs. buy" decision. I think it related more to what is bought.

If equally inexpensive and convenient healthy meals are available and people choose the unhealthy ones, that's one type of "problem". If they aren't available, then that's a different type of problem (perhaps even a business opportunity).

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However, it is not caused primarily by an incorrect 'make vs. buy" decision. I think it related more to what is bought.

The malaise is that we are all addicted to the myth of the quick-fix. As you you say, this may be more about what is bought, but that is still the malaise of the quick-fix. Rather than buying a chicken breast, an onion, a turnip, some potatoes and a little butter (or whatever else you need for some stew), people just get the easiest thing they can - a pizza or something. Convenience food is convenient food; it is all part of the quick fix.

Healthy convenience foods are not as readily and as cheaply available as simple ingredients which take time to cook and turn into food. That is the problem - people expect that they should be, and cannot accept that healthier food usually takes longer to prepare than dialling the pizza delivery man and opening the door to pay him. They cannot be bothered eating healthily and opt for the easier option.

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People want the pleasure without the pay-back. A nice big cream cake - yum! - but it is also full of calories. And people are not willing to accept that. It may be because we are surrounded by images of beautifully thin people tucking quite happily into their morning pop-tarts, so we assume it must be ok for us too.

This, I think, is key. People do indeed have very different metabolisms, nutrition requirements, etc. The way that a lot of people get overweight is a refusal to acknowledge this fact of reality. The very same fat person who says "I couldn't help it; I gain weight easily because of my genes. I don't lack self-control; I'm eating the very same things as that skinny guy over there" is revealing his fault in the very same sentence that he denies it. He thinks that he can eat the same as the next fellow, when he is NOT the next fellow; he is HIMSELF. It's a denial of identity.

Now some might say, "well, that's not fair! That skinny guy can eat all he wants and never gain weight!" Hmmm, do I detect the same credo as that of the communist, who says "that's not fair that some men should be born with more ability than others!"

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Although I agree with the comment above, I want to point out an incidental (but interesting) fact: most people do not have widely varying metabolisms. The very large majority of people's metabolisms are within a very small range of everybody else's. Even pronounced glandular-induced metabolic differences fall within a fairly narrow range. It would be very rare, for example, for one person to burn calories even 5% faster or slower than the next guy.

(Note: My source for this claim is very old knowledge, the source for which I have long since forgotten, except to remember that I noted no red flags about its reliability when I first heard it. If anyone has information to the contrary, I welcome it, and will consider -- and, if applicable, integrate -- new claims appropriately.)

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He thinks that he can eat the same as the next fellow, when he is NOT the next fellow; he is HIMSELF. It's a denial of identity.

Quite!

But in response to Gnarhtharst above - alhough it is undoubtedly true that people's metabolic rates are all different they cannot be the underlying cause of obesity.

Metabolic rates will make people a little tubbier than others - look at the Middle Ages; I doubt the average peasant had that many burgers to eat but it is true that some of them were rather large.

But TWENTY-TWO PERCENT of the population obese and three quarters overweight (that is the current UK adult population figure) - this is due to diet. If not, then we would all have had similar levels during the War (it is interesting to note that Britain rationned food during and after the war. Leaving aside your Objectivist principle as to the rightness of this and the fact there was a fair bit of black-markettering, it has meant that it has given us a very good picture of how diet affects a nation's health, as it was all strictly monitored. Britain has exprience a lot of immigration since, but on the whole three-quarters of the population are directly linked to the 1945 population).

I think it is DISGUSTING that we have reached the point whereby we are killing ourselves - not in an exciting quest or wonderful glorios march to something better - but in an orgy of glutonnous excess.

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Although I agree with the comment above, I want to point out an incidental (but interesting) fact: most people do not have widely varying metabolisms.

I am sorry, I used the term "metabolism" to simply refer to caloric requirements... a "common" but perhaps inaccurate use of the term.

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You know capitalism's great when the biggest problem that comes from it is that the poor eat TOO MUCH.

Apparently, I'm too thin; my body mass index (18.5) is almost in an unhealthy range (though not quite). Luckily, this has had a great benefit. To quote my doctor, "I'd recommend that you eat more butter."

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  • 2 weeks later...
You know capitalism's great when the biggest problem that comes from it is that the poor eat TOO MUCH.

Although food is now produced more efficiently, it is not necessarily better for you in terms of nutrition. Costs have gone down in developing food items, but so has the nutritional value.

Many health issues stem from poor dietary choices. For example, eating foods that are made with white; enriched, refined and bleached flour/sugar is poor practice. In the refining process, many vital minerals and nutrients have been leached out of these once whole foods. These food items (and others like refined oils) are more difficult for our bodies to metabolize.

Furthermore, although technological advances have helped make food items cheaper and more available, the technology in “developing,” not growing these food items is questionable. Case in point, genetically modified/engineered foods and synthetic growth hormones (rBST.)

Its not that Americans are eating to much, it’s what they are eating too much of. Take for instance hydrogenated oil, which contains toxic trans fatty acids. 80 percent of all the vegetable oils sold in the United States comes from soybeans, 3/4th of which is hydrogenated. The hydrogenation process induces oxidation and free radical formation, which is the cause of many degenerate diseases such as atherosclerosis. The oxidized lipids found in the refined oils are stripped of natural antioxidants, without which, we are unable to fight free radical formation. Much of our “modern diet” consists of these unhealthy refined oils, and less of the food rich with antioxidants (vegetables.)

I am surprised to see the lack of Objectivist nutritionists. There are several references in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead which advocate a fit/healthy body, why isn’t their more activity in this area of personal development? Would being an obese Objectivist be a contradiction in terms?

Browsing these forums and others, as well as reviewing the Objectivist Conferences, I have been unable to find any literature published on the topic.

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Furthermore, although technological advances have helped make food items cheaper and more available, the technology in “developing,” not growing these food items is questionable. Case in point, genetically modified/engineered foods and synthetic growth hormones (rBST.)

What do you mean with your case in point? I don't quite see how the things you mention are related to a lack of technology in this field.

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What do you mean with your case in point? I don't quite see how the things you mention are related to a lack of technology in this field.

I never alluded to a lack of technology in food production. My point was that technology is not entirely helping the production of healthy food items. More to the point, technology is not being applied properly to the production of food items, which would help explain the high obesity rates.

Also, that the ingestion of GMO's is questionable. I lack sufficient evidence to support an assault on GMO's, but changing DNA structures and chemical compositions has proven to create toxins and allergens in organic foods that were not originally there.

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You know capitalism's great when the biggest problem that comes from it is that the poor eat TOO MUCH.

Apparently, I'm too thin; my body mass index (18.5) is almost in an unhealthy range (though not quite). Luckily, this has had a great benefit. To quote my doctor, "I'd recommend that you eat more butter."

Interesting recommendation. I've heard butter is also good for your skin. I know I crave it sometimes (and I'm a slender guy, too). How do you calculate body mass index, and find out what's the appropriate range?

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BMI = weight/(height^2). In metric (kg and m). If you use pounds and inches, multiply by 703.

From Wikipedia:

* Starvation: less than 15 (<15)

* Anorexic: less than 17.5 (<17.5)

* Underweight: less than 18.5 (<18.5)

* Ideal: greater than or equal to 18.5 but less than 25 (≥18.5 but <25)

* Overweight: greater than or equal to 25 but less than 30 (≥25 but <30)

* Obese: greater than or equal to 30 but less than 40 (≥30 but <40)

* Morbidly Obese: greater than or equal to 40

I'm a 17.4.

-Q

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Interesting recommendation. I've heard butter is also good for your skin. I know I crave it sometimes (and I'm a slender guy, too). How do you calculate body mass index, and find out what's the appropriate range?

Type "body mass index calculator" into Google, and it should come up with a program to do it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Perhaps these people are simply tired of being judged at face-value as though they are cattle by shallow people? Next time someone winces when you tell them you're an atheist, think of the fat people and ask yourself if those who judge you are so different.

Edited by Arkanin
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