It’s precisely this sort of advice that makes me say it’s not in my self-interest to diet.
Yeah, it gets a little extreme if you do it without using exercise. But you can lose weight by just dropping 100 calories below maintenance. It will take longer, but will work just the same.
It’s precisely this sort of advice that makes me say it’s not in my self-interest to diet. In a few weeks I may be moving to a more physically-demanding job, which should help. It pays better, too, and I’ll be cutting my expenses, so I’ll have money to spend on going to a gym or something.
Megan, nothing worth while is easy. 
There’s no question it’ll be in your self-interest. Rational Cop’s posting points out how.
I’ll bet RayK on THE FORUM would have some great advice. His profession is getting people in shape, and I know he employs Mike Mentzer’s techniques.
There’s no question it’ll be in your self-interest.
In a vacuum, maybe, but I think it’s more in my self interest to spend the time and effort required getting my career on track so that I can pay my bills. You have to understand, I work ALL DAY LONG. I get up, go to my regular job, then I come home and work on my writing, read to improve my mind, post here for the same reason, and chat with a few people in the background in order to remember that human beings exist. I have no “free time” that isn’t being gainfully employed.
Put a keyboard and a monitor on an exercise bike so I can work while I’m working out and we’ll talk.
I have no “free time” that isn’t being gainfully employed.
Can you afford home equipment? If so, it could take a lot less time than you think. As I said, there are alternatives to time-consuming aerobics.
Off-Topic:
Even though I am quite dogmatic about maintaining health (training and good diet) being an objective need of man (I once read that people of this attitude are described as Body-Nazis 
), I think Megan is acting very rationally. She puts money first, which is a reasonable choice.
Now she waits (more precisely: she works) till she moves to another place and has another job that pays her more. THEN she may find the time and money to focus on these health issues. If you need your time for work and your money for your rent, then it’s perfectly rational NOT to cut off time and money for working out and dieting but instead to focus on improving your situation which is exactly what she does.
She improves her life one area at a time, starting with the one area that makes improvement in all other areas possible: her career, which, once improved, gives her time and money for the rest. Sounds very rational to me. And I’m one of those Body-Nazis. 
Sidenote:
I think (from what I read in previous posts ) that Megan is very well capable of defending herself, but this just striked me as interesting, because I learned something valuable myself that I wanted to be available to the rest of you, too. I think that you are dropping the context. Still, your help is both high in quality and certainly well-intended. It’s just that even though you are right on principle, the timing is just not right.
On-Topic:
Hmm.. I wonder if these Fat!So?- guys understand how self-contradictory their statements are. Either being fat is beautiful, then: What’s the problem? Or being fat is bad and caused by genetics, then they just have bad luck. Or it is bad and caused by the diet industy or the fast-food industry, but this is not valid since they have free will. Gee, this is just weird!
This reminds me of something:
I just helped my little sister with her homework about lactose-intolerance. This made me suggest a club where people fight for more lactose-tolerance, since lactose is being socially suppressed. She just gave me that look again.
Alternatively, fat is caused by the diet industry: “We’re getting fatter because of dieting,” as one activist puts it. “The way to fatten an animal is to starve it and then re-feed it. Your metabolism slows down when you’re eating less. People on diets are predisposing their body to gain more weight.”
Well this is certainly true. I’m sure that the shocking amounts of misinformation pumped out by the diet industry and the popular press (eg Atkins, cabbage soup diet, whatever) has had adverse effects on numerous people. Successful long-term weightloss generally requires access to sensible information, which is harder to locate when you have so much crap entering the public consciousness.
While the diet industry comes under attack, the $900 billion food industry does not. But as Marion Nestle points out in her convincing treatise, Food Politics (2002), the food industry now produces 3,800 calories a day for every person in the United States (2,200 to 2,500 would be adequate). That’s a 500 calorie-a-day increase since 1970. And, as Nestle notes, the American weight spike in the late 1970s exactly corresponded with the invention of supersizing in fast-food marketing.
Again, its almost certainly true that the food industry’s marketing can contribute to obesity (although this works both ways; look at the plethora of nice tasting healthy food which has emerged in recent years due to market demand).
Your post seems to be based on a rather simplistic view of casuation; most events do not have one single cause, and saying that X contributes to phenomenon Y doesnt prevent other factors from being partly responsible. Yes, people are fat because they choose to eat too much, but there are numerous things that can influence their choices, including poor information, social pressure, and certain forms of advertising.
Obviously none of this justifies government intervention since there are no rights violations here, although you could probably justify charging several companies with fraud based on the amount of nonsense they spread.
I sympathize with JMeganSnow on the issue that she brought up: in my memory, it was extremely difficult to lose weight when finances were a problem.
This seems odd in retrospect, because why should eating less food cost more? Probably just the type of food that is available when resorting to fast food, or convenient food.
In fact, once I changed my diet to a vegetable-intense diet (not vegetarian – like my pizza too much for that), my food bills are much lower. Healthy foods are cheap, as it turns out.
I’m sure everyone will eventually chime in with their diet advice, so I’ll mention a couple of books that were helpful to me:
“Fat of the Land” by Michael Fumento. Cuts through a lot of the pseudoscience in the diet industry. Good for avoiding bad advice.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai…=glance&s=books
[ten-words or less summary of the above book: fat is unhealthy. Lose weight by eating less and exercising.]
And this book, recommended by an Objectivist (Mark over at Capmag.com), which has been very helpful. I’m not getting into discussing a few minor objection to each of these. Overall these books helped me understand diet better, and helped me get healthier.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai…=glance&s=books
[ten-words-or-less summary: Eat less calories by eating LOTS of fruits and vegetables].
- Spend at least an hour of my time every single day in boring, mindless, exhausting, repetitive-stress-inducing physical activity.
Why not take up Mike Mentzer’s heavy duty challenge? It only neeour of training per week!
With what weights?
I appreciate the advice, and telling me what I can do (when I’m actually able to do it) is helpful. Telling me what I should do (especially for someone as pigheaded as me!) is an exercise (heh) in futility.
With what weights?
I appreciate the advice, and telling me what I can do (when I’m actually able to do it) is helpful. Telling me what I should do (especially for someone as pigheaded as me!) is an exercise (heh) in futility.
Light weights to break yourself in and work out how strong you currently are and work up from there.
If you do want to take up the challenge, tell me privately.
Hmm.. I wonder if these Fat!So?- guys understand how self-contradictory their statements are. Either being fat is beautiful, then: What’s the problem? Or being fat is bad and caused by genetics, then they just have bad luck.
…Or good luck, if it’s beautiful?
Well this is certainly true. I’m sure that the shocking amounts of misinformation pumped out by the diet industry and the popular press (eg Atkins, cabbage soup diet, whatever) has had adverse effects on numerous people.
No doubt there is a lot of misinformation out there. I wouldn’t dispute that for a second.
But read the quote again: that fellow wasn’t blaming bad diets, he was blaming dieting as such. He was saying, basically, “People are fat because diets are hard and they give up and binge. If “society” would just stop telling everyone to eat a healthy diet, then we wouldn’t be fat.”
Which is nonsense.
With what weights?
Depends. How are your finances? If they’re stable, a home gym is a big option. If you can make some cutbacks in other areas, it will be worth it to fix your health…
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.
If money’s tight temporarily, you could just buy a few small freeweights and a chin-up bar and use those and gravity exercises to start out, like Blacksabbath suggested. You will eventually need access to the heavier stuff, though. But it won’t take hours per day, I’ll tell you that. (just trying to offer some hope)
I think Megan is acting very rationally. She puts money first, which is a reasonable choice.
Of course only she knows the full context of her life, so only she is qualified to say. But at 125lbs overweight, it’s not something that should be put off for long… there are a LOT of health risks in that condition.
Well I think it is possible for an overweight person to be aesthetically intergrated. I had much unnesessary angest over this when I first decided to become an Objectivist because I have always been attracted to heavier girls.
I don’t get this. Why would you have angst over “heavier” girls? I can see angst if you found yourself attracted to morbidly obese girls, that would signify an issue to worry about. Generally if a person appears healthy, and you find them pleasing to thine eye, I don’t see a problem.
On another note I did a google picture search today of mariyln monroe (for the hair style) and since it was unfiltered the playboy spread came up. She was certainly beautiful–yet I don’t think you’d ever see someone her size in magazines, nor someone so nude but that’s another issue. I’d post the picture but I’m pretty sure that’s a no-no here.
From what I heard she was hearty size 10. Vavavoom
I don’t get this. Why would you have angst over “heavier” girls? I can see angst if you found yourself attracted to morbidly obese girls, that would signify an issue to worry about. Generally if a person appears healthy, and you find them pleasing to thine eye, I don’t see a problem.
On another note I did a google picture search today of mariyln monroe (for the hair style) and since it was unfiltered the playboy spread came up. She was certainly beautiful–yet I don’t think you’d ever see someone her size in magazines, nor someone so nude but that’s another issue. I’d post the picture but I’m pretty sure that’s a no-no here.
From what I heard she was hearty size 10. Vavavoom
Well it was when I was younger and was still controled by a reglious mindset of Intrincisism. I noticed how Rand always had slender heroines and I thought that liking bigger girls somehow came into conflict with Objectivist aesthetics.
GAH! Eight hundred calories a day is below the recommended minimum for an adult, which is like 1000. At a thousand calories a day I’ve lost weight, and fast . . . the problem is also that I’d sleep 14 hours a day because I had no energy. And I’d still be keeping up this ruinously painful diet for 11 months to get rid of the weight I’ve got. No THANK you.
I remember reading that Nazi scientists did research in some of the concentration camps on how much food a person requires every day just to survive, and it came to something like 750 calories. A lady speaking on health and dieting mentioned it because a fad supermodel diet at the time was recommending you eat six hundred calories a day. I swear, people are crazy.
It’s precisely this sort of advice that makes me say it’s not in my self-interest to diet. In a few weeks I may be moving to a more physically-demanding job, which should help. It pays better, too, and I’ll be cutting my expenses, so I’ll have money to spend on going to a gym or something.
Yes that is the daily requirement for a human… not a fat human. A fat human has ample stores of calories that the body will burn. When I was taking in 800 calories a day I wasn’t even close to risking my health because I had 140,000 extra calories that my body could run off of. The only reason I took in any calories at all is for nutrients which of course you body cannot get from fat.
A person who is a healthy weight could fast for more than a month without taking in a single calorie and be just fine. A fat person can go longer. I mean sure if you take a petite model or a concentration camp victim and deprive them of less than 800 or so calories a day they will die BUT they have no fat stores to use up.
Put a keyboard and a monitor on an exercise bike so I can work while I’m working out and we’ll talk.
NOW theres an idea! You could market that and sell it. Just attach a laptop to the bike and wolah! You could be making MILLIONS. Just give it a catchy name, and you’ll be all set.
You could make it wearable. When my son was an infant, sometimes when walking up and down with him (or whatever), I’d think… “I’ve had enough of this, wish I could have a wearable computer.” 
NOW theres an idea! You could market that and sell it. Just attach a laptop to the bike and wolah! You could be making MILLIONS. Just give it a catchy name, and you’ll be all set.
Good point. I always wished the exercise bikes came with bookstands to hold pages open so my hands could be free! Similar concept.
NOW theres an idea! You could market that and sell it. Just attach a laptop to the bike and wolah! You could be making MILLIONS. Just give it a catchy name, and you’ll be all set.
I’ll sell you the idea.
I’m pretty sure you can get something like this already, though.
A person who is a healthy weight could fast for more than a month without taking in a single calorie and be just fine.
In that they won’t suffer permanent damage from the experience, assuming they return to an adequate diet in the near future. But they won’t be able to WORK or do ANYTHING productive unless there’s someone standing over them with a whip. If I didn’t mind losing my job and becoming a street person (aka urban outdoorsman) I might consider it. Wait. No, I wouldn’t.
Starvation is no way to lose weight. It is a good way to lose your hair and teeth, muscle tone, and bone density, though.
A person who is a healthy weight could fast for more than a month without taking in a single calorie and be just fine.
Not exactly. There are things that the body needs that it can’t get from drawing on fat reserves. You’d also lose a bunch of muscle, which would decrease your caloric requirements and work against you. A starvation diet isn’t a good idea, but depending on the person, 1000 or even 800 calories could do them just fine, if they got the right vitamins.
A person who is a healthy weight could fast for more than a month without taking in a single calorie and be just fine. A fat person can go longer. I mean sure if you take a petite model or a concentration camp victim and deprive them of less than 800 or so calories a day they will die BUT they have no fat stores to use up.
Not only that, I hear that a fast is not in the least bit painful if done right. If you have a water only fast, then you’ll have initial hunger pangs which will then go away, and after that you can fast for weeks and will actually feel quite good.
So, when you see those guys who fast for days, just be aware it’s pretty damned easy. It’s not some painful process they all seem to imply. <_<
The book “Fasting and Eating for Health” by Joel Fuhrman discusses this. The book and method comes highly recommended by a scientist I know. The scientist is an expert on body chemistry. Apparently over time toxins build up in your system and by shutting it down for a while your system can catch up and clean itself of these, thus making you healthier.
The problem with fasting is it’s not really practical in most situations. You should probably have physician supervision if you do it for any length and who has a couple of weeks to give up? Or, maybe there is some practical way I’m not aware of?
I’m so intrigued by the idea, however, I’m considering doing it myself sometime. Perhaps for a weekend to see what sort of effect it has.
